by ALBERT RUDATSIMBURWA
KIGALI, (CAJ News) – IT is fair to say that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has not had a moment of peace for at least three decades. But it is equally fair to add that when he ascended the Presidency, Felix Antoine Tshisekedi, took over the presidency of a country that was mending relations with its neighbours.
There was a semblance of peace, and the region was looking forward to entrenching the hope into permanent reality.
Tshisekedi’s initial approach seemed promising. He engaged with neighbouring countries, including Rwanda. His relationship with Rwanda’s President, Paul Kagame, was particularly notable, given that DRC-Rwanda relations had been turbulent for three decades. There was a promise of a new dawn.
The history of conflict between the two nations is relatively new, no more than three decades old. To understand how we got where we are, you need to look at how the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi, was imported into the DRC, or Zaire, as it was then called.
And imported is the right description, because it was then DR Congo President, Mobutu Sese Seko, who along with the French, took the ideologues with their armed wing into Zaire.
In 1994, as Rwanda’s genocidal regime fled the advancing Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), they were welcomed into Zaire, in the Kivu region of eastern Zaire. The genocidal forces were given safe conduct into Zaire, by the French military, under Operation Turquoise. They entered Zaire, as a government and army in exile. They had looted the country empty, and they were heavily armed, when they entered Congo.
They immediately set about organizing a so-called government in exile, and reorganizing the military to launch attacks against Rwanda, and prey on the local Congolese population of the Kivus.
They particularly targeted the Banyamulenge in South Kivu and the Banyarwanda, who reside in Northern Kivu. Rwanda’s genocide ideology was seeded into Congo, and genocidal attacks against Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese began.
The Banyarwanda, or Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese, were detached from Rwanda, in the nineteenth Century, when at the Berlin Conference, the European Colonial powers, redrew the map of Africa, dividing the lands amongst themselves.
With a stroke of a pen, much of what was Rwanda, became Belgian Congo, British Uganda and German Territory of Tanganyika, present day Tanzania. The people on those lands, went to bed in Rwanda, and woke up as Congolese. Others woke up Ugandans, Tanzanians.
The Rwanda genocidal establishment unleashed the kind of chaos, genocidal murder and mayhem they had perpetrated in Rwanda. Hundreds of thousands were displaced, fleeing the onslaught.
Thus began a period of turmoil that lasts to this day. The genocidal seed implanted into Congo, took root, and now acquired a new name, Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
These forces, along with local militias, have terrorized the region’s population for nearly 30 years. In response to the FDLR’s depravations, armed resistance emerged, notably, the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), under Laurent Nkunda, which would later morph into today’s March 23 Movement (M23).
Soon the wider world got involved, now in the shape of the biggest United Nations peacekeeping mission anywhere, the so-called UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC, or the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). Despite this massive UN mission, more than 20,000 personnel, swallowing over a $billion a year, for twenty years, things have only got worse.
When MONUSCO began operations in 1999, there were only four armed groups in the region. Today, there are over 250, most of which now, in some or other, collaborate with FDLR and have adopted its tactics of terrorizing local communities. Most of these armed groups erupted during Tshisekedi’s first term, growing from a few dozen to the current over 250.
The situation has become even more dire, with hate speech and extreme violence against local populations becoming normalized. This violence has spread beyond the Kivu provinces, affecting other parts of the country, including the non-Kinyarwanda-speaking communities, like the Hema people of Ituri province, who are now being subjected to an ongoing silent genocide.
The FDLR’s genocidal ideology, which targets the Tutsi population, has permeated throughout the DRC, starting with the political class. This imported hatred has created the notion that Rwanda is an enemy to the DRC.
The situation in eastern DRC has reached a dystopian level, with politicians and military officers benefiting from the chaos through illegal trafficking operations conducted by armed groups. The FDLR has become an independent entity within the state, controlling vast territories, imposing taxes, and engaging in lucrative charcoal and mineral trafficking, all without interference from the government.
Under Tshisekedi, the situation has deteriorated further. He has effectively allied himself with the FDLR, effectively becoming their supreme commander. Tshisekedi’s government has equipped and employed the FDLR to wage war in eastern DRC, alongside other militias. He has promoted politicians known for their inflammatory rhetoric against the Tutsi and Banyamulenge, further entrenching the culture of hate and violence.
Rwanda, a small country, nearly 100 times smaller than the DRC, has focused on its development and advancing the life chances of its people. The Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) led government has led the reconstruction to a peaceful nation, governed by the rule of law, whose intolerance of corruption makes it especially attractive to foreign investments.
A country once torn apart by the genocide ideology now playing out in the DRC, is largely reconciled, and looking to a prosperous future. All of that however, is threatened by the overtly stated intent of the Tshisekedi regime, to destroy all that Rwanda has rebuilt, and take it back to its dark tragic past. It is a threat Rwanda cannot and does not take in any way lightly.
Tshisekedi’s government has employed FDLR forces and other militias to carry out these attacks while simultaneously portraying the DRC as a victim on the international stage. The reality is that far from being the victim, Tshisekedi is the arsonist fanning the flames of conflict.
There is no scenario for peace in the DRC, which does not start with a dialogue between the Congolese state, and sections of the Congolese population, which it has persecuted for decades. This includes the M23 rebel alliance.
That would mean Tshisekedi ending his collaboration with, and empowerment of, terror groups that prey on Congolese civilians. It would mean his government’s recognition of the full rights of citizenship for Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese, ending the hate speech and the unspeakable genocidal violence against them.
It means acknowledging that M23 took up arms to protect their communities, against their own government, and fully engaging with them, to address their just grievances.
And it means ending the collaboration with the FDLR, a Rwandan terrorist organization operating from Congolese soil to attack Rwanda. There are no other viable paths to lasting peace. There however seems no indication that Tshisekedi will choose the path over the current chaos, which seems to suit him and his cronies, but which further entrenches Congo into tragedy.
NB: Albert Rudatsimburwa is a journalist and social commentator based in Kigali, Rwanda
– CAJ News