Editor, Allow me to react to the article, “FDLR: All eyes on Monusco, DR Congo as Angola summit is called off” (The New Times, January 15). I have argued before that Tanzania and South Africa are key allies to FDLR for reasons best known to the leadership in the two countries. What remains now is for Rwanda to strategically think of its next course of action as the “equaliser” in the Great Lakes Region simply because the situation is such that the odds are against Rwanda in the region today. Otherwise, how do you explain Monusco offensive on Burundi’s FNL and Uganda’s ADF while ignoring a clear and plain resolution on the next course of action towards FDLR? Perhaps the resolution is in mandarin and thus requires interpretation by Tanzania and South Africa? Bob Kirenga *********** You cannot expect forces from DRC, Tanzania and South Africa—all with pro-FDLR governments—to seriously try to fight their génocidaires allies. Neither will the larger Monusco, with Hervé Ladsous—who is intimately linked to the ex-filtration of the defeated génocidaires into Eastern DRC in 1994 under the cover of Opération Turquoise where they eventually mutated into the FDLR—still in overall charge of the UN peacekeeping department. Does anyone really believe that this confluence of conditions (Ladsous on top of UN “peacekeeping”, and FIB contingents from countries with governments very hostile to the Rwanda of today) is purely coincidental? I for one don’t think so. Noises will be made (even jarring messages will be heard, with the likes of Tanzanian foreign minister Bernard Membe spilling the truth that his country’s contingent in the FIB will not attack what his country’s official spokesperson has termed “freedom fighters”, only to be contradicted by Kikwete that Tanzania will indeed attack them), but all this is merely noisy tactics. Even if there is any attack, it will be pure theatre, designed to show that something is being done against the root cause of insecurity in eastern DRC and the wider Great Lakes Region. Underneath the noise and thunder of guns for our entertainment, collaboration among the FDLR, Monusco, Monusco-FIB, and the FARDC, will be business as usual, with barely disguised applause from the génocidaires’ many local and foreign allies and supporters in the NGOs, the Church-based organisations and the global media. The current impasse is just too lucrative for many or suits what they see as their long-term strategies. That the people of eastern DRC are paying a very high price for this criminal or immoral strategy is irrelevant to the kind of amoral people we are concerned with. As for Rwanda, let us watch our borders very closely and keep our powder very dry, thanking God for the dissuasive power of the Rwanda Defence Forces. Mwene Kalinda
