Someone advise Mr Tshisekedi, war is not a game of football

Felix Tshisekedi wants war with Rwanda. The President of the Democratic Republic of Congo apparently wants “regime change” in Rwanda. He said as much in a rambling speech, one utterly detached from reality, before a gathering of representatives of his country’s youth, late last year. I have to smdh, as they say on social media. The President of the DRC constantly claims the source of his problems with Rwanda is that Kigali supports the M23 rebel movement to fight his government. He makes the accusation in every forum, domestically and internationally. Whenever Tshisekedi rises to speak at any international or regional gathering you can bet, a hundred per cent, it will be to accuse Rwanda of something. Either it will be “sponsoring the M23.” Or it will be “causing insecurities in Congo.” Or it will be more whining that “Rwanda is stealing Congo’s wealth.” Matters have become so ridiculous that Tshisekedi’s people even used the UN podium to accuse Rwanda of stealing their gorillas and chimpanzees, to take the animals to the Rwandan side of the border. Most interestingly, neither Tshisekedi nor his government has ever come up with evidence to back any of their accusations. Not once. Normally, even in the simplest court cases when a prosecutor makes an accusation, they will make their case in a careful, reasoned way, with verifiable evidence to back their accusations. They make sure they have impeccable arguments to bolster their case. But with the Tshisekedi regime’s approach, while these people purport to be raising the grievances of one state against another, theirs only is a cacophony of accusations no different than a village drunkard in a market hurling abuse at a neighbour. This is no exaggeration. Truly, Rwanda among nations has a unique problem. How does one deal with people of this kind of mentality? People that sent their top diplomat at the UN to accuse another country of stealing primates, during a discussion about Ukraine? It is enough to render one speechless. Now, all signs are that Kinshasa is itching to bring a “hot war” to Rwanda. Tshisekedi probably imagines he has entered the actionable stage of his declared regime-change intentions in Kigali. Consistent reports from the east of the DRC, usually accompanied by photographs and video, indicate that Kinshasa is working with mercenaries from eastern Europe. These also are said to be training the country’s military (the FARDC), and its partner illegal armed militias, most notoriously the genocidal FDLR – an offshoot of the ex-FAR and Interahamwe militias, both groups that were the main perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda. There are reported to be up to 2,000 European mercenaries working for Kinshasa. The Tshisekedi regime claims it is “fighting the M23.” Here, we have to keep in mind Kinshasa’s constant claims that the M23 (a group composed of natives Congolese citizens that happen to be Kinyarwanda-speaking) is “Rwandan.” The lie that they are Rwandan foreigners is a longstanding ploy not only to deprive the M23 of their rights but to turn the M23 – and the Congolese Tutsi communities it fights for – into a lightning rod for the regime’s failures. The thing is, without his Tutsi victims, Tshisekedi is nothing, completely. They save him from accountability for his, and his government’s abject failures at managing Congolese affairs. He can always point them and claim, “these Rwandans are what cause all our problems!” Constantly scapegoating Rwanda (which happens concurrently with the atrocities authored by Kinshasa), serves the same purpose. But then, the regime must serve the ordinary, hungry, and angry masses ever bigger doses of anger. And the world looks on, as Kinshasa incites genocide against unarmed, helpless Tutsi populations, perpetrated by up to 200 armed militias, working under the banner “Wazalendo” (patriots), who massacre whole villages of the pastoralist Tutsi communities, rape their women, raze their houses to the ground, and eat their livestock. Some countries of the region have worked to broker peace deals to bring an end to the conflicts; the atrocities and human rights abuses, to no avail. Kinshasa is in total contempt of any process that does not allow it to exterminate, or expel a section of its population, on the spurious grounds that they all are terrorists and foreigners. But, like a drug addict who craves an ever-bigger high, Tshisekedi and his people want more violence. They want the biggest violence of all: war with another country, namely Rwanda. The Tshisekedi government, which has to face a highly discontented electorate in December, probably is imagining that a war may be the thing to save it, by having the presidential poll postponed. Whatever he is thinking, someone better remind President Felix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo: wars are not games that one can schedule, and stop as one likes. Neither are militaries like football teams, whereby the guy with a weak outfit can buy players from overseas (i.e. mercenaries) to help him win. Wars, especially unjust wars, usually have a nasty shock in store for those who start them.

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Someone advise Mr Tshisekedi, war is not a game of football