President Kagame’s speech at the annual diplomatic lunch in Kigali has made waves on social media. But while the DRC made up the bulk of Kagame’s speech, it was only the centre piece of his demonstration of the West’s long-standing hypocrisy in dealing with the crisis in eastern Congo. And reading the recent statements from Western capitals and the numerous reports of the UN Group of experts, one gets the impression that there is a determination in those corners to take Rwanda for another ride, while ensuring that the seeds of conflict remain unattended. The strategy of the West and the UN experts on its payroll seems to be: “Let’s keep doing the same silly things and this time, we promise, the outcome will be different”. Judging by Kagame’s speech, Rwanda will not be having any of it. Not this time.
By early 2003, Rwanda had completed the withdrawal of its troops from the DRC. Then the UN peacekeeping force in Congo, working alongside the Congolese government forces (FARDC), was to take on the FDLR and other negative forces and neutralise them once and for all. That, at least, was the deal. More than two decades later, UN troops have not carried out a single military operation against the FDLR, the most important destabilising factor in DRC-Rwanda relations and a key factor in fomenting insecurity in eastern DRC. Think about that. Not one military operation against the FDLR in 22 years!
Interestingly, in 2012, the UN mission in Congo was quick to form and deploy a Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) to neutralise a mutiny led by Congolese army officers, born under the moniker March 23 Movement (also known as M23). Again, to avoid accusations of double standards, the UN reiterated promises to neutralise the FDLR as well. UN officials went on record asserting that MONUSCO was preparing military operations to deal a decisive blow to the FDLR. Soon, however, FDLR backers in the corridors of the UN’s offices in New York raised humanitarian concerns about FDLR dependents whom, they argued, would be caught in the crossfire. The operations were abandoned.
The FDLR went on to establish control over large areas of Rutshuru and Masisi in North Kivu. According to the UN’s own confidential reports, by 2014 the FDLR was generating $71 million a year from the illegal trade in timber, hemp, illegal fishing, poaching and gold mining, which enabled them to launch deadly incursions into Rwanda. Apparently, it was more important for the UN mission and Western capitals to defend the human rights of FDLR dependents than those of Congolese living under FDLR rule, those who had fled and were languishing in refugee camps in neighbouring countries, and those of Rwandans who live under the threat of terrorist attacks, some of whose lives have been brutally ended during FDLR raids.
So, when the UN panel of experts on the crisis in the DRC and the US State Department and EU statements on the same issue all call for the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from Congolese territory before the FDLR is neutralised, they are essentially playing the Rwandans for fools. Ironically, the same UN panel’s mid-year report raises the same old humanitarian concerns about any military action against the FDLR, de facto undermining the Luanda process which had reached agreement on this issue, and clearly suggesting that MONUSCO’s non-aggression pact with the FDLR will be renewed.
Yet, for some mysterious reason, Western officials expect Rwanda to play along with their geopolitical calculations that have cost the region thousands of lives, to bear the burden of forever hosting Congolese refugees who are determined to go home, and even to take the blame for an unaccountable UN intervention that has failed to create the conditions for the refugees to return. To these expectations, President Kagame responded: “We are not the same fools you dealt with 50 years ago,” a disdainful reference to servile African leaders who usually acquiesce to Western dictates even when their countries’ vital interests are at stake.
Today, the DRC government has integrated the FDLR into its military coalition alongside a host of armed Congolese militias and European mercenaries who enjoy immunity from scrutiny that their Russian counterparts operating elsewhere in Africa have not enjoyed. The FDLR can recruit and train new fighters under the protection of the DRC army. It has received new equipment and public assurances from the DRC president that the next step, after defeating the M23, is to march on Kigali and bring about regime change. The same idiot has invited genocide convicts who have completed their sentences and are now living in Niger to seek refuge in the DRC, while his government officials publicly engage in genocide denial. At this point, any talk of withdrawing Rwandan troops before neutralising these threats is not just diplomacy as usual; it is an endorsement of Kinshasa’s thinly-veiled genocidal project.
And President Kagame is telling the West who threatens sanctions against Rwanda: “Maybe this is one way of wiping Rwanda off the map, because we will not yield an inch. Never.”