DRC: Tshisekedi disregarding father's will to end genocidal militia

Author: Lindah Uwase

• 2023-01-02 05:35:00

While in exile, around 1999-2000 Etienne Tshisekedi, father of the current President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Felix Tshisekedi, appeared in the media saying that Kinshasa shouldn’t blame Kigali for its woes.

Once the advisor of Patrice Lumumba, former Congolese Prime Minister, Etienne, drafted the 1965 Zaïre Constitution. He said that the country had signed a pact with the devil from the moment Mobutu Sese Seko, agreed to protect and defend the genocidal regime in Rwanda led by Juvenal Habyarimana. Mobutu groomed Habyarimana.

 Their pact became stronger in 1992 when the latter on several occasions went to seek advice from the former on how to maintain power. From their meetings, Habyarimana learnt how to polarize the political situation in Rwanda, promote ethnic divisions, and eventually carry out a genocide.

In April 1994, when Habyarimana died, Mobutu took his body to his hometown, Gbadolite. However, when the first Congo war broke out and Mobutu realised that he was likely to lose power, he ordered for Habyarimana’s body to be flown to Kinshasa for cremation.

This act marked a seal on Mobutu’s pact with Habyarimana.

In Etienne’s view, the curse on the DRC worsened when the country opened its borders and welcomed mass murderers who committed the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and settled them on the common border.

Etienne who had long wanted to take power wished for the elimination of the FDLR - a militia group made up of individuals responsible for the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. Had he gotten a chance to power, DRC would possibly be a much safer and organised country.

But it is not.

 Etienne’s son, Felix, is in power.

 Anyone would have thought that any son would want to walk in the footsteps of his father when it comes to righteousness. Unfortunately, he chose the opposite route and resurrected the Mobutu curse that his father wanted to undo.

Be it culturally or religiously, going against your parents is taboo and never ends well. Tshisekedi has gone against his father’s will by all standards including the integration of FDLR into the national army as highlighted in the October 2022 Human Rights Watch report.

Etienne was against blaming Rwanda and, in fact, stated that Rwanda has a right to defend herself from the FDLR which was settled and integrated in the DRC.

However, his son is geared to undo him. He is hauling blame on Rwanda yet he is in bed with the same terror group his father was fighting.

The late Etienne is definitely not resting well in his grave. And Félix’s ending may be as miserable as that of Mobutu who initially brought the curse into DRC.