History holds it that when Eastern Europe began to turn towards democracy in the late 1980s, news analysts said the risk of war in Europe was “of course” diminishing. As the Soviet Union also stumbled toward democracy, then “of course” at each step the Cold War dwindled. The democracies would “of course” be good associate--even with a nation like Iraq, if only it were a democracy too. When troubled nations from Nicaragua to Namibia held free elections, the U.S. government drew back from intervention. Everyone from American presidents to Russian peasants spoke as if increasing democracy must decrease the risk of warfare. But this remains a fabled story in the Great Lakes region where for generations many African revolutionaries have been trying to bring about democracy and many have ended up causing more trouble. Why am I bringing this up? It is in the open to the extent that even the blind man can see that President Joseph Kabila hbas gotten wrong with the FDLR and general Laurent Nkunda. Kabila, the first democratically elected president in over 40 years of Congolese history, welcomed the FDLR and now sent away general Nkunda and his sisters and brothers of Banyamurenge origin, part and parcel of the Congo he could have sat with in reconstruction of a devastated country. In Dr. Richard Sezibera’s “Collaboration between FARDC and FDLR; danger to Rwanda security,” which appeared recently in The New Times, the FDLR were described as killers without borders who killed and maimed Rwandans in the profound 1994 Genocide. Dr. Sezibera says they are now extending their ideologies among Congolese nationals. Now, Kabily is on the crossroads between of history as he has to deal with his father’s mistakes of integrating these rebels into national organs. I think many will agree with my idea that the Great Lakes region needs to reduce violence, civil wars and hatred in our society if we are to be serious people. If he is a true democratic leader, Kabila should assist its neighbors including Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi to deal with the roots of violence because it has come to my attention that as long as the interahamwe, FDLR and the allied democratic forces which fight Uganda are still in the ranks or in the protection of Congolese government, peace will never see daylight in the region. Ultimatums will not work as long the roots of the problem are not uprooted. Kabila needs to embrace peace talks and work his best to disarm and repatriate the Intrahamwe and other negative forces. The peace-keeping forces in the Congo has been rendered toothless by Congolese government. It is like they are protecting the government forces committing the worst atrocities near and in battle fields. The United nations spends a lot of money support to peace but peace never comes, and its because of lack of intiative form the national government. Certainly the greatest challenge Kabila has is to fix his fathers grave mistakes integrating FDLR in his ranks. He has the powers to make history by carefully analyzing the way forward to deal with ex-FAR and Interahamwe, as those are the very reasons General Nkunda is fighting to protect his people. Kabila should stop giving ultimentums to general Laurent Nkunda and instead work on repatriating the negative forces that are said to be among the people occupying high-ranking political and military positions and then peace will prevail, as will the African version of the democratic-peace theory. Ends
