Tuesday, 2 April 2013

M23 chief Bertrand Bisimwa: Apocalypse Now

(PHOTO: Bertrand Bisimwa at a press briefing at Bunagana yesterday)



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With the full deployment by the end of this month of the MONUSCO

Intervention Brigade, M23 political head Bertrand Bisimwa may most

definitely have started feeling the ground opening up under him and

his posse of international bandits.



In his reaction to the UN Security Council resolution 2098 (2013)

setting up an "Intervention Brigade" to go after M23 and other armed

groups, Bisimwa, who's recently taken on the habit of donning a stupid

oversized cow-boy felt hat à la Yoweri Museveni, said yesterday at a

press briefing at Bunagana that "from now on, peacekeeping forces will

wage war on groups of citizens who are demanding good governance in

our country."



Really, Bisimwa!



Could you show the world the petition signed by groups of Congolese

residents of the Republic asking you and your gangsters to kill,

plunder, and rape on their behalf for good governance?



Is Bisimwa waging war for "Groups of Citizens" or is he an element of

the hordes of "doppelgänger anticitizens" terrorizing peaceful

Congolese civilians?



(I systematically use on this blog the expression "doppelgänger

anticitizens"--coined by Comaroff and Comaroff in another context--to

tag individuals or groups evincing various kinds of uncivic

behaviors.)



Significantly, Bismwa added: "It [the UN military offensive campaign]

will be the Apocalypse!"



Apocalypse now, indeed, for Bisimwa, his bandits and his

sponsors--Rwanda and Uganda--as their loots in the Congo would dry up

overnight!



Congolese therefore can't wait to see the advent of this

Apocalypse--in the real or figurative sense--of Bisimwa and his M23

looters, rapists and mass murderers. In fact, most Congolese denizens

often even fantasize about real Apocalypse being visited upon Rwanda

and Uganda!



Well, it's never too late: Bisimwa and his fellow could still avoid

the Apocalypse by laying down their weapons and disbanding--with

individual members reporting to the nearest police precinct to detail

the mischiefs and atrocities they might committed upon Congolese

civilians. For this time around, civil society groups of the Kivus

have vowed to see to it that not one single abuser of human rights

would go unpunished!



Maybe Bisimwa and his international bandits didn't realize there was a

rising tsunami of outrage worldwide over military entrepreneurship of

cross-border resource pillages masquerading as homegrown legitimate

demands over governance--the very kind Rwanda and Uganda have been

repeatedly engaged in on the territory of the DRC, claiming staggering

human tolls and devastating humanitarian disasters.



Talking of humanitarian disasters, it now turns out that Rwanda is

having a tidbit of taste of the bitter medicine it had been

administering to the Congo over the years.



Rwanda Minister of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs Seraphine

Mukantabana, who was describing yesterday to the Kigali daily "New

Times" the relocation of 689 M23 bandits (of the Jean-Marie Runiga's

faction) from the border district of Rubavu to Ngoma, also complained

about the lack of international assistance in this mini-refugee

crisis.



Said Mukantabana:



"The international community has ignored and adamantly decided not to

support us in managing this crisis. These are not our citizens,

neither are they our prisoners, they belong to the UN."



Adding:



"It is now upon the UN to provide other requirements for the refugees."



(Source: http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=15315&a=65551)



This would sound like a cruel joke to the more than 800,000 Congolese

IDPs who've left their homes and livelihoods thanks to Rwandan-backed

M23 cross-border terror group.



And, if anything, this episode should serve as a cautionary tale to

Rwanda who's wont to cause mayhem, deaths, and mass displacement of

populations in the Congo.



***

PHOTO CREDITS: Via kigalitoday.com

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