with Prez Joseph Kabila at Lubumbashi, August 22)
***
Belgian Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Didier Reynders is on a
4-day visit in the DRC.
Reynders is scheduled to fly to Kigali on Saturday after visits to the
Kivus--including, according to reporter Colette Braeckman, a stop at a
hospital run by the Order of Malta on Idjwi Island, in South Kivu.
Despite their diplomatically friendly demeanor towards Reynders,
Kinshasa officials are angry at Belgium.
Belgium is one of the last European holdouts that still continue to
extend financial aid to Rwanda to the tune of €165m.
During his stay in Kinshasa, Reynders met successively with Speaker
Aubin Minaku and Premier Augustin Matata Ponyo, both of whom are
pressuring the government of the former colonizing power to take a
more aggressive stance against Rwanda--starting off with cutting off
aid money.
To both Congolese officials, Reynders kept repeating his mantra:
"Belgium recognizes the complete sovereignty of the Congo on the
entirety of its territory, takes exception to any undermining of the
rule of law, condemns unequivocally a rebellion there's nothing to
negotiate with!"
Kabila is still in Lubumbashi, the provincial capital of Katanga,
where he flew in from Maputo, Mozambique, where he'd attended the SADC
meeting.
And Reynders flew to Lubumbashi to meet with Kabila as well as to
visit mining companies.
Emerging from a one-hour meeting with Kabila on Wednesday, August 22,
Reynders told the media:
"The priority in the short term is the pacification of the east. It's
also to condemn the rebellion that's taking place in the east; it's to
make certain that the integrity of the territory of Congo is
guaranteed; that there's no interference whatsoever."
But Reynders also snarled at the DRC government--closing his litany
above by blasting state incompetence and impotence as well as the
misguided approach to the Securiry Sector Reform (SSR) in the DRC:
"This is achieved more particularly by the reinforcement of the state
of law and a reform of the army!"
Adding:
"The mistake made in the past was to want to integrate more often into
the Congolese armed forces a certain number of rebels, of mutineers,
and of undisciplined [elements]. That mistake shouldn't be repeated in
the future."
Reynders ended his SSR lesson with his version of the obvious,
"Garbage in garbage out":
"By integrating undisciplined elements, undiscipline is integrated by
the same token."
Reynders is talking as if this SSR approach of integration,
incorporation, and "brassage" [intermingling] was a concept dreamed up
by the Congolese--and not by international experts, including those of
the European Union.
Reynders maintains he didn't come to the African Great Lakes for
shuttle diplomacy, but to talk to DRC and Rwanda separately, which
could obtain, he firmly believes, a breakthrough.
Said Reynders:
"If indeed Rwanda doesn't wish to play a negative role in the east of
Congo, it's up to it to make the first step and to play a positive
role."
Well, good luck on that mission impossible, Mr. Reynders!
***
PHOTO CREDITS: AFP: Via: lesoir.be
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