NAIROBI, (Reuters) – Rwanda’s foreign minister accused Western governments today of using aid to treat African states like children, after four countries cut or delayed aid to Kigali because of its policy in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.
The United States last weekend cut military aid for this year while the Netherlands, Germany and Britain followed suit as donors reacted to a United Nations report that accuses Rwanda of backing rebels in the Congo.
The report, contested by Rwanda, said the country was supporting armed groups in neighbouring eastern Congo, including the M23 group, which has seized parts of North Kivu province in fighting that has displaced more than 270,000 people since April.
“This child-to-parent relationship has to end … there has to be a minimum respect,” Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said in an address to the Kenyan business club Mindspeak.
“As long as countries wave cheque books over our heads, we can never be equal.”
She added that Africans had to work hard to develop their economies in order to stop relying on Western donors.
Rwanda, which has been working to rebuild its economy after more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in a 1994 genocide, relies on donors to fund 50 percent of its annual budget, Mushikiwabo said.
Its ties with its much larger neighbour Congo had been thawing since 2009, following years of conflict in which Rwandan troops crossed the border in pursuit of remnants of the Hutu militias that carried out the genocide.
Mushikiwabo said it was too early to tell what kind of damage the withholding of aid would do to the government’s economic development push.
“We have been in much worse situations than dollars being withheld from us,” she said.
Germany’s Development Minister Dirk Niebel said in a statement his ministry had warned Rwanda four weeks ago it would suspend aid payments due to indications of support for rebels.
“Rwanda did not use this time to rebut these serious allegations… suspending budget aid is a clear sign to the Rwandan government.”
