Browse content similar to Raymond Tshibanda - Foreign Minister, Democratic Republic of Congo. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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power for nearly a decade. Now some Now on BBC News it's time for | :00:20. | :00:30. | |
:00:30. | :00:33. | ||
The army is in disarray in the Congo, the Kinshasa government | :00:33. | :00:39. | |
faces allegations of electoral fraud and corruption. My just as | :00:39. | :00:43. | |
the minister of foreign affairs, Raymond Tshibanda, what hope is | :00:43. | :00:53. | |
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Will come too HARDtalk. The UN in New York a few days ago and, you | :01:18. | :01:25. | |
said that eastern Congo is back in a situation of war. Do except that | :01:25. | :01:31. | |
is a sign of strategic failure on the part of your government? Not at | :01:31. | :01:37. | |
all. This country has come a long way. You will recall that a few | :01:37. | :01:43. | |
years back the country was divided in pieces. Now it is reunited. We | :01:43. | :01:50. | |
did not have any elections in the country. In 2006, we had a first | :01:50. | :02:00. | |
:02:00. | :02:00. | ||
round of elections. In 2012, we had a second round. I cannot say it is | :02:00. | :02:09. | |
a failure. We are contemplating allegations against a country. | :02:09. | :02:15. | |
will on pick some of that over the next 20 minutes. Let us leave aside | :02:15. | :02:19. | |
the elections in stick with what was happening in the east of your | :02:19. | :02:23. | |
country. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and | :02:23. | :02:28. | |
killed during the last few weeks. Powerful voices inside a country | :02:28. | :02:34. | |
say that responsibility lies with a government that in 2009 made a | :02:34. | :02:39. | |
peace deal with the very people who are now involved in the armed | :02:40. | :02:46. | |
rebellion. When we are confronted with a war situation you have to | :02:46. | :02:52. | |
find always to put an end to the rebellion. That is what we did in | :02:52. | :03:01. | |
2010. We gave the Congolese people a chance to make peace, to fix the | :03:01. | :03:06. | |
social fabric of the country. We expect them to behave properly | :03:06. | :03:16. | |
:03:16. | :03:17. | ||
until now. The phrase, you reap what you sow comes to mind. The key | :03:17. | :03:22. | |
figure in the peace deal used truck was a man known as the Terminator. | :03:22. | :03:28. | |
He had been sought on an indictment from the International Criminal | :03:28. | :03:34. | |
Court for war crimes for inducing children to become child soldiers. | :03:34. | :03:39. | |
There was the menu to into your armed forces and gave the title of | :03:39. | :03:46. | |
general. Do you regret that? Sees in where we are today, we could | :03:46. | :03:54. | |
regret that. Do you think it was a mistake? We did bring peace to the | :03:54. | :04:01. | |
region for the last three years. It is the first time that the tribal | :04:01. | :04:09. | |
people could go back to business is usual. You mean the area close to | :04:09. | :04:14. | |
the Bromley an Rwandan border. A place which has seen millions of | :04:14. | :04:21. | |
people die. The conflict is resuming this very day. It should | :04:21. | :04:27. | |
be a terrible failure? It is not a failure on the government side. It | :04:27. | :04:32. | |
is a failure of those who have decided to start the war again. | :04:32. | :04:36. | |
Those who do not believe in peaceful relations between the | :04:36. | :04:43. | |
countries of the region. Those who believed it to solve the problems | :04:43. | :04:51. | |
the only recourse is armed force. Let us be clear about what has | :04:51. | :04:59. | |
happened, and the Terminator decided to go away from Goma and | :04:59. | :05:05. | |
back into the bush. Many of his fighters joined them. They left the | :05:05. | :05:12. | |
Congolese armed forces and joined in with the armed insurrection. You | :05:12. | :05:19. | |
have 20,000 soldiers in this part of the country. They have been | :05:19. | :05:24. | |
retreating by a few hundred metres. Your security forces are | :05:24. | :05:31. | |
undisciplined, corrupt and they are rotten to the call. You know better | :05:31. | :05:41. | |
:05:41. | :05:41. | ||
than that. We are confronted with an army, a foreign army. It has | :05:41. | :05:50. | |
been documented by the UN. You are talking about Rwanda. Yes. You're | :05:50. | :05:55. | |
telling me all the problems have been caused by the Rwandan | :05:55. | :05:59. | |
government? We do not have the other problem elsewhere in the | :06:00. | :06:06. | |
country. We can go from the bottom to the top of the country and | :06:06. | :06:15. | |
people living police. It is only in that area. We have people living | :06:15. | :06:22. | |
across the borders and they have no problems. The president of a wonder | :06:22. | :06:27. | |
denied that they were supporting rebels operating within the North | :06:28. | :06:35. | |
and self- Kevan. He sued the allegations made by your government | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
