Will Tshisekedi honor AU recommendations?

Author: Josephine Kalembe

• 2023-02-25 05:43:00

In Addis Ababa, on February 17, the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU), briefed Heads of State and Government on the situation in eastern DRC, at the AU summit.

The Council expressed grave concerns over the prevailing insecurity and the deterioration of the humanitarian and socio-economic development due to violence and human rights abuses committed by armed groups in eastern DRC.

The Council demanded that that all armed groups, particularly M23, as well as the ADF and FDLR, immediately cease hostilities and unconditionally withdraw from eastern DRC. Additionally, it underscored the need to engage in rehabilitation and community development plans to address the issue of ex-combatants and voluntary return of IDPs and refugees, among others.

The Council also expressed concern over the tensions between the DRC and Rwanda. In this regard, it called for calm and greater dialogue between the two countries in furtherance of durable peace in the region, encouraged them to prioritize peaceful means of addressing the challenges between the two neighborly countries, and reaffirmed the importance of building confidence and trust in the region.

Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi was present during the meeting and heard all the recommendations. But will he implement them without addressing the root causes of the crisis in his country first?

The disarmament and cessation of hostilities is necessarily to all armed groups, and not only M23. Unlike other militia, the M23 is a rebellion fighting against a government that has deprived its communities, the Congolese Tutsi, of the right to citizenship. The M23 rebellion’s community is persecuted and a genocide against it is gradually being implemented. Yet no one – not even the AU - seems to care about their plight.

Upon receiving alarming reports on multiple attacks against civilians along ethnic lines, especially the Tutsi Congolese, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, issued statements in November 2022, and January 2023, expressing her concern on the deterioration of the security and human rights situation in eastern DRC.

Both statements reiterated the indicators and triggers of a simmering genocide in the country, including dissemination of hate speech and absence of independent mechanisms to address it; politicization of identity; proliferation of local militias and other armed groups across the country; widespread and systematic attacks, and sexual violence.

“Impunity cannot prevail. When such heinous crimes are committed, perpetrators must never get away with it…The conditions necessary for the commission of atrocity crimes continue to be present in a region where a genocide happened in 1994-in Rwanda,” stressed the Special Adviser.

While Kinshasa and the international community are only focusing on the M23, and have branding them terrorists, DRC has failed to uproot the genocidal FDLR, made of individuals responsible for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Instead, Kinshasa is sponsoring a coalition of the Congolese army, FARDC, the genocidal FDLR, Mai Mai militias and foreign mercenaries.

In a recent interview with the media, Bernard Maingain, a Belgian lawyer, who has for several years condemned the anti-Tutsi hate speech in eastern DRC, shed light on why the genocide ideology did not dissolve with time, close to three decades after it happened in Rwanda.

He stressed that in DRC, the plan to complete the extermination of the Tutsi was never lost. Those who managed to stay in DRC and mingle with the population have propagated the ideology, and now, the entire Great Lakes region is infested by this Manichean discourse that led to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

On the issue of Rwanda-DRC relations, it is clear that Tshisekedi has no will to mend the relationship diplomatically. In October 2022, DRC expelled the Rwandan Ambassador, and in January 2023, Rwandan military officers who were working at the East African Community regional force headquarters in the Congolese city of Goma, were expelled. On top of this Congolese jet fighters have violated Rwandan airspace, on three different occasions.

Following the AU summit, many political commentators argued that it is clear that Tshisekedi and his government are not ready for dialogue, or to apply any diplomatic means in order to restore peace in east DRC.

Tshisekedi has failed to implement the Luanda, Nairobi, and the recently, Bujumbura peace initiatives.How then can anyone expect him to pay attention to the AU recommendations?