Criminal Court at The Hague, Tuesday, March 26, 2013)
(PHOTO 2: Presidents Denis Sassou Nguesso, Joseph Kabila, and Paul
Kagame at Oyo (Congo-Brazzaville), March 24, 2013)
***
"When a butterfly flaps its wings in Rwanda, it can cause mayhem in the Congo."
***
The epigraph above is a piece of conventional wisdom adapted from the
butterfly effect of chaos theory often heard these days among
Congolese intellectuals in the streets of Kinshasa ever since news
broke out that the infamous Rwandan warlord Bosco Ntaganda had turned
himself in at the US embassy in Kigali.
This particular version of the butterfly effect is also meant to
convey the fact that all the upheavals experienced by the DRC since
the mid-1990s were concocted in Rwanda.
There was even a saying, now almost extinct, that went like, "The
abode of Lucifer is a stinking hole called Rwanda!"
That adage not only pinpoints the exact geographic location of doom in
the psyche of the Congolese but it also conveys the level of
resentment bordering on hate mixed with contempt that Congolese have
for Rwandans of all ethnic persuasions.
Congolese know that the invasion of Congo that triggered Africa's
World War was planned by President Paul Kagame (and his sidekick
Yoweri Museveni) and executed by General James Kabarebe.
Months earlier, before the opening salvoes of Africa's World War,
Kabarebe, a Rwandan army officer, was openly operating in Kinshasa in
the capacity of the chief of staff of the Congolese army.
(Eerily, the man is today Rwanda's defense minister!)
And before that travesty, the Rwandan invasion, occupation, and
looting of the Congo was presented as an autonomous Congolese internal
revolution to bring down the Mobutu regime.
As Rwandan soldiers who provided the backbone of the Congolese
revolutionary troops were moving deeper into DRC territory, they
encountered their own fellow citizens whom they massacred in the tune
of hundreds of thousands.
The extent and the scale of these massacres and pogroms--like the one
that took place at Tingi-Tingi near Kisangani--made some observers
(including myself) describe these events as a counter-genocide.
Uncannily, these vast scale massacres ordered by Kagame and carried
out by Rwandan special forces on Congolese territory obtained the
strange situation where a Congolese (puppet) regime paid a hefty
diplomatic price at the UN for horrendous crimes it didn't commit!
These bizarre occurrences were made possible unfortunately by the
active participation by some Congolese leaders--from Kabila-père to
Kabila-fils.
People here in Kinshasa and elsewhere in the Congo feel therefore
they've lost the plot of their national narrative to Rwanda and its
associates of the so-called "international community."
That's why denizens here were weary of the closed-door summit at Oyo,
in Congo-Brazzaville, between Joseph Kabila, Kagame, Denis Sassou
Nguesso and Yoweri Museveni just about the same time as Ntaganda was
taken into custody by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The sense of lost narrative was compounded by Ntaganda appearing at
the ICC and insisting on speaking in Kinyarwanda language--the only
"Congolese" in the country who couldn't function in French, Lingala or
Swahili!
And what came out of this criminal's mouth in the much-hated
Kinyarwanda language further convinced people that their leaders might
have sold out to the enemies of the Congolese citizens.
Ntaganda acknowledged--in Kinyarwanda--of having been born in Rwanda
and to have moved at some point in his miserable life to the DRC where
he mysteriously acquired Congolese citizenship before launching his
criminal career as mass rapist and murderer, and plunderer on behalf
of Rwanda.
Watching the reports on the court proceedings at The Hague, residents
of the republic got the opportunity to witness firsthand the first
inkling of the materialization of the Congo chaos theory:
How a low-life Rwandan citizen, propped up by the murderous Rwandan
regime and taking advantage of the hapless government of the DRC,
caused wanton destruction on the Congo and its people.
About seven years ago, Congolese soukous artist Papa Wemba came up
with the recipe for solving Congo eastern woes: erect a tall and
sturdy wall on the border with Rwanda in the fashion of the wall
Israel has erected!
The idea is getting some traction today after Ntaganda resurfaced in
his native Rwanda.
***
PHOTO CREDITS: PHOTO 1: AFP via bbc.com; PHOTO 2: Flickr Paul Kagame Photostream
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