(PHOTO: President Paul Kagame, flanked by UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon and World Bank president Dr. Jim Yong Kim, at Kigali Village Urugwiro, Thursday, May 23, 2013)
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Kinshasa is boiling up with anger after details of the $1b World Bank cross-border trade and development package to the Great Lakes countries are emerging.
The news of the aid boost was announced amid great fanfare Wednesday, May 22 in Kinshasa--the first stopover in the joint trip to the region by UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.
In Kinshasa, Ban beamed:
"Many countries in Africa are taking dynamic forward strides, and now the people of the Great Lakes region, especially the DRC, deserve their full chance for progress. A peace agreement must deliver a peace dividend."
As it turns, more than half of that money would go to development projects in Rwanda, including a whopping $340m for the mammoth 80-megawatt hydroelectric project at Rusumo Falls, at the border between Rwanda and Tanzania.
The rationale for lavishing such huge aid monies on Rwanda was good governance--a thing that country is praised for having a knack of.
What's more, at their stop in Kigali, Ban and Jim competed in heaping praise on Kagame.
Said Ban:
"I have admiration for President Kagame for his leadership and commitment, not only in the region, but in making his people prosperous."
A sentiment echoed by Jim, who eerily waxed lyrical about Rwandan leadership in combating gender-based violence:
"I have never seen a country approach the issue of gender-based violence as you have. Rwanda demonstrates the best example in women empowerment."
Jim then swooned over Kagame:
"I appreciate your commitment to your people. You are a great inspiration to me [.] I hope many African countries will emulate Rwanda."
Well, for one, in the the DRC, where thousands of women were raped by Rwandan and Ugandan armed goons during the 5-year occupation of the country by Rwanda and Uganda, there's just no way that politicians would be telling people that they'd be emulating the hypocritical and murderous regime of Kagame on any topic--and especially GBV--any time soon.
Secondly, in the meanwhile, not a peep on opposition leader Victoire Ingabire who's rotting in Kagame's Gulag Archipelago. Nor on the two long columns of a couple of hundreds of Rwandan special operators that entered DRC territory last week to reinforce M23 bandits.
Congolese have all but given up on the UN, by the way, from which they have long ago ceased to expect miracles.
People don't even believe that the Intervention Brigade would deliver peace in eastern Congo as UN Special Envoy Mary Robinson keeps insisting that that brigade couldn't possibly replace much needed DRC's security sector reform.
Congolese military sources even claim that when the FARDC had repelled the M23 attacks, some MONUSCO officers attempted to dissuade Congolese commandos from pursuing the insurgents.
"They can keep their fucking money and share it with their Rwandan allies!" a Kinshasa woman snarled on a bus this morning, referring to the World Bank aid package. "Rwanda is doing the bidding of the international community, especially the Americans. But we'll resist to the last man. Jesus is with us!"
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PHOTO CREDITS: newtimes.co.rw
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