PHOTO 1: "A joint team (Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa) arrives in Goma on a reconnaissance mission ahead of the deployment of the Intervention Brigade in eastern DRC, 12 March 2013. Photo by Sylvain Liechti." (MONUSCO photo legend)
PHOTO 2: Rwandan propaganda claims that these guys killing time at Ngoma Interment Camp in Eastern Province, Rwanda, are among the 689 defeated fighters of the pro-Bosco Ntaganda M23 faction.
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No one in the DRC is fooled any longer by the bombastic communiqués being fired urbi et orbi by the M23, including the most recent one, appointing two new so-called administrators for the territories of Nyiragongo and Rutshuru.
Everyone here knows that bad, deleterious morale is tearing the bandit outfit asunder.
Radio Okapi reports for instance that in this past month of April alone, 87 M23 fighters had surrendered to MONUSCO forces.
The short term outlook for M23 was so dire with this personnel depletion that it has just set up an ambush point about 30 meters from the entrance of a MONUSCO base at Kiwanja for the purpose of shooting to kill its deserters!
This situation is a far cry from what prevailed on the ground just two months ago.
Then, leaders of the M23 outfit of doppengänger anticitizens were sending threatening letters to parliaments in South Africa, Malawi, and Tanzania.
In those missives riddled with egregious grammatical errors and typos, these cross-border criminals were telling lawmakers of those countries to pressure their respective governments to renege on their pledge to contribute troops to the MONUSCO Intervention Brigade... or else!
That was then, when these modern-day highwaymen were still basking under the fresh reinforcements of their ranks by Rwandan combatants and troops from the defeated splinter pro-Bosco Ntaganda M23 group who'd apparently been sent back by Rwanda to northeastern DRC.
By the way, Rwanda still dismisses as "rumors" reports alleging that Rwandan insurgency micromanagers sent back into the Congo fighters of the defeated wing of M23.
And to dispel those rumors, the Rwandan Minister of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs, Séraphine Mukantabana, has now picked the habit of taking diplomats accredited to Kigali on sightseeing tours of Ngoma Interment Camp in Eastern Province, Rwanda, where those alleged M23 erstwhile fighters are supposed to be sheltered.
Minister Mukantabana is even swearing these days that those defeated M23 fighters have all but given up on their razzias into the DRC by producing one exemplar of the "oath" these bandits are supposed to have "freely" written.
The exemplar being shown around is the one written by one of the M23 lead criminals, which reads:
"I, Jean-Marie Rugerero Runiga, hereby willingly genuinely and permanently renounce all political activities that can be associated to armed groups."
Sick humor no doubt as the "oath" is about renouncing "political activities"; not military activities--though some M23 ex-fighters present at Ngoma Interment Camp include some of the most vicious M23 military chiefs of the ilk of renegade Brig. Gen. Baudouin Ngaruye and Col. Innocent Zimurinda.
And just as recently Rwanda was seeking that the DRC grants citizenship to all Rwandan refugees who are on Congolese soil, Minister Mukantabana now wants the UNHCR to "expedite" the "status change" from armed insurgents to refugees for those international bandits.
Now, the Rwandan desperate strategy is to clamor that the crisis in eastern DRC can't be resolved militarily.
Which means that M23 renegades have to be reintegrated into the FARDC and be given the military command of the North-Kivu Province.
When M23 and their Rwandan sponsors still seemed to have fallen prey to their own propaganda of invulnerability and of MONUSCO's supposed military incompetence and alleged duplicity with Rwandan FDLR terrorists, they were MONUSCO-bashing all over the place.
Now the narrative is somewhat muddled, though you still encounter now and then that MONUSCO-bashing vein.
For instance, as recently as April 30, the Kigali-based daily New Times was recycling this MONUSCO-bashing narrative in an article penned by Edwin Musoni announcing the visit to Rwanda of former Irish president Mary Robinson, newly appointed UN Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Musoni's article reads in part:
"Currently, the UN Mission in DR Congo maintains close to 20,000 peacekeepers but they have been accused of maintaining a friendly relationship with top commanders of genocidal group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda [.]"
(Source: http://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/index.php?a=66433&i=15343)
Now that MONUSCO Intervention brigage is set to be deployed, Rwandan diehard warmongers need to be told by the DRC government and the international community in no uncertain terms that they should stay within the confines of Rwanda.
On the other hand, peddlers of death of the likes of M23 bandits have shown enough to the world that they don't care a whit about Congo and Congolese citizens.
Therefore, doppelgänger anticitizens of the likes of Runiga should be instead seeking Rwandan citizenship instead of a change of status to Refugees from the DRC.
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PHOTO CREDITS: PHOTO 1: monusco.unmissions.org; PHOTO 2: newtimes.co.rw
