Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

DÉMENTI CONTRE LES PROPOS EHONTÉS DE Mr. VINCENT BIRUTA, MINISTRE RWANDAIS DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES

COMMUNIQUE DE PRESSE No 004/2022 DES FDLR.

1. Les Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda, FDLR en sigle, réfutent catégoriquement les propos mensongers et éhontés tenus à Kigali par le Ministre rwandais des affaires étrangères, le Dr Vincent Biruta à l'occasion de la conférence de presse du 11 Août 2022 sanctionnant la fin de la visite du Secrétaire d'État américain, Mr Antony Blinken, propos selon lesquels « les FDLR sont la cause principale de l'instabilité dans la Région des Grands Lacs Africains ».

2. Il sied de rappeler à l'opinion nationale, régionale et internationale que les FDLR sont une Organisation émanant des réfugiés rwandais de 1994, rescapés d'un génocide planifié et exécuté par le Front Patriotique Rwandais (FPR-INKOTANY) et ses complices depuis la destruction des camps des réfugiés hutu rwandais installés à l'EST de la RDC en 1996 jusqu'à nos jours.

C'est à la suite d'un long calvaire qu'ont enduré ces réfugiés que les FDLR ont vu le jour, par nécessité de légitime défense et de protection de ces âmes abandonnées à leur triste sort et à la merci des tueurs du FPR-INKOTANYI qui ont juré leur extermination.

3. Les FDLR réaffirment avec fermeté qu'elles ne sont nullement la cause de l'insécurité et de l'instabilité dans la Région, mais qu'elles sont au contraire victimes de cette insécurité et instabilité causées et entretenues dans la Région par le régime hégémonique, expansionniste, terroriste, dictatorial et sanguinaire du FPR-INKOTANYI et son Président Paul KAGAME.

Les quelques faits ci-après, prouvent à suffisance la volonté affichée du FPR-INKOTANYI et son régime de déstabiliser la Région dans le cadre d'un agenda caché:

- L'invasion du Rwanda par le FPR-INKOTANYI en Octobre 1990 à partir de l'Ouganda ;

- L'attentat terroriste du 06 Avril 1994 par le FPR-INKOTANYI contre les Présidents Juvénal Habyarimana du Rwanda et Cyprien Ntaryamira du Burundi;

- La première invasion de la République Démocratique du Congo, RDC (ex-Zaïre) à la fin de 1996 par l'armée du FPR-INKOTANYI sous la couverture de l'Alliance des Forces Démocratiques de Libération (AFDL) pour chasser le Président Mobutu;

- La deuxième invasion de la RDC par l'armée du FPR-INKOTANYI en 1998 sous la couverture du Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD/GOMA);

- L'agression de la RDC par l'armée de Paul KAGAME en 2008 sous la couverture du Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP);

- L'agression de la RDC en 2012 par l'armée du FPR-INKOTANYI sous la couverture du Mouvement du 23 Mars (M23) ;

- La nouvelle agression de la RDC depuis Novembre 2021 par l'armée du FPR-INKOTANYI (RDF) sous la couverture du M23;

- La création et l'entretien des groupes armés proxies du régime du FPR-INKOTANYI par Kigali dans le but de déstabiliser les pays de la Région ;

- La tentative avortée du coup d'État de 2015 au Burundi ainsi que plusieurs manoeuvres de déstabilisation de ce pays par le régime du FPR-INKOTANYI depuis lors ;

- Les tentatives avérées de déstabilisation de l'Ouganda par le régime de Kigali qui ont conduit à la fermeture de leur frontière;

- Les menaces terroristes par Paul KAGAME contre l'ex-President tanzanien Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete;

- L'enlèvement et la séquestration par le régime de Kigali de Monsieur Paul Rusesabagina;

- De nombreux assassinats des réfugiés rwandais à travers le monde, mais surtout en Afrique Australe.

- La liste n'est pas exhaustive...

De ce qui précède, il n'y a pas à douter que l'insécurité et l'instabilité dans la Région sont l'œuvre délibérée du FPR-INKOTANYI et non celle des FDLR qui ont toujours milité pour le retour de la paix dans la Région des Grands Lacs Africains, par des voies pacifiques, à travers des offres de paix passant par des désarmements, des cantonnements de leurs Combattants et dépendants ainsi que des rencontres diplomatiques de haut niveau. Kigali a toujours saboté ces démarches.

4. Les FDLR invitent la Communauté Internationale à:

- Se libérer de l'emprise du mensonge, de la ruse et de l'hypocrisie du régime du FPR-INKOTANYI;

- Contribuer efficacement au retour de la paix dans la Région des Grands Lacs Africains ;

- Condamner et sanctionner le régime du FPR-INKOTANYI et ses complices pour leurs violations graves des droits humains et du Droit International.

Fait le 18 Août 2022.

CURE-NGOMA.
Commissaire à l'information et Porte-parole des FDLR

posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 9:24 PM 0 Comments

Trump and I can agree: The US is a “third-world country”.

