Three young people. Three completely different starting points. One common future.
A female racing champion in a male-dominated field. A former FDLR child soldier who returned home to rebuild his life. A 25-year-old police officer who rose through hard work despite humble beginnings.
This is what post-1994 Rwanda strives to be: a country where you are not the hostage of the past, and where the role of our institutions is to create the conditions for every young person to dream, rise and serve.
#RPFInkotanyi
#BureauPolitique
đ It was an honour to share the final podium of #Kigali2025 today alongside H.E. Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, and His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco.
đ€ Thank you for your presence and support at this historic UCI Road World Championships in Africa.
This afternoon at Urugwiro Village, President Kagame received Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is serving as one of the facilitators of the merged Luanda-Nairobi peace process for eastern DRC. They discussed the situation in the region, along with various key issues of continental and global significance. The two leaders shared insights on pathways toward stability, cooperation, and progress.
This month of March 2025 seems to offer a new momentum for sustainable peace in eastern DRC:
â ïž A joint EAC-SADC ministerial meeting (Foreign and Defence Ministers) will take place in Harare, Zimbabwe on Monday 17 March 2025, to consider the report of the Chiefs of Defense Forces/Staff on the cessation of hostilities and humanitarian access, and to elaborate a roadmap for the political dialogue;
â ïž The long-awaited "direct negotiations" between the DRC Government and the M23 were announced yesterday by the President of Angola. However, recent history taught us that President Tshisekedi has always reneged on similar commitments made to foreign leaders. Therefore, we should all be Saint Thomas and wait to see before believing;
â ïž The termination of the SAMIDRC mandate was announced today by the SADC Summit, which will be followed with a gradual withdrawal from eastern DRC;
â ïž In the meantime, Rwanda and Burundi are on a good path to deescalation and common understanding, following ongoing engagements between the authorities of the two countries.
Therefore, all ingredients are there for a political solution to the conflict in eastern DRC, provided that good faith, political will and common sense prevail in Kinshasa.
In this context, it is critical that external actors unreservedly and genuinely support this African-led process and avoid taking politically and/or economically motivated measures, which would undermine the very process they claim to support.
We told western countries many times that, for the past 30 years, the FDLR genocidal force has been a permanent threat to Rwanda, especially as they are now supported by the Congolese government and embedded in the FARDC.
Unfortunately, these world's powers refused to listen to us, arguing that the FDLR combatants are just a bunch of "old and weak" people, and that Rwanda is using them as a pretext to "invade Congo for minerals".
Yet, the FDLR, a movement that has continously recruiting on its genocide ideology, was even supported by @MONUSCO, a 26-year old UN peacekeeping mission that was supposed to neutralize them, as per several UN Security Council resolutions.
And today, a group of FDLR combatants captured on the battlefield (including Brig Gen Ezechiel Gakwerere, one of the murderers of Queen Rosalie Gicanda - here in a FARDC uniform -), were handed over to Rwanda by the AFC/M23, a rebel movement that is doing the very job that the self-righteous international community should have done over the past 30 years.
But guess who they now call the "villain"...
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The punitive measures announced today by the UK Government in response to the conflict in eastern DRC â where the UK has now clearly chosen a side â are regrettable. It is unreasonable to expect Rwanda to compromise its national security and the safety of Rwandans. The measures do nothing to help the Democratic Republic of Congo, nor do they contribute to achieving a sustainable political solution to the conflict in eastern DRC.
đ: https://t.co/eRImpwrSC5