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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