Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and her Rwandan Counterpart, Ms Rosemary
Museminali
25 March 2009
Thanks members of the media!
We have had our working session of the Joint Commission. We had wide ranging
discussions. We agreed on the programme of the year for the Joint
Commission.
I will just say a few words. We had a discussion on the political working
group which looks at diplomatic issues, multilateral issues and issues of
co-operation within government and public administration and then co-operation
in training and capacity building and sharing of information, training in
languages, English and French and training diplomats. We accepted that we will
share the training, training some of the Rwandese diplomats in our training
school. We shared ideas on management and all that. We also agreed that we
would support Rwanda in respect of commonwealth (inaudible) and so a number of
areas like that.
We also agreed on cooperation in public sector training and development. We
also looked at issues like justice and a number of sectors where we are already
co-operating like police services. We also looked at having an agreement on
extradition and we looked at home affairs. The issues of visas and so on, so
issues that cover the Rwandese (inaudible) became clear, and also looking at
the questions of their study permits and some financial deposits expected from
the students.
We also looked at issues of refugees particularly Rwandan refugees who are
now resident in South Africa. We agreed that it's a good thing that people are
able to choose to live where they choose as long as there is no destabilisation
of one country or the other.
We also looked at economic issues, 2010, co-operation in science and
technology as you saw earlier there was an agreement signed. We also looked at
issues around transport, trade and industry co-operation in all these areas and
discussions around the central development corridor which is important for the
transportation of goods and people.
We also talked about the agreement on double taxation which is also
important for business people who do business in either side or country. And we
looked at social issues, arts and culture, the agreement was signed, sports and
recreation we are looking at how to work not only generally but around the 2010
and education.
We also talked about the agreement that we could have so that Rwandan
students could be treated as South African Development Community (SADC) as it
has been agreed by both Presidents. So that is going to be looked at and of
course generally capacity building, a whole range of areas here training,
health etc. And we also have a project on Cuba, Rwanda and South Africa and
Cuban doctors, and we have agreed to fund part of that project from the
Renaissance programme and we agreed that we should get a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) signed so that we can be able to continue with that
project. Basically those are the few things that we talked about and we
obviously planned the programme for the coming year and we hope that we will be
able to implement that programme as much as possible I will hand over to the
Minister to add.
(No comment)
Questions
Reuters
Minister, what do you think are the major stumbling blocks or challenges
between Rwanda and the DRC and how do you hope to overcome those and what is
the status generally of Mr Nkunda. Will you hand him over to the DRC if they
request?
What is South Africa's mandate with regards to the SADC Summit in Mbabane on
Madagascar, what message do you think will come out from that? Will you be
supporting sanctions against Madagascar?
Answer
Minister Museminali
Thank you, regarding Congo and about our relationship, I should say we made
a lot of progress towards stabilisation of our region because of late we have
renewed political and diplomatic cooperation in Rwanda in dealing with the main
cause of instability currently in the DRC but generally in the region which is
FDL Intermerwawe who killed more than one million people and since then started
killing people in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) raping looting, all sorts
of things. So why I say there is progress, Rwanda has been having diplomatic
discussions with DRC.
We recently concluded last month a Joint Military Cooperation which was
fighting down FDL. They were very seriously dented both their capacity to make
war through reducing them by numbers. A few of them were killed and many were
repatriated others have surrendered but also great number of families who have
been preyed on have been able to return to Rwanda.
So we are talking about 5000 thousand people who returned to Rwanda. That
was the result of the Joint Co-operation between Rwanda and the DRC. Since that
Joint Military Co-operation we are going to have more discussions actually on
27 to 28 March with the government of DRC between the Ministries of Foreign
Affairs and other concerned institutions. I hope we are going to talk about how
can we consolidate the activities of our joint operations carried out in north
Kivu so that they can be fruitful and can be built on by the DRC because once
the joint forces left, that is Rwandan forces DRC remains with the
responsibility of dealing with the FDL problem, So part of what we will be
discussing is how we can forward these successes and therefore consolidate
them.
