Thursday, January 30, 2025

We Must Avoid Manipulation in Seeking Solutions to DR Congo Crisis - Kagame

30 January 2025

The New Times (Kigali)

By Felly Kimenyi

President Paul Kagame has urged his counterparts from the East African Community (EAC) to pull in the same direction and avoid being manipulated in the effort to find a solution to security challenges blighting the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

He was speaking at a crisis summit that brought together heads of state of the EAC to discuss the escalating security situation in the eastern part of DR Congo, which saw the North Kivu provincial capital Goma fall to Congolese rebel group M23.

Held virtually, the summit was convened by Kenyan president William Ruto in his capacity as the current chair of the bloc.

The security crisis in the volatile region also extended to Rwanda, where Congolese government forces and the coalition fighting alongside them shelled across the Rwandan border town Rubavu, killing at least 13 people and injuring hundreds of others.

In his speech during the meeting, Kagame said that while the regional leaders have been articulate when it came to stating the problems in DR Congo - which is also an EAC member state - the actions towards resolving these problems have been in sharp contrast.

He particularly cited the lack of leadership on the process to address these challenges, which was a major stumbling block to finding a lasting solution to a problem that he said he did not have a doubt anybody did not see coming.

"Is there anybody among us who did not see this coming? I for one I saw is coming...because I did not see who was taking charge of the process, who was listening, or who was trying to provide any kind of guidance as to what we should be doing from one thing to another," Kagame said.

The meeting was skipped by Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, an issue Kagame said was further indication of the challenge they are faced with; having a meeting where the country concerned has not delegated anyone.

"And the country is supposed to be part of the East African Community...so I am not sure what bearing what we are discussing has on what happens in the process of finding a solution in this country."

Kagame accused Tshisekedi of manipulating other leaders saying that such attitude led to the collapse of meaningful solutions created under the EAC framework, including the East African Region Force (EACRF) which was deployed in DR Congo in November 2022 to help facilitate the implementation of a peace process aimed at bringing an end to the conflict.

The force was later expelled on the orders of the Congolese president, after he asked them to fight the M23 which was against their rules of engagement because they were supposed to facilitate a peace process.

"Tshisekedi felt we were not doing what he wanted, he went to SADC (Southern African Development Community) which agreed to come and do what he wanted, so he sent everybody else packing. And that we complied and kept quiet, what did we expect to come out of that?"

The force, to which Rwanda was not part, was deployed to oversee the Nairobi Peace Process, which was bungled by the Kinshasa regime.

Kagame urged the EAC leaders to have a common understanding of the problems in DR Congo or risk to continue being manipulated by their counterpart, promising them to take care of their interests.

"But even if we were doing everything right, all of us, nothing is going to come out of it until those mainly concerned are part of it and participating and contributing to the success of the process through which they are getting the support."

He said that the best solution to security challenges can never be military, but rather through dialogue, but urged that such processes and their respective facilitators should not be an end into themselves than the results expected from them.

"I don't understand how Tshisekedi keeps thinking that he will resolve the problems to do with rights of people militarily...kill them, shoot them, bring forces that are ready to help like Burundi I don't know whether that has been helpful the last few weeks they have been doing that."

Burundian armed forces are part of the cocktail of forces fighting alongside the Congolese coalition - which also includes FDLR, a militia group founded by perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

He added: "I want us, whatever we are saying, and whatever we intend to do, we capture the context rightly and then proceed based on that, then we can get somewhere. But if we keep saying good things to each other and being nice and each one fulfilling their own interest other than common interests as East Africans, then I don't see how we are going to contribute effectively to finding a solution.

"But to have had East African Community expelled from eastern Congo and everybody complied and kept quiet as if it was normal and that everything is being dictated by the person we are trying to help, I did not understand that, and that is why we are where we are."

Read the original article on New Times.

No comments: