***
With the full deployment by the end of this month of the MONUSCO
Intervention Brigade, M23 political head Bertrand Bisimwa may most
definitely have started feeling the ground opening up under him and
his posse of international bandits.
In his reaction to the UN Security Council resolution 2098 (2013)
setting up an "Intervention Brigade" to go after M23 and other armed
groups, Bisimwa, who's recently taken on the habit of donning a stupid
oversized cow-boy felt hat à la Yoweri Museveni, said yesterday at a
press briefing at Bunagana that "from now on, peacekeeping forces will
wage war on groups of citizens who are demanding good governance in
our country."
Really, Bisimwa!
Could you show the world the petition signed by groups of Congolese
residents of the Republic asking you and your gangsters to kill,
plunder, and rape on their behalf for good governance?
Is Bisimwa waging war for "Groups of Citizens" or is he an element of
the hordes of "doppelgänger anticitizens" terrorizing peaceful
Congolese civilians?
(I systematically use on this blog the expression "doppelgänger
anticitizens"--coined by Comaroff and Comaroff in another context--to
tag individuals or groups evincing various kinds of uncivic
behaviors.)
Significantly, Bismwa added: "It [the UN military offensive campaign]
will be the Apocalypse!"
Apocalypse now, indeed, for Bisimwa, his bandits and his
sponsors--Rwanda and Uganda--as their loots in the Congo would dry up
overnight!
Congolese therefore can't wait to see the advent of this
Apocalypse--in the real or figurative sense--of Bisimwa and his M23
looters, rapists and mass murderers. In fact, most Congolese denizens
often even fantasize about real Apocalypse being visited upon Rwanda
and Uganda!
Well, it's never too late: Bisimwa and his fellow could still avoid
the Apocalypse by laying down their weapons and disbanding--with
individual members reporting to the nearest police precinct to detail
the mischiefs and atrocities they might committed upon Congolese
civilians. For this time around, civil society groups of the Kivus
have vowed to see to it that not one single abuser of human rights
would go unpunished!
Maybe Bisimwa and his international bandits didn't realize there was a
rising tsunami of outrage worldwide over military entrepreneurship of
cross-border resource pillages masquerading as homegrown legitimate
demands over governance--the very kind Rwanda and Uganda have been
repeatedly engaged in on the territory of the DRC, claiming staggering
human tolls and devastating humanitarian disasters.
Talking of humanitarian disasters, it now turns out that Rwanda is
having a tidbit of taste of the bitter medicine it had been
administering to the Congo over the years.
Rwanda Minister of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs Seraphine
Mukantabana, who was describing yesterday to the Kigali daily "New
Times" the relocation of 689 M23 bandits (of the Jean-Marie Runiga's
faction) from the border district of Rubavu to Ngoma, also complained
about the lack of international assistance in this mini-refugee
crisis.
Said Mukantabana:
"The international community has ignored and adamantly decided not to
support us in managing this crisis. These are not our citizens,
neither are they our prisoners, they belong to the UN."
Adding:
"It is now upon the UN to provide other requirements for the refugees."
(Source: http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?i=15315&a=65551)
This would sound like a cruel joke to the more than 800,000 Congolese
IDPs who've left their homes and livelihoods thanks to Rwandan-backed
M23 cross-border terror group.
And, if anything, this episode should serve as a cautionary tale to
Rwanda who's wont to cause mayhem, deaths, and mass displacement of
populations in the Congo.
***
PHOTO CREDITS: Via kigalitoday.com
