Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Kabila & Kagame at Addis: “There was no fighting” but a joke at the expense of the DRC

"There was no fighting!" quipped Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni

Sunday, about the face to face meeting presidents Joseph Kabila and

Paul Kagame held in the margins of the African Union summit of heads

of state.





There was no fighting indeed, but in Kinshasa people cringed when they

saw on TV Kabila on smiling and joking terms with Kagame while

insurgents backed by Rwanda still occupied vast swaths of Congolese

terrority, including the strategic border crossing post of Bunagana.





Kinois also point out that Rwanda still denies supporting the M23

insurgents and on Saturday, July 14, Rwandan immigration officials

refused to allow entry into Rwanda to 22 Rwandans forcibly recruited

to fight with M23!





These 22 Rwandans, now stranded in the Congo, were among those who've

given evidence to UN experts on Rwandan support to M23.





According to Reuters, Kabila, Kagame, and other Great Lakes leaders

signed an accord that backs up the agreement signed a few days ago,

also in Addis Ababa, by foreign ministers of the International

Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR).





In this new Addis Ababa agreement, the leaders of the Great Lakes

condemn "in the strongest terms the actions of the M23 and other

negative forces operating in the region and support the efforts

deployed by the government of the DRC for the restoration of peace and

security in North Kivu province."





Among the other "negative forces" singled out were also the immovable FDLR.





What's more, the accord calls for a "neutral international force"

whose mission statement is to eliminate those negative forces.





This a joke no doubt concocted by Rwanda at the expense of the DRC.





Firstly, as Reuters notes, "Western backers of Congo and Rwanda, such

as the United States, have questioned where the troops for the

'neutral international force' will come from."





Secondly, Reuters goes on to remark, there's already a 17,000-strong

MONUSCO force on the ground, why not just give more teeth to its

mandate?





Thirdly, should MONUSCO just pack up and leave?





Fourthly, a new force may take, conservatively speaking, at the very

least one to two years to set up, what would then be going on in the

interim in the Congolese territory occupied by the Rwandan proxies of

M23?





Fifthly, besides the delay in setting up that putative African force,

where the hell would the cash-strapped African Union get the needed

money to fund such a formidable military mission?





These are crucial rhetorical questions Kinois are asking a government

they feel is perennially aloof and accountable to no one!





Kinois are also angry that upon Kabila's return from Addis on Monday,

he once again lapsed into his hermetic silence!





As if the Congolese people didn't deserve an account of what had

transpired in Addis Ababa between him and Kagame!





Some Kinois are already speculating that before long we'd see the

likes of Jean-Marie Rugina, the M23 mouthpiece, riding a Mercedes Benz

in Kinshasa.





After yet another round of talks with and the incorporation of the

insurgents into the FARDC, and the de facto annexation of the Kivus by

Rwanda!





**



PHOTO CREDITS: Reuters

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