The Kabila regime and its army of deception have continued to indiscriminately shell Rwandan territory, in a provocative act intended to drag Rwanda into the six decade old DRC political unrest.

Today, Rwanda as a nation and a people, mourns for her beloved daughter, a mother and her baby, whose lives were cut short by Kabila’s soldiers on 29/08/2013.

There is compelling evidence that the DRC is responsible for indiscriminately shelling
Rwandan territory. So far 38 rockets have been fired into Rwandan territory over the past 30 days, wounding many civilians as a result.

This unlawful action by the DRC regime is illegal and is contributing to heightened tension in the volatile region and, if not handled carefully, may lead to unintended consequences.

As party, we call upon the DRC and its allies to resist the further temptation to violate
Rwanda's territorial integrity. We also re-affirm that Rwanda, as a nation and a people, has the universally recognised legal right to self-defence under the international law and will resort to it if unlawful bombardments from the DRC do not cease.

We expect the DRC to honour its obligations under international law and to use peaceful means in resolving the current political turmoil within its own borders.

We also call upon the hawks in MONUSCO and DRC to desist from further heightening the tension in the region as we believe the current conflict arises from longstanding political problems which can never be resolved by the use of force.

We once again raise our concern that by directly intervening in the conflict, MONUSCO may no longer be seen as a peace keeping force as it is increasingly being viewed by the Kinyarwanda speaking population as having taken sides in the conflict and the Kinyarwanda speakers therefore feel they are being unfairly targeted by the FIB and MONUSCO.

This will have dire consequences in both the short and the long term and will make it even more difficult for current peace efforts by the UN itself and regional bodies’ efforts like the ICGLR, AU to succeed.

The Rwanda People Party will strongly support the Rwanda government in any proportionate action it takes to protect the lives and properties of Rwandan people from foreign aggression.

As a party, we condemn foreign aggression and the unnecessary spilling of blood of innocent civilians and destruction of their property that we have witnessed in the last few days.

The RPP proposes peaceful negotiations through the auspices of honest brokers acting as intermediaries.

This we believe is the only way that the root causes of the conflict in the DRC can be addressed and it is also the only way that we believe we can prevent this conflict from
spilling into neighbouring countries and becoming a threat to regional peace and stability.

Thanks

Author is President of Rwanda People’s Party