A few weeks ago, a colleague joked that the AFC/M23 had also become “minor skirmish” (in reference to the Congolese president Felix Tshisekedi’s remarks threatening to attack Rwanda, bomb Kigali if there was a minor skirmish in Kivu).
Lately AFC/M23 coalition had been spending their time denouncing the bombings by Congolese army drones on their positions, using the same pleonastic formula dear to the Congolese: “We hereby informing both national and international opinion…”, for months, to which the Congolese army spokesman ironically replied: “We are not in church, we are at war…”, thus disregarding the ceasefire agreements that his government had just signed.
M23 seems to have held him to his word! We’re not in church indeed, and the AFC/M23 aren’t choirboys. For fear of becoming “Kinois” (Kinshasa socialites) the M23 decided to stop whining and go silence the drones from whence they came, in order to protect its positions and those of the surrounding civilian areas.
No country has forced Kinshasa to negotiate with the M23.
It should be noted that it was Kinshasa that asked the Qataris and the Americans for help, and not the other way around. From the outset of the conflict, the M23, then controlling the modest village of Sarambwe on the border with Uganda, requested talks with the Congolese government, an offer they immediately rejected.
As the M23 advanced and liberated territory, Kinshasa would agree to negotiations, then back out, and so on. “Nairobi,” “Luanda”—all mechanisms proposed by the Congolese government, accepted by Rwanda, then by the M23, and systematically sabotaged by Kinshasa.
It was only last year, when the M23, by then allied with the AFC – an “All Congolese political movement” – liberated Walikale and was on its way to Kisangani, that Kinshasa finally sought help from the Americans and the Qataris. In his mind, Tshisekedi imagined that simply brandishing his country’s minerals would be enough to get the Americans to deploy B21s, their state-of-the-art fighter jets, and GIs to come and die in the bushes of Eastern Congo; a pipe dream, naturally…
Upon arriving in Congo, the Americans realized that Tshisekedi had sold all the mining concessions to foreigners, and that the only ones he could offer them were either held by his biological family or were located in territories belonging to Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese in Eastern DRC, and controlled by the M23.
This is how the Americans came to request to speak with the true owners of the land. As things stand, the M23 has no further claims towards either Kinshasa, the UN, or the international community. What they could not obtain through the goodwill of Kinshasa—namely, the lands of their ancestors, occupied for three decades by the Rwandan genocidaires of the FDLR and all sorts of tribal militias calling themselves “Wazalendo” (true citizens) in collusion with Kinshasa politicians—they obtained by force of arms.
The Congolese Kinyarwanda speakers are now at home, protected by their sons and daughters. Their AFC allies intend to transform the great Congo into a Western-style democracy, uncorrupted, united, and prosperous: an arduous task, which even God the Creator has never accomplished, but which nevertheless remains a laudable ambition in which we all intend to help them.
By claiming that “the negotiations imposed by the international community are frustrated by the AFC/M23”, my former employee Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, who has since become Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DRC, is telling lies.
Let me refresh her memory.
– May she remember that it was indeed her president Félix Tshisekedi who went to Doha twice to ask the Emir to intercede on her behalf with Paul Kagame so that he could in turn plead with the AFC/M23 to negotiate with him;
– Let her recall the letter, which shocked the entire African people, in which Tshisekedi offered the Americans all the minerals that the DRC possesses, provided that they could help him get rid of his own people, the Congolese Tutsis;
– Let her finally meditate on the words of the Congolese Army spokesperson who recently declared that “we are not in church”, following months of drone bombings by his army in areas liberated by the AFC/M23 in Rutshuru and Masisi.
Conclusion.
When the Jewish people, emerging from the Holocaust they had just suffered, asked to negotiate with the Arabs in 1947 so that they could recognize a Jewish state, they occupied only 7% of the territory then called Palestine. They had begun demanding their ancestral land in 1907, but the Arabs refused to listen to them. The following year, in 1948, they declared independence of the State of Israel. This was followed by several attacks by Arab coalitions against a handful of poorly equipped but determined Jews, ready to die for their homeland. These attacks all resulted, without exception, in humiliating defeats for the Arab states and the appropriation of additional territory by Israel.
Today, the Palestinian state does not exist but in papers. The Arab states have all lost territories, including strategic positions such as Mount Sinai or the Golan Heights, which allows Israel to keep an eye on the entire Middle East.
The two territories where the last Palestinians live – the majority being in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and others having gone into exile – namely, Gaza and the West Bank, cannot connect, and are occupied by terrorist groups which, having failed to defeat Israel, have turned against their own citizens.
The M23 is at home, on the land of their ancestors, and is weary of war. It does not share the same ambitions to “change the Congo” as its ally, the AFC.
If Kinshasa agrees to dialogue today, no Kinyarwanda speaker will ask to become a senator, minister, or even president in Kinshasa. They will simply stay home, tend their herds of cattle, and cultivate their land in Kivu, even if it means recognizing Kinshasa as the political authority and sending a tiny portion of Kivu’s revenue to support the corrupt and lazy politicians in the capital.
Only their allies of the AFC are interested in the much-discussed national dialogue in the DRC, and intend to participate – which is their right. They will achieve this either peacefully or militarily, and we are ready to assist them.
If Kinshasa wants to continue the war and pursues its attacks on the people of Kivu, in a few years we will be talking about the “Autonomous State of Kivu”, the “Independent Territory of Katanga”, the “UN Trust Zone of Ituri”, or even the “Wazalendos and Kulunas administered Kinshasa” all disconnected; the great Congo having ceased to exist…
The joke about the “territorial integrity of the DRC” has practically never existed since independence. It only binds those who still believe in it – the people of Kinshasa, that is. Even the international community no longer believes in it.
The great Congo is the very definition of a prostitute with immunodeficiency syndrome:
– 200 lovers: ADF, CODECO, FDLR, Wazalendos, Mai-Mai, Mobondo, FARDC, etc.
– About a hundred pimps: Glencore, Ivanhoe, Cobalt Metals, Tenke Fungurume Mining, etc.
– With ARVs: Romanian, American mercenaries, Burundian, Tanzanian, and South African armies, all have not succeeded in curing it, as it is so undisciplined and does not respect the prescriptions of the mediators…
Once again: Actions have consequences…