allAfrica.com * General Karake Urges Rwandan Peacekeepers to Be 'Different' Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali) NEWS 7 July 2008 Posted to the web 7 July 2008 Kigali The Deputy Commander of the United Nations-African Union force in Sudan's Darfur region wants Rwandan soldiers on the mission to ensure that they are different from those who carried out the Genocide, RNA reports. "You can never correct a problem if you are no different from those who caused the problem, you should elevate your level of thinking way above that of the people that brought tragedy to your country," Major General Karenzi Karake said at a ceremony on Liberation Day ceremony held in the Darfur region. The UN mission - UNAMID - in the troubled Sudanese region on July 04 organised functions at its headquarters to mark the Rwanda Liberation Day. Rwanda has over 3,500 peacekeepers there as part of the roughly 10,000-strong force. Almost six months after the United Nations launched its largest, most expensive and most hyped peacekeeping mission, promising to send 26,000 peacekeepers to Darfur, the operation is failing to protect the people it was sent to save. General Karake told the troops to be forward looking, ensure that they are a different generation from the preceding one and build on what Rwanda has achieved since liberation fourteen years ago, a statement from the force's headquarters says. "We have no choice but to propel the country forward," he told them. Acknowledged that his country still faces some challenges, he emphasised that "it is out of these challenges that solutions will come." UNAMID Deputy Joint Special Representative, Henry Anyidoho, said that modest progress has been made in the work of the Mission. "Where we are today is not where we started from," he said. The United Nations-African Union force is threatening to break up amid operational disagreements, rivalry and allegiances to either government or the rebels. The Independent, reported last month that the force was not only suffering from potentially damaging internal splits, but some senior officials were openly supporting the Sudanese government - in a conflict they are expected to be neutral. As others do little to hide their affection for the rebels. Rwandan Colonel David Ngarambe at the ZamZam military base is bitter that their colleagues are embroiled in partnership with either government or the rebels as the killings of civilians goes on. "There are signs of genocide here," he told the British daily. "The plan itself is to eliminate the blacks of Darfur." Col Ngarambe, a senior officer who fought alongside President Paul Kagame during the Genocide in 1994, said he saw similarities between the two conflicts. "We cannot sit back and watch." As for Col Augustine Agundu, the Nigerian chairman of the ceasefire commission - which has to work closely with both the Sudanese government and the rebels - said the government's role in the conflict was misunderstood in the West. "The government are the good guys," he told the British daily. "They are putting things in order ... It might not be acceptable in your culture, in your democracy, but one thing you must understand - the way government is done in this part of the world is different." Meanwhile, the U.S. government is reported to have expressed its wish to the UN that General Karake's contract with the hybrid force is extended - amid controversy that he his hands are not clean. The exiled Rwandan opposition accuses him of war crimes. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2008 Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quantcast