Our Congolese neighbours have been saying some horrible things lately. About Rwanda, they say we are backing a Congolese rebel group, M23, that has renewed its fight with the government in Kinshasa. And for this they vow to march on this country and either annex it or obliterate it. They have been marching in the streets of some towns brandishing machetes and threatening to cut into pieces every Rwandan in sight, including their own Kinyarwanda speaking nationals whom they have declared foreign. It sounds chillingly familiar. It is only 28 years since hordes of machete-wielding interahamwe and gun-toting government soldiers hacked and mowed down more than one million Tutsi in Rwanda whom they had also decreed alien. The hate speech and threats of extermination coming out of Congo should ring alarm bells about the likely re-enactment of 1994 and act to prevent it. That probably won’t happen. This is not the first time the DRC makes accusations against Rwanda and threatens its destruction. It has done so at different times in the last 25 years, especially when things are not going well domestically. Still, one may ask: why do they keep doing it? The reasons are many as knowledgeable analysts, commentators and experts on the region have advanced. One is what we are seeing today: the habit, which they share with other badly governed states, of looking for somebody, usually an outsider, to blame for their failure to deal with their own weaknesses. In the present instance, Rwanda is a convenient scapegoat for the government’s failure to honour an agreement with the M23 fighters. Problem is, this does not make the issues go away. Which is why there is this periodic return of the blame option. For its entire post-independence period, Eastern DRC has really never been effectively governed by the government in Kinshasa. The government has largely been absent. As they say, nature abhors a vacuum, even in governance. And so various groups and interests, including armed groups, have set up there to fill the gap and have been the power and authority in the area. Among the armed groups is the FDLR, constituted from ex-Rwandan soldiers and interahamwe who fled to DRC after committing genocide in Rwanda. They have sworn to return and pick up from where they left. Successive Congolese governments have found the FDLR useful allies in reinforcing their position at home and against neighbours. It is safe to say the FDLR is effectively a regiment of the eastern command of the Congolese armed forces (FARDC) while retaining its avowed aim of returning to Rwanda to complete its genocidal mission. Then there are a myriad Congolese armed rebel groups formed either for self-defence in the face of an absent government or to plunder. These too fight or ally with the government whenever it suits either. Add to this mix the hugely expensive United Nations peace-keeping force, MONUSCO, whose mission was to stabilise and restore peace to the region. It has failed dismally. At best, they have been bystanders; at worst, complicit in the violence and plunder. MONUSCO is selective in what its forces see. They are quick to see M23 but FDLR and other armed groups remain invisible to them. They can see Rwanda’s hand behind problems in Congo but are blind to a DRC government unable to keep its word or its alliance with various armed groups. Now there is a resurgent M23, which we are informed has returned to the battlefield because the DRC government has not kept its part of an agreement with the rebel movement. Hundreds of mining and other commercial interests, legal and illegal, big and small, are scattered all over the region, all helping themselves to the famed natural wealth of the country. For protection of their operations, they often use the services of the different armed groups. The picture in the region is completed by a huge number of civil society organisations that have taken over the role of the state. And so, for all intents and purposes, the government has let the region to all these groups and its officials collect some kind of rent or uses the armed groups as a proxy force. How Rwanda can be responsible for the DRC government’s abnegation of its duty or what interest that would serve is difficult to understand. Another reason advanced to explain the current Congolese accusations, threats and posturing is the jostling for commercial deals by countries in the region. The DRC is a huge market with apparently inexhaustible natural resources, and everyone wants in on this bounty, and just in but to be dominant, so the argument goes. This sort of scramble probably emboldens the DRC authorities to say the things they are saying. Then of course, there is the fact that DRC is in election mode, although the polls are still more than a year away. Rwanda-bashing is a vote winner. The more virulent, the greater the gains. All these are probably valid. But they also point to an unfortunate state of mind. The Congolese seem to have lost any sense of responsibility for their state. Perhaps it is possible to understand why. They have had a brutal history that has had a debilitating effect on their collective psyche. First there was the untold brutality and dehumanisation of the rule of King Leopold and his Congo Free State. Matters did not improve much when the Belgian government took over the country. The promise of liberation and restoration of dignity was cut short when Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba was assassinated shortly after independence in 1960. This was followed, especially in the east of the country, by many years of rebellion and neglect. What remained of the dream died when Mobutu took over power and for more than thirty years supervised over a kleptocracy. When he was removed, the political class in Kinshasa did seem to know what to do with the freedom. The east again descended into another cycle of rebellions. All this must have sapped any notion of their ability to deal with matters of their country. They suffer from another debilitating condition that makes it difficult to help them: acute braggadocio. They will boast about their big country and its fabulous wealth even when most live in abject poverty. They will say how strong they are and can never be defeated even when history shows the contrary. And a lot of more exaggerated claims. And just as they lack agency and are quick to externalise their weaknesses, they also easily permit external elements to influence them. Of course, DRC can be a great country. But first, its leaders and citizens must recognise their deficiencies and deal with them. They must carry their burden and not shift them to others. The views expressed in this article are of the writer.
