Why the Congolese people must put their act together

Television cameras and a host of news agencies and “experts” have been scrambling on the neigbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to figure out the ongoing conflict that has turned out to be yet another humanitarian disaster with thousands of internally displaced Congolese in North Kivu where the M23 rebels are tussling it out with the Congolese armed forces and the United Nations peace keeping force (MONUC). The spectacle of the Congolese army withdrawing in haste along with the United Nations peace keepers from the rebels, leaving behind the people they are supposed to protect, demonstrates something more than just meets the eye.There is currently a flurry of diplomatic activities including a summit scheduled to take place this week in Kampala.President Yoweri Museveni is expected to host a Summit of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region to resolve the on-going political instability and humanitarian crisis that has engulfed Eastern DRC since April this year. The said Summit follows the recently concluded 19th Ordinary Summit of Heads of State of the African Union, which backed the proposal to create an army to help rid Eastern DRC of armed groups.The Kampala Summit will examine, among other issues at stake, sources of conflict in the region, focusing mainly on the challenges of stabilising lightly governed regions such as Northern Uganda and Eastern DRC. “In the Eastern part of the DRC, conditions have been deteriorating and the violence must end immediately,” UN deputy Secretary General Jan Elliasson said recently.The 17,000 strong United Nations peace-keepers have proved to be both hapless and helpless in the face of formidable challenges, not least the determined M23 rebels fighting to restore the dignity of the so-called Rwandophone Congolese who have hitherto been treated as second rate citizens in their own country. Many times the UN peace keepers have found themselves fighting on the side of the Congolese armed forces and the ex-FAR Interahamwe, Rwanda’s long time nemesis.At the back of all these unfortunate events in North Kivu, there have been impressive efforts in the past, at stabilising the situation through peace negotiations that have left signed agreements and accords now gathering dust on shelves.The Congolese people and indeed Africans of goodwill should be haunted by the last words of the late Congolese veteran politician, Patrice Emery Lumumba when he wrote to his wife: “To my children whom I leave and whom perhaps I will see no more, I wish that they be told that the future of the Congo is beautiful and that it expects of each Congolese to accomplish the sacred task of the reconstruction of our independence and sovereignty; for without dignity there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men …. Do not weep for me, my dear companion, I know that my country which suffers so much, will know how to defend its independence and its liberty”. In the same letter, Patrice Lumumba did address the important issue of international solidarity. And this is what he pointed out: “we are not alone. Africa, Asia, and free liberated people from every corner of the world will always be found at the side of the Congolese. They will not abandon the fight until the day comes when there are no more colonisers and their mercenaries in our country.”That was 52 years ago. Congo is just a microcosm of Africa’s suffering and marginalisation. But in all this suffering and pain that the Congolese people have and continue to go through, the panacea to their suffering cannot lie outside their country and with sympathies of the international community that is often times scornful and skeptical. The solution to the Congolese crisis perhaps lie more with Congolese themselves, coming together to realistically approach their common concerns and challenges.Friends of goodwill and the rest of the international community will always come in but as a complementary factor.The current conflict in the DRC demonstrates the complexity of human nature and shortcomings within social systems and structural inequality that can clearly be an ‘objective’ condition of structural violence within a society. Chest-thumping policies that use zero-sum games in which the end justifies the means should be discouraged and, in fact, condemned.It has been argued that the essence of struggle is the competition for the necessities of life that man is not able to satisfy. At a wider level, nations are in competition over resources, trade, skills, and a satisfactory way of life. That is why successful nations grow and prosper while the unsuccessful ones decline and some become failed, or to put it in a more politically correct parlance, fragile states.

Opinions

Why the Congolese people must put their act together