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Kagame rejects Hutu genocide amnesty

Hutu extremists accused of masterminding the Rwandan genocide and then fleeing to Congo cannot expect forgiveness, Rwanda's president said in an interview.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame also offered advice to Congo's next president, expected to emerge from an Oct. 29 run-off.

Kagame said that the run-off's loser should be invited into the government to ensure peace after years of war in that country.

Rwandan Hutu extremists, including members of Rwanda's former army and extremist Hutu militias have been accused of fomenting instability in eastern Congo for years.

They remain entrenched in eastern Congo despite a UN-led campaign before the recent first round of voting in Congo to quell the threat they pose.

Kagame, who led the Tutsi rebels who ended the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, said that he would work with the new Congolese government against the Hutu extremists, but he added that he could not envision offering them amnesty, as the Congolese have done for some of their own rebel groups as a strategy to ensure peace.

"There are no grounds whatsoever to say these people ... should be given any amnesty," Kagame said on Sunday in an interview during a stop in London on his way to New York for the UN General Assembly meeting.

He said he did not oppose amnesty in all cases, noting other genocide suspects had been forgiven as part of his country's justice and reconciliation efforts.

But he said the groups who fled to Congo included masterminds of the genocide who had shown no remorse, so they must be either brought to justice or militarily defeated.
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