Bariyo, writing for The Wall Street Journal, reports that the town of
Rutshuru has also fallen to M23 insurgents, "forcing aid officials and
the U.N. to evacuate staff. Residents fled the town early Friday and
by late afternoon troops also started retreating, according to
witnesses."
The report quotes Sasha Lezhnev (photo above), a senior policy analyst
at the Washington, DC-based Enough Project as saying:
"Eastern Congo's towns and army forces are falling like chess pieces
to the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels, yet the international community is
lingering in wait-and-see mode.
"The fall of the major trading towns of Rutshuru and Bunagana give the
M23 strategic bases in its new war, allowing it to control a
lucrative smuggling route to sell conflict minerals and illegally tax
goods."
The report also quotes a Congolese government spokesman as angrily remarking:
"How long will Rwanda continue to defy with impunity, and repeatedly,
the international community.
"Evidence of Rwanda's aggression is drawn in black and white."
(Page Address: http://mobile2.wsj.com/device/article.php?CALL_URL=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304141204577512130715884866.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)
In other words, the second Africa's World War would be, once again,
about a military enterprise of highway robberies.
On her part, Belgian journalist Colette Braeckman, in a second post
since the fall of Bunagana and published yesterday, urged the Belgian
government to set up drone surveillances of the Congo-Rwanda border:
"Our military have the means to do this: they have drones, which
monitored Kinshasa during the 2006 elections and have been unused
since. Why not put them at the disposal of MONUSCO, so as to remediate
the chronic blindness of the blue helmets?
"An aerial surveillance would bring to light the veritable springs of
the war: the flows of minerals, the mafia-like collaborations on both
sides of the border, troops movements. This would also defuse Rwanda's
fears by making more difficult infiltrations by 'génocidaires.'
"The oppositions that would probably trigger such an initiative would
already be revealing: they would demonstrate that, in this region,
truth could turn out to be still more cruel than weapons..."
(Page Address: http://blog.lesoir.be/colette-braeckman/2012/07/06/aider-a-surveiller-la-frontiere-rwanda-congo/)
Well, dream on, Braeckman! There's no way Rwanda would allow such
strictures imposed on the all-out entreprenial war of plunder it has
decided to wage against the DRC.
And, by the way, four years ago, Congolese music star Papa Wemba came
up with a similar idea. His idea was more drastic: building a wall on
DRC-Rwanda border! "Why not?," he told a TV host, "the Israelis have
built walls to avoid trouble!"
Meanwhile, in Kinshasa, President Joseph Kabila convened the country's
Security High Council with military and police top brass.
Significantly, Gen Gabriel "Tango-Four" Amisi Kumba, commander of
FARDC Land Forces, wasn't in attendance. But Police boss, Gen Charles
Bisengimana, a Rwandophone, was among the participants--which gives
the lie to the M23 claims they are fighting for the interests of an
ethnic minority.
The communiqué issued at the close of the security meeting did not,
however, specifically address the fall of Bunagana or issue a
declaration of war against Rwanda. A disappointment for Kinois
spoiling for a fight with Rwandans!
This morning on his show on state-owned TV channel RTNC, Lushima
Ndjate was denying that Bunagana had fallen, attacking instead RFI and
Radio Okapi (though the latter was unnamed) for spreading "false
news"! Which shows that propagandists live in a tight bubble.
Yesterday night, in a TV interview, soukouss star Koffi Olomide
bristled at the suggestion that he should feature in one of his
concerts songs by Christian musician Frère Patrice, who also happens
to be the older brother of soukouss star Werrason.
Koffi exclaimed in frustration (my translation from Lingala):
"Good grief, folks! In the name of my mother who gave birth to me in
Kisangani! Do you think that all activities revolve around
Hallelujahs! Even your cameraman as he's taping me would be going
around humming, 'Hallelujah'? Tell you what: if prayer was a panacea,
we'd be seeing Rwandan military officers falling on the battlefield in
eastern Congo, screaming, 'Congolese Prayer has just stopped my
heart!'"
Good point, and a bold move, in country slowly turning into an
evangelical theocrary!
***
PHOTO CREDITS: Woodrow Wilson Center
Via: www.enoughproject.org
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