Louise Mushikiwabo, center, Defense Minister James Kabarebe, left, and
another member of the Rwandan delegation at Kampala.)
***
The 2-day Kampala summit (August 7-8) of the heads of states of the
International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) has ended
with an impressive list of resolutions to show to the world.
Of the 11 ICGLR member states, 5 heads of states attended the Kampala
summit: Joseph Kabila (DRC), Kagame (Rwanda), Jakaya Kikwete
(Tanzania), Pierre Nkurunziza (Burundi), and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni
(chairperson and host).
Among the resolutions taken by the Summit was the creation of a
regional military "neutral force" to crush the "negative forces"
infesting eastern DRC.
This "neutral force" is, in other words, some kind of an irenic
contraption that would, at the push of a button, magically spray an
everlasting balm of peace over eastern DRC!
Furthermore, why use that qualifier--"neutral"--when this force, for
all intent and purposes, is set to move in and attack so-called
"negative forces"?
Anyway, a subcommittee of 7 defense ministers (Angola, Burundi,
Congo-Brazzaville, DRC, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda) was created to
come up, in 2 weeks' time (!), with "urgent actionable steps to ensure
that fighting stop completely to allow for consolidation of peace,
security and stability."
Just in case you had your hopes high on African wisdom finally
prevailing over raw madness unleashed on eastern Congo, Rwandan
Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo quickly put a damper on this early
and uncalled-for enthusiasm:
"We need, as a region, to better understand this conflict before we
send in troops!," she blurted out to the media.
Maybe Mushikiwabo means that the Defense Ministers will have to redo
the investigation done by the UN Group of Experts.
Who knows? This is after all a batshit crazy neighborhood populated by
some of the world's most unhinged leaders!
When this wacky, unfundable, and unfeasible project was first aired
and then confirmed by ICGLR heads of states at Addis Abeba in July,
Belgian journo Colette Braeckman was so exercised by it that she wrote
on her blog a post titled "A new gas processing plant along Lake
Kivu."
Not for the methane gas lying at the bottom of the lake, mind you, but
a hot hair processing plant, that is.
(see Page Address:
blog.lesoir.be/colette-braeckman/2012/07/16/une-nouvelle-usine-a-gaz-le-long-du-lac-kivu/)
Braeckman had a string of rhetorical questions concerning this
project, apparently concocted by some rocket scientists of the African
Great Lakes region.
Like this one: Why not just implement a cost-neutral project of
boosting the mandate of MONUSCO, which already has boots on the
ground?
(Or, as Braeckman answers her own question, maybe Rwanda doesn't want
MONUSCO anywhere near this thing since it spilled the beans on
President Kagame's new military entrepreneurial project in the Congo.)
Among the many other questions Braeckman posed was the following one:
What about providing MONUSCO with surveillance drones, or about Rwanda
just ceasing and desisting from supporting the M23 insurgency?
Braeckman has also this radical proposal to those ICGRL mad scientists:
What about unrolling electrified concertina wires along the border
with Rwanda, where bodies of insurgents and blood-mineral trafickers
without borders would be fried and counted every morning?
The only problem Braeckman finds with concertina wires is the
gorillas, who freely roam between the two countries.
Braeckman was right in concluding that nothing good could possibly
come out of this ICGLR contraption.
This whole project, she rightly said, is nothing more than a
ridiculous hot air plant project concocted to buy time for Rwanda,
waste time for the international community, and give extra time to M23
to waste more Congolese citizens' lives.
***
PHOTO: Village Urugwiro/ newtimes.co.rw
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