Bush assures Rwandan leader of Darfur aid

May 31, 2006 (WASHINGTON) — President George W. Bush promised Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Wednesday he will make good on a pledge for aid to ease the crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region, including money for Rwandan peacekeepers.

Bush said after talks with Kagame that the Rwandan leader said he was “concerned about whether or not the United States will honor its commitments.”

Rwanda has about 2,000 peacekeepers as part of an African Union force in the Darfur region, where a three-year-old conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and left many living in squalid camps.

An emergency supplemental spending plan under consideration by the U.S. House of Representatives includes about $300 million for peacekeeping in the Darfur region, an increase of $50 million from Bush’s request.

“We will honor our commitments,” said Bush. “But the United States Congress must pass the supplemental with the money in there for the Sudan.”

He said he told Kagame he was confident that the Congress will pass the legislation “and that his troops will get reimbursed.”

Rwanda is often remembered for the 1994 slaughter of nearly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu extremists backed by the government in a 100-day campaign of genocide.

The Rwandan government has struggled to rebuild the economy, which almost collapsed at the height of the 1994 genocide that claimed the lives of estimated 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates.

(Reuters)