Africa-Press – Rwanda. Next week the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Rwanda and Congo. As the tensions in the region are verry high with an ongoing war in the Kivu’s between the M-23 rebels and the Congolese army, with the UN-force MONUSCO in the defensive for not being efficient enough to deal with all these problems and with all these problems and the growing criticism against Rwanda for having lured the Hollywood hero Paul Rusesebagina in a trap and having him condemned to 25 years behind bars this visit comes at a crucial moment.
Two days ago, members of a UN research group talked to colleagues of Reuters and they showed them so called facts that the Rwandan army was directly involved with the M-23 rebellion north of Goma.
This news was preceded by a Human Rights Watch paper in which Rwanda was also accused to support the M-23. A lot of Congo watchers think that you’ll be travelling to this region to tap Rwanda on its fingers.
This might help to solve the situation for a couple of months but it would not solve the problem on the longer run. Nobody owns the truth in this matter but we have the impression that the US and especially the US government is not well enough informed about this very complex crisis.
Looking at it through sunglasses that were purchased on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard, taking the findings of a UN research group and an organization such as HRW for granted and mainly listening to the small army of foreign diplomats and military attaches who are based in Kinshasa is not going to help either. Because your government might issue statements it might regret later on.
Rwanda is an important and one of the most reliable allies of the US in this region and the country is involved in the struggle against Muslim extremism in other African countries, in other countries on this continent they provide counter balance against the growing Russian (Wagner) influence on this continent.
On top of that their arguments about what is really happening in Rwanda and in the DRC might also have their own validity. You’ll be walking on eggs when you visit this region, Mister Blinken. And we’ll try to give you the list of the most important obstacles you’ll have to pass to make it back to the States without holes in your pants.
In a firefight it is always advisable to look first for cover, to try to know where the bullets come from, who’s shooting at you and to determine the kind of ammo they are using and base your counter attack on that info.
In this case the recce done on the spot by Blinken’s collaborators is very bad. He should take this into consideration before he acts. Marc Hoogsteyns is a free-lance journalist who lived and worked most of his life in the African Great Lakes Region. He covers Countries especially DRCongo, Rwanda and Burundi. He runs Kivu Press Agency and is accessible on @MarcHoogsteyns
The views expressed in this article are of the writer.
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