PHOTO: Front row: From Left to Right: Presidents Salva Kir (South Sudan), Joseph Kabila (DRC), Jakaya Kikwete (Tanzania) and Yoweri Museveni (Uganda); AU Commission Chair Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma; and President Paul Kagame (Rwanda).
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The worst nightmare of North Kivu Governor Julien Paluku came to pass Thursday, September 5, in Kampala, Uganda.
The nightmare--in the shape of a "ceasefire," "cessations of hostilities" and continued negotiations between the DRC and M23 (see previous post)--is precisely what's being urged to both the Congolese government and the Rwandan-backed insurgency in the third point of the communique issued Thursday at the close of the 7th summit of Heads of state of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) urgently convened in Kampala by Museveni to deal with he resumption of hostilities in the Kivus and with a view to solving in a lasting manner the crisis in eastern DRC:
"[The ICGLR Heads of state] [d]irect that the Kampala Dialogue resumes within 3 days after this Extraordinary Summit and conclude within a maximum period of 14 days during which maximum restraint must be exercised on the ground to allow for talks to conclude. If the Dialogue is not concluded in the time agreed upon, the Chairman of the Summit shall consult his colleagues on the way forward."
There was simply no way that this kind of communique would go down well with Congolese denizens who view it as a set of historic decisions that finally stripped the DRC of all semblance of sovereignty it still had left thus far.
With the "national consultations" opening two days after the Kampala summit--on September 7--the DRC had to deal headlong with the PR nightmare of the summit negative narratives being disseminated through the channels of the grapevine of Radio-Trottoir.
There was for instance the malicious rumor spreading like wildfire of a meeting between Kabila and Kagame on the sidelines of the summit.
Just as any good rumor, this one seemed plausible because it was steeped on an actual event that took place in Kampala: the meeting between Kagame and Kikwete on the sidelines of the summit.
Kabila's big guns came out in an attempt to nip in the bud that devastating rumor.
In an almost unprecedented move, André Ngwej Katot, Kabila's communication director, entered personally the fray to confront the rumor headlong.
"President Joseph Kabila didn't hold this Thursday September 5 a one-on-one meeting at the ICGLR summit in Kampala with Rwandan President Kagame," Ngwej Katot reportedly told AFP. "They met alongside all the other heads of state" present at the summit.
Well, the image, like the photograph above, of Kabila grinning with Kagame alongside other heads of state present in Kampala, is scandalous to Congolese reeling from the recent wanton attacks by M23 against civilians in Goma.
What's more, conspiracy theorist claim that Kabila is being compelled by the international community to share North-Kivu mineral resources with Rwanda and its M23 proxies.
Even mainstream media are giving some credence to that vein of conspiracy theory, including the Kinshasa daily Le Potentiel, which published Saturday a vitriolic editorial titled "DR Congo-Rwanda-Kampala: At the Summit of Hypocrisy?"
Le Potentiel is flabbergasted by the fact that the UN has recently accused Rwanda of dispatching military personnel into the Congo while Ugandan troops have recently attacked the northern Congolese district of Mahagi.
And yet--mirabile dictu--the DRC government is pretending to rely on these poachers of its sovereignty to restore lasting peace in the Kivus.
The editorial directly stung Kabila:
"It's further noted, with astonishment, that President Kabila arrived in Kampala without stopping over at Goma where his people was badly bruised by bombings. The families of victims and the injured in hospitals--civilians and soldiers--would have appreciated (...) some comfort coming from the head of state."
Muddying further the PR waters for the DRC government, James Mugume--Uganda's Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary and "facilitator" at the Kampala talks between M23 and the Congolese government--is reported to have told Xinhua last Wednesday before the start of the Kampala summit:
"You never get tired of meetings [between M23 and the Congolese government] since you're solving a complex problem dating back to the colonial era. [The DRC] is a huge country, therefore you have to be patient" (retranslated from the French).
This narrative--of a precolonial Rwandan presence on the Congolese side of the border legitimizing Rwandan irredentist insurgencies of the kind waged by M23--is particularly worrisome as it tends to give credence to the conspiracy theory of the balkanization of the Congo.
Worse still, Museveni hinted that the whole purpose of the ICGLR 7th summit was somewhat to ensure that the M23 get off scot-free from the mayhem they had wreaked upon the Congo when he told the press on Thursday:
"We are seeking a path of dialogue so that the M23 come out peacefully to enable the UN intervention brigade deal with other negative forces in eastern DR Congo."
It's therefore understandable that Congolese would fear that the political dialogue with M23 advocated by the UNSG Envoy in the Great Lakes Mary Robinson would end up gnawing at Congo's sovereignty and giving to the M23 "acquired rights" of a micro-state over the territory under their control.
It was against the backdrop of this fallout of the Kampala summit that Kabila opened the National Consultations on September 7 amid widespread skepticism as some major political players have snubbed these talks.
The two-week talks will be held at venues in Kinshasa and Lubumbashi with 600 delegates from the ruling majority and fractions of the opposition and civil society.
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PHOTO CREDITS: Village Urugwiro via newtimes.co.rw
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