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Rwanda - Foreign Relations (Notes)

FOREIGN RELATIONS Rwanda is an active member of the international community and has remained in the international spotlight since the genocide. Rwanda is an active member of the UN, having presided over the Security Council during part of 1995. The UN assistance mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), a UN Chapter Six peacekeeping operation, involved personnel from more than a dozen countries. Most of the UN development and humanitarian agencies have had a large presence in Rwanda. At the height of the humanitarian emergency, more than 200 nongovernmental organizations were carrying out humanitarian operations. In addition to receiving assistance from the international community, Rwanda has also contributed to international peacekeeping missions. They have sent peacekeeping forces to many hotspots on the African continent. In 2004, Rwanda deployed 392 peacekeepers in support of the UN Mission to the Sudan. In 2005, Rwanda Defense Forces (RDF) deployed 1,898 soldiers in support of the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS). Several west European and African nations, including Canada, China, Egypt, Libya, Russia, the Vatican, and the European Union maintain diplomatic missions in Kigali. In 1998, Rwanda, along with Uganda, invaded the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.) to back Congolese rebels trying to overthrow then-President Laurent Kabila. Rwandan troops pulled out of the D.R.C. in October 2002, in accordance with the Lusaka cease-fire agreement. In the fall of 2006, Rwanda broke diplomatic relations with France, following a French judge?s indictment of senior Rwandan officials on charges of having participated in the shooting down of the presidential jet in 1994. Rwanda rejects these charges. Rwanda, along with Burundi, will join the East African Community in 2007.