When the state is an absentee landlord

The International Conference on the Great Lakes (ICGLR) Heads of State summit has recommended that member states should contribute officers to the joint verification mechanism (JVM), to be based in Eastern DRC, and subsequently contribute troops to an International neutral force as part of a solution to the problems in the DRC.While efforts in the last couple of months by the ICGLR Chairman, President Yoweri Museveni must be hailed for trying to find a way forward, we must avoid cosmetic approaches to finding durable solutions to the problems in Eastern Congo.It is actually amazing and cynical at the very least, how some individuals , groups and organizations purporting to be helping in finding a long term solution to the on-going conflict in Eastern DRC have systematically and consistently failed or rather conviniently avoided , to pin point, point-blank, the real issues that led to the birth and creation of M23 in Eastern DRC.Part of the explanation for this scenario is that some of those claiming to be ‘friends’ of Kinshasa and ‘’helping’’ it to find answers to the crisis are either the cause or part and parcel of the problem,or are direct or indirect beneficiaries from the mess.It is also equally disturbing ,and almost suspicious, that no single media house or Journalist, local, regional or international, has bothered to dig deeper and report factual and historical precedents that have led to this latest fighting, preferring instead, to easily , lazily and in some cases, acting in outright complicity , with the government in Kinshasha to hype up and help create and shape international opinion based on an erroneous, wrong and stupid narrative, that Rwanda is supporting the M23 rebels in Eastern DRC.This was only meant to deflect, hoodwink and divert International attention from Kinshasha’s abysmal cateloque of failures .The Democratic Republic of Congo, just like its leaders, is a country of paradoxes. Rich and yet impoverished, Huge in size, (2,344,858 square km - two-thirds of the size of western Europe , and yet missing everywhere in terms of territorial administration, DRC is Africa’s hellhole. Nothing works in this part of the world , and when it does, it is always in reverse gearThe Institution of the state is virtually dead. The prestigious Foreign Policy magazine’s Failed States Index puts DR Congo in the critically failed category. The most affected institutions by this state of Anarchy, failure and absence in DR Congo are the Army and Police.Reports indicate that both the Congolese Army and police are never paid salaries. When they do, half their payments are taken by high ranking officers, due to endemic corruption within the two otherwise key institutionsAs a result, the Army and Police turn to civilians for survival. They prey on the masses, killing and raping. Congolese are often heard lamenting about who is going to protect them from their ‘protectors’. DR Congo is thus a country with no National sovereignty , it’s a country where key decisions are taken by either the UN, the so called International NGO’s and Human rights organizations, and on financial matters, by World Bank technocrats.Simply put, it’s a country under International trusteeship.For almost two decades now, Eastern DRC is a haven for mutating, marauding militias, killing and raping at will. When the UN came in, in the late 1990’s, they joined the raping and looting spree and the party goes on till today. While hundreds of Congolese citizens who fled from both the UN , militias and the Congolese Army remain refugees in neighboring countries, the institution of the state in DR Congo remains an absentee landlord. The author is a communications expert and entrepreneur based in Kigali.