We are also going to be talking about how we strengthen both our bilateral
and multilateral cooperation in the next coming period because we feel that its
part of strengthening security and enhancing the peace.
We are going to talk about the possibility of opening Embassies. The
DRC has pledged to open its Embassy in Rwanda in the first quarter of the year
and we are coming towards the first quarter. So we are hoping that they would
be soon appointing their Ambassador. We have agreed to appoint our own
Ambassador. So this way of co-operating diplomatically will help us to move
closer and help us to deal with our problems together. So there is renewed
impetus in that direction and we feel we are going to continue consolidating
that.
Regarding the fate of General Nkunda, in our last meeting beginning of this
year we agreed that we would put together a team that is going to look at the
return of General Nkunda to the DRC. General Nkunda is a Congolese. His final
place is the DRC. We agreed that we need to look at how that's done so that it
doesn't jeopardise the kind gains made. If you look at for example forces led
by General Nkunda they are now integrated into the Congolese army.
We agreed that we will put a team of Congolese and Rwandese so that we can
be able to agree on what process that is going to take place when General
Nkunda is returned to his country. So, the Committee has been working together
and they are going to give us a report when the next Foreign Ministers meeting
take places on the 27 28 (March). Otherwise General Nkunda is in Rwanda where
he has been detained since he was arrested but the process of returning him to
the DRC is going to be what I have just described.
Minister Dlamini Zuma
Well South Africa as you know as the member of the SADC but also the
African Union (AU) doesn't subscribe to power through unconstitutional means
and therefore we support the SADC call and the Troika's that Madagascar
(Government) should not be of our meetings until there is a government that has
been elected properly and that we should be urging those that
have taken power unconstitutionally and really putting pressure on them to go,
and have a properly elected government if they cannot go to the President that
has just left, then they must have an election. It's totally unacceptable what
has happened there.
Question
South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC)
Minister Dlamini Zuma can you give us clarity on two things: the number of
Rwandan refugees in South Africa and on the funding for the health sector and
Cuban doctors, any estimate for that?
On the Rwandan refugees I am not sure it may be thousand, I don't know! On
the funding it depends on how many doctors. How it works Cubans sent the
doctors and we give them a very minimum amount of stipend kind of, because they
get their salaries in Cuba by the Cuban government. We just assist with their
stipend in Rwanda. I don't have the exact figure but it is a very minimum
amount that the actual total depends on the number of doctors that are
involved.
Question
Minister will South Africa push for the non recognition of Madagascar which
is what the SADC Troika has recommended, but you will further support sanctions
if things don't work out the way SADC or South Africa would want? Did I
understand you correctly?
Answer Minister Dlamini Zuma
Yes you understood me correctly. We support the non recognition. We support
pressure including whatever may be agreed whatever to make sure that they go
back to constitutionality.
Question
Die Burger
Minister Dlamini Zuma, may I ask you the whole issue around the Daila Lama
and the refusal of his visa. What are your views on that? Can you help us
understand better?
Answer
My views are that we are having a very important sporting tournament, the
biggest in the world, 2010! And we are having a lot of activities as a build up
to 2010. But we feel that it is very important to keep the sport and its build
up away from all sorts of issues that are there in the world, no matter how
many, we feel that its important not to get the 2010 hijacked by other issues
whether it is Tibet or whatever issue may be there in the world.
So clearly if there is a sporting event it must remain a sporting event. We
have seen how messy it can be if you begin to pull all sorts of issues into the
sporting event. So we would like to keep 2010 clear of other issues. We will
deal with other issues in fora that are for those issues but for 2010 and the
build up of 2010, lets keep it as sports, lets keep it as soccer as football
until we get to 2010 . That is our view!
Question
SABC
Can we get clarity on the former president of Madagascar for his stay in
South Africa, there have been reports that he is staying in South Africa, is he
getting an asylum until the situation is normal?
Answer
Minister Dlamini Zuma
He has not officially asked for asylum When and if he asks for asylum we
will then look at it .I am not aware that he has officially asked for
asylum.
Issued by: Department of Foreign Affairs
25 March 2009
Source: Sapa
