International
Pan Africanism is alive and Rwanda is the proof
![image](webadmin/images/RDF In mozambique.jpg-20210818105510000000.jpg)
The Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) has lately
featured prominently in the news media around the world, as they report the
stunning defeat the Rwandan military together with the armed forces of Mozambique
are inflicting on the Islamic State (IS) terrorists who have wreaked havoc in
that country for the last four years.
And the excitement is understandable given that news of IS
terrorists being routed, anywhere, has been hard to come by. Today, Islamic
State violent extremists are escalating their horrors, as they expand the
terror campaign to the African continent in their deluded pursuit of an equally
delusional caliphate. From Mali to Mozambique to other parts of the continent
IS is fighting to establish a strong foothold.
In April, Mozambican president, Filipe Nyusi, flew to Kigali where
he requested President Paul Kagame to provide his country with military support
to help fight off IS insurgents who have terrorized the province of Cabo
Delgado, cutting off some of the country's vital cities and seaports for years.
After one month, RDF and the Mozambican military
have recaptured much of the territory, including Mocímboa da Praia, a vital
seaport that served as the terrorist headquarters, as well as their critical
supply route.
People
who were forced to abandon their homes by the Islamists are leaving displaced
peoples' camps and are reclaiming their property. Maputo is charting out plans
to repair the infrastructure, as well as how to quickly restore public
utilities.
On his return from Kigali, President Nyusi held a news conference
at Maputo Airport, and told reporters his decision to seek assistance from
Rwanda was informed by the country's "experience in combating terrorism
and violent extremism".
Clearly,
the smiling faces and excitement expressed by ordinary Mozambicans, who were
earlier driven from their homes where many of their relatives were killed by
the terrorists, vindicate their president's choice.
Local
news media too have shared the sense of relief. When Mocimbao da Praia was
retaken from the IS, Club of Mozambique an online English publication wrote
that recapturing the city "which the IS extremist fighters have held for a
year is a major victory for the Rwandan soldiers and police who helped
spearhead a counteroffensive at the request of Mozambique president Filipe
Nyusi".
After the
fall of Mocimboa da Praia, reporters asked the RDF's chief of operations in the
Cabo Delgado war theatre what formula the forces used to dislodge the
insurgents in such short order. Brig. Gen. Pascal Muhizi said the unique
discipline and resilience, the core distinctive qualities of the RDF, have
always accounted for its success.
Indeed
discipline and resilience are so ingrained in the RDF character, even those who
have sought to smear Rwanda often find the truth about the force's
professionalism inescapable.
Rabid anti-Rwanda propagandist, Michela Wrong, writing about the
May 2000 clashes between Rwandan troops and the Uganda army in Kisangani, in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) points out the striking difference,
recounted by one Liebeskind who served as the Red Cross representative in the
city.
Uganda
army's Maj. Gen. James Kazini and his forces attacked Rwandan soldiers, at
their most vulnerable, as they withdrew from their positions in line with the
Lusaka agreement that required both countries' troops to pull out of the city.
Liebeskind talks of how he can never forget the image where
"on one hand you have a group of (Rwandan) officers who had won a war from
an incredibly weak position, against the odds, sitting sipping milk. On the
other hand, an army (Ugandan) whose commanders broke open whisky at 10. a.m.,
mourning its losses".
The RDF's core set of values dates back to its early days as the
Rwandan Patriotic Army that fought a successful liberation and brought an end
to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
In 1995, Canadian General Romeo Dallaire who was the United
Nations (UN) force commander in Rwanda before and during the genocide gave a
public lecture at Ryerson University, in Toronto. To say that his mission
failed would be an understatement
With the genocide underway, the UN Security Council ordered the
withdraw of the peacekeeping force from the country, as western television
networks relayed the horrors to their audiences back home. However, General
Dallaire stayed and has since been recounting his experience and the depth of
the horrors he witnessed in those one hundred days.
Towards the end of the presentation, someone in the audience asked
the general to help her understand how, from a clearly disadvantaged position
with the whole deck stacked against them, including the French troops who were
supporting the regime's forces, how the Rwandan Patriotic Army was able to
decisively defeat the genocidal army and bring an end to the killings.
General Dallaire told her that the military campaign fought by the
RPA and its ultimate success to liberate the country against what everyone
agreed were insurmountable odds, constitutes an entire course that should be
taught in western Staff and Command academies.
Today the RPA has evolved into the most dependable professional
military in Africa. It is the RDF with better skills and more capacity, many
times over, but still guided by the original principles and doctrine. And yes,
the force has developed a world-class Command and Staff College that not only
trains Rwandan officers but also attracts senior commanders from other African
countries.
Meanwhile,
the Romeo Dallaire institute For Children, Peace and Security has chosen the
RDF as a partner to work with because, according to the Institute, "Rwanda
has become a world leader in peacekeeping, dedicating troops and resources to
African Union and United Nations missions in areas where the rights of children
are significantly at risk".
Since
2004, the government of Rwanda has performed the ultimate Pan-African duty; Ten
years after the Genocide against the Tutsi it becomes the first to send troops
to the Darfur region of the Sudan where the Janjawid militia were committing
atrocities against hundreds of thousands of innocent local inhabitants.
Today, calm and peace have, by and large, returned to the region.
In the Central African Republic (CAR), thanks to the RDF peace and security
have been restored, only a few months after an insurgent rebel militia was
threatening to turn the country into a failed state.
One month after Kigali sent troops to Mozambique to help that
country, the world is breathing a collective sigh of relief as the two
countries' forces rout the IS extremists who have terrorized the people
of that country's northern province of Cabo Delgado for the last four years.
Make no mistake, though, IS and other like-minded terrorist groups' primary target
has always been the west and its institutions; yet these powers have
increasingly shown little interest in doing their fair share in fighting
terrorism in Africa.
Guided by
its strong Pan-Africanist commitment and the bitter lessons left by the 1994
genocide against the Tutsi, Rwanda has not only shown leadership but has also
demonstrated how Africans can work together to defeat emerging global threats,
especially terrorism.
For Rwanda, as Michael Rubin, a Senior Fellow at the American
Enterprise Institute observes "security and the need to fight terror and
those who would perpetuate genocide is no longer an issue of borders".
The world is witnessing that spirit in real-time in Cabo Delgado and perhaps no one expresses it better than the Commander of the Mozambican army, Maj. Gen. Christorao Chume who recently told reporters that "We have been working with Rwandan troops for almost a month now and we see progress...Our actions talk more than words".