Monday, October 21, 2013
Kinshasa "Residents of the Republic" breathed a long sigh of relief when the
auspicious news of the collapse of what the capital city's daily Le
Potentiel called the never-ending "merry-go-round of Kampala talks."
I borrow the expression "Residents of the Republic"--from the French
"Résidents de la République"--aptly coined by the late French songster Alain
Bashung to describe Congolese "patriots" in contradistinction to M23
"terrorists" (Le Potentiel) who I personally like to call "Rwandan proxies
of M23" or "doppelganger anticitizens," a phrase lifted from the essay
"Naturing the Nation" by Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff. But, behind and
beyond M23 terrorists, obviously lurks Paul Kagame--with his crazy scheme of
land grab in parts of the North Kivu Province of the DRC.
That this long-held scheme of the Rwandan President brooked no compromise
could be seen through the reckless, cavalier attitude of his M23 minions at
the negotiating table in Kampala. And their attitude was all the more
maddening to Residents of the Republic as the Congolese government is
footing all the hotel bills of M23 delegates as well as paying their
outrageous stipends at Kampala! It therefore goes without saying that the
collapse of these talks is most welcome news to folks here in Kinshasa.
The role of western countries (in the guise of the ubiquitous entity known
as the "international community)--chief among them the United States--is
also (mis)construed by the Congolese as supportive of Kagame's land grab
objective, which is universally referred to in the DRC with the dreadful
B-word of "Balkanization."
And, as it turns out, the State Department has to blame former Assistant
Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson for what will undoubtedly prove
to be the longest lasting misunderstanding of the American diplomacy in the
DRC.
During a presentation at the Brookings Institution titled "Finding a Lasting
Solution to Instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo" made on
February 21 of this year, Ambassador Carson said:
"Clearly, a sophisticated and internationally-backed solution is the only
way forward. We were able to achieve such a solution to end the conflict in
the former Yugoslavia through the Dayton Accords. We were able to end
Africa's longest running civil war, the conflict in Sudan, through the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement that was negotiated by the IGAD states and
supported by the United States, Norway, and Great Britain. A similarly
energetic and international effort is now required for the DRC."
As the "sophisticated and internationally-backed solution" to conflicts in
Yugoslavia and Sudan implied the partition of those states, the Le
Potentiel's editorial mentioned hitherto takes Amb. Carson's
suggestion--which it quotes at length, by the way--to mean that the US
objective in the region is to break up or to "balkanize" the DRC--or, to
quote the article, "the hypothesis of bartering a part of the national
territory for peace."
In any event, something new and scary has emerged this time around in the
long-drawn cycle of Rwandan-fueled "rebellions" followed by peace
negotiations and integrations of erstwhile rebels into the Congolese
national army and government.
It's the chilling realization that Rwanda has finally come out in the open
to lay claim to vast swaths of the Congolese borderlands where, through its
M23 proxies, it hopes to set up a "heterotopia"--a space of exclusive ethnic
alterity, the mirror image of the tyrannical ethnic dictatorship across the
border.Hence, the ongoing "soft" ethnic cleansing in territories held by
M23.
In July, for example, Human Rights Watch reported that, "M23 rebels have
summarily executed at least 44 people and raped at least 61 women and girls
since March 2013 in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo." Since then M23
have upped the ante by looting and burning entire villages and by imposing
forced labors of foxhole digging upon civilians in territories under their
control, thus recently triggering the mass displacement of unwanted ethnic
groups.
Emerging Sunday from the stalled Kampala talks, DRC Foreign Minister Raymond
Tshibanda said:
"We are still ready as the delegation of the [DRC] government to continue
this effort because we think that the quest for peace shall be a permanent
and sustained effort."
But Kinois in the streets and in sidewalk bars of the Congolese capital,
who've been spoiling for a fight for quite some time, are now keeping their
fingers crossed for an all-out no-holds-barred apocalyptic war with M23 and
Rwanda!
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"
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