2023-12-10 13:56:19
Kigali on Sunday assimilated as a “threat” the statements of the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo who compared his Rwandan counterpart to Adolf Hitler and castigated his alleged “expansionist aims”.
“The threat from the DRC president adds to the many provocations he uses to divert attention from his failures in security and governance,” Yolande Makolo, spokesperson for the Rwandan government, told AFP .
The day before, she had already described President Félix Tshisekedi’s comments as a “strong and clear threat” to X.
During an electoral campaign meeting on Friday in Bukavu, in the troubled east of his country, Félix Tshisekedi said: “I am going to address Rwandan President Paul Kagame to tell him this: since he wanted to behave like Adolf Hitler having expansionist aims (in the DRC), I promise him to end up like Adolf Hitler.”
With North Kivu and Ituri, South Kivu, of which Bukavu is the capital, is one of the eastern provinces of the DRC which has been prey to violence by armed groups for nearly 30 years, many inherited from the wars that bloodied the region in the 1990s and 2000s.
Relations with neighboring Rwanda have been very tense since this period and have experienced a peak of tension for two years, with the resurgence in North Kivu of the M23 rebellion (“March 23 Movement”) which, supported by Kigali according to numerous sources, has taken over large parts of the province.
On numerous occasions, Félix Tshisekedi has denounced Rwandan “aggression” “under the cover of the M23”, accusing Rwanda, which he described a few months ago as a “horrible neighbor”, of wanting to monopolize wealth, mining in particular, from the Eastern Congolese.
In power since January 2019, Félix Tshisekedi is seeking a second term in the elections scheduled for December 20 in the DRC and is increasing his travels across the country.
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