The imperial hubris on display in the use of such lingo towards poorer nations can’t hide America’s failures.

By Belén Fernández
AL JAZEERA
Opinions | Inequity

A homeless man sits near the New York Stock Exchange, where many of the world's wealthiest companies are listed [Reuters]

Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, chimed in on Twitter with the assessment: “This is what you see happen in 3rd World Banana Republics!!!” Never mind that the FBI’s seizure of secret documents does not fit the “corruption” bill quite as well as some other characteristics of American democracy: say the fact that non-taxpaying billionaires can be president or that the country is run as a crooked, oligarchic corporatocracy.

This is not the first time Trump has likened the US to a “third-world country”, which was also his epithet of choice when he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden. But Trump & Co are not the only members of the US ruling elite to exercise this vocabulary. The January 2021 attack on the US Capitol prompted a surge in pejorative “third world” and “banana republic” comparisons from everyone from Biden to George W Bush, former US leader and civilized ravager of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Indeed, it is impossible to understate the bipartisan imperial hubris that is on display in the casual deployment of such lingo. By implicitly and unironically mocking underdeveloped nations, the US political establishment appears to have conveniently forgotten the country’s historical role in creating the “banana republic” phenomenon in the first place — and in ensuring that the “third world” remains, you know, “third”.

The term “banana republic” was coined in 1904 by American writer O Henry about the Central American nation of Honduras, which, like neighboring Guatemala, was an early victim of predatory US capitalism and corporate exploitation. The economic and physical wellbeing of the inhabitants of such lowly nations was naturally of no concern to the hemispheric behemoth, which ensured its unfettered access to regional resources by backing right-wing coups, bloody civil wars, corrupt dictatorships, and death squads — in other words, stuff that was slightly more devastating than an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.

The Cold War, of course, provided a handy alibi for US-backed killing worldwide, from Nicaragua to Angola — while also spawning the “third-world” designation that would go on to accrue patronizing connotations. Once the communist menace had been replaced with the terrorist menace as the primary US excuse for lethal international interference, the remaining global superpower continued to extend a charitable hand to the impoverished “third world” — often via a form of corporate neocolonialism cast as “development”.

And while Trump’s recent tantrum about the US as a “broken, third-world” country can certainly be filed under the expansive category of Distastefully Kooky Things Trump Has Said, there is also an unintended element of truth to it. Like it or not, the US fits the third-world stereotype in many respects — and not just in terms of its oligarchic style of governance.

The US advertises itself as being at the vanguard of global “development”, but the nation’s healthcare, poverty, and other indicators suggest a policy of willful counter development instead. Back in 2017, Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, visited the US for two weeks. At the end of his trip, he stated how he found the country “exceptional in … ways that are shockingly at odds with its immense wealth and its founding commitment to human rights”.

Despite managing to spend more money on “national defense” than China, Russia, the United Kingdom, and a bunch of other big spenders combined, the US had some “40 million people” living in poverty amid glaring “contrasts between private wealth and public squalor”.

As Alston noted, the US was also “alone among developed countries” in insisting that human rights did “not include rights that guard against dying of hunger, dying from a lack of access to affordable healthcare, or growing up in a context of total deprivation”. So much for that line from the US Declaration of Independence about “inalienable” rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. It’s hard to pursue anything if you’re dead.

Speaking of death, infant mortality rates in the US are higher than in Cuba, an island that has spent more than 60 years under an asphyxiating US embargo. Trump himself imposed no fewer than 243 new sanctions against the Cubans — as punishment for their crime of pursuing national sovereignty over the “banana republic” model — and, for good measure, threw Cuba back on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Back in the land of the free, meanwhile, homelessness has reached ghastly levels unseen even in many “underdeveloped” countries, and the US has long maintained the highest incarceration rate in the world — although it may have recently been surpassed by El Salvador, another place where US support for “human rights” has involved backing right-wing state terror.

Such is the ironic nature of imperial power, it seems, that the global hegemon responsible for oppressing much of the third world must also keep a significant portion of its populace in third-world conditions.

As per Trump’s twisted logic, any attempt to hold him accountable for anything is evidence that the US is a “corrupt” and “broken, third-world” country. And while there’s no sense in wasting time on Trumpian delusion, we might nonetheless take the opportunity to recall that old saying about the broken clock — and to acknowledge that the US is definitively broken.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 5:01 PM 0 Comments

RDC: FREDDY MULUMBA, VICTIME DE LA PIEUVRE DE PAUL KAGAME

La Pieuvre de Kagame, ainsi a été surnommé le vaste et puissant réseau d'espionnage, de contrôle et pillage jamais déployé par James Kabarebe sur instructions de Paul Kagame, en République Démocratique du Congo.

Au cœur de ce réseau se trouve James Ndambo, un sujet Zambien très actif entre Johannesburg et Kinshasa, et qui a fait fortune dans l'aviation mais surtout dans le trafic de l'or avec la Biélorussie.