and the UN experts are unsubstantiated with real evidence? | :06:40. | :06:45. | |
He is entitled to his opinion. He is the only one holding that | :06:45. | :06:51. | |
opinion. I have been talking to everybody else, they have enough | :06:51. | :06:57. | |
evidence that will wonder is meddling in its side the internal | :06:57. | :07:03. | |
affairs of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. If that is true, why | :07:03. | :07:06. | |
for the last several years have Rwandan forces including elite | :07:06. | :07:13. | |
special forces been working alongside your own security forces. | :07:14. | :07:23. | |
Wearing Congolese army uniforms? Were have to clarify this. When we | :07:23. | :07:26. | |
decided in 2009 to normalise relations between the countries, we | :07:26. | :07:32. | |
decided to join forces to put an end to one of the most negative | :07:32. | :07:42. | |
forces that exist in the area. was the name given to the militia | :07:42. | :07:48. | |
group made up of Hutu rebels, the 50 are many responsible for the | :07:48. | :07:53. | |
genocide in wonder. The Rwandan government was determined to root | :07:53. | :07:59. | |
them out and they wanted your help and support. We knew that although | :07:59. | :08:03. | |
the government of Roar one though wanted to rid of this force, they | :08:03. | :08:07. | |
have been there for years and they did not know it. Because if you | :08:07. | :08:14. | |
will recall, from 1998 until 2003 they occupied that part of our | :08:14. | :08:19. | |
country. They did not too much to root out the force. Since it became | :08:19. | :08:26. | |
a bone between the two countries, we decided, the problem was on a | :08:26. | :08:31. | |
house or in we wanted to see them out. We've agreed to join forces | :08:31. | :08:40. | |
with the wonderful stop if so you have been working with a man who | :08:40. | :08:44. | |
Eucla him was causing war in your region. He has been working | :08:44. | :08:54. | |
alongside your security forces? have done it publicly. Then how can | :08:54. | :09:02. | |
you Tommy it is his fault? He has been your ally. To go together with | :09:02. | :09:12. | |
the FDR is one thing. Breda that during 2008 and 2009. From then on, | :09:12. | :09:20. | |
the armed forces continued the fight alone. We had to reassure the | :09:20. | :09:24. | |
Rwandan government that their intelligence officers worked with a | :09:24. | :09:32. | |
loss to make sure the operations would continue. Operation is inside | :09:32. | :09:40. | |
a country? Years. That was not inviting Rwanda to rule out in the | :09:41. | :09:45. | |
north. There was not inviting them to decide where the units of the | :09:45. | :09:51. | |
armed force would be posted. This is what the wind has been doing. | :09:52. | :09:57. | |
This is what created the problem today. I see it is convenient for | :09:57. | :10:04. | |
you to blame the violence on Rwandan. But you know that groups | :10:04. | :10:09. | |
with the neurone country demanded the impeachment of your President | :10:09. | :10:14. | |
on charges of high treason because they believe that the root of the | :10:14. | :10:20. | |
current problem is the deal struck between him and rebel forces in | :10:20. | :10:27. | |
2009 that allowed people wanted suspected war criminals to play a | :10:27. | :10:32. | |
key role in the east of your country. That, as the root of your | :10:32. | :10:40. | |
country's problem today? I do not agree with that analysis. It is | :10:40. | :10:47. | |
only in the TRC that the Opposition leaders can congregate and make | :10:47. | :10:52. | |
that kind of communication and go freely. In no other part of the | :10:52. | :11:01. | |
region would that happen. Having said that, let us not shy away from | :11:01. | :11:07. | |
the situation we have today in that part of the country. In his been | :11:07. | :11:12. | |
demonstrated with a lot of evidence that what we Herve, it could not | :11:12. | :11:20. | |
have happened without the involvement of from one be. | :11:20. | :11:26. | |
Rwandan so reject that contention. Let us look at what happens next. | :11:26. | :11:31. | |
As we speak today, a hundreds of people have been killed in the | :11:31. | :11:37. | |
recent past. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced. Something has | :11:37. | :11:47. | |
:11:47. | :11:56. | ||
to be done to up the suffering people of the of the Kevu. Someone | :11:56. | :12:02. | |
should police the border. Do you except that will not happen? What | :12:02. | :12:07. | |
you say it will not happen? The has a lot of scepticism about the UN | :12:07. | :12:13. | |
extending its role. Could be meeting the different members of | :12:13. | :12:20. | |
the security Council. At the beginning, they did not understand | :12:20. | :12:25. | |
the concept. As we are talking to them, they understand what we're | :12:25. | :12:33. | |
trying to achieve. This is not a demand from the DRC. This is a | :12:34. | :12:41. | |
decision made by the head of state of the whole region. Including the | :12:41. | :12:50. | |
President of for away under. It was made in June. It was endorsed at | :12:50. | :12:56. | |
