When asked about the situation between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, Patrick Loch Otieno (PLO) Lumumba responded sorrowfully that the story of the DR Congo is a story of sadness. PLO Lumumba was right, the story of DR Congo is a story of sadness.
For Kwame Nkrumah, when asked the way forward for Congo? " I see no alternative for the future of the Congo. Except in the arms of a united Africa within the framework of a continental Union Government.”
Today’s leaders in the DR Congo show clearly that the alternative for the future of the country is still far to go.
The Minister of Justice Constant Mutamba was seen in a video, promising inmates at Munzenze Prison in Goma a reward if they help him with his wishful dream of arresting President Paul Kagame, and promising them to hang supporters of the M23.
Imagine a minister who is calling inmates to stand against their colleagues who speak Kinyarwanda and doesn’t fear to say that those suspects collaborating with Rwanda, meaning members of the M23, (the Munzenze Prison is full of them) will be hanged, confirming what some human rights groups have been accusing President Felix Antoine Tshisekedi of persecuting and discriminatively arresting people on grounds of ethnicity.
This man titled "the Minister of Justice and the Keeper of the Seal” reminded me of his collegue, the Minister of Foreign Affairs,Therese Kayikwamba.
Recently, I also heard her on BBC saying that the M23 are the "so-called Congolese.” Mrs. Kayikwamba forgot that she is the daughter of a German immigrant. Kayikwamba spent her childhood in her father's home, Germany, until 2009, when she left Germany and crossed into the DR Congo through Rwanda, where she worked for her home country,’s International Development Cooperation Agency. And now she is a minister in the DR Congo's cabinet.
We are not saying that she is not a Congolese. She is a Congolese as well as Barack Obama is an American. The question is how she calls members of the M23 the "so-called Congolese’”, while their forefathers lived there centuries before her father arrived in the DR Congo.
The sad story from the DR Congo is not just these two ministers. We have heard what the minister of information, Patrick Muyaya says everyday, and many other high ranking politicians when it comes to the diabolization of their compatriots from the Congolese Tutsis Community.
What about their President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo? He has declared war on Rwanda more than once.
So, what is really the problem of the DR Congo? The problem of the DR Congo can be summarised in one word as said by Kwame Nkrumah, "leadership.”
According to Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Emery Lumumba is the last leader the country had. For Nkrumah, Joseph Kasavubu, who took over the country after Lumumba, was a traitor, and Mobutu Sese Seko too. Nkruma says in his book ,Challenge of the Congo that "The newly created client states are independent in name but in point of fact, pawns of the colonial power.”
If we agree with Kwame Nkrumah, the DR Congo has been a country led by traitors and pawns after the assassination of Patrice Lumumba until the death of President Mobutu.
At least Mobutu was a traitor and a pawn, but his politics tried to unite Congolese, with his " "Zaïre, Liboke moko, lisanga moko, tata moko, maman moko, ekolo moko, parti moko, mokonzi moko ". Translated to Zaïre, one plate, one family, one father, one mother, one country, one party and one chief.
Although the current leadership of the DR Congo put their cross on the shoulders of President Paul Kagame, he has always said that "Rwanda does not have any desire for war because it has tasted it and knows how bad and costly it is, and therefore should not be the one baying for war.”
Yes, it is sad to say that today, some Congolese feel a longing for Mobutu with his one father, one mother, one chief, as long as he did not segregate his fellow citizens. For them, to choose between Tshisekedi and Mobutu, Mobutu was better.