DRC crisis: We need African solutions to African problems

Editor, This is in reference to Arthur Asiimwe’s article, “Too many cooks in solving DRC crisis”, (The New Times, January 31, 2013). This is a very important observation. I think the international community, by resolving to deploy drones on the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s border, is only trying to stall the ongoing Kampala peace talks, which are directly trying to tackle the problem by involving the aggrieved parties in round table negotiations.By doing so, I believe that the West itself has vested interests in an unstable DRC, which partly explains the failure of MONUSCO (United Nations Stabilisation Mission in the DR Congo) for over a decade. This is justified by the West’s renewed calls to add more troops to a fully facilitated force with a whopping annual budget of around $1.4 million that only watched on as bystanders while the M23 marched on to the regional capital, Goma.We need an African solution to an African problem.Richard Gatete Mugarura Ruzindana, Kampala, Uganda ----------------------------------------------------------- Editor,Other than the DRCs neighbours, for whom a secure and peaceful eastern Congo is essential for their own security and economic wellbeing, nobody else who matters wants to see a solution to this perennial problem that keeps on giving so much. The UN wants its stabilisation mission in DRC, MONUSCO, and the assessments that go with it to be made permanent; the countries that really control MONUSCO —a handful of powerful UN Security Council permanent members with mining interests in the DRC — want to keep a force on the ground they can control to provide security to their operators.The human rights “entrepreneurs” need a permanent crisis to validate their continued existence; and Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) is nothing more than a front for South Africa. And with Zumas personal stake in the Eastern DRC, through his nephew Khumalo Zuma’s British Virgin Islands-registered shell company, in the mix, one quickly understands why the ICGLR (International Conference on the Great Lakes Region) and, more especially Congos Eastern neighbours, cannot be allowed to come up with a solution to the problem.And the Congolese — those in the conflict zone, far from the Kinshasa lounges whose denizens are in league with those whose interest is a rough equilibrium in an unsustainable status quo. Well, those do not matter in the cold calculations of those calling the shots in New York in the various chancelleries of Western governments, Pretoria or Kinshasa. But it matters to those Congolese as it is their own lives that are being so cavalierly played with, and they will not just allow themselves to be slaughtered without doing everything in their power to defend themselves. This includes organising themselves into militias or armies to protect themselves, their communities and their property, including their natural resources. And as more and more communities organise themselves, arm themselves and begin to fight, international and regional power brokers will point to the ensuing generalised insecurity as reason for more international forces they control to be on the ground. Er, grand strategy.Mwene Kalinda, Kigali

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DRC crisis: We need African solutions to African problems