{"id":43796,"date":"2026-08-26T11:38:55","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T09:38:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=43796"},"modified":"2026-08-26T11:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T09:39:08","slug":"president-kagame-defends-rwandas-role-in-drc-conflict","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/president-kagame-defends-rwandas-role-in-drc-conflict\/","title":{"rendered":"President Kagame defends Rwanda&#8217;s role in DRC conflict \u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>President Paul Kagame has defended Rwanda&#8217;s military posture in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), placing the presence of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebel group at the centre of Kigali&#8217;s national security strategy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Speaking during a press conference in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, Kagame also addressed Rwanda&#8217;s strained diplomatic relations with neighbouring Burundi, responded to economic sanctions imposed by the United States, and criticised what he described as self-inflicted political issues across the African continent.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He stressed that Rwanda&#8217;s security interventions in the DRC will continue as long as the militia group, which includes remnants of perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, operates near the Rwandan border.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Rwanda&#8217;s problem has always been FDLR in DRC,&#8221; Kagame said. &#8220;If this problem of FDLR is not resolved, Rwanda will always remain involved as part of this conflict and this is what we have said for the past 30 years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":34573,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-43796","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Kagame warns Rwanda will remain involved in DRC","published_date":"2026-08-26 10:55:30","news_description":"Kagame warns Rwanda will remain involved in DRC","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43797,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43796\/revisions\/43797"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=43796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}