:00:20. > :00:30.power for nearly a decade. Now some Now on BBC News it's time for
:00:30. > :00:33.
:00:33. > :00:39.The army is in disarray in the Congo, the Kinshasa government
:00:39. > :00:43.faces allegations of electoral fraud and corruption. My just as
:00:43. > :00:53.the minister of foreign affairs, Raymond Tshibanda, what hope is
:00:53. > :01:18.
:01:18. > :01:25.Will come too HARDtalk. The UN in New York a few days ago and, you
:01:25. > :01:31.said that eastern Congo is back in a situation of war. Do except that
:01:31. > :01:37.is a sign of strategic failure on the part of your government? Not at
:01:37. > :01:43.all. This country has come a long way. You will recall that a few
:01:43. > :01:50.years back the country was divided in pieces. Now it is reunited. We
:01:50. > :02:00.did not have any elections in the country. In 2006, we had a first
:02:00. > :02:00.
:02:00. > :02:09.round of elections. In 2012, we had a second round. I cannot say it is
:02:09. > :02:15.a failure. We are contemplating allegations against a country.
:02:15. > :02:19.will on pick some of that over the next 20 minutes. Let us leave aside
:02:19. > :02:23.the elections in stick with what was happening in the east of your
:02:23. > :02:28.country. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced and
:02:28. > :02:34.killed during the last few weeks. Powerful voices inside a country
:02:34. > :02:39.say that responsibility lies with a government that in 2009 made a
:02:40. > :02:46.peace deal with the very people who are now involved in the armed
:02:46. > :02:52.rebellion. When we are confronted with a war situation you have to
:02:52. > :03:01.find always to put an end to the rebellion. That is what we did in
:03:01. > :03:06.2010. We gave the Congolese people a chance to make peace, to fix the
:03:06. > :03:16.social fabric of the country. We expect them to behave properly
:03:16. > :03:17.
:03:17. > :03:22.until now. The phrase, you reap what you sow comes to mind. The key
:03:22. > :03:28.figure in the peace deal used truck was a man known as the Terminator.
:03:28. > :03:34.He had been sought on an indictment from the International Criminal
:03:34. > :03:39.Court for war crimes for inducing children to become child soldiers.
:03:39. > :03:46.There was the menu to into your armed forces and gave the title of
:03:46. > :03:54.general. Do you regret that? Sees in where we are today, we could
:03:54. > :04:01.regret that. Do you think it was a mistake? We did bring peace to the
:04:01. > :04:09.region for the last three years. It is the first time that the tribal
:04:09. > :04:14.people could go back to business is usual. You mean the area close to
:04:14. > :04:21.the Bromley an Rwandan border. A place which has seen millions of
:04:21. > :04:27.people die. The conflict is resuming this very day. It should
:04:27. > :04:32.be a terrible failure? It is not a failure on the government side. It
:04:32. > :04:36.is a failure of those who have decided to start the war again.
:04:36. > :04:43.Those who do not believe in peaceful relations between the
:04:43. > :04:51.countries of the region. Those who believed it to solve the problems
:04:51. > :04:59.the only recourse is armed force. Let us be clear about what has
:04:59. > :05:05.happened, and the Terminator decided to go away from Goma and
:05:05. > :05:12.back into the bush. Many of his fighters joined them. They left the
:05:12. > :05:19.Congolese armed forces and joined in with the armed insurrection. You
:05:19. > :05:24.have 20,000 soldiers in this part of the country. They have been
:05:24. > :05:31.retreating by a few hundred metres. Your security forces are
:05:31. > :05:41.undisciplined, corrupt and they are rotten to the call. You know better
:05:41. > :05:41.
:05:41. > :05:50.than that. We are confronted with an army, a foreign army. It has
:05:50. > :05:55.been documented by the UN. You are talking about Rwanda. Yes. You're
:05:55. > :05:59.telling me all the problems have been caused by the Rwandan
:06:00. > :06:06.government? We do not have the other problem elsewhere in the
:06:06. > :06:15.country. We can go from the bottom to the top of the country and
:06:15. > :06:22.people living police. It is only in that area. We have people living
:06:22. > :06:27.across the borders and they have no problems. The president of a wonder
:06:28. > :06:35.denied that they were supporting rebels operating within the North
:06:35. > :06:40.and self- Kevan. He sued the allegations made by your government
:06:40. > :06:45.and the UN experts are unsubstantiated with real evidence?
