FOREIGN Affairs minister Joseph Malanji says Rwandan President Paul Kagame has told him he does not give credence to allegations by a convict that President Edgar Lungu was helping finance insurgency in that country.
On Monday this week, a terror suspect told a Rwandan Court that President Lungu was financing rebel activities against that government.
Callixte Nsabimana aka Major Sankara who claimed to be the head of Rwanda rebel group National Liberation Force (NLF) told the judge at the International and Cross-Border Crimes in Nyanza, a district in southern Rwanda that President Lungu helped rebel factions to attack Rwanda.
NLF is a military wing of a Rwanda opposition political party, the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change led by Rwandan dissident Paul Rusesabagina, known for protecting people during 1994’s Rwandan genocide as a manager of Hotel des Mille Collines.
Following the allegations, President Lungu sent Malanji as his special envoy to meet President Kagame on Thursday.
Briefing the nation yesterday, Malanji said the allegations made against the President of Zambia were not coming from the Rwandan government but from a convict.
“I had a lengthy meeting with President Paul Kagame as special envoy of President Edgar Lungu. The government of Rwanda and President Kagame was very categorical that this convict had been to five countries prior to his arrest and Zambia was not one of them,” he explained.
Malanji said President Kagame told him that he did not give credence to the allegations being made by the convict.
“I can mention to you that our bilateral relationships between Zambia and Rwanda are intact. President Kagame categorically indicated that he has a very sound relationship with President Lungu as a person and he did not see how President Lungu could start hiring these mercenaries,” Malanji said. “To start with, Zambia does not share any border with Rwanda. Much as we have bilateral ties with Rwanda, we do not share any border whose conflict might lead to somebody being aggrieved to start sponsoring mercenaries. You can give these allegations which are being leveled against President Lungu the contempt they deserve. It has nothing to do with President Lungu.”
Malanji said the government would engage Rwanda diplomatically to find the reason and who could have enticed “this convict” to bring the name of President Lungu and the country into disrepute.
“We are following up this. Soon officers will be going to Rwanda to dig and find out why he had to bring [up] the name of Zambia and the name of Dr Edgar Chagwa Lungu,” said Malanji.