Arrivé au cœur de ce réseau par la faveur de James Kabarebe, M. James Ndambo est propriétaire de Africa Union Holdings Ltd basé en Afrique du Sud, un holding comprenant des compagnies subsidiaires dont Africa Union Financial Services (AUFS), Africa Union Commodity House (AUC), Africa Union Commodity Exchange (AUCE), Africa Union Broadband Services (AUBS), etc.

C'est l'intervention personnelle de Paul Kagame auprès de Joseph Kabila qui a permis à James Ndambo avec ses compagnies de pénétrer le marché congolais en 2018.

Le 26 mai 2018, AUFS va signer un Contrat BOT (Construire, Exploiter et Transférer) avec le Réseau de Télécommunications Satellites pour la réhabilitation du réseau Rénatelsat.

M. Emery Okundji se félicitera d'ailleurs de cet accord sans se douter un seul instant de l'agenda caché derrière cette scène.

Le 14 avril 2020, Paul Kagame instruit Déo Rugwiza, alors Directeur de la DGDA, anciennement OFIDA, d'accorder à AUFS le marché de la surveillance des frontières de l'Est de la RDC et d'une partie du Congo-central.

Avec la bénédiction de Rugwiza, M. James Ndambo installe ses bureaux au sein même du bâtiment officiel de la douane congolaise, l'immeuble qui abrite la DGDA.

Ses autres bureaux sont éparpillés à travers la Capitale Kinshasa pour servir non seulement de lieux de gestion de son vaste réseau des personnes ressources qui comprenant notamment des garçons de chambre des différents hôtels de la place, des serveuses, des prostituées, des associations estudiantines, des représentants de syndicats, des personnalités politiques, militaires et religieuses, mais ses bureaux, disions-nous, servent surtout de lieux de rencontre entre les membres du Tutsi-Power ainsi que de réception de ses invités étrangers.

Avec une savante mise en scène d'une spectaculaire saisie des matériels militaires "frauduleux" à la douane de Matadi, M. Yan Fumuatu, conseiller et ami personnel du Président Congolais, sera chargé par James Kabarebe d'obtenir directement de Félix Tshisekedi que les missions de AUFS s'étendent dorénavant à toutes les 9 frontières de la RDC.

M. James Ndambo, bénéficiant de l'assistance de son bras droit, Théophile Badoana, ainsi que du soutien de son allié Freddy Lokaso, conseiller de Félix Tshisekedi, jouit spécialement du statut de grand partenaire de la RDC.

Comme cela ne suffisait pas, James Ndambo, sur instructions de Paul Kagame, souhaite désormais mettre la main sur la toute puissante chaine nationale, la RTNC.

Le 9 septembre 2021, dans les locaux du Ministère de la communication et médias, un certain sujet "Kényan", sous une identité d'emprunt, "Stanly Ndetah", aka Stanley Ndeta Ndetah, aka Ndeh Stanley – qui du reste n'a aucun compte social sérieux – va se présenter en qualité de CEO, Chef Executif Officer de Africa Union Broadband Services, AUBS, une société subsidiaire de Africa Union Financial Services, AUFS, afin de proposer au Ministre Patrick Muyaya l'ouverture des négociations qui aboutiront à un partenariat pour, dit-il, accompagner son ministère dans la réforme de la RTNC.

Ce partenariat avec AUBS consistera à moderniser la RTNC sur 4 volets :

1. Volet infrastructure avec la réhabilitation et la construction des bâtiments qui abriteront les bureaux de la RTNC à l'Est du Congo ;

2. Volet technique qui concerne les matériels de diffusion, de production et de transmission ;

3. Volet programme avec des émissions qui viseront le changement de narratif à Kinshasa et dans les villes de l'Est du Congo en proie à des guerres ;

4. Volet ressources humaines.

Protestant contre cet accord jugé léonin et qui, vraisemblablement, va mettre en mal la souveraineté nationale, le DG ai de la RTNC, M. Freddy Mulumba, a été sans préavis, mardi 14 décembre 2021, démit de ses fonctions par son Ministre de tutelle, M. Patrick Muyaya qui a certainement reçu des instructions en faveur de ce nouveau deal.

Malgré les démentis de la honte de la SCPT, nous savons déjà que le Rwanda contrôle les communications numériques de la RDC, particulièrement dans sa partie Est, à partir des serveurs de la société rwandaise Axiom Network basée à Kigali.

Mais avec cette Pieuvre, Paul Kagame se rassure sur beaucoup des choses :

– La pénétration du domaine hautement stratégique de la communication et de la connectivité des institutions étatiques, l'armée, la police, les services auxiliaires, les privés et les citoyens ;

– Le contrôle des frontières de la RDC ;

– L'infiltration au Congo des unités armées, voire des mercenaires étiquetés terroristes, ainsi que des épuisements militaires ;

– Le pillage des minerais spéciaux ;

– La mise en œuvre du projet du grand remplacement et de la balkanisation du Congo.