:06:45. > :06:51.He is entitled to his opinion. He is the only one holding that
:06:51. > :06:57.opinion. I have been talking to everybody else, they have enough
:06:57. > :07:03.evidence that will wonder is meddling in its side the internal
:07:03. > :07:06.affairs of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. If that is true, why
:07:06. > :07:13.for the last several years have Rwandan forces including elite
:07:14. > :07:23.special forces been working alongside your own security forces.
:07:23. > :07:26.Wearing Congolese army uniforms? Were have to clarify this. When we
:07:26. > :07:32.decided in 2009 to normalise relations between the countries, we
:07:32. > :07:42.decided to join forces to put an end to one of the most negative
:07:42. > :07:48.forces that exist in the area. was the name given to the militia
:07:48. > :07:53.group made up of Hutu rebels, the 50 are many responsible for the
:07:53. > :07:59.genocide in wonder. The Rwandan government was determined to root
:07:59. > :08:03.them out and they wanted your help and support. We knew that although
:08:03. > :08:07.the government of Roar one though wanted to rid of this force, they
:08:07. > :08:14.have been there for years and they did not know it. Because if you
:08:14. > :08:19.will recall, from 1998 until 2003 they occupied that part of our
:08:19. > :08:26.country. They did not too much to root out the force. Since it became
:08:26. > :08:31.a bone between the two countries, we decided, the problem was on a
:08:31. > :08:40.house or in we wanted to see them out. We've agreed to join forces
:08:40. > :08:44.with the wonderful stop if so you have been working with a man who
:08:44. > :08:54.Eucla him was causing war in your region. He has been working
:08:54. > :09:02.alongside your security forces? have done it publicly. Then how can
:09:02. > :09:12.you Tommy it is his fault? He has been your ally. To go together with
:09:12. > :09:20.the FDR is one thing. Breda that during 2008 and 2009. From then on,
:09:20. > :09:24.the armed forces continued the fight alone. We had to reassure the
:09:24. > :09:32.Rwandan government that their intelligence officers worked with a
:09:32. > :09:40.loss to make sure the operations would continue. Operation is inside
:09:41. > :09:45.a country? Years. That was not inviting Rwanda to rule out in the
:09:45. > :09:51.north. There was not inviting them to decide where the units of the
:09:52. > :09:57.armed force would be posted. This is what the wind has been doing.
:09:57. > :10:04.This is what created the problem today. I see it is convenient for
:10:04. > :10:09.you to blame the violence on Rwandan. But you know that groups
:10:09. > :10:14.with the neurone country demanded the impeachment of your President
:10:14. > :10:20.on charges of high treason because they believe that the root of the
:10:20. > :10:27.current problem is the deal struck between him and rebel forces in
:10:27. > :10:32.2009 that allowed people wanted suspected war criminals to play a
:10:32. > :10:40.key role in the east of your country. That, as the root of your
:10:40. > :10:47.country's problem today? I do not agree with that analysis. It is
:10:47. > :10:52.only in the TRC that the Opposition leaders can congregate and make
:10:52. > :11:01.that kind of communication and go freely. In no other part of the
:11:01. > :11:07.region would that happen. Having said that, let us not shy away from
:11:07. > :11:12.the situation we have today in that part of the country. In his been
:11:12. > :11:20.demonstrated with a lot of evidence that what we Herve, it could not
:11:20. > :11:26.have happened without the involvement of from one be.
:11:26. > :11:31.Rwandan so reject that contention. Let us look at what happens next.
:11:31. > :11:37.As we speak today, a hundreds of people have been killed in the
:11:37. > :11:47.recent past. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced. Something has
:11:47. > :11:56.
