Four days ago, the US State Department issued one of the most outrageous government statements that I've ever read. In the statement attributed to Matthew Miller, the Department’s Spokesperson, the American government used its bully pulpit to give the genocidal FDLR a new lease on life, blamed the crisis in the Eastern DRC entirely on the M23, distorted the spirit and form of the Luanda and Nairobi processes, and attempted to compel Rwanda to withdraw its armed forces from their defensive positions along the common border. This wouldn't be the first time that Anthony Blinken’s State Department acted beyond all rational thought. I'd like to remind you of the phone call that President Kagame had with Secretary Blinken in November last year. ALSO READ: Kagame, Blinken discuss regional security Following that call, Blinken’s office released a statement advocating for a diplomatic solution to tensions between the two countries and urging each side to take measures to de-escalate the situation, including withdrawing troops from the border. As I wrote in a column then, asking Rwanda to remove its troops from the DR Congo border is akin to asking it to commit hara-kiri, ritual suicide. I called Blinken’s request suicidal because the forces that committed the Genocide against the Tutsi, along with the ideology that drove them, were not only alive and well right across the border but were also eager to invade Rwanda and sow mayhem. And as I reminded Blinken, not only were these genocidaires a force to be reckoned with, they were being actively armed and funded by President Felix Tshisekedi’s government. Various UN reports showed that FDLR was not only part of the forces fighting at the front, but they were also part of the Congolese army’s leadership structure in the East. In a robust response a day later, the Government of Rwanda stated the obvious, i.e., that the DRC had launched combat operations contravening the region’s peace mechanisms (in concert with FDLR), that hate speech was proliferating (often led by political leadership), and the Congolese Tutsis were being hunted like animals, creating a refugee crisis in the region. As a result of these actions, there was a risk that the crisis would spill over into Rwanda and Uganda, as it did in 2013. However, as the Government of Rwanda noted, unlike last time, Rwanda would not accept the M23 issue being externalized into Rwanda by force of arms. Rwanda’s position was that the M23 issue must be resolved politically amongst Congolese. What got tongues wagging on social media were two paragraphs in the statement. The first paragraph detailed Rwanda's military stance. It reminded the Americans (and the world) that not only had Félix Tshisekedi stated that he’d support the violent overthrow of the Rwandan government (as did Burundian president Évariste Ndayishimiye, Tshisekedi’s military ally), but his military brass had also ordered fighter jets to repeatedly violate Rwandan airspace. As a result of these very real threats, along with Tshisekedi’s purchase of deadly Chinese-made CH-4 attack drones, Rwanda had instituted measures to ensure complete air defense of Rwandan territory and to degrade offensive air capabilities. The second paragraph highlighted a puzzling contradiction. As the Rwandan statement reminded us, the State Department missive was in stark contrast to the “substance and tone of the confidence-building process initiated by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence in November 2023, which created a productive framework for de-escalation”. Ending that paragraph, Rwanda promised to “seek clarification from the U.S. Government to ascertain whether its statement represents an abrupt shift in policy, or simply a lack of internal coordination”. By stating that it would seek clarification, the Government of Rwanda was asking, what I believe, is a fundamental question; is there coherent American foreign policy in the Great Lakes Region...and if so, who (or what) is running it? What I personally believe is that because Joe Biden’s White House is not fully engaged with the Great Lakes Region, there are various power centers in Washington DC, all vying to be top dog. You have on one side the intelligence/military apparatus (CIA, NSA, and Pentagon) and on the other you have the civilian apparatus (State Department, Commerce Department, and the myriad of NGOs that act like quasi-government entities e.g., Human Rights Watch). The push-pull of these various parties (and their individual interests) creates the kind of confusion and lack of foreign policy coherence that we are seeing. At the end of the day, and with the knowledge that this incoherence is a fact of life, what Rwandans need to do is remember that no one will come to save us if terror is unleashed across the country as a result of the actions of our neighbors. We will be on our own, as we were in 1994. Because of that fact, we must put ourselves, and our livelihoods, first. The author is a socio-political commentator
