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US Special Representative to Great Lakes Asks Rwandan Government to End Support to M23 Congolese Rebels

US Secretary of State John Kerry and US Special Representative for the Great Lakes Russ Feingold

US Secretary of State John Kerry and US Special Representative for the Great Lakes Russ Feingold

“We’ve seen a credible body of reporting that the Rwandan government has been supportive of the M23.  That has to stop.  We also are concerned about any support given by any other government for the FDLR… So it’s not just one side. We are telling all sides that you must stop support for these armed groups, ” US Special Representative to the Great Lakes of Africa, Former US Senator Russ Feingold told the US based media ABC News.

Russ Feingold added that,  in terms of human lives lost, the humanitarian crisis in Eastern DRC  is one of the greatest tragedies in the Wold,   and  must be resolved.  He said that he, along with other Special envoys to the region,  is working  with the presidents in the region, and at times eating  with them, to convince them to help  resolve the crisis.

“So you go to Kinshasa in Congo, you go to Kigali in Rwanda, you go to Kampala and you eat with President Museveni,” he said.

Other Special Envoys include: the UN Special Envoy to the Great Lakes, Mary Robinson,  the Special Representative of the African Union, Boubacar Diarra, and the Principal Coordinator of the European Union for the Great Lakes Region, Koen Vervaeke.

Russ Feingold also underlined the fact that if the conflict is not resolved, the situation may fester and invite into the region those bent on provoking the chaos around the World.

According to Russ Feingold, the World Bank has pledged more than 1 billion dollars of he reconstruction, after the conflict.

On Tuesday June 18, 2013,  US Secretary of State John Kerry appointed  Russell “Russ” Feingold as the  new United States Special Representative for the African Great Lakes region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  Known as a  tireless advocate of peace in the African Great Lakes region in the US Senate, he chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs from 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2011.

US Secretary of State John Kerry assigned  to Russ Feingold the mission to disarm M23 rebels and push for political negotiations elsewhere (see US Special Representative for the African Great Lakes region To Focus on M23 Rebels and Rwandan Government Negotiation with Moderate Armed Opposition).

So far, Russ Feingold has not unveiled a concrete approach on how he may ask the Rwandan and Ugandan  leaders, General Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni, to engage into peace negotiations with their respective armed rebellions, similar to those on-going between DRC President Joseph Kabila and the M23 rebels.

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  • Kagame Clinton October 2, 2013, 1:29 am

    Americans should stop their jokes by taking DRCongolese for fools and inhuman. Democrats Americans are prepared to walk upon a mountain of dead Congolese as long as they weakened the DRCongo and retrace new boarders from Great Lakes Region to the whole African continent. A new kind of ‘neo-colonialism’ is under way from the Democrats American vampires. African ‘raw materials’ or minerals and oil have slip them out of hand hand for long, we all know that.
    The great news is that: ‘it will never work in DRCongo’. They should change this evil project and let Africa flourishes freely.