the last African Union summit. It was reset stated in Kampala or by | :12:56. | :13:02. | |
the heads of the Great Lakes region. If the UN will not expand its | :13:02. | :13:08. | |
mission as people in your country want to know, because it does not | :13:08. | :13:12. | |
really want to become an active party to the conflict, it wants to | :13:12. | :13:18. | |
be a peacekeeping institution, which to except a regional board -- | :13:18. | :13:23. | |
regional Great Lakes intervention in East of your country? That | :13:23. | :13:27. | |
question has been discussed at length. Our position is very clear | :13:27. | :13:33. | |
and it is the position of the region. He region is involved and | :13:33. | :13:40. | |
it feels it needs the United Nations and the African union for | :13:40. | :13:46. | |
us to be effective and deliver the response that is required. We need | :13:46. | :13:49. | |
an international neutral force. This force will be made of troops | :13:49. | :13:56. | |
from countries of the region other than the countries involved in the | :13:56. | :14:04. | |
conflict with a DRC. They will not be in that force. They will be in | :14:04. | :14:10. | |
not be from Rwanda or the DLC or Burundi. They can come from the | :14:10. | :14:17. | |
countries beyond our region. much weight will will the UN put on | :14:17. | :14:27. | |
:14:27. | :14:34. | ||
Yes,... You couldn't have been more wrong, could you? Know. That was | :14:34. | :14:41. | |
one year ago. But was before we discovered what happened. It was a | :14:41. | :14:45. | |
year ago. I came back to the phrase I used to the beginning, massive | :14:45. | :14:51. | |
strategic failure. You've got it all wrong. Not at all. I don't buy | :14:51. | :15:00. | |
that. When you deal with any partner or with any other country, | :15:00. | :15:07. | |
you've got to trust the partner or the other party to some extent. Are | :15:08. | :15:11. | |
you telling me that we shouldn't have put some trust in what we are | :15:11. | :15:15. | |
trying to do? Building lasting peaceful relationships with the | :15:15. | :15:23. | |
region? We did that with the wonder, we did that with Uganda. We did | :15:23. | :15:29. | |
have problems with them. If you talk about trust, it seems the | :15:29. | :15:33. | |
basic trust problem is that many people both inside and outside of | :15:33. | :15:38. | |
your car but -- country look at your Government can see the top | :15:38. | :15:43. | |
politicians and senior members of the armed forces have benefited | :15:43. | :15:49. | |
four years from the chaos, from the violence and the endemic corruption | :15:49. | :15:52. | |
that we see in DRC. Many of them believe there you and your | :15:52. | :15:58. | |
colleagues have no interest in truly stabilising and pacifying the | :15:58. | :16:05. | |
country. The well, I don't know where they got that from. I think | :16:05. | :16:09. | |
this is a government which has done quite a lot. We do realise there is | :16:09. | :16:13. | |
still quite a lot to be done. Let's look at where the country was about | :16:13. | :16:22. | |
15 years ago. We've come a very long way. When this government came | :16:22. | :16:28. | |
into power, this country was in shambles. According to all the | :16:28. | :16:33. | |
statistics I see, it is still in shambles. A I don't agree with that. | :16:33. | :16:37. | |
95% of people living on less than $2.80 in one of the potentially | :16:37. | :16:42. | |
richest countries in the world. A life expectation for the average | :16:42. | :16:48. | |
person of under 50 years of age and you're telling me your country is | :16:48. | :16:53. | |
not in shambles? No, it's not. The country is on the part of recovery. | :16:53. | :17:01. | |
We have to put things in respected. We have to see where we were. The | :17:01. | :17:11. | |
:17:11. | :17:12. | ||
Long Travel we have made since then. The inflation was in the thousands. | :17:12. | :17:15. | |
That is not the situation... Having visited your country and reported | :17:15. | :17:19. | |
on it, you have come from a difficult place, but you are still | :17:19. | :17:22. | |
in that very difficult place and you don't seem to be making many | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
improvements. If one reads the US State Department most recent report | :17:26. | :17:31. | |
on endemic corruption inside your government, if one reads all the | :17:31. | :17:35. | |
transparency International and other NGO work that is done on your | :17:35. | :17:38. | |
country and the World Bank and the IMF reporting on your country, all | :17:38. | :17:44. | |
of them say that your country will not move forward as long as the | :17:45. | :17:51. | |
government is so systematically and under Mickley corrupt. Yes, we do | :17:51. | :17:58. | |
recognise that we have a problem. We are working on it. I would like | :17:58. | :18:01. | |
to state that does give us a few more years and you will see the | :18:02. | :18:06. | |
change that will take place in the DRC. When you see what we have | :18:06. | :18:11. | |
delivered over the last few years, you should be entitled to trusting | :18:11. | :18:15. | |
