Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi stated on Friday that Rwanda had “expansionist ambitions” in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and demanded that Kigali face international sanctions.
“What’s needed is to blacklist the real culprit of this situation: Rwanda,” he stated at the Munich Security Conference, as the M23 armed group, backed by Rwanda, advanced on Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province.
Tshisekedi stated that during the previous three decades, unrest in the mineral-rich region has become a “battlefield for the predatory ambitions of some of our neighbours.”
“We will no longer tolerate our strategic resources being plundered for the benefit of foreign interests under the complicit gaze of those who feed on chaos,” he said, slamming international inaction.
“We will not accept simple words; we demand decisive action,” he told the world’s diplomatic elite.
Kinshasa accuses Kigali of attempting to take the region’s enormous natural resources, including rare earth materials used in electronic batteries and other gadgets like mobile phones, as well as gold.
Rwanda dismissed the notion and said that armed groups, particularly the FDLR, which was formed by former Hutu leaders during the 1994 genocide against Tutsis, pose a threat to national security.