Face à cet danger manifeste contre le Congo, nous proposons aux institutions de la République, le Sénat, le Ministère de la Justice, la DEMIAP et le Service du Contre-espionnage de l'ANR de diligenter, chacun en ce qui le concerne, des enquêtes sérieuses concernant le Réseau Pieuvre aux fins de le démanteler, de traduire ses membres en justice et d'expulser les autres.

De la même série:

Le ministre Patrick Muyaya suspend le DG a.i de la RTNC, Freddy Mulumba de ses fonctions.

posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 10:25 PM 0 Comments

The RPF mouthpiece's utterances on Secretary Blinken’s visit to Rwanda

By Veronique Mbaye
The New Times

Wednesday, August 17, 2022

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has just left Kigali.

The anticipated (by Congolese people) visit of the US Secretary of State to Rwanda regrettably began on August 11th. First on Antony Blinken’s agenda was an audience with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Blinken, likely as an intimidation attempt that doubled as pandering to our neighbors across lake Kivu, had claimed over the past few weeks that said the audience would involve raising “American concerns” over the detention of Paul Rusesabagina, whose resume includes terrorism, the extortion of Tutsi genocide survivors who sought refuge in his hotel from the genocidaires, and brazen plagiarism of Schindler’s List.

The strong-arming attempt failed, and Rwanda’s footing on Rusesabagina remained cemented into place. The terrorist is guilty; therefore, he will serve his sentence; something admittedly incomprehensible to Secretary of State Blinken: in his country, bombs are sent to murder terrorists (or leaders they find problematic – re: Gaddafi) in their homes beyond US borders and sovereignty.

But if Blinken was unaware that things work differently in Rwanda before his visit, I believe he has now been updated.

During his short stay, Blinken deployed a few interesting tricks.

Blinken arrived in Rwanda informed as we all are. He arrived at Urugwiro Village, the Rwandan Presidency, and later the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as brief as we all are, on the overwhelming evidence that the man he was to champion was a liar, a crook, and greedy enough to be lured into capture by the sight of a private jet and the offering of champagne.

He knew, for he has been made privy to the evidence against Rusesabagina, that the man he describes as “wrongfully detained”, is a crime that his own country ought to have assisted Rwanda in capturing, had they an ounce of the decency they simulate.

While he blamed a timing issue for his declining of a meeting with Rusesabagina’s victims, this intentional avoidance is merely a declaration of guilt.

Secretary Blinken is aware that he is guilty of demanding the release of a harmful criminal, which ought to be considered support of terrorism – an actual universal crime. You would think this alarming enough and yet...there was indeed worse to come.

I don’t think that the issue with the US top diplomat’s visit was the displaying of ignorance or even hypocrisy. Blinken’s actions were intentional, and the intentions in question are a mystery to none. The age of America convincing the world that their involvement in foreign affairs is purely morality-based is far and gone.

Whatever residue of faith persisted after George Bush lied about mass destruction weapons existing in oil-rich Iraq, as an excuse to invade the country and cause decade-long instability, was exhausted during the Barrack Obama years.

Obama, who ran a successful campaign by feigning an impeccable moral core (which I suppose Americans did want to see in him to prove they were not racist) positioned himself as anti-war, only to line the pockets of gun lobbyists and drop bombs on innocent Syrian children when elected.

As Antony Blinken will recall, having served as Obama’s close aide for years, the Obama Administration orchestrated the assassination of an African leader on African soil, despite the full awareness that it would send Libya and the entire region into deathly, dehumanizing turmoil.

So frankly, I am dazed and amazed that a single American, State official or not, would think their act convincing when claiming to have the interests of the Africans they so casually kill at heart.

As mentioned earlier, this is not the issue. The issue is that familiar as I may be with cowardice and shiftiness, on a man with so much power, it astounds me. It even terrifies me. What sort of person operates with so little...dignity?

Rwandans have seen firsthand the dangers of lacking dignity. To lack human dignity is to be one step away from tolerating one’s dehumanization, or the dehumanization of a brother. And once that tap is open, it can run endlessly, with blood.

Blinken stood in front of Rwandan journalists at a press conference at Minaffet and, in between misnaming the terrorist he claims to so badly want to defend and dancing around a question about meeting the survivors of Rusesabagina’s crimes, made his impatience with insistence on the facts around the terrorist’s guilt evident.

Then there are the double standards he shamelessly deployed at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where he purposely denied Tutsi Genocide victims the decency of acknowledging their history. He reduced a 100-day massacre that has been established by the UN and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda among others, as a Genocide with one distinct ethnic target, to mere ‘violence’.

To put this into perspective, to deem the Genocide Against the Tutsi to be random “violence” could be equated to calling the Holocaust “years of conflict”. An extermination attempt is not a conflict. It is the culmination of decades of ethnic hatred that should be addressed as such, to allow the victims to heal by establishing an accurate diagnosis of their wounding.

