What went wrong? Two weeks have passed and no siren has gone off! Have our traditional custodians gone to sleep or do they no longer see any reason to raise the alarm?

The ‘international’ community, have they missed the news that President Kagame was elected by his party as its flag bearer for presidential elections this coming July? And that when his party, the RPF, endorses him, it’s almost a given that he will sail though?

Of course, we know that these wardens that guard us cannot go to sleep, lest we ‘third-worlders’ stray. We in Rwanda also know that they can never fail to get a reason to warn our fellow ‘third-worlders’ against conducting themselves the way Rwanda does

Independent-minded?

Who is little Rwanda to think she can act without following orders? Or guard her wealth strictly for her citizens? So, for that, she will be smeared with so much dirt that none of her fellow ‘third-worlders’ will want to touch her with a 10-km pole.

But first things first. What’s this ‘international’ community that’s in truth a community of a few overlords? Well, they are the movers and shakers of this world, the chess-player grandmasters of world politics, the policeman of the world. They are not necessarily together in the geographical west but only they are called the West. Only they can instruct us on what values to uphold.

North America and Western Europe are the seigniors we mean. When they talk, we tremble and tremble, too, when they don’t.

We tremble because they are the master manipulators who can say "Dictator!” and you go the way of Iraq in the Middle East, Libya in North Africa or Haiti in North America.

They are the bulldozing behemoths who, when they keep mum, can still cause splits to happen in a revolutionary group. Whereupon one of the splinters does in their leader, as in the Caribbean nation of Grenada, 1983. And that’s to mention only a few countries on a few continents.

So, how come the RPF party re-election of President Kagame hasn’t raised their hackles?

It cannot be that by expressing his readiness to stand for a fourth term as far back as last year, Kagame pulled the rug from under their feet. Nor that by leading the economy through the Covid pandemic and into rebounding to robust post-Covid performance, he took the wind out of their sails.

No, the West doesn’t like precedents that can be emulated by other third-world nations.

Already, they must be smarting from the actions of these stubborn soldiers of Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali. Such a lip, to dare reject continuing to be neo-colonial fiefdoms of one of them, France! The insolence of Niger rejecting to act as a military base for the kahuna of them all, USA!

ALSO READ: Niger revokes military agreement with US

Normally, considering how France had a stranglehold on the three countries’ economies, currencies, militaries, etc...,ECOWAS and the AU should have cheered these soldiers for cutting those crippling ties.

But, alas, they developed cold feet. After throwing them out, only recently has ECOWAS readmitted the countries as members. This far, the AU has not dared take the plunge.

But I digress......

Western countries and their activists, newshounds are not up in arms that Kagame is taking a shot at a fourth presidential term and it’s puzzling. If it’s not because of any of the mentioned reasons, then it must be because heads of neighbouring countries are baying for Kagame’s blood.

This would mean they are savouring the idiocy of it all. But, reader, would that be surprising?

These Western countries are aping President Tshisekedi to accuse Rwanda of being in D.R. Congo. Much as Tshisekedi is incapable of analysing how the following is possible, and how it’s ever happened before, the West is not foolish – or am I overstretching the idea?

Anyway, unlike him, they know that if it were to be true that Rwanda is assisting M23, the Kinshasa presidential seat would be hosting someone else, as we talk.

All that apart, however, this behemoth West should use its influence for good, for a change. Put its weight on the man so that he stops hiring foreigners to kill his own people.

Tshisekedi has hired mercenaries on top of using FDLR génocidaires, plus a hotchpotch of bloodthirsty local killer groups, all assisted by UN peacekeepers (!), to kill Congolese Tutsi.

Still, bad as that is, there is worse. Worse being that, while the West is focussed on finding fault with Rwanda or connecting her to M23, the Congolese government is busy obliterating the Hema and Banyamulenge.

If Rwanda is being spared the riot act because the West is relishing her being blamed by neighbours for their violence, those are little mercies she’d happily do without. Rwanda’s raison d’être has always been rushing to the rescue of criminally targeted innocents, wherever they may be.

While Tshisekedi and Ndayishimiye are chaotically groping in the dark and clutching at straws for personal preservation, may the West succeed in extracting the mineral trinkets they so much crave.

And feel the shame of doing so over the dead of the DR Congo!