The United States department of state on Friday announced its decision to impose visa restrictions on several senior Rwandan officials for fueling instability in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
“By continuing to support M23 and violating the Washington Accords, these individuals are driving violence and undermining the stability of the entire Great Lakes Region,” said the United States department of state in a press release sent to The Africanscholar.
The United States also re-echoed its expectation to “see all parties to the Washington Accords fully implement their commitments, including by the DRC immediately neutralizing the FDLR armed group and its associated groups and Rwanda withdrawing its troops and military equipment from the DRC. Only then, the statement added, “will the immense economic potential of the Great Lakes region be realized.”
By this announcement from the US government, it is expected that individuals believed to be responsible for, complicit in, or directly or indirectly engaged in undermining or impeding a sustainable peace in the Great Lakes region will face consequences.
The visa restriction policy announced is pursuant to Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorizes the Secretary of State to render inadmissible any alien whose entry into the Unites States “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”
According to further provisions of this constitutional instrument, certain family members of any individuals of interest may also be covered by these restrictions.
