Regional
Rwanda Has Become Africa’s Counter Terrorism Powerhouse
There has not been much good news recently in the global fight against
terrorism. Afghanistan is in freefall as Western forces unilaterally withdraw from
a country in whose counter-terror fight they have invested trillions of
dollars. Terrorists are on the rebound in Iraq as well. While Prime Minister
Mustafa al-Kadhimi entered office promising to tackle the scourge, he let the
fight slide as lack of American backing and his own ambitions led to reticence
to antagonize the political powerbrokers corrupted by terror support.
Libya
remains a mess, and a misguided State Department strategy prioritizing spending over security has led
to an al-Shabaab revival in Somalia. The Islamic State is sinking
roots into Africa, and diplomatic niceties continue to lead Washington to give Turkey and Pakistan a free pass on their terror sponsorship.
Progressive anti-Semitism, meanwhile, leads Western officials and intellectuals
to obsess more over Israel’s efforts to prevent a designated terror group from
launching rockets at civilian populations than at the fact that such groups
armed under UN watch.
In short, terrorism has surged as its sponsors see it as
successful, ideologues realize they can win through violence what they cannot
achieve at the ballot box, and both Republican and Democratic party leaders
willingly forfeit U.S. leadership on the world stage.
Too often, when a vacuum of leadership develops, it is the forces most opposed to the post-World War II liberal order which fill the vacuum—China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Al Qaeda, for example. In Africa, however, tiny Rwanda—a country of only 13 million people—increasingly punches above its weight to tackle the terror problem as a continental leader.
The international community betrayed Rwanda in
the run-up to the 1994 anti-Tutsi genocide. Simply put, the Hutu genocide against the Tutsi
need not have occurred, but cynical French politicians instigated it. UN betrayal continued after the
genocide. After the Rwandan Patriotic Front commanded by Paul Kagame drove the
Hutu génocidaires out of the country, UN forces neither disarmed them nor
separated them from legitimate refuges, but instead welcomed them into camps in
the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) just a few miles from the Rwandan
border.
That UN inaction in effect gave the armed
génocidaires control over a new generation of refugees to indoctrinate and from
which to recruit, contributed to the erosion of DRC stability and control, and
ultimately sparked Rwandan intervention in eastern Congo. Ironically, while some Western aid workers and
human rights groups grouse about Rwandan involvement in eastern Congo, DRC
leaders embrace the Rwanda partnership.
For Rwanda, however, security and the need to
fight against terror and those who would perpetrate genocide is no longer only
an issue for their borders. As rebels marched on the Central African Republic’s
capital Bangui late last year, Rwanda came to the rescue. The small African state deployed its forces
1,500 miles without any foreign assistance to prevent an imminent massacre and
political chaos.
While the Central African Republic may have
stabilized, Mozambique has increasingly teetered against the backdrop of an Islamic State
insurgency it has had difficulty stamping out. China is more interested in
extracting resources than ensuring stability and neither President Joe Biden
nor Secretary of State Antony Blinken have shown any interest in Africa.
Neglect, however, is not a counterterrorism
strategy. Enter Rwanda. Earlier today, the Government of Rwanda announced that, at the request of Mozambique, it would
“today start the deployment of a 1,000-person contingent of the Rwanda Defence
Force (RDF) and the Rwanda National Police (RNP) to Cabo Delgado Province,
Mozambique” to secure and stabilize the region in cooperation with the Southern African Development Community. It is the right move.
If Washington seeks to stop “endless wars,” it should recognize that absent its own projection of force, it needs allies to fill the vacuum and deny space to groups like the Islamic State or Al Qaeda to thrive. Rwanda is now filling that space. Rather than continue to ignore or even bash Rwanda, it is time for both Washington and the West to recognize that a prosperous Africa needs more Rwandas. If the United States cannot effectively do the counterterror job, then it should support those countries that, at a fraction of the cost, show they can do the necessary jobs.
Source:
www.19fortyfive.com