Congo is in deep, carnal inner turmoil, and its citizens’ palpable distress is only natural.
Congo has consistently ranked at the top of the list of countries with the highest estimated likelihood of onset of internal mass killings for the past several years.
In the years 2018-2019, Congo was ranked most likely to experience mass killings in the world; above war-marred Afghanistan and Yemen. This is the alarming local state of affairs that President Tshisekedi is trying to distract from; the one that shows the tumour spreading, as one does, from within, as it feeds on his denial and incompetence.
I would like to point out that peace-driven Rwanda, despite its grim history, despite having suffered the most rapid genocide known in modern history less than 3 decades ago, despite being falsely accused of thriving through murder, was nowhere to be found in this top 20 crisis countries list published by the Early Warning Project in 2019.
Why are Rwandans, and Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese vilified? Because hate and violence have, sadly, been at the core of the Congolese experience for decades.
Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese people were getting lynched on the streets of Kinshasa in 1998 (a time when Radio Television Nationale Congolaise in Bunia was also broadcasting the following message: "People must bring a machete, a spear, an arrow, a hoe, spades, rakes, nails, truncheons, electric irons, barbed wire, stones and the like, in order, dear listeners, to kill the Rwandan Tutsis”) , and Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese people are still getting lynched on the streets of Eastern DRC, in 2022.
Hatred for Rwanda and all its affiliations, founded or unfounded, has driven Congolese people to kill their own countrymen. Meanwhile, it is Rwandan leadership that is perversely, shamelessly, and most importantly, falsely, accused of murder.
DARVO is an acronym that, in psychology, refers to a "a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior”, involving both playing the victim, and victim-blaming. DARVO stands for "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender” and to illustrate it accurately, I believe its definition should be accompanied by the portrait of a current President of a resource-rich, long-suffering, better-deserving country nearby.
Victim-reversal is typically regarded as an act of intentional manipulation, emblematic of sociopathic behavior, but we could perhaps look at it differently, and offer empathy even where it is not reciprocated.
Maybe some people’s commitment to seeing cruelty and hostility in the "outgroup” is a defense mechanism against a painful inner revelation; an undesired, forced confrontation with a mirror’s ugly reflection.
And if what you saw in yourself frightened you beyond the tolerable, what other choice would you have, but to project that which repulsed and worried you, upon other people?
There’s an answer to this, actually. The choice you would have, the only noble, acceptable solution to this tragic and painful inner dilemma, would be healing.
Felix Tshisekedi ought to work to give his citizens the healing they deserve. Rwandans unfortunately know a thing or two about engaging in this testing process. Maybe when things de-escalate as they ought, the Rwandans that have achieved recovery following hatred’s wounding, can share their wisdom with those looking to receive it, across the lake.
Speaking of de-escalation, there seems no desirable nor plausible alternative future.
The Congolese hand is clutched around emptiness, a bluff they hope will be convincing because of Rwandans’ Tutsi genocide and war trauma. Western support seems to be what Congo is aiming for (and depending on), judging by the touching soliloquy that President Tshisekedi delivered at the UN General Assembly, and his armed forces’ desperate collusion with volatile rebel groups in a self-doubting grapple for power.
And yet the west seems....disinterested.
US Secretary Blinken came to Kigali and served an unspiced, cold ambiguity soup, went to Congo and did the same, and eventually flew home to the US to go be prejudiced against Africans in peace.
France’s relationship with Rwanda has improved drastically, at a diplomatic and political level, to the point, it appears, of genuine friendship (the miracles of good leadership are what we must keep wishing upon those that are yet to know them); the UK-Rwanda asylum deal is unrolling smoothly. In the Region, President Kagame’s amicable relationship with leaders of neighbouring countries appears indisputable.
Support for Congo in its twisted endeavor seems scarce, obnoxious as they have been about demanding it.
So it seems there’s nothing further to discuss besides how soon President Tshisekedi shall be willing at last to fight the only good fight: the one for his country and our region’s peace.
Someone ought to tell His Excellency President Tshisekedi, that history always has and will remember.
The same way it remembered the apathetic leaders that allowed what is arguably the richest country in the world to become one of the most tainted by poverty; the same way it watched as the foreign authorities for which cowardly global south leaders tapped-danced went about plundering their countries; the same way it told us, from the efficiency with which our Liberating Forces returned peace to this country, that Rwandans would never be drawn into senseless conflict again.
Arrogant as some may call the moon for not barking back at the dog, it shall keep shining; history will remember whether a neighbourly President chooses to make of his nation the moon, or a slighted animal.
This is the final of the four-part series.
Also read:
https://www.newtimes.co.rw/article/2316/opinions/diversion-deceit-and-the-rwanda-congo-affair
https://www.newtimes.co.rw/article/2401/opinions/diversion-deceit-and-the-rwanda-congo-affair