this government. As I understand it, your country over the last period | :18:15. | :18:22. | |
since the end of the active walk across your nation, has had $14 | :18:22. | :18:26. | |
billion of international assistance. $12 billion of debt was written off | :18:26. | :18:33. | |
as well. Why, in that case, are ordinary Congolese still mired in | :18:33. | :18:40. | |
desperate poverty? Because those who live in power were before last | :18:40. | :18:44. | |
didn't do anything and we have to build the country from scratch. | :18:44. | :18:50. | |
Forgive me, but your President has been in power for two terms now. He | :18:50. | :18:52. | |
has had a substantial run-up changing your country. You and | :18:53. | :18:57. | |
other ministers have had ample opportunity to change the culture, | :18:57. | :19:03. | |
but it hasn't worked. But me ask you a question. During that period, | :19:03. | :19:07. | |
how many years were we on the war? We have had basically 15 years of | :19:07. | :19:12. | |
conflict. As we have established, the conflict isn't over. Are you | :19:12. | :19:17. | |
telling me that during conflict you can build a country and build an | :19:18. | :19:27. | |
economy? Especially an economy that you find in such disarray as it was. | :19:27. | :19:33. | |
The first thing was to reunite the country, the second thing was to | :19:33. | :19:36. | |
bring back peace in the country, the third ding was to start | :19:37. | :19:44. | |
rebuilding the country. How does it help to reunite the country, when | :19:44. | :19:50. | |
according to EU monitors, to the Centre for democracy, the 2011 | :19:50. | :19:54. | |
Election was fraudulent, there was massive evidence of vote rigging, | :19:54. | :19:59. | |
of staff ballots, and no international organisation David a | :19:59. | :20:04. | |
stamp of approval? I read the reports from the beginning to the | :20:04. | :20:10. | |
end. I didn't find the words are you're using. You are putting it in | :20:10. | :20:16. | |
such a way that it sounds as if we had the most fraudulent elections | :20:16. | :20:22. | |
on the continent, which is not the case. If you read the reports you | :20:22. | :20:27. | |
would seek condemnation of the way the election was handled. 33 people | :20:27. | :20:30. | |
lost their lives during the election campaign. Hundreds were | :20:31. | :20:35. | |
injured at most of them were associated with the opposition. | :20:35. | :20:40. | |
They would have been just one death to money if they had only been one | :20:40. | :20:45. | |
death. We regret that. Going towards these elections, everybody | :20:45. | :20:50. | |
was predicting hundreds of deaths. They didn't occur. The people who | :20:50. | :20:54. | |
died... For 33 deaths during an election campaign is acceptable? | :20:55. | :21:01. | |
it's not. I said it would have been one to Monique I do not accept one | :21:01. | :21:10. | |
single death. What am I say -- what I'm saying is how did it happen? | :21:10. | :21:14. | |
Who killed them? How did they die? They were not killed by the | :21:14. | :21:19. | |
military forces, they were not killed by the police force, we all | :21:19. | :21:25. | |
regret that the violence occurred during the elections. This question | :21:25. | :21:30. | |
how did they die could also apply to your country's leading human | :21:30. | :21:36. | |
rights campaigners, who died in 2010. He was assassinated. A big | :21:36. | :21:41. | |
loss for the country. I don't know whether he was assassinated, I know | :21:41. | :21:48. | |
he was murdered. What we know is that five junior policemen were | :21:48. | :21:52. | |
arrested in connection with his death. The chain of command and | :21:52. | :21:56. | |
responsibility for the death went much higher. Would you like to see, | :21:57. | :22:02. | |
for example, your chief of police, who is very close to your boss, | :22:02. | :22:07. | |
would you like to see him testify in court and answer as to his role? | :22:07. | :22:15. | |
This is a case which is before the courts. Would you mind me not | :22:15. | :22:20. | |
commenting on a case that is still being seen? And not asking for any | :22:20. | :22:24. | |
opinion of his involvement, I am just asking if you would like to | :22:24. | :22:29. | |
see for the good of your nation to see him testify? I would like to | :22:29. | :22:35. | |
see justice done. There is nobody who is above the law in this | :22:35. | :22:41. | |
country. Would you like to see him testify? If the justice system | :22:41. | :22:47. | |
deals that he needs to testify, why not? There is nothing to hide. He | :22:47. | :22:57. | |
:22:57. | :22:59. | ||
is not above the law. Are you satisfied that the winds of change | :22:59. | :23:06. | |
are sweeping through your country? In my country, we went through this | :23:06. | :23:15. | |
before. We are at an advanced stage today. We keep revising assistance. | :23:15. | :23:20. | |
How country is under reform every day. You mentioned the elections. | :23:20. | :23:25. | |
We went through a very difficult time during the last elections. We | :23:25. | :23:31. | |
are at -- revising all the procedures. There is nothing that | :23:31. | :23:37. |