It also is the only means of preventing a reoccurrence of the disease; one cannot effectively manage their diabetes if convinced they have asthma. Blinken knows all this better than I do. So why would he intentionally refuse victims their right to healing, and to pre-94 cancer not re-emerging?

Well. For the same reason, he and the team that drafted the message he left at the memorial chose to use the right appellation for the horror his ancestry has known (“Holocaust”) right above the referral of the Tutsi Genocide as “violence”.

This reason is racism, and this time I’m afraid it is undebatable. Whoever drafted that message made, and of this, I am deeply convinced, the choice to remind us Africans that we do not deserve to have our humanity acknowledged on the same footing as that of white people.

What I wish those that strive to establish a ranking in human worth understood, is that they dishonor themselves more than they do their desired victims, by refusing to recognize our entitlement to common decency.

Blinken will come to Africa to defend the interests of people who likely believe that his ancestors did deserve gas chambers. neo-Nazis are marching through the streets of America with their chests held high. And victim as he may perceive himself to be, he has shown this past Kigali visit, that there is much less difference between those neo-Nazis and himself than he might think.

Fortunately, as H.E President Kagame stated, things don’t happen like this here. Try as “they” may, they will never re-spark the hate that led to the 94 blood spill. I suppose they’re going to have to find another way to justify or increase their presence in resource-rich Kivu but that’s a story for another day, I’m afraid.

The views expressed in this article are of the writer.

###

Part I:

Antony Blinken: nothing is as it seems in the African Great Lakes region

By Marc Hoogsteyns
The New Times
Friday, August 05, 2022

Next week the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Rwanda and Congo. As the tensions in the region are very high with an ongoing war in the Kivus between the M-23 rebels and the Congolese army, the UN forced MONUSCO on the defensive for not being efficient enough to deal with all these problems, and with all these problems and the growing criticism against Rwanda for having lured the Hollywood hero Paul Rusesabagina in a trap and having him condemned to 25 years behind bars this visit comes at a crucial moment.  Two days ago, members of a UN research group talked to colleagues of Reuters, and they showed them the so-called facts that the Rwandan army was directly involved with the M-23 rebellion north of Goma. This news was preceded by a Human Rights Watch paper in which Rwanda was also accused to support the M-23.  A lot of Congo watchers think that you’ll be traveling to this region to tap Rwanda on its fingers. This might help to solve the situation for a couple of months, but it would not solve the problem in the longer run. Nobody owns the truth in this matter, but we have the impression that the US and especially the US government are not well enough informed about this very complex crisis. Looking at it through sunglasses that were purchased on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard, taking the findings of a UN research group and an organization such as HRW for granted, and mainly listening to the small army of foreign diplomats and military attaches who are based in Kinshasa is not going to help either. Because your government might issue statements it might regret later. Rwanda is an important and one of the most reliable allies of the US in this region and the country is involved in the struggle against Muslim extremism in other African countries, in other countries on this continent they provide a counterbalance against the growing Russian (Wagner) influence on this continent. On top of that their arguments about what is happening in Rwanda and the DRC might also have validity. You’ll be walking on eggs when you visit this region, Mister Blinken. And we’ll try to give you the list of the most important obstacles you’ll have to pass to make it back to the States without holes in your pants.

• Your government calls the arrest and the trial of Paul Rusesabagina unjust and not fair. It seems to have a problem with the way the Hollywood hero was lured into a trap, flown back to Rwanda with his glass full of champagne, and arrested upon arrival.  Earlier on he had expressed himself openly on social media that he was heading the FNL, the so-called ‘National Liberation Front of Rwanda that wanted to chase President Kagame from power via an armed struggle. This group was formed in collaboration with other groups such as the FDLR and the so-called P5 (other opposition groups). The FDLR is an official terrorist organization, and this was even acknowledged by your administration. Rusesabagina was running this operation out of Texas, on American soil.  The Belgian police had passed on evidence to the Rwandan authorities to back up most of these facts. Your security and intel services were also fully informed but let this all happen.  In the meanwhile, Rusesabagina’s FNL started killing innocent people in the south of Rwanda and it became clear that his group played a key role in a lobby that wanted a regime change in Kigali. It is difficult to compare Rusesabagina’s actions with those of Osama Bin Laden, but the Rwandan authorities decided to cut off the grass in front of his feet to prevent further damage.  They trapped him and he was sentenced with more than 20 of his collaborators for his crimes.
   
• The Rwandan government already stated that Rusesabagina will stay where he is after you leave Rwanda. Others think that you should also first talk to his victims before you issue a new statement about this issue. If you want to punish the country for this (for not showing grace to Rusesabagina) the Rwandans will accept this, but they will not change their decision. Treating Rwanda simply as a bad and disobedient pupil in the classroom for the way they handle the Rusesabagina issue would be unwise: especially when the headmaster of the school is also engaged in even more dubious tactics to neutralize its opponents. But that seems to be normal because he’s the boss!
    
