Regional
For Rwandans all lives matter and it’s a duty to protect them
Rwandan troops are in Mozambique in the Cabo
Delgado region to help fight terrorists, stabilise the area and restore the
authority of the state. That is a fact. They are there on the invitation of the
government of Mozambique and bilateral agreement between the two countries.
That is also a fact.
For several years now terrorists have ravaged the
Cabo Delgado region. They have killed and displaced thousands of citizens,
destroyed property and made the area ungovernable. For all this long, no one
has done anything about it and the situation has grown worse. That is also a
fact.
The Rwandan troops have now been there for nearly two weeks. It is
no longer news. Yet the story remains in the media. Some have clearly been
irked by the development and have been questioning why it should be Rwanda to
act where others have been indifferent or refused to do so.
They may pretend, but these questions and objections and other
attitudes are not in defence of a sacred principle that has been violated. They
are signs of hypocrisy, guilt and embarrassment, pique or simply a dislike for
Rwanda doing what they failed to do.
Intervention by foreign countries to help sort
out a domestic issue that threatens the very existence of the state or regional
security and stability, whether home-grown or imported, is not new. Also not
new is the existence of terrorism in Africa. It has been around for some time
now The novel element here is that this time it is an African country involved,
and that not one of the continent’s heavyweights.
European
countries and the United States of America have always intervened in one form
or another. France regularly does in its former colonies in central and West
Africa to quell domestic dissent or fight terrorism. No one complains. It is
accepted as normal.
The United States has been involved in Somalia for decades and now
increasingly in West Africa and the Sahel. We do not hear loud howls of protest
or condemnation as we do now. The only complaint often is that the intervention
is not big or robust enough.
Both and
other European countries combined to destroy Libya. Everyone looked on as the
country was torn apart. Of course, we hear noises about leaving Africans to
solve their own problems or slogans like African solutions to African problems.
But the reality is that conflicts are not solved by handwringing, expressions
of righteous indignation or pious statements. They are resolved by bold action.
In any event, inaction for whatever reason or delay while
debating issues of pre-eminence in any operation or other diplomatic niceties
abet the work of terrorists. They achieve their primary objective to undermine
the legitimacy of the state by eroding its ability to govern and to protect its
citizens from attack, and generally make it a failed state. If this state lasts
long enough, the population grows disenchanted with the government and embraces
the terrorists as the only available alternative.
Someone
had to act to prevent this situation developing in Mozambique. And so enter
Rwanda to the chagrin of some. But I think those unhappy with Rwanda’s
deployment are asking the wrong questions. They should be asking whether Rwanda
has the cause, capacity and experience to intervene successfully. They will
find the answer in the country’s recent history. They will find useful
precedent, resoluteness and success rate to match.
Few other people are aware of their history and their politics and
international relations shaped by it as Rwandans. In recent times, that starts
with the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. That horrific period is a pivotal
moment in this history.
No one,
inside or outside Rwanda, can ever run away from it. Some may try to ignore or
deny it or pretend it did not happen; they can never wish it away or erase it.
It happened and more than one million people were killed because the world
chose to look the other way and gave the killers a free hand. It could have
been prevented or stopped once it had started with minimal intervention. It was
not. We know the results. And even as Rwanda rebuilds, the consequences are
still with us.
Rwandans
learnt lessons from that. Lives matter and none should be needlessly lost. They
cannot be saved by endless debates and discussions or chest-thumping, but by
decisive action. That is how the RPF was able to stop the genocide in 1994.
The defeated genocidal government relocated across the border
in Zaire, now DR Congo with their administrative and military structures and
arms, and created an extra-territorial state. Again, no one intervened to
disarm them or break up this semblance of a state, or move them farther from the
border. Instead, they were allowed to reorganise and rearm and plot incursions
into Rwanda.
It again fell on
the government of Rwanda to break these structures and repatriate civilians
that had been held hostage. The hard-core genocidaires scattered in the D R
Congo forests. True, they regrouped into the FDLR terrorist group and later its
many splinter factions and continued to mount sporadic attacks on Rwanda, but
the greater threat had been removed.
It is not only in war that Rwanda is ready to lend a helping hand. See how it has taken in migrants stranded in Libya when few others were willing to do so. Or its response to covid-19 and natural disasters. Saving lives and preserving human dignity is paramount and a duty. Rwandans have learnt that from their history.