Andrew M. Mwenda
06/30/12
The EastAfricans story, “Kagame’s Threat To Release Nkunda Poses Congo War Risk”, (June 25-July 1), points to a bigger problem — just how much the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has become a near-intractable dilemma for Rwanda and the region. As fighting flared up between Tutsi rebels and government forces in eastern DRC, the Rwanda government found itself, again, at the centre of yet another international controversy.
Kinshasa has been joined by international observers, “experts” and local and international human rights groups in a blanket condemnation of Kigali as the mastermind of the rebellion. In the rush to point fingers and apportion blame, the complexity of the problem in eastern DRC has been lost, making a solution much more difficult to craft.
Eastern DRC presents a complex puzzle to the top leadership of the Rwanda government’s security, military, political and diplomatic establishment. DRC has largely been an absentee state in most of its territory. But this problem is much more pronounced in the eastern region.