By Spy Uganda
Rwanda President Paul Kagame says American policy towards Rwanda and the region is enigmatic and hypocritical — and that American lip service toward democracy sometimes “feels and sounds just like a joke.”
Kagame, who has long had a complicated relationship with the United States, suggested that the scramble for key minerals has driven U.S. officials to favor Congo over his country — and brushed off U.S. criticism of Rwandan involvement in conflict there as merely a matter of U.S. interests.
“To make sure that this situation does not deliver Congo to China you just say good things to them. It doesn’t have to be right. It doesn’t have to be wrong,” he said.
In an extensive discussion with a group of US journalists visiting as guests of the Rwanda government, Kagame said he thinks America deals with Rwanda, a nation that will mark the 30th anniversary since its tragic genocide next April, as an “afterthought.“
Kagame, who has led the nation since the defeat of the government that unleashed a nation-wide slaughter against its own citizens, said he’s fed up with American proselytizing about values and human rights as it does little to punish or pressure the Democratic Republic of Congo for hosting, supporting and even collaborating with the remnant forces of the previous genocidal regime.
He said that his general, Brig-Gen Andrew Nyamvumba, was sanctioned so as not to upset the DRC who might turn towards China and away from the US in the great race for its large rare mineral assets. He said today in the case of Gabon and Niger, the Americans and the French worry most about whether their access to needed mineral imports will remain in place and really don’t care much about the true welfare of citizens in those countries.