:11:56. > :12:02.to be done to up the suffering people of the of the Kevu. Someone
:12:02. > :12:07.should police the border. Do you except that will not happen? What
:12:07. > :12:13.you say it will not happen? The has a lot of scepticism about the UN
:12:13. > :12:20.extending its role. Could be meeting the different members of
:12:20. > :12:25.the security Council. At the beginning, they did not understand
:12:25. > :12:33.the concept. As we are talking to them, they understand what we're
:12:34. > :12:41.trying to achieve. This is not a demand from the DRC. This is a
:12:41. > :12:50.decision made by the head of state of the whole region. Including the
:12:50. > :12:56.President of for away under. It was made in June. It was endorsed at
:12:56. > :13:02.the last African Union summit. It was reset stated in Kampala or by
:13:02. > :13:08.the heads of the Great Lakes region. If the UN will not expand its
:13:08. > :13:12.mission as people in your country want to know, because it does not
:13:12. > :13:18.really want to become an active party to the conflict, it wants to
:13:18. > :13:23.be a peacekeeping institution, which to except a regional board --
:13:23. > :13:27.regional Great Lakes intervention in East of your country? That
:13:27. > :13:33.question has been discussed at length. Our position is very clear
:13:33. > :13:40.and it is the position of the region. He region is involved and
:13:40. > :13:46.it feels it needs the United Nations and the African union for
:13:46. > :13:49.us to be effective and deliver the response that is required. We need
:13:49. > :13:56.an international neutral force. This force will be made of troops
:13:56. > :14:04.from countries of the region other than the countries involved in the
:14:04. > :14:10.conflict with a DRC. They will not be in that force. They will be in
:14:10. > :14:17.not be from Rwanda or the DLC or Burundi. They can come from the
:14:17. > :14:27.countries beyond our region. much weight will will the UN put on
:14:27. > :14:34.
:14:34. > :14:41.Yes,... You couldn't have been more wrong, could you? Know. That was
:14:41. > :14:45.one year ago. But was before we discovered what happened. It was a
:14:45. > :14:51.year ago. I came back to the phrase I used to the beginning, massive
:14:51. > :15:00.strategic failure. You've got it all wrong. Not at all. I don't buy
:15:00. > :15:07.that. When you deal with any partner or with any other country,
:15:08. > :15:11.you've got to trust the partner or the other party to some extent. Are
:15:11. > :15:15.you telling me that we shouldn't have put some trust in what we are
:15:15. > :15:23.trying to do? Building lasting peaceful relationships with the
:15:23. > :15:29.region? We did that with the wonder, we did that with Uganda. We did
:15:29. > :15:33.have problems with them. If you talk about trust, it seems the
:15:33. > :15:38.basic trust problem is that many people both inside and outside of
:15:38. > :15:43.your car but -- country look at your Government can see the top
:15:43. > :15:49.politicians and senior members of the armed forces have benefited
:15:49. > :15:52.four years from the chaos, from the violence and the endemic corruption
:15:52. > :15:58.that we see in DRC. Many of them believe there you and your
:15:58. > :16:05.colleagues have no interest in truly stabilising and pacifying the
:16:05. > :16:09.country. The well, I don't know where they got that from. I think
:16:09. > :16:13.this is a government which has done quite a lot. We do realise there is
:16:13. > :16:22.still quite a lot to be done. Let's look at where the country was about
:16:22. > :16:28.15 years ago. We've come a very long way. When this government came
:16:28. > :16:33.into power, this country was in shambles. According to all the
:16:33. > :16:37.statistics I see, it is still in shambles. A I don't agree with that.
:16:37. > :16:42.95% of people living on less than $2.80 in one of the potentially
:16:42. > :16:48.richest countries in the world. A life expectation for the average
:16:48. > :16:53.person of under 50 years of age and you're telling me your country is
:16:53. > :17:01.not in shambles? No, it's not. The country is on the part of recovery.
:17:01. > :17:11.We have to put things in respected. We have to see where we were. The
:17:11. > :17:12.
:17:12. > :17:15.Long Travel we have made since then. The inflation was in the thousands.
:17:15. > :17:19.That is not the situation... Having visited your country and reported
:17:19. > :17:22.on it, you have come from a difficult place, but you are still
:17:22. > :17:26.in that very difficult place and you don't seem to be making many
:17:26. > :17:31.improvements. If one reads the US State Department most recent report
:17:31. > :17:35.on endemic corruption inside your government, if one reads all the
:17:35. > :17:38.transparency International and other NGO work that is done on your
:17:38. > :17:44.country and the World Bank and the IMF reporting on your country, all
:17:45. > :17:51.of them say that your country will not move forward as long as the
:17:51. > :17:58.government is so systematically and under Mickley corrupt. Yes, we do
:17:58. > :18:01.recognise that we have a problem. We are working on it. I would like
:18:02. > :18:06.to state that does give us a few more years and you will see the
:18:06. > :18:11.change that will take place in the DRC. When you see what we have
:18:11. > :18:15.delivered over the last few years, you should be entitled to trusting
:18:15. > :18:22.this government. As I understand it, your country over the last period
:18:22. > :18:26.since the end of the active walk across your nation, has had $14
:18:26. > :18:33.billion of international assistance. $12 billion of debt was written off
:18:33. > :18:40.as well. Why, in that case, are ordinary Congolese still mired in
:18:40. > :18:44.desperate poverty? Because those who live in power were before last
:18:44. > :18:50.didn't do anything and we have to build the country from scratch.
