THE US and Europe should stop the "shameless looting" of Zaire and recognise it was not their job to choose its leaders, the former president of Tanzania, Mr Julius Nyerere, told an Oxfam/Concern conference in Dublin.
Killers in Zaire were still being supplied with arms from other countries and there was clearly "money in the blood of Africans", he said.
European countries where those responsible for mass genocide in central Africa were in hiding should hand them over immediately to the International Tribunal on War Crimes.
The Rwandan government would have "enormous difficulty in preventing the killing" if justice was not seen to be done to those behind the bloodshed, Mr Nyerere warned.
"We must get these people or otherwise stop talking about reconciliation," he said on the EU's response to the African crisis.
"Not all the people who killed in 1994 will be punished but at least the leadership of the genocide must be punished. I hope that the European Community will help us.
"Europe has not been helping us very much to get a good government in Zaire and I hope that Europe will now see that. If they can't help us, at least they could stop interfering."
Mr Nyerere, who has been central to efforts to secure negotiations in Burundi, said he believed the Tutsis were willing to talk, although he could not predict what such talks might achieve.
There had been a change of mood among neighbouring African states which rejected the idea of a military regime, he said. Negotiations acceptable to Tutsis were needed to put the country on the road to democracy.
"I can't say I'm doing very well. I have been trying for over a year, but I can't say I have anything to show for my efforts. But I am going on, because the implications of abandoning Burundi are not very acceptable. Eventually we will get them to talk," he said.
Rwanda needed humanitarian aid for its returning population and an injection of external resources to rebuild and develop.
The Rwandan government wanted its people back, because they were a "potential source of increased insecurity in the region", Mr Nyerere said.
A lasting solution to Burundi's problems would have to address Hutu resentment at being denied democratic rights in their own country and Tutsi fears that democracy would cause them to become genocide victims, he said. Work continued to try and start negotiations in Burundi.
The international community, meanwhile, had a role in ensuring good government in Zaire.
"The necessary role of Europe and the US in Zaire is politically negative. They must stop participating in the shameless looting of that country and must recognise that it is not their job to choose the leaders of that country," Mr Nyerere said.
"The people of Zaire must be allowed to choose their own leaders. Zaire has been used in the past by powerful external forces to destabilise its neighbours. That must now stop if they want peace in the Great Lakes and other parts of Africa. The best way to uphold peace is to prevent its breakdown.
The Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ms Joan Burton, said a change in Zaire must be supported on the basis that "all Zaireans take part". The forces supporting the Alliance in Zaire should be able to take part in elections held there.
The peaceful arrival of returning Rwandans had been a miracle and the EU would provide 170 million ecus in humanitarian aid to help support the resettlement, particularly housing needs.
In Burundi, the EU had a partnership role to play as the solutions for that country had to come from within Africa itself.
Ms Burton said a recent meeting of the EU Development Council in Brussels had taken several decisions on human and social investment.
It had proposed a redirected focus towards human resources, good government and civil society, and a renewed fight against the use of landmines.