End of May 2022: Nth tension between the DRC and Rwanda

 Or why and how a Rwandan-Ugandan autocrat, in this case, Paul Kagame, has been destabilizing the Great Lakes region of Africa with impunity for three decades.

By Emmanuel Neretse

Brussels, Belgium

June 3, 2022

Background and current situation

Since May 27, 2022, the international press has reported on the offensive launched by the Congolese Tutsi rebellion, the M23, in North Kivu, where fierce fighting took place twenty kilometers from the province's capital, the town of Goma, which borders Rwanda. In its victory press releases, the M23 declared from its headquarters in Kigali that it had conquered several FARDC-held positions inside the DRC and that it had seized many weapons and equipment. Shortly afterward, the command of the FARDC deployed in North Kivu displayed to the international press military equipment labeled Rwandan and two soldiers of Kagame's regular army, the RDF, captured inside the DRC territory more than twenty kilometers from the Rwandan border. The press reveals that: "RDF elements were captured at the battlefield with recovered RDF military effects, including 60mm mortars, an AK 81, 8 anti-tank rockets, a chain of PKM ammunition, a pair of RDF military uniforms, a helmet, and military canteens never used by the FARDC." 

For once, the political and diplomatic authorities of the DRC took their courage in hand and dared to denounce this aggression and even summoned Kagame's ambassador in Kinshasa, the arrogant Vincent Karega, to reprimand him. The DRC banned Kagame's airline "Rwandair" from operating in the DRC.

As usual, Kagame's dictatorial regime quickly dismissed these accusations and even went so far as to assert that the two soldiers of its army on display had been abducted by the FARDC operating in conjunction with the FDLR, their hereditary enemies and perfect scapegoats, who even though they have disappeared, are resuscitated, and brandished when needed to justify any crime of the Kagame regime. Curiously, we note that Kagame's services waited for the DRC to show Rwandan soldiers, captured at the battlefield in the DRC two days before, so that the regime's loudspeakers (deputy government spokesman, army spokesman) and even the Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced that two soldiers of their army had been kidnapped in Rwanda by the FARDC operating jointly with the FDLR. Find the mistake!

The root cause of the problem

Beyond the facts on the ground, we will try to answer the following basic question: "Who is really behind this permanent destabilization of the region by Paul Kagame since 1990?”.

To this question which seems complex and to which it would be difficult to answer, we dare to answer spontaneously that:  It is the Western Powers as well as the Organizations supposed to promote and ensure peace in the world such as the United Nations that are pulling the strings and have given green light to the bloody dictator Kagame.

To support our assertion, we will limit ourselves in this article to the enumeration of the facts and related attitudes without elaborating further as such an exercise would require the publication of dozens of manuals of several hundred pages each.

Crimes and violations of International Law which were committed by Paul Kagame and his clique since 1990 with the endorsement and even the support of the Western Powers and the UN.

1. On October 01, 1990. Invasion of Rwanda by regular troops from a neighboring country presented as "refugees" returning (arms in hands!) to their country.

2. 1990-1994. A war that lasted nearly four years, resulted in thousands of innocent civilian victims and the displacement of more than one million peasants driven from their property by Paul Kagame, to become "internal refugees".

3. April 6, 1994. Assassination by Paul Kagame of two Hutu Heads of State, an act that triggered the interethnic massacres in Rwanda.

4. July 4, 1994. The total military conquest of Rwanda by Kagame and his gang drove out the legitimate leaders and provoked an exodus of more than three million Rwandan refugees to neighboring countries.

5. November 1996. Kagame attacks and destroys the Hutu refugee camps in Zaire under the protection of the UNHCR and the host country.

6. December 1996-May 1997. Conquest by Kagame and his clique of the greater Zaire area to install a puppet regime and above all to entrust the security organs (army and police...) to the Tutsis only. Ex: James Kabarebe, Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the DRC from 1997-1998.

7. 1998-2001. To provoke what some people have called: "The First African World War" (a dozen countries involved) to bring to heel the "rebel" Laurent Désiré Kabila that Paul Kagame had installed in power but who was manifesting a will to emancipate himself from the Tutsi hold. The noncompliant Congolese was assassinated by Kagame's henchmen who had infiltrated his security detail.

8. 2001-2003. Paul Kagame installs in the presidential chair in Kinshasa the "son of Laurent Désiré Kabila", barely 29 years old and who had set a foot in Congo for the first time a few months earlier. Joseph Kabila will thus swallow all the snacks that Kagame served him but which his "supposed" father, Laurent Désiré Kabila, had refused to swallow, a fact that cost him his life. Thus, believing that he wanted to stop the war, especially in the East of the DRC, Joseph Kabila, spurred on by Kagame, agreed to integrate all the Tutsi rebellions and their military leaders into the military ranks they would declare. This is how we saw in the Congolese army some generals who did not even know where the DRC is in Africa because they did not go beyond the level of elementary school or who did not speak any of the national languages (at least five) of this vast country. The case of Jean Bosco Ntaganda who, at the ICC in The Hague, had to have an interpreter from Rwanda to translate and interpret for him, because he doesn’t understand French, Swahili, Lingala, or Tshiluba, not to mention English... even though he presents himself as "General of the Congolese Army"!

9. Since 2003, after the so-called Sun City agreement, which meant that the DRC of Kabila-son had to integrate into its political and military authorities any rebellion in exchange for peace in the East of the DRC, Paul Kagame, always well advised by his creators and Western masters, has rushed into the breach.   Almost every year he will create a new rebellion or recycle an old one and each time he will have it integrated into the political and security authorities of the DRC.  Thus, Laurent Nkunda's CNDP gave birth to the M23. To operate in Ituri, the same Kagame used the pretext of the secular conflict between Hema (herders) and Lendu (farmers), which he assimilated to the ethnic conflict in Rwanda and Burundi, making it clear that the Hema were Tutsis to be defended and that the Lendu were Hutus to be dominated or exterminated. The illiterate Tutsi general Jean Bosco Ntaganda (Terminator) was put in charge of doing the dirty work.

10. In 2013, Laurent Nkunda's CNDP, now the M23, launched a spectacular offensive from its base in Rwanda and even managed to conquer the capital of North Kivu Province (a province five times larger than Rwanda), the city of Goma. For once, the international community, through the UN and its MONUSCO force, agreed to set up a special brigade made up of troops from Tanzania, Namibia, and South Africa with the mission of driving out the M23. This group made up of Tutsi fighters from Rwanda, the DRC, and Uganda, retreated, some to Rwanda and others to Uganda.

11. It was in the wake of this provisional defeat of the M23 that the former President of Tanzania, who held the rotating presidency of the Conference of the Great Lakes Countries, proposed to all the governments of countries with rebellions operating in the DRC that they listen to their demands and, if necessary, resolve the problems through political dialogue. He specifically mentioned Paul Kagame's regime, which should listen to and dialogue with the FDLR, a group that Kagame always uses as a pretext to invade and occupy the DRC. Paul Kagame's response was immediate, undiplomatic, and scathing: he publicly threatened to kill Jakaya Kikwete, who at the time was the head of a neighboring state of Rwanda with a surface area of more than 940,000 km2 and a population of 60 million. Never seen in the diplomatic history of the world!

12. 2013-2017. Paul Kagame will take advantage of this moment of political uncertainty in the DRC following the preparations for the post-Kabila-son era to reactivate the claim or rather the seizure by the Congolese Tutsis, henceforth known under the nickname of "Banyamulenge", of the territories belonging to other tribes by driving them out and killing their traditional chiefs (the Bami). The emblematic case is that of the grouping or commune known as "Minembwe" in South Kivu, which the Banyamulenge claim for themselves, whereas in the DRC there has never been a language or dialect known as "Kinyamulenge" or a "Munyamulenge" traditional chief in the history of the Congo.

13. In 2018, Felix Tshisekedi came to power in the DRC under obscure circumstances. The new president of the DRC having been told that it was thanks to the endorsement of Paul Kagame that he was able to pass, once installed in the presidential chair, would redouble his zeal to satisfy his fearsome little neighbor to the East, Paul Kagame. His advisers would suggest that he do everything to convince the same Kagame spectrum that he, Tshisekedi, is more submissive than his predecessor Kabila-son.

14. 2018-2019. Decapitation and dismantling of what was left of the FDLR by the new Tshisekedi regime.

To strike a blow, the secret services of the Western Powers behind Kagame provided intelligence to locate and access the shelters of the FDLR High Command. Tshisekedi simply allowed Kagame's Special Forces to enter the DRC and kill the FDLR's Commander-in-Chief, General Sylverstre Mudacumura, and to play up the images in the media, attributing the hit to the FARDC as a gesture of goodwill to Kagame in eliminating his enemies. In the aftermath, dozens of other FDLR civilian and military cadres were arrested and handed over to Paul Kagame, who intends to make them say anything before eliminating them.  In short, these first years of Tshisekadi's mandate are the most humiliating for the Congolese people in relation to Paul Kagame, but above all, disastrous for the Bantu peoples of the region and the Hutu refugees in the DRC in particular.

15. March 2022. Tshisekedi, either misguided or a visionary, allowed the Ugandan army to enter the DRC to hunt down the Ugandan-origin ADF rebellion that has been raging in North Kivu and Ituri for the past 20 years. Paul Kagame, always on the lookout and advised by his masters, jumps at the opportunity to demand entry into the DRC to hunt down the FDLR, knowing full well that he and his friend Tshisekadi had claimed to have annihilated them!

16. May 2022: The M23 rises from its ashes and conquers positions located more than 20 km inside the DRC from the border with Rwanda. Once again, the capital of North Kivu, the city of Goma, is threatened to be reconquered by the resurrected M23 because the fighting is located less than 10 km from the center of the city and the main supply route, the Goma-Rumangabo-Rutshuru-Butembo and/or Bunagana road, is cut off by the M23.

Alas, the Congolese president Tshisekadi, whom the Rwandans mockingly call "Gisekeramwanzi", has once again gone down a step to kneel before Paul Kagame. Indeed, Kagame, who had not reported the capture of his soldiers in the DRC before the Congo itself reported it, took the opportunity to ask for their immediate and unconditional release and their return to Rwanda.  On June 1, 2022, President Tshisekedi complied and ordered the release and handover of these soldiers to Kagame. Even if some analysts consider this a wise decision, the fact remains that he not only surprised and astonished the command of his army in North Kivu, but also the mechanism of the Conference of the Great Lakes States, which in these missions, it is to him that the DRC had to hand over these prisoners of war for an appropriate follow-up.

Serious errors and criminal attitudes of the Western Powers that created and support the dictator Paul Kagame

1. The serious errors and appreciations of these Western Powers are those consisting in considering:

- That the Great Lakes Region in Africa would be like the Middle East of Asia.

- That the territories covering Rwanda, Burundi, and the East of the DRC would be Palestine.

- That the current Rwandan state would be the Israel of this region.

- That the Tutsis would be the Jews of the region.

1. Having concluded that their beliefs are false, these Powers have concluded that:

- The Tutsi state personified by Paul Kagame must be over-armed so that it can militarily defeat any neighboring (Arab - Bantu) state, as Israel can do in the Middle East.

- To assure him impunity by turning a blind eye to his violations of human rights and international law.

- Impose dogmas on anyone who talks about this situation and taboo subjects that should never be discussed in-depth (Shoah = Tutsi genocide).

3. These powers and lobbies go astray by wanting to play too much on the lightness and legendary corruption of the political class in the DRC.

But by pulling too hard on the rope, it risks breaking! And this is how some Congolese by whole communities start to become aware that political posts or military ranks are not worth their honor and their cultural heritage and especially their soul.

4. Finally, these Western Powers neglect and completely marginalize majorities in the Middle East and African Palestine, which is the Great Lakes Region in Africa.  Thus:

- Even in Rwanda, the Hutus and Twa are and will remain the majority in this non-Tutsi state unlike Israel, which is officially a Jewish state. Rwanda could not be considered a "Tutsi state" as opposed to the Jewish state of Israel.

- In North Kivu and Ituri, the Hutu, the Nande, the Hunde, the Lendu... will remain in the majority even if they are under the yoke of the Tutsis.

- In South Kivu the Bembe, the Bashi, the Bafulelo, etc. will remain in the majority even when the Tutsi Banyamulenge take over the land of their ancestors.

- In Burundi, the Hutu and Twa remained the majority even under the rule of the Tutsi.

- Even in Uganda, the Baganda, the Bafumbira, the Langi, the Basoga, the Bakiga, the Bagisu, the Lugbara, etc. remained the majority even under and after the long reign of the Hima-Banyankole personified by Joweri Museveni and his heir and son Muhozi Kainerugaba.

In short, all these Bantu peoples should not be assimilated to the "Arabs of the Middle East" who should therefore absorb and integrate the Palestinians who are the Rwandan Hutus, leaving Rwanda to the Tutsis alone to make it a Tutsi state, as the creators of the Jewish state of Israel conceived in 1948. And even then, the process failed because it was unrealistic.

In conclusion

This draft analysis of the destabilization of the Great Lakes region of Africa constitutes first a reaction of revolt vulgarly called "outburst" launched against the pyromaniac firemen that are the Western Powers and the Organizations supposed to promote peace and ensure it worldwide. By creating the monster Kagame and giving him green light to kill in Rwanda and ravage the region and by giving him the means to do so and especially by guaranteeing him impunity, the Western Powers and the UN are for us the worst cynical pyromaniacs. It is also a question of warning these powers that History is watching them and that the people subjected to their false analyses, whether in Rwanda, the DRC, or Burundi, observe and write down everything.

At the same time to tell the elites of the peoples of the region who have suffered for 30 years from this injustice, not to be discouraged but to work hard each one in their expertise field, to call out to the firemen-pyromaniacs (the Western Powers and their thing the UN) that they were mistaken in betting on Paul Kagame. To tell them that what this criminal offers them or allows them, the people he crushes can offer them at least double if not more. But to tell them that they can redeem themselves by abandoning and condemning Kagame's dictatorship, instead of persevering in the error because of a saying that goes: "Errare Humanum Est, Perseverare Diabolicum".

Finally, to let these powers know that it is enough for them to withdraw their blind and cynical support to the dictator Paul Kagame to redeem themselves before History and especially before the peoples of the Great Lakes region who have been suffering from this error for three decades.