It was reported this week that over 60 Rwandans are being held by security forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of them were business people as well as students who were picked up in Goma and flown to Kinshasa. Their fate hangs in balance. For a country that has a colourful spin doctor in the names of Lambert Mende, the official spokesperson who goes to great lengths to spin fibs without blinking, concurs that some Rwandans are being held – legally – and for once passes the buck to the minister of justice.
It was reported this week that over 60 Rwandans are being held by security forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Most of them were business people as well as students who were picked up in Goma and flown to Kinshasa. Their fate hangs in balance.
For a country that has a colourful spin doctor in the names of Lambert Mende, the official spokesperson who goes to great lengths to spin fibs without blinking, concurs that some Rwandans are being held – legally – and for once passes the buck to the minister of justice.
Xenophobic attacks against Kinyarwanda speaking people in DRC, or those supposedly with a "Rwandan appearance” are hereditary, usually used as scapegoats or a diversionary whipping up of emotions to camouflage Congo’s woes.
If Mende is sincere (sic) that the people were arrested legally, then they should be brought before justice and not rot in some military dungeons. DRC had better grow up and learn to own its problems because it has the solutions, the only missing link is a capital WILL.
As we wait for the DRC judicial cogwheels to go into motions, one cannot fail to wonder where the omnipresent Human Rights Watch is in all this saga.