Rwanda | Rwanda’s premier advices UN peacekeepers

The Prime minister of Rwanda, Dr Pierre Damien Habumuremyi has said that UN peace keepers should learn from the example of Rwanda of promoting peace efforts amidst conflict as a way of building a better community for all.

The Premier said that Rwanda has learnt to stand for peace values amidst conflict especially that the country has managed to learn from its past horror of genocide in which the genocide happenings were left to the people of Rwanda as the world especially the UN forces.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda was largely considered as an ethnic conflict and most countries including the USA and UN peacekeeping mission, the UNAMIR did not take immediate action better watched from a distance as the killing claimed over close to one million Rwandans in a short period of three months.

Habumuremyi made the remarks while opening a ten-day UN Senior Mission Leaders Course (UNSMLC) which kicked off in Kigali city on May 21, 2012.

Over 45 senior military and civilian personnel from around the world are attending the course, which is conducted by the Rwanda Peace Academy (RPA), in collaboration with the UN Integrated Training Service and the Government of Australia.

Two four Rwanda senior officers are part of the trainees at course, – namely, Maj. Gen. Frank Kamanzi Mushyo, Commandant, Rwanda Military Academy – Gako, and Brig. Gen. Charles Rudakubana, Head, Department of Peace Support Operations in the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF), Chief Supt Gumira Rwampungu, Regional Police Commander (RPC) North; and Ben Rutsinga, Director General in charge of Europe, America and International Organisations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

Australian High Commissioner to Rwanda, Geoff Tooth, hailed the Rwandan government for hosting the course saying that Rwanda and Australia are profound contributors to world peacekeeping missions, in both numbers of peacekeepers and in the range of operations supported by the two countries.

Rwanda has deployed more than 3200 Rwandan troops at United Nations African Union Hybrid Mission in Darfur, (UNAMID) – the world’s biggest peacekeeping operation. The mission also boasts. 850 Rwandan peacekeepers have also been deployed in South Sudan under the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), and also maintains peacekeepers in Ivory Coast, Liberia and Haiti.