• Another hot issue Blinken will have to tackle during his visit is the situation in North Kivu where the M-23 is currently engaged in an open war with the Congolese army and gaining ground every day. Several sources such as the UN, HRW, and the Congolese government itself are accusing Rwanda to have a hand in this rebellion. More than 100 other rebel groups are present in this part of the DRC, and the Muslim ADF-Nalu and another group that calls itself CODECO are the most violent of them. Another destabilizing factor is the presence of the FARDC (Congolese army) itself as it has been proven numerous times that most of the weaponry used by all these militias comes from that source and most of the human rights abuses must be noted in their CV.   A recent report even showed that the M-23 even was among the less violent kids on the block in this area. But they are getting all the attention.
  
  
• The region witnessed two other Tutsi-led rebellions in the past: the first one was led by Laurent Nkunda and the second one by another former officer of the Rwandan army, Sultani Makenga. Both are Congolese Tutsi, and they took up arms to protect their families and their possessions after they came under threat from the Rwandan Hutu extremists that were used by the politicians and the presidents in Kinshasa to do their fighting. In each case, the government of Paul Kagame in Rwanda was accused by the local authorities to support these rebellions. And at that time Kigali was indeed closely involved.  The biggest reason why Kigali did this was to prevent the FDLR to infiltrate Rwanda. Under immense international pressure, Kigali put an end to its support for Makenga and Nkunda. In 2013 Makenga withdrew to Uganda where he and his men ended up in refugee camps. They had signed deals with the Congolese government to be reintegrated into the FARDC, with the guarantee that their relatives who were all staying in refugee camps in Rwanda could go back to their villages in eastern Congo. But these deals were never respected. So, in the end, the M-23 returned to Congo where they took up positions on the slope of a very difficult-to-attack volcano. From there they started to stage a small-scale guerrilla war to remind the central government about their previous promises. But that also failed: Kinshasa now started to brand them as a terrorist organization and refused to talk to them.  
  
  
• The relationship between the M-23 and the Rwandan government is very easy to explain but sometimes also very difficult to understand for outsiders. Both are very much Tutsi orientated and many Congolese Tutsis have relatives in Rwanda. Others obtained Rwandan citizenship over the years but still feel Congolese. Many officers within the M-23 started their careers in the Rwandan army, fought other wars in Congo for other organizations, and finally ended up in the rebel group of Laurent Nkunda and/or Sultani Makenga. Recruits were easily found in the refugee camps in Rwanda and Uganda. The fact that the M-23 was able to regain strength came hand in hand with the fact that the Ugandans, who were engaged in a political standoff with the Rwandan government started to re-equip the FDLR in Congo. When Rwanda and Uganda settled their differences, this support stopped but the M-23 and the other remaining Tutsis in Congo were forced to defend themselves. They raided FARDC weapon stocks and were able to stage more attacks.  To describe this whole story in detail would be very complex and nearly un-understandable for many outsiders. But the whole situation evolved into what we see today: the FARDC was no match for the better-motivated M-23 who received moral support from the whole Tutsi community in Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. Some Congolese Tutsi families had sons under arms in the RDF (Rwandan army) and others in the M-23. Others were demobilized after a 5-year long tour of duty in the RDF and went straight to the M-23 to fight the FARDC and the FDLR. Being Congolese Tutsis, this was a natural thing for them to do.
  
  
• What the international community also fails to understand is the fact that Rwanda remained under threat from the beginning in 1994 until now. A lot of prominent genocidaires escaped to Congo and Europe and started to reorganize themselves. But the contacts with the Hutu extremists in the DRC and Burundi were also kept warm. The idea behind this was to lure Rwanda into a bigger and open war again in the DRC or Burundi. Paul Rusesabagina’s FNL was to play a leading role in all this. As he was very famous, he seemed well fit for his role, but he was also very weak. For the people who manipulated him into the conviction that he could become the new leader of Rwanda, he is now more useful as a martyr in jail.  Add to that the ongoing distrust between Uganda and Rwanda, the fact that Rwanda is developing economically at a steady pace, and that this is provoking a lot of jealousy. The fact that the new Rwandan model also became an example for other African countries who started to call upon Kagame to stabilize their own countries was not always well greeted by the bigger foreign nations. On top of that Kagame was also known to tell these bigger countries to take a hike when they were trying to impose things on him, which he didn’t like. Rwanda cannot be described as a classic example of an African democracy that bends over to the superpowers to jump back in line if needed. The human rights situation in Rwanda is much better than the ones in the surrounding countries.  But the country keeps being bashed by organizations such as HRW and opposition groups abroad who were able to bury their genocidaire past and who are not hiding behind, for them, new principles such as democracy and respect for human rights. At the same time, they were the ones who taught the Congolese how to accuse the Tutsi community of all the mishaps and disasters in their country. Very often to cover up their crimes, their corruption, and their incapacity to solve the problems themselves. Congolese politicians master the art of political and hypochondriac warfare better than anyone else. Instigating hatred and manipulating the audience is part of this strategy. Kinshasa is on the other side of the African continent and very few diplomats in that city understand the true nature of the events in the Kivu.
  
