#BOJANA : You are accused of exploiting the mines of Rubaya for the benefit of Rwanda. What do you say to this?

#Bisimwa: Regarding Rubaya, we did not want it at the beginning, because we never had the intention of taking areas where there are minerals. We have always avoided this so that we would not confuse our existential cause with the exploitation of minerals.

But the reality is – and we communicated it – that there was a training centre in Rubaya maintained by the Burundian army with the Imbonerakure militia, which trained young people, the Congolese, in the handling of bladed weapons, with the intention of infiltrating them into our space to sow death and desolation. We communicated this to the world so that everyone would understand that there is a threat in Rubaya that needs to be addressed quickly. There was no reaction, and everyone neglected this. This is how we made the decision to stop this thing because it was going to create for us more problems than solutions.

When we entered this space, in this area of Rubaya, there was never any fighting inside Rubaya. The strategy we took was to evacuate from Rubaya all those who had weapons in these mining sites. The second group of people to evacuate from those sites were children who were used in the mines, with all the potential for accidents. The third group of people we extracted from Rubaya were pregnant women who very often were mistreated.

Today, Rubaya is doing well. We have kept in Rubaya the same people, the same organisations that were exploiting the mines because they are private entities that were exploiting the mines there. And we have forbidden our officials from being in the mines of Rubaya. There is not a single member of the M23 in the mines of Rubaya. So we have left this exploitation to those who were doing it. And we are happy with a small tax to allow that this police mechanism that we have established around Rubaya can continue to hold. This is what we have done.