{{Tanzania\u2019s President Jakaya Kikwete has accused Rwanda government officials of attacking him through what he described as making inflamatory statements that have sent engagement between the two countries to its Lowest Levels.}}<\/p>\n
Kikwete said, \u201cUtterances of Rwandan leaders towards me and our country is evidence of that (turbulent relations).\u201d<\/p>\n
President Paul Kagame had earlier described the utterances as nonsense by Mr. Kiwete as dancing on the \u201cmass graves of our people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kikwete said Friday, \u201cI have been shocked and dismayed at the verbal attack and criticism levelled against me by Rwandan officials.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Tanzanian leader who had remained silent despite several responces against his remarks from Rwanda said on Friday, \u201cWhat they are doing and saying does not reflect the true position \u2026. (it is) completely out of proportion and out of context.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kikwete said he had chosen to ignore insults from Rwanda in the best interest of the people of the two nations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not because I do not know how to speak or that I do not have anything to say,\u201d he added. \u201cI haven\u2019t done so because I do not see its benefit.I want to assure my fellow Tanzanians and our Rwandan friends that I, my government and the people of Tanzania want to have good relations and close cooperation with Rwanda as we have with all our neighbours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kikwete had origianally stated that \u201cADF is attacking Uganda and FDRL is doing the same to Rwanda so efforts should be made to end such attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cTalks should be held between governments and rebels hiding in the DRC where they launch attacks against their countries of origin. Military operations against the rebels will not yield fruit\u201d.<\/p>\n
Rwanda\u2019s Minister of Foreign Affairs Louise Mushikiwabo had earlier descibed Kikwete\u2019s remarks as \u201caberrant\u201d and \u201cshocking\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mushikiwabo then noted, \u201cThose who think that Rwanda today should sit down at the negotiating table with FDLR simply don\u2019t know what they are talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
IBUKA a Rwandan Umbrella organisation for Genocide Survivors had also condemned Kikwete\u2019s remarks that he made at the AU Heads of State Summit on the 26 May 2013.<\/p>\n
In a statement, IBUKA noted, \u201cno negotiation is acceptable with a known terrorist group that is responsible for the death of over a million Tutsis in Rwanda and continues its deadly work in the eastern DRC. <\/p>\n
We are offended that a Head of State who is well aware of the history of the genocide against the Tutsi would promote unrepentant genocidaires and their ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Tanzania\u2019s Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation minister Bernard Membe said there was no way the Tanzanian Head of State could apologise for saying the truth and stating a fact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Tanzania\u2019s President Jakaya Kikwete has accused Rwanda government officials of attacking him through what he described as making inflamatory statements that have sent engagement between the two countries to its Lowest Levels.}} Kikwete said, \u201cUtterances of Rwandan leaders towards me and our country is evidence of that (turbulent relations).\u201d President Paul Kagame had earlier described […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"byline":[334],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-9499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","byline-igihe-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9499"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=9499"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=9499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}