  
• What we can say about possible military involvement of the RDF in North Kivu is the fact that the Rwandan army largely stayed out of the country. As the FDLR and other extremist Hutu groups continue to be at risk for the stability of Rwanda we think that it is not more than normal that the RDF is keeping a couple of fingers on the Congolese pulse. Especially now that the same FDLR has become a part of the Congolese army and that nobody is decently contesting this. The RDF is present in big numbers on the Rwandan side of the border and could stop the ongoing war in Congo in a couple of days if they would be allowed to intervene, but they didn’t do that. That’s the reason why it would be interesting to see the evidence on the UN based on its recent statements. It is also a fact that the image of the UN recently took a big blow during the anti-UN riots in the province. Was this the reason why these statements were released now? Politicians in Kinshasa were frotting their hands with these new elements. In the same statements, the UN staff confirmed that it was the attacks of the M-23 that instigated all the problems that followed. A bit of extra nuance and explanations might also have been useful in this case. The organization wanted to throw this on the table before the arrival of Blinken. For now, it only looks like a clever move to shovel the responsibility of this mess entirely back into the boots of the Rwandans.
  
  
• The region of the African Great Lakes is not a priority any longer for the US. It took the Biden administration more than one year to have a new ambassador in place in Kigali and some insiders openly doubt that this person lacks the diplomatic weight to grasp the complexity of the situation. President Obama had a very intelligent guy like Thomas Perriello who roamed the region nearly full time to mediate and talk with all the protagonists on the spot. President Trump probably never heard of Rwanda or the Congolese Kivus. Joe Biden only seems to listen to the Hollywood lobby that is trying to get Rusesabagina out of jail and only sends a man like Blinken to the region to try to counter recent Russian charm offensives. Before making controversial statements about the fact that the Hollywood hero will remain in jail for his crimes and before putting more oil on the fire of those who are trying to put the responsibility for the plagues that keep on hitting Congo the American government might better think twice. Rwanda has the only army in this part of the world that is worth that name, it has always been on the side of the US, but that attitude might change. With a guy like Donald Trump still in the spotlight to run for a new presidency, with a war in Ukraine still raging on that is of lesser interest for most of Africans than Washington thinks Blinken might make a big mistake for being too outspoken. The credibility of the American foreign policy in this region is at stake and only by studying and judging these problems correctly can be maintained. If the Americans are not willing to do this, it might be better for them to shut up! In case Rwanda will come under attack from different sides it will react like Israel and fight back. Rwandans are reasonable people, and they are always open to valuable arguments but if you tell them that they don’t have to right to protect themselves they’ll block. The same goes for the Tutsi community in the DRC: 25 years ago, there were more than 120.000 of them living in that part of the country. Today that number has dwindled to not even 10.000 souls who are constantly at risk. The Congolese refugees want to go back home and reclaim their lands and their houses and this time the M-23 will not leave before putting up a serious fight. And if they lose that war they’ll be back in a couple of years.

In a firefight, it is always advisable to look first for cover, to try to know where the bullets come from, who’s shooting at you, and to determine the kind of ammo they are using and base your counterattack on that info. In this case, the recce done on the spot by Blinken’s collaborators is very bad. He should consider this before he acts.

Marc Hoogsteyns is a free-lance journalist who lived and worked most of his life in the African Great Lakes Region. He covers Countries especially DR Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. He runs Kivu Press Agency and is accessible on @MarcHoogsteyns.

The views expressed in this article are of the writer.

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posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 9:36 PM 0 Comments

Attaque des Triple i sur le Président du Burundi

Evariste Ndayishimiye

Récemment, le Président du Burundi et Président en exercice de l'East African Community a affimé que l'apparition d'une communauté, tribu ou ethnie appellée “ Banyamulenge” datait tout au plus de 1996.

Réagissant au propos du Président Evariste Ndayishimiye, un activiste et propagandiste du régime de Kagame et agent des services de renseignements du FPR/APR, l'armée monoethnique tutsi du Rwanda, a reproduit des tweets se moquant et même menaçant le Chef de l'Etat du Burundi. C'est sous le titre “Neva entre dans la danse” que ce propagandiste tutsi, a étalé les réactions souvent mêlées d'insultes au propos du Président Ndayishimiye, en Français et en Anglais.

Pourtant, le Président du Burundi Evariste Ndayishimiye a tout à fait raison et il n'est pas le premier à dénoncer la supercherie sur le mythe des “Banyamulenge”. Des politologues, ethnologues, antropologues et des historiens qui ont plaché sur ce concept “Banyamulenge” apparu en 1996, ont été uninimes dans sa démystification. Celui qui en a parlé le plus profondément et qui a publié des manuels qui font autorité sur ce mythe c'est feu Honoré Ngbanda Nzambo Ko Atumba  ancien Conseiller Spécial du Président, Ministre de la Défense et ancien Chef du Service des Rensignements du Zaire. Il fut aussi Président-Fondateur du parti le plus nationaliste du pays: APARECO.

