Democratic Republic of the Congo - Security Council, 9736th meeting

🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the Congo

1. 🇨🇩 Democratic Republic of the CongoFirst reply▶ 1:59:45 · 6 min

   I give them the floor. Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, uh it was not my intention to take the floor yet again, but The language used by Rwanda is inappropriate. You noted that Rwanda has been systematically calling DRC masts, as if the DRC was the only party with the obligation to do anything, even though Rwanda is a country that invaded the territory of another country where it is currently present with more than four a hundred four thousand five hundred troops. And it has been continuously perpetrating grave human rights violations, including the bombardment of camps, the Dumungunga camp, which is well known to all, was a bomb was uh bombed. And when we talk about hate speech. I would like to ask whether this is said uh as a matter of routine or as a matter of uh desire. You take someone, force them out of their house, bring them outside. They live outside, they are unable to cultivate their fields, and this individual is uh exposed to the rain, living and exposed to all the conditions, and you expect that uh that person, uh, what kind of speech do you expect uh from them? And uh then here uh hate speech is referred to. We do apologize. Uh hate speech, what do we mean by hate speech? Uh uh for a victim of a grave violation of human rights, their complaint, should their complaint be regarded as hate speech? And this Security Council. The ki uh council cannot establish a balance between women who are raped following or the Rwandan armed aggression, women who are raped, children who are killed, displaced persons camps that are bombed. And what is called here a hate speech. Where is the balance here? Because uh Rwanda wishes uh to uh champion the question of the FDLR, which it uses as a pretext to maintain a presence on the territory of my country. And I would like to tell you that today, if we are to identify where the FDLR are located, and uh the FDLR will to uh be eliminated from that location. Uh uh Rwanda uh uh sh will uh will use hate speech as a cover for its presence in uh there. The FDLR uh is not the problem is not with FDLR nor with hate speech. The problem has to do with the plunder of the resources of the DRC. And this was stated here in the areas under the control of the M23, areas controlled by Rwanda. That is those areas because Rwanda's uh uh has been shown that Rwanda has deployed four thousand five hundred troops on the territory of the DRC and M23 Does not even have uh 2,000 troops there. And this means that the the situation and the landscape has changed. It's not Rwanda supporting the M23, but it is rather the M23 who are providing support to the M23 troops who have invaded the territory of the DRC. And it's not me who is stating this. This is the root in the report of the United Nations group of experts that you, the membership of the Security Council, uh uh mandated on the ground to verify the situation, to provide you with the real facts on the ground. You are as well of this aware of this as I am. So we're not the the main question here is not the FDLR. The main question here has to do with the plunder of the resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And regardless of the conditions. international law does not allow for any country to invade the territory of a un any country under any pretexts. And we emphasize that the presence of Rwanda on uh the also of the DRC has the sole aim of plundering the resources of the DRC, not the question of the DR of the FDLR. It has been demonstrated, and this is also in the group of the report of the group of experts, that each time the FDLR are repatriated to Rwanda, Rwanda recycles them, folds them into their army, and then deploys them once again to fight in the uh in the Congo. And the report of the panel of experts has demonstrated this. And we have stated this on a number of occasions here. Mr. President, I will not take up more time, but I did want to share this clarification for the Security Council to be able to ha hold this uh informed discussion about this without being blinded by the illusions. From the unverified allegations that have been made here. Thank you.

   Read in full

Verbatim from the transcript. A reply is identified from its own words, the Chair's grant, or its place in the right-of-reply sequence; delegations and addressees follow the transcript's attribution.