On the sidelines of the African Union Executive Council meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, South Africa said that as Israel continues preparing for a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip's southernmost city, it is not complying with previous orders by the UN's top court to prevent genocide in Palestine.

 

South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said her country is horrified at what has been happening to people in the enclave as well as in the occupied West Bank.

 

In late 2023, South Africa filed a case at the UN court in The Hague, accusing Israel of failing to uphold its obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention.

 

In its interim ruling in January, the court found South Africa's claims plausible. It ordered Israel's government to cease genocidal acts and to take steps to ensure that civilians in Gaza receive humanitarian assistance.

 

International warnings are escalating regarding Israeli bombardment of the city of Rafah, amid preparations for a ground invasion.

 

Since a cross-border incursion by the Palestinian group Hamas on October 7, killing some 1,200 people, the Israeli offensive into Gaza has killed more than 28,000 people.

 

"We believe this confirms the allegations we have tabled before the International court of justice (ICJ) that genocide is underway in the occupied Palestinian territories and clearly the actions of the Israeli government prove that what we have said is actually accurate," Pandor told reporters.

 

With these complaints, one might think the South African government, led by Cyril Ramaphosa, is committed to humanitarianism.

 

But to this point, it is safe to say that Ramaphosa’s government is not speaking for the sake of Palestinians’ lives. There might be a hidden agenda behind its statements, other than advocacy for human rights.

 

The presence of South African Defense Forces in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, to support the Congolese government in persecuting its own people, the Congolese Tutsi, speaks volumes.

 

For more than three decades, eastern DRC has experienced persistent insecurity which successive Congolese governments were part of. Congolese incompetent leaders failed to address the root causes of the long lasting armed conflict in the area, and refused to comply with advice from regional and international leaders that the problem needs a political solution, not a military approach which Kinshasa has employed.

 

Speaking to the press alongside his Congolese counterpart Félix Tshisekedi on July 6, 2023, in Kinshasa, during his two-day official visit in the vast country; Ramaphosa stressed on dialogues and negotiations between concerned parties as the suitable way of halting insecurity in DRC, mainly in its eastern part where more than 260 armed groups have found a safe haven.

 

The Kinyarwanda speaking Congolese in eastern DRC applauded this statement, but they are now witnessing another version of Ramaphosa,  the real one.

 

The 71-year old businessman and politician has never cared for the plight of the Congolese people who are suffering. He deployed thousands of troops to support Congolese army coalition in fighting M23 rebels, and persecuting Kinyarwanda speaking Congolese whom the rebel group is fighting to protect.

 

The Southern African Development Community mission in DRC (SAMIDRC) was initiated by the bloc but South Africa has been turning every stone to buttress the mission. Ramaphosa has a hidden agenda behind the deployment: mineral deals.

 

The SADC troops led by South Africa have backed inhumane activities targeting Kinyarwanda speaking Congolese being carried out by the Congolese army coalition of Burundian troops, Eastern European mercenaries, Wazalendo militia, and FDLR, a Rwandan terrorist group formed by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

 

Many calls have been made that there is a looming genocide against Congolese Tutsi in eastern DRC.

 

Following her visit to DRC in November 2022, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, was deeply alarmed about the escalation of violence in the Africa’s great lakes region where a genocide - the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda – happened.

 

“The current violence is a warning sign of societal fragility and proof of the enduring presence of the conditions that allowed large-scale hatred and violence to erupt into a genocide in the past,” she said.

 

Nderitu said the current violence in eastern DRC mainly stems from the refugee crisis that resulted as many individuals involved in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda fled there, forming armed groups such as the FDLR, which is still active.

 

She noted that finding a solution to the ongoing conflict in eastern DRC would require addressing the underlying causes of the violence and learning lessons from the past.

 

“The abuses currently occurring in eastern DRC, including the targeting of civilians based on their ethnicity or perceived affiliation to the warring parties must be halted. Our collective commitment not to forget past atrocities constitutes an obligation to prevent reoccurrence”, the Special Adviser stressed.

 

Is Ramaphosa not aware of Nderitu’s concerns?

 

What Ramaphosa’s forces are doing in eastern DRC is worse than what Apartheid did to South Africans.

 

The case of South Africans fighting against apartheid should be an eye opener for Ramaphosa, to understand the cause of the M23 rebels represent a segregated group, the Kinyarwanda speaking Congolese.

 

Ramaphosa is backing the genocidal agenda of Tshisekedi who is killing his own people.

 

There is no way Ramaphosa can justify troop deployment to DRC. It is such an ill-conceived idea and utterly wrong to be on the side of the oppressor of his own people, and siding with genocidaires, by leader who claims to be champion against abuses in Gaza.