Comme l'ont démontré les chercheurs, historiens, le vocable “Banyamulenge” est apparu dans l'opinion et la presse en octobre 1996 quand l'armée de Paul Kagame qui venait de conquérir le Rwanda, a entamé sa deuxième mission, à savoir conquérir le Zaire. C'est ainsi que les combattants tutsi dont ses commanditaires (USA, UK, Belgique) venaient de présenter comme une nébuleuse AFDLCongo-Zaire et à leur tête Laurent Désiré Kabila déniché à Dar-Es -Sallam, ont lancé pour justifier la conqueête notamment du Sud Kivu  (Bukavu et localités diverses) comme une révolte d'une ethnie appelée” Banyamulenge” qui estimait avoir été opprimée sous le régime du Maréchal Mobutu.

Tout cela pour dissimiler leur identité de “Tutsi” comme si elle leur faisait honte. Mais ce faisant les inventeurs du terme “Banyamulenge” pour ne pas dire clairement les Tutsi; se sont ridiculisés et continuent à l'être car cette supercherie ne résiste devant aucune logique sociologique ou historique surtout au Congo ou cohabitent plus de 400 (quatre cents) communautés, tribus ou ethnies différentes.

Ainsi:

–        Ceux qui se disent “Banyamulenge” depuis 1996, ne peuvent pas prouver que dans tout le Congo, il a existé ou existe une région ou un royaume, un territoire appelé “Mulenge”.

–        Ils ne peuvent pas affirmer que leur langue maternelle pratiquée de parents à enfants est le “ Kinyamulenge” qui n'a jamais été pratiqué au Congo-Zaire.

–        Il ne peuvent pas dire quelle dynastie régnante chez les soi-disants Banyamulenge et comment les Bami ou Chefs coutumiers actuels se sont succédés. Ce que chaque tribu ou communauté au Congo possède et qui fonde son histoire et son identité.

Les Bafulelo, les Bashi, les Babembe... au Sud Kivu ont tous leurs Mwami et dont l'arbre généalogique est connu et même enseigné aux jeunes. Au Nord Kivu les hutu majoritaires dans Rutshuru scandent à qui veut les entendre que le nom dynastique de leur Mwami est Ndeze. De même pour le Hunde de Masisi dont le nom dynastique du Mwami est Kalinda. A Minova au Sud de Goma au bord du Lac Kivu règne un Mwami qui s'appelle Sangara de père à fils. Il en est de même pour les Nande majoritaires dans la région de Butembo et Beni...

–        Bien plus, c'est après leur apparition comme l'une des trubus congolaises faisant la guerre dans l'AFDL et leur médiatisation durant la guerre qui a chassé le Maréchal Mobutu pour le remplacer par Laurent Désiré Kabila, qu'ils abandonneront l'appellation de “tutsi originaires du Rwanda ayant acquis la nationalité zairoise-congolaise”. Et en mai 1996 quand un tutsi rwando-ougandais James Kabarebe deviendra Chef d'Etat-Major des Armées Congolaises à Kinshasa, d'autres tutsi sous le nouveau label de “Banyamulenge” se partageront des postes importants au nouveau gouvernement. Sans parler des centaines de “Généraux, Colonels, Majors...” Banyamulenge qui furent intégrés dans les Forces Armées de la RDC.

Ainsi, un certain Bizima Karaha sera Ministre des Affaires Etrangères; Azarias Ruberwa, Ministre de l'Intérieur et de la Décentralisation, puis Vice-Présdient de la République; Moise Nyarugabo, Ministre, gouverneur puis Député national. Or ces “mystérieux Banyamulenge” qui se disent descendants des ancêtres du même nom qui auraient vécu au Congo depuis des siècles, étaient arrivés au Congo au début des années 1960 comme “des réfugies tutsi rwandais demandeurs d'asile”. Le Bizima Karaha qui était encore étudiant en médecine en Afrique du Sud en 1996, était encore boursier du HCR. Même le plus ancien que lui Azarias Ruberwa avait pu entrer à la Faculté de Droit de l'Université de Lubumbashi grâce au HCR comme réfugié tutsi rwandais au Zaire. Les données sur son identification sont du domaine public et sont consultables dans les archives de l'Université de Lubumbashi. On se demande alors comment les descendants d'une tribu congolaise connue depuis des siècles puissent être subitement dans les années 60-70 devenir des demadeurs l'asile dans le même pays en se disant “réfugiés tutsi rwandais” et être reconnus par le HCR comme tels.

Et maintenant ces mêmes anciens réfugiés tutsi rwandais, se réclament d'une ethnie qu'ils ont créée en 1996 à laquelle ils ont donné le nom de “Banyamulenge”! 

Note :
"Neva" : Abréviation pour «Ndayishimiye Evariste»

"Triple i" : Pseudonyme pour « Inyenzi-Inkotanyi-Intore»

posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 9:51 PM 0 Comments