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00:00Let's go back now to the situation in the eastern Congolese city of Goma, where this
00:06Thursday it is calm but tense.
00:09We're in the company of human rights attorney Daniel Levine Spahn.
00:13The connection there is back.
00:16We heard the UN Secretary General talking about respecting territorial integrity and
00:23working up the need for a summit that's going to be taking place starting on Friday to yield
00:32results.
00:34What more can the UN do?
00:35What more can the international community do?
00:37Yeah, I really appreciate the question.
00:40And just to say, I very much appreciate the Secretary General's emphasis on territorial
00:45integrity, because as I and many other lawyers have argued, we are in an aggression situation
00:52in which we have one country, Rwanda, which has invaded eastern DRC with no meaningful
00:58self-defense argument.
01:00We should be thinking about this along the lines of Russia and Ukraine rather than some
01:05sort of civil war.
01:07But as you pointed out, the real question is not what words will be said, but rather
01:11what actions will be taken.
01:13And for the past four years, we've seen very little appetite to hold Rwanda accountable
01:19for its actions in eastern Congo, whether Rwanda remains a major troop contributing
01:25and police contributing country to the United Nations.
01:29Rwanda recently received $20 million in funding from the European Union for a military mission
01:35in Mozambique.
01:36You mentioned earlier that 10 years ago, the occupation of Goma didn't last very long.
01:44And it's also important to note that 10 years ago, M23 ultimately collapsed.
01:49And a huge part of the reason M23 collapsed was because of international pressure on Rwanda.
01:54We saw hundreds of millions of dollars in financial aid to Rwanda frozen.
01:59We saw the president of the United States at that point, President Obama, on the phone
02:03with Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda.
02:06We saw massive mobilization regionally.
02:09We saw African troops contributing, African states contributing troops to MONUSCO.
02:15So we saw this major international outcry and coordinated efforts to hold Rwanda accountable.
02:21And when those actions took place, Rwanda ceased supporting M23 and the group ultimately
02:26collapsed.
02:27It's precisely these sorts of accountability actions that we haven't seen 10 years later.
02:33So if you're an official sitting in Kigali and you're part of commanding these operations,
02:39I think the question for you is, is it politically worth it?
02:42And I can imagine that many, for many Rwandan officials, the calculus so far has been yes.
02:48Because we've seen a lot of words and a lot of statements.
02:51We haven't seen a lot of actions, nothing that I think could meaningfully push the Rwandan
02:56government to say, hey, this isn't worth it.
02:59We should no longer be deploying.
03:02Recent numbers are pointing to over 7,000 troops into eastern DRC.
03:05Daniel Levine-Spahn, many thanks for speaking with us here on France 24.
03:10My pleasure.
03:11Thanks so much for having me.