There it was ladies and gentlemen, the president of Kenya magisterially exploding one of the most egregious lies to come out of the Kinshasa regime. President William Samoei Ruto, in a recent interview with Jeune Afrique magazine, and with a look of incredulity on his face told how the president of DRC Felix Tshisekedi Tshilombo himself didn’t deny M23 are a Congolese nationals. Ruto’s facial expression, alternately registering incredulity and deep bewilderment, said it all. Tshisekedi’s people have been shouting, none stop and from the rooftops, that the M23 rebel movement is Rwandan. The likes of Patrick Muyaya, Christopher Lutundula, et al have convinced the most gullible that this is the truth. On the basis of that cynical lie, the regime has targeted Rwandophone Tutsi communities of eastern DRC with a campaign of hate speech and genocide. “We shall kill all the Rwandans!, machete-wielding militias affiliated to Tshilombo’s ruling party yell, as they kill innocent civilians in the Kivus; people whose only crime is that they are of Tutsi ethnicity from pastoralist and herder cultures. “We shall drive all Rwandans back to their country!” Kinshasa-funded cutthroat goons known as Wazalendo shout, as they hound, hunt, kill members of the Tutsi community, looting their property, or slaughter and eat their livestock. Ironically, but not at all surprisingly, you also have Interahamwe – actual Rwandans – participating in Tshisekedi’s campaign of hate speech and genocide against the Tutsi communities. In other words, these genocidaires – a gang that was born from the ex-FAR and Interahamwe militias that perpetrated the bloodbath against the Tutsi in Rwanda before fleeing to the then Zaire after the RPF liberating force routed them – are doing what they know best. Hunt down, rape, and kill Tutsi civilians in the most heinous ways. Tshisekedi has fully embraced the ideology of these extremist Hutu elements, and made it his own. As if to further confirm this, he has fully integrated them into his military. DR Congo’s ruler has descended down the rabbit hole of genocide ideology and has set his Wazalendo mass murderers against those decent Congolese Hutu Rwandophones that insist on good neighborliness with their Tutsi compatriots. They slaughter them just for that. It’s completely mad. In a saner world, people everywhere already would be up in arms, asking the Kinshasa regime why in the first place it deems the mere fact of one supposedly being Rwandan to be targeted with pogroms, ethnic cleansing, and other genocidal atrocities. How can the world, or the so-called International Community, be so indifferent? We know some answers. There are the powerful, and mighty, who salivate for the vast country’s minerals, and so will turn a blind eye, no matter what crimes Tshilombo and his cabal perpetrate. They know Tshisekedi is the principle conflict-monger behind the DRC’s insecurity; a man that has torpedoed the best initiatives by regional states – i.e. the Nairobi and Luanda processes – to achieve peaceful resolution to the Congo’s troubles. But they (the powerful and the mighty) not only won’t ever permit a word of criticism against Tshisekedi escape their lips, they in fact will coddle his regime with more aid, as the best ploy to gain more concession to minerals. They won’t stop there, but will take sides with him in his lies, using mealy mouthed words to claim M23, a movement by a people whose very existence Kinshasa has put under threat, somehow is the responsibility of Rwanda. Yet the cabal’s constant whining about Rwanda is a smokescreen, to deflect from the Tshisekedi regime’s pathetic failure to get its house in order, to give the Congolese population good governance, rule of law, and other social goods responsible governments do. But now Tshisekedi’s lie, which already was very flimsy, has been dealt a devastating blow. President Ruto disclosed to Jeune Afrique how in a closed heads-of-state meeting, they asked the Congolese ruler: is M23 Rwandan, or Congolese? Tshisekedi admitted they are Congolese. Delivering the uppercut, Ruto said: “End of question! So, if these are Congolese, how does it become a Rwanda’s problem?” Such honesty and integrity ought to be emulated by more leaders, everywhere.
