Since the reception of a Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Denis Mukwege a Congolese gynecologist obstetrician, recognized for his work of treating women victims of sexual violence in the decades long armed conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the South Kivu based doctor wants to do politics in his country, and has identified Rwanda as the launch pad for his political career.
In this he isn’t alone, sadly, his counterpart Martin Fayulu has been at it since his unsuccessful bid to the presidency in December last year.
Favored by the local clergy and foreign NGOs, which proclaimed him the early winner of the ballot, Fayulu saw his fortunes crushed when Felix Tshisekedi was declared the winner by the electoral commission, confirmed by the Supreme Court and one by one, congratulated by African leaders.
By a strange six degrees of separation, Fayulu worked out that Rwanda was somehow behind his demise.
To remain relevant, the ‘truly elected president’ as he refers to himself, invented a chimeric project of ‘balkanization of the Congo’ accusing Rwanda of harbouring secret ambitions of annexing part of the Kivu territory and organized ‘white headband rallies’ in the capital Kinshasa, in which his deputy Adolph Muzito urged the DRC government to invade Rwanda to prevent the ‘balkanization’ from happening.
Apart from a few unemployed youth in the capital, Fayulu and his lieutenant were not taken seriously and their marches never got any traction.
Recently, Mr. Fayulu reappeared in a colloquium organized by the French Senate, alongside genocide deniers, Judy Rever, Charles Onana, Hubert Vedrine and members of Jambo ASBL.
Onana, a disciple of controversial French author Pierre Péan, is currently indicted in France for ‘negation of crimes against humanity’ in relation to his publications denying the Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi.
Judy Rever had her controversial book thrown out by French editing house ‘les Éditions Fayards’ for advancing double-genocide theories and Hubert Vedrine, former chief of staff for late French president Francois Mitterrand is still trying to justify his past actions of continuing to supply arms and train killing squads during the Genocide against the Tutsi.
Jambo ASBL is the association of children of genocide perpetrators all with European citizenships, pursuing the ideology of their fathers, starting with denying the genocide. Dr. Denis Mukwege was announced in the genocide deniers’ convention, but after protests from peace activists, he shied away.
When Martin Fayulu took the floor, he engaged in a long anti-Tutsi diatribe that embarrassed even the hosts of the colloquium: ‘There are 300 Tutsi officers in the Congolese army’, he said. ‘In the colonial army before independence, there was no Tutsi, in Mobutu’s army there was no single Tutsi. Today? Over 300 Tutsi, and more than 100 generals: all Tutsi! This means all is being organized by Kagame!’
One wonders how he knew the ethnic identity of soldiers of the colonial army, and if it is a crime for Congolese Tutsi to join the army.
While Fayulu used ‘Balkanization’, Dr Mukwege in his Nobel acceptance speech brought back to life a defunct report, the Congo mapping report as evidence of violence against women in DRC and called the audience to implement its recommendations to bring justice Congolese women. There is only one small problem: he forgot to read it.
Had he read even part of the report, he would know two things: that the report was discredited and shelved by the UN who commissioned it, but most importantly, he would know that the report doesn’t speak about the Congolese population, but about Rwandan refugees in eastern DRC.
But Fayulu and Mukwege do not feel beholden to the truth, in fact, the more lies the better, to ride on latent anti-Rwanda sentiments entertained by populists of all kind, especially in view of growing relations between the fresh Congolese president Felix Tshisekedi and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame.
A remarkable pattern in Mukwege and Fayulu’s populism, is that they easily invent figures, reports and events that never took place. For instance, Fayulu has just invented himself a ‘Genocide of the Congolese people’ which took place, according to him, on August 2nd 1998.
The imaginary genocide isn’t recognized even by the Congolese government, or by any serious institution in the world. However, both men are unable to denounce the massacres and rapes currently being faced by women of the Banyamulenge community in South Kivu; indeed that would go against their narrative, which is ‘Tutsi/Rwandans are killing Congolese’.
Its uncanny how Mukwege, a Nobel Prize laureate, Fayulu, an opposition politician have chosen to be anti-Tutsi or anti-Rwanda and keep the company of known genocide deniers Rever, Onana, Vedrine and Jambo ASBL to boost their political careers in their country of origin. These men who made their names from the conflict in Eastern DRC have no interest in the return to peace in their country; indeed telling Mukwege, a wartime doctor to pursue peace, is a little like telling a champion swimmer to empty the pool…
In the next article I will explain how the Mukwege’s favorite Congo Mapping report was a botched work, debunked by the Rwandan government and shelved by the UN.
The report was commissioned by former UN Secretary General Koffi Annan, whom like Hubert Vedrine, his Mitterand-era counterpart, struggled in his last days at the UN to come to terms with his failure and complicit inaction during the genocide against the Tutsi.