As millions of Congolese citizens from the eastern part of the country continue to wallow in a state of despair over the unending conflict that has ravaged that region for three decades, the leadership in Kinshasa has lately been preoccupied in a campaign to promote falsehoods, like has been the case in as many months.

This time, they have taken it a notch higher. Last week, President Felix Tshisekedi presided over an event to commemorate the so-called ‘Genocide for economic gain’, which claims to honour Congolese citizens who were killed by foreign troops with an aim of exploiting their minerals.

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The countries they talk about are Congolese neighbours including Rwanda whom they accuse of backing Congolese rebels to attack their own country, in a series of attacks dating back to the 1990s.

Of course, the event is yet another gambit by the Congolese leadership to run away from their responsibility of protecting their citizens and an attempt to seek public sympathy especially since this is an election year.

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President Tshisekedi’s first term to which started in January 2019, has been blighted by the violence in eastern Congo, occasioned by the renewed insurgency by the M23 rebel group, which erupted last year, and has since seen hundreds of thousands displaced, and others killed.

This renewed fighting has seen the Kinshasa leadership openly enlist the services of militia groups led by FDLR, a Rwandan terror group that is largely composed of perpetrators of the Genocide against the Tutsi, to fight M23.

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Despite the regional mechanisms put in place to end this insurgency, and the willingness by the M23 rebels to negotiate with their government, the leaders in Kinshasa have only consistently found it convenient for them to take the opposite direction, and frustrate the implementation of the resolutions taken in meetings in which they have always been active participants.

Instead, they have always found it easy to blame their neighbours like Rwanda for the internal conflicts that they have failed to find a solution for, even with the backing of regional and international mechanisms.

This latest move is therefore not any different and the sooner the leadership realises that only working to deliver for the people will guide them to victory at the ballot, the better, only that with less than three months to election, the boat seems to have already sailed.