Banking on mutual trust and cooperation with DRC has proven to be a frustrating affair, as successive governments there have continued to exhibit a bipolar personality. No matter how many times Rwanda has gone the extra mile to show good neighborliness, it only gets a bad deal in return. At times, Rwanda has had to bend over backward to show utmost goodwill, but always to no avail.
The Congolese are their own worst enemy, both by commission and omission. As such, they end up being the problem of others. First and foremost, DR Congo leaders seat in the distant capital Kinshasa and have long struggled to make the Congolese state’s presence and authority felt in most of the rest of the country. Building civilian institutions is crucial. So is a more serious push to reform DRC’s corrupt security forces. Kinshasa shows no will for that.
The absence of state control has invited myriad armed groups to freely assemble and organize attacks aimed at destabilizing both DRC and its neighbors. The problem is compounded by the disinclination of Congo to work with her neighbors to uproot insecurity from their territory.
Matters are further complicated by the Congolese’ blame games. Rwanda faces an existential threat from remnants of forces that committed genocide against the Tutsi and fled to Eastern Congo to reorganize and return. Since then, Rwanda has tried all diplomatic means available to convince the successive DRC governments to cooperate, but always in vain.
The reluctance by the Congo Government to cooperate for the last 30 years while blaming everyone else but themselves is just an unfortunate fact of life. The multitudes of armed groups on Congolese territory has led to the exponential growth of the threat of insecurity which has adversely affected Congolese nationals of the Eastern parts of the country.
M23 is a direct consequence of the reluctance to practice due diligence by the successive Congolese leaderships for the last 30 years, and grant each and every Congolese citizen their full rights.
Also, the current conflict is a result of the failure to take control right from the beginning when armed ex-FAR and Interahamwe, fresh from committing genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, were allowed to cross with their arms and settle in Congo. From there, they were given freedom to re-organize, with an aim so relaunch attacks into Rwanda to finish their genocidal agenda.
The Interahamwe and ex-FAR who progressively morphed into FDLR are like the proverbial camel that asked to be allowed to shelter only its head in someone’s tent, but as time went by, it forced the entire body into the tent.
But the Congolese authorities have always be complicit in that.
It is plain buffoonery to turn around, and blame Rwanda for all the misfortunes that have resulted.
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