:18:50. > :18:52.Forgive me, but your President has been in power for two terms now. He
:18:53. > :18:57.has had a substantial run-up changing your country. You and
:18:57. > :19:03.other ministers have had ample opportunity to change the culture,
:19:03. > :19:07.but it hasn't worked. But me ask you a question. During that period,
:19:07. > :19:12.how many years were we on the war? We have had basically 15 years of
:19:12. > :19:17.conflict. As we have established, the conflict isn't over. Are you
:19:18. > :19:27.telling me that during conflict you can build a country and build an
:19:27. > :19:33.economy? Especially an economy that you find in such disarray as it was.
:19:33. > :19:36.The first thing was to reunite the country, the second thing was to
:19:37. > :19:44.bring back peace in the country, the third ding was to start
:19:44. > :19:50.rebuilding the country. How does it help to reunite the country, when
:19:50. > :19:54.according to EU monitors, to the Centre for democracy, the 2011
:19:54. > :19:59.Election was fraudulent, there was massive evidence of vote rigging,
:19:59. > :20:04.of staff ballots, and no international organisation David a
:20:04. > :20:10.stamp of approval? I read the reports from the beginning to the
:20:10. > :20:16.end. I didn't find the words are you're using. You are putting it in
:20:16. > :20:22.such a way that it sounds as if we had the most fraudulent elections
:20:22. > :20:27.on the continent, which is not the case. If you read the reports you
:20:27. > :20:30.would seek condemnation of the way the election was handled. 33 people
:20:31. > :20:35.lost their lives during the election campaign. Hundreds were
:20:35. > :20:40.injured at most of them were associated with the opposition.
:20:40. > :20:45.They would have been just one death to money if they had only been one
:20:45. > :20:50.death. We regret that. Going towards these elections, everybody
:20:50. > :20:54.was predicting hundreds of deaths. They didn't occur. The people who
:20:55. > :21:01.died... For 33 deaths during an election campaign is acceptable?
:21:01. > :21:10.it's not. I said it would have been one to Monique I do not accept one
:21:10. > :21:14.single death. What am I say -- what I'm saying is how did it happen?
:21:14. > :21:19.Who killed them? How did they die? They were not killed by the
:21:19. > :21:25.military forces, they were not killed by the police force, we all
:21:25. > :21:30.regret that the violence occurred during the elections. This question
:21:30. > :21:36.how did they die could also apply to your country's leading human
:21:36. > :21:41.rights campaigners, who died in 2010. He was assassinated. A big
:21:41. > :21:48.loss for the country. I don't know whether he was assassinated, I know
:21:48. > :21:52.he was murdered. What we know is that five junior policemen were
:21:52. > :21:56.arrested in connection with his death. The chain of command and
:21:57. > :22:02.responsibility for the death went much higher. Would you like to see,
:22:02. > :22:07.for example, your chief of police, who is very close to your boss,
:22:07. > :22:15.would you like to see him testify in court and answer as to his role?
:22:15. > :22:20.This is a case which is before the courts. Would you mind me not
:22:20. > :22:24.commenting on a case that is still being seen? And not asking for any
:22:24. > :22:29.opinion of his involvement, I am just asking if you would like to
:22:29. > :22:35.see for the good of your nation to see him testify? I would like to
:22:35. > :22:41.see justice done. There is nobody who is above the law in this
:22:41. > :22:47.country. Would you like to see him testify? If the justice system
:22:47. > :22:57.deals that he needs to testify, why not? There is nothing to hide. He
:22:57. > :22:59.
:22:59. > :23:06.is not above the law. Are you satisfied that the winds of change
:23:06. > :23:15.are sweeping through your country? In my country, we went through this
:23:15. > :23:20.before. We are at an advanced stage today. We keep revising assistance.
:23:20. > :23:25.How country is under reform every day. You mentioned the elections.
:23:25. > :23:31.We went through a very difficult time during the last elections. We
:23:31. > :23:37.are at -- revising all the procedures. There is nothing that