Repeat a lie many times, or let it hang around long, and it may stick and be taken for the truth. Of all the advice in the world, this seems to have been the most attractive to the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). And having made that choice, they have taken it to heart and practice it diligently in the hope that, indeed, the saying will be true. They have been quick to blame every problem in their country on outsiders. For instance, they accuse Rwanda of being behind the endemic insecurity in the east of the country, and have been everywhere, talked to anyone that would listen, crying that their smaller eastern neighbour is the cause of it all. Inside the country, they incite hate speech and violence, including lynching, against Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese. The most recent accusation is the supposed support Rwanda is giving the M23 rebels fighting the DRC government forces in the east. Strange accusation since insecurity in the region predates the birth of M23. And now, following reverses on the battlefield, a path they chose over dialogue, they have taken another reckless step and expelled Rwanda’s ambassador to the DRC. Some elements in the international community, for reasons of their own, have been prepared to accept the Congolese government version of reality and also blame the wrong people. Indeed, over the weekend, MONUSCO, the UN peace-keeping force in the east of DRC, said they were mobilising against M23 rebels and giving air and intelligence support, and equipment to government forces. Now, M23 is not the only rebel or armed group in DRC. MONUSCO was on the ground long before M23 came into being and so the rebel outfit could not have been its primary reason for being there. There were others, like the misnamed genocidal Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), one of the negative forces that they were meant to neutralise. Strange that they should mobilise against M23 when, in all the two decades they have been in DRC, no one has ever heard MONUSCO do the same against FDLR or give active support in the fight against it. So what is it that drives DRC leaders to imagine that the lie can somehow morph into truth? Or their supporters to think they can take sides in a Congolese internal matter? All of which has tended to lead to irrational and reckless behaviour. Reducing the security situation in the east of DRC to M23 and its alleged backing by Rwanda is at best gross oversimplification intended to obscure the actual reality and also conceal failures and ill-intentions of the DRC government and its backers. The actual situation is totally unlike what they present. There are well over one hundred armed groups of different stripes in the region. Only two or three of these can be said to be foreign. The rest are Congolese. One is the FDLR formed by members of the former Rwandan army (FAR) and interahamwe militia, who fled into DRC when they were defeated in Rwanda’s liberation war and campaign to stop the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. They were actually shepherded there by their foreign supporters and warmly welcomed by the then Zairean authorities and allowed to keep their weapons, maintain military camps, and later rearmed. Since then, FDLR, in its different reconfigurations, has had bases in the east of DRC from which it continues to launch attacks on Rwanda. Over time, different Congolese governments have co-opted FDLR fighters into their security forces. At the moment they are fighting side by side with FARDC in the war against M23. That partly explains the reluctance of the government to end their presence in the country. But it also means the government has authority over them and could end their menace if they wanted. The other is the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a jihadist group that originated in Uganda and made its home in the east of DRC in the 1990s and been there since. It was able to establish itself because of a governance and security vacuum. All the others are Congolese armed groups. Together with the FDLR and ADF, they are the most vicious militias and have been responsible for the most monstrous atrocity against Congolese civilians. But you don’t hear any, even feeble, condemnation of these groups. The reason for not denouncing them is simple. They are guns for hire by all manner of individuals and groups – looters of minerals as guards for illegal activities or to threaten locals or rivals, and government soldiers to do the fighting for them. They are not a real threat to the government and other interests in the area. Only the M23 is singled out for censure as the most violent of the lot, and for good measure, linked to Rwanda