Rwandan President Paul Kagame accused the United Nations Tuesday of "doing nothing" to bring peace to Africa's unstable Great Lakes region, where some 160 ethnic Tutsis were massacred in Burundi last week.
"It is clear that they are doing nothing," said Kagame, himself a Tutsi. "We cannot remain with folded arms.
"We have to look for other ways to resolve the problem, especially at the level of the African Union," Kagame said on national radio after returning from a mini-summit of African leaders on the massacre in Gatumba.
Hutu fighters who carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda before fleeing to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) when the 100-day slaughter was stopped have been accused of crossing into Burundi on Friday last week to slaughter Tutsis at Gatumba, all of whom were refugees from DRC. At least 800,000 people were killed during Rwanda's genocide, most of them Tutsis.
The UN has long had a campaign to disarm and repatriate Rwandan Hutu rebels in DRC, offering incentives for them to return home. Kagame stopped short of blaming the ex-Rwandan armed forces and the Interahamwe for last week's massacre.
He indicated that participants at the African mini-summit, held in Pointe-Noire in the Congo Republic - DRC's smaller western neighbour - had agreed that the international community and Burundi should jointly conduct an inquiry to find out who was responsible for the Gatumba slaughter.
The Hutu rebel National Liberation Forces (FLN) of Burundi has claimed responsibility for the massacre but observers believe a coalition of radical Hutu groups was involved in the ethnic killings.
One of the extremist Rwandan Hutu groups based in DRC, the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, said Monday it was "in no way responsible for" the Gatumba massacre.
Rwanda has made it clear that it wants action following the massacre.
"Rwanda is resolved to no longer tolerate acts of genocide in the world," Rwanda's minister for local administration, Christophe Bazivamo, said Monday at the funeral for the victims of the massacre.
"Rwanda is ready to bring aid to and intervene to stop genocide and calm down the people, as in Darfur," in western Sudan, he said.
Rwanda was the first member of the African Union to send soldiers to Darfur as part of an African Union protection force for cease-fire observers in west Sudan, where more than a year's strife has led to a massive humanitarian crisis.
Rwanda "will no longer settle for being a spectator," Bazivamo said. "Nobody should be unaware that Rwanda is ready to co-operate to fight terrorists."
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