President of the DRC on business relations with the West, peace efforts with Rwanda | DW News

President of the DRC on business relations with the West, peace efforts with Rwanda | DW News

four months after his reelection the
president of the Democratic Republic of
Congo Felix chisi came to
Berlin an occasion for DW to do an
interview Mr President Welcome to our
[Music]
program your country has lots of wealth
including strategic minerals the
so-called 3ts tantalum tungsten
tin and just recently your government’s
lawyers accused US tech giant Apple of
using illegally mined minerals in their
products minerals that were alleged to
be extracted from congol mines
transported and then laundered mainly
via
Rwanda the accusation goes further
saying that all these alleged activities
financed armed groups in eastern DRC
there’s even an ultimatum given why
exactly quite simply so it may stop it’s
been going on for 30 years ever since
the International Community asked us to
open our borders to the influx of
refugees fleeing the genocide in
Randa at that point people involved in
the genocide also slipped
in and they entered the DRC with their
weapons
because the order had been given from
somewhere still within the International
Community to let them in with their
weapons and after that Rwanda was given
a right of pursuit inviting itself into
the Democratic Republic of Congo to hunt
down these
people but unfortunately Rwanda didn’t
make the distinction so also massacred
congales and since then the massacre
hasn’t
ended Randa discovered that there were
minerals in the
DRC and Rwanda made contacts in the
International Community that enabled it
to sell these blood minerals
minerals obtained by using violence
against our
populations to force them to leave the
localities where these minerals are
found since then Rwanda has become the
representative of these minerals for the
International Community for these
multinationals you just mentioned the
1990s when Randon refugees came to
Z now it’s 30 years
later this is why I said it’s been going
on 30 years today in eastern Congo we’re
seeing the presence of the M23 movement
which according to multiple statements
by your government is supported by
Rwanda do you plan to meet rwanda’s
president Paul kagami in the days to
come there’s currently an initiative
being taken by angolan President Joel
Lorenzo who’s been appointed mediator in
this conflict by the African
Union and he’s already put forward peace
initiatives on several occasions but
they’ve all been
sabotaged everything was sabotaged by
kagame and his regime
[Music]
we’re really at a final Crossroads there
is now what we believe to be a last
chance and I want to give peace a chance
as much as
possible but obviously that’s not
because of weakness and we’re not always
going to be patient like this wishing
for peace
does that mean that you’re still
prepared as agreed to meet
pagame I’ve always said that I’d never
meet the
M23 because as I said it’s an empty
shell fabricated to justify the
aggression against my country the DLC
the real aggressor the real criminal is
Paul
kagami and I want to meet him not to beg
him or to negotiate anything with him
it’s to ask him and tell him clearly eye
to ey that he’s a criminal that enough
is enough now and that his little game
is known to everyone it’s enough what
he’s done to my country and my people
and it’s time for him to leave the
territory the soil of my
country you mentioned the multinational
companies Apple but maybe others too
what do you expect from
them not maybe others surely
others but you’ll find out the
investigations
continue the most serious thing is that
these minerals are extracted from the
congales subsoil at the price of blood
as I said by using violence and Terror
to make the populations living in these
localities
flee and then they’re transported along
Trails via motorcycles to
Rwanda and there they’re stamped by an
international NGO we quote all that
which obviously absolves them of the
fact that their blood minerals passes
them off as if they were minerals mined
in Rwanda
even had the goal to say once that the
colon in his country is of better
quality than in the
DRC Mr President let’s get back to the
situation in the Democratic Republic of
Congo right now we’re talking about the
minerals being mined in the east of the
DRC so let’s focus on the East according
to the OA since the beginning of this
year more than 358,000 people have been
newly displaced and they say that the
number of displaced people has reached
around 7.1 million and this is largely
due to the armed conflict in the Kus and
URI what is your response today to the
people living in the displaced person’s
camps in Monga kibati bimba who are just
hoping to go home
if all goes well and I pray to God that
it really continues like this the atoui
case will be resolved in the months to
come and we’ll be able to smoke the
peace
pipe then it’ll just be North kevu where
the issue is the plundering of resources
from the DRC in complicity with certain
multinationals from industrialized
countries that’s something else
and so it depends precisely on these
countries which are home to these
multinationals it’s up to them to put
pressure on these companies to stop this
illicit
trade we’re the representatives of the
DRC and we’re open to all
discussions we’d rather talk about
exchange about win-win Partnerships with
all these multinationals
then let them make do with this ma
trafficking taking place at the cost of
our citizens
Liv Mr President you have just expressed
an expectation to the countries that
host multinationals including the United
States I guess in the case of Apple so
what exactly are you waiting for what
kind of sanctions what kind of influence
should the American government have
I don’t know in this case what sanctions
could be applied it’s up to the
Judiciary to think about it but there
are surely penalties and convictions for
complicity in
crimes so I’m not expecting specific
sanctions as
such I know that these are countries
where the Judiciary is free independent
and
efficient and where this kind of Justice
deters this type of
trafficking above all the conges
authorities are ready to openly discuss
a partnership to exploit these minerals
in a win-win
model it’s because of all these misfor
that this wealth has caused us that I
have to capitalize on it by saying we
must stop being a land of
extraction quite
simply they take our minerals they’re
processed elsewhere and then they come
and sell us the finished
product we want to develop our own value
chain in the DRC
ourselves as far as possible
as it can
extend and then in what I call those
win-win
Partnerships we’ll be able to fight
poverty by creating jobs creating wealth
and at the same time have Partners who
will also benefit from this
partnership so Apple will negotiate
directly with the D
of course with the Democratic Republic
of Congo why would you want to negotiate
with a common Thief who’s doing business
on the backs of dead
congales the telephones you have in your
countries contain the blood of the
congales and how do you judge the
memorandum of understanding that was
concluded between the European Union and
Rwanda February to promote the
development of sustainable and resilient
value chains for raw
materials it’s like awarding a prize for
war and
pillage it’s scandalous that the
European Union inv validates such a
bargain a vile bargain it’s
disgusting you’ve just talked about a
bonus that’s a very strong
term don’t you think that
Rwanda don’t you think that Rwanda has
given more weight than the DRC on the
international
stage
no no not at all but look since 2022
when the aggression
began and we immediately denounced it
you see that the narrative has changed
so it has only been a year and a half
since this happened whereas Rwanda has
been fooling the whole world for 30
years so you have to give us time to
make up for that complicit silence in
our country by the very leaders who
ruled this
country today we recognize that even the
Army was completely disjointed so
weakened and disorganized that it was
able to stand up against any kind of
aggression and on whom are you Penning
your hopes for a process of
reconciliation a process that will lead
to
peace you said you also wanted peace for
the people who live in the east of your
country in
particular on whom do you pin your hopes
if you say about paag what you said
about him here who do you think can be
that
person well whoever comes after
Pam he’s not
Eternal I hope that after him there will
be a head of state who can understand
the meaning and merits of living in
peace with your neighbors
Mercy

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