Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
24 July 2008
Kigali — Rwanda will pull its troops from the Sudanese troubled region of Darfur if the U.N ends the contract of General Karenzi Karake as its deputy force commander, according to a new ultimatum that government has put up.
Rwanda's U.N. envoy, Mr. Joseph Nsengimana, sent an unsigned memo to the international body Monday threatening to pull the Rwandan peacekeepers out of Darfur if it proceeded with plans to push Karenzi out, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
When contacted, the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Rwanda referred RNA to Ambassador Nsengimana.
The United States has also apparently sided with the Rwandan government, citing concerns that a Rwandan pullout would cripple the already hobbled peacekeeping mission.
On Saturday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice instructed Zalmary Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to inform U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that "the U.S. government urges the renewal of General Karenzi's contract without discrimination," according to an American official.
Khalilzad's spokesman, Richard Grenell, declined to say whether the ambassador carried out that order.
"I won't elaborate on specific U.S. instructions," Grenell said, adding: "This decision is up to the secretary general. Our concern is for the effective deployment of UNAMID and the full execution of its mandate to protect the people of Darfur."
Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his foreign minister, Rosemary Museminali, threatened a pullout during a July 15 meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer at an African Union summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, if Karenzi's contract wasn't renewed, the daily quotes a U.S. official.
Four days earlier, Kagame's U.N. envoy issued a similar warning to Edmond Mulet, the U.N. assistant secretary general for peacekeeping. The envoy told Mulet that genocide revisionists, the Spanish magistrate and human rights groups were conspiring to undermine Rwanda's military leadership, according to a U.N. official.
Senior U.S. officials in Washington and New York differ over the wisdom of pressing the U.N. leadership to renew Karenzi's contract.
Last month, Frazer personally appealed to Ban to keep Karenzi, arguing that the United Nations couldn't afford to alienate the Rwandans when they are needed in Darfur.
But Khalilzad subsequently told Ban in a private meeting that the U.S. position was not monolithic and that the administration would support any decision Ban made, U.S. and U.N. officials said.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2008 Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
you can't fool the people of the world all the time, the world waking up to your nonesense.
There must be a good reason for the UN to decide to replace Gen. Karake. For Rwanda to threaten to pull out its troups if Gen. Karake is replaced implies that Gen. Karake may may be carrying out other projects in Sudan for the Rwandan government outside the peace keeping operation. The UN or the AU should be capable of terminating the appointment of any of the peace keepers. It is completely at odds and very damaging to the very spirit of peacekeeping for Rwanda to threaten or blackmail when the AU or UN instructs that any peace keeper be replaced. It is well-known in the Congo that some peacekeepers from Pakistan were accused of illegal arms trading and such peacekeepers should be dismissed. Likewise, any peacekeeper found wanting in Darfur should be sent back home immediately irrespective of the country of origin. The damage that could be done by any peacekeeper, especially a general, that is suspected of delibrately violating the laid down procedure could be by far more than the positive contribution from the other contingent from his country of origin. So, if Rwanda threatens to withdraw its peacekeeping contingent due to the ending of the contract of Gen. Karake, the UN could find out that by allowing Rwanda to withdraw its troup the situation in Darfur may actually positively improve, depending on how serious the negative contribution of the General to warrant his removal by the UN.
General Karenzi has committed genocide and crime against humanity in Rwanda and Congo and there is an international arrest against him. UN should not renew his contract. Rwandan to threaten to pull out its troops if Karenzi contract is not renewed show the real motif Rwanda regime has sent troop to Darfur was not for peace keeping but to try to raise profile of its leaders who are war criminals and genocidaire. Please arrest General Karenzi and send them to the Spanish judge Fernando Andreu http://www.veritasrwandaforum.org/material/press_release_080208_eng.pdf
ARREST KAGAME CAMPAIGN GLASGOW
General Karenzi has committed genocide and crime against humanity in Rwanda and Congo and there is an international arrest against him. UN should not renew his contract. Rwandan to threaten to pull out its troops if Karenzi contract is not renewed show the real motif Rwanda regime has sent troop to Darfur was not for peace keeping but to try to raise profile of its leaders who are war criminals and genocidaire. Please arrest General Karenzi and send them to the Spanish judge Fernando Andreu http://www.veritasrwandaforum.org/material/press_release_080208_eng.pdf
ARREST KAGAME CAMPAIGN GLASGOW
There is no point for the government of Rwanda to try to blackmail the UN. It is known that general Karake is war criminal and that there is an international arrest warrant against him. I don't even understand how he is still moving free in Sudan; the latter needs clean men who can help bring peace, not those who are being hunted for crimes against humanity. I will appeal to the UN Peacekeeping Commander in Darfour not to listen to the empty threats from Kagame, but to go ahead and sack the guy. There is no need to even send him back to Rwanda because he is needed at Arusha for his crimes in Rwanda and in Congo.Please UN, clean the mess from your troops!
General Karenzi has committed genocide and crime against humanity in Rwanda and Congo and there is an international arrest against him. UN should not renew his contract. Rwandan to threaten to pull out its troops if Karenzi contract is not renewed show the real motif Rwanda regime has sent troop to Darfur was not for peace keeping but to try to raise profile of its leaders who are war criminals and genocidaire. Please arrest General Karenzi and send them to the Spanish judge Fernando Andreu http://www.veritasrwandaforum.org/material/press_release_080208_eng.pdf
ARREST KAGAME CAMPAIGN GLASGOW
How does it make sense to arrest the people who ended the genocide? If you are so concerned with arresting war criminals, why not start with the ones that killed one million people. If the British attack Mugabe, we say let us handle our own affairs, but now we have Africans crying to a Spanish judge? What do the Spanish have to do with us? We support the troops.
See all comments (13).
The UN will forever carry the shame of not reacting to the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. It would be to the UN advantage to shift the blame of the genocide to another party in order to hide thier crime of omission. The only entity that can claim to have stopped the genocide in Rwanda is the Army that Karenzi served in under the leadership of Paul Kagame. So why would the UN want to end the contract of someone who has shown exemplary service everywhere he has been called to serve including Darfur? You guessed it. It is an attempt to spread the blame of their cowardly behavior during the genocide. The revisionist can continue pumping money into the pockets of unethical foreign judges, but the fact remains that the heros who stopped the genocide did it for the love of humanity and their country. If our heros are going to be rewarded with ridicule from the corwardly UN, I support Kagame in pulling out his troops.