Actors playing in the same tragic act of plundering DRC resources, raping Congolese women, displacing millions of people, and making the country’s institutions weak and incapable of dealing with national pressing issues.
Joseph Kabila might never request the end of MONUSCO. The reason is that this UN peacekeeping contingent is in DRC not to stabilise the country as this is officially claimed but to weaken and control its structures of governance. Since Kabila was imposed to Congolese people by the same international community pretending to protect its populations, he has to go along with its plans. And these are to allow their multinationals and local agents [Rwanda and Uganda particularly] plunder minerals, other commodities and national wealth.
Contrary to some accepted truths in certain circles, the international community has never been on the side of Congolese people. From the time of Leopold II up to today, the developed world has looked at DRC like predators observing their prey seeking how to strike it whenever weak it would appear. It was only under Patrice Lumumba that the country and its people stood proudly on the face of the planet.
He did it against the Belgians. He managed to mobilize his people, not guns in his hands, but the power of his message. Professor Georges Nzongola explains at the micro of Ann Garrison, that they [Congolese] shouldn’t give up. They need to find within themselves and among themselves the spirit and people able to get back what is theirs: power, dignity, and sovereignty. And we friends of the Congo will do whatever is in our capacity to support their efforts.
After the collapse of the recent proposal for a new Congolese peace agreement suggested by UN in Addis Abeba, could it be right to conclude that the international community has abandoned Congolese? In my view, I see in that failure a new development in the situation prevailing in the region. MONUSCO, Rwanda and Uganda are all part of the ongoing instability and suffering of populations. And everyone knows that the mission given to the UN contingent of peacekeepers is decided by the UNSC whose mechanisms of operating are almost dictated by the 5 permanent members: US, UK, France, China and Russia. Depending on arrangements between these countries and their lobbying strategies they influence what is finally agreed upon, and generally it comes out being detrimental to those it is applied on.
Tanzania and South Africa deciding not to sign the newly suggested Congolese peace agreement is a positive development. For almost fifteen years, everybody can see no change in whatever initiative is brought on the table by the so called international community [UNSC recent resolution allowing the use of Drones in the region which is only a strategy of increasing western military presence of gathering intelligence under the disguise of controlling movements at the borders between Rwanda and Uganda on the one side and DRC on the other].
The two SADC countries want to see a real change in the prevailing instability in DRC. Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola in 1998 did the same when the same invaders, Rwanda and Uganda plus Burundi at the time interfered in DRC. As Tanzania and South Africa are contributing forces and material to the new international force to stand between Rwanda and DRC and also fight rebel groups, it seems logical they don’t want to have their contingent led by a MONUSCO which has so far been only inefficient in bringing stability in the region.
Have Congolese been abandoned by the international community? I would say it has never been on their side. But I would also argue that there is an increasing awareness among Africans [Congolese and others] who care about Africa and are ready to stand for a change of what is wrong about DRC.
As professor Georges Nzongola hypothesizes
“Our hope is that we [Congolese] can mobilize people internally, to really paralyze the state, and create a situation where it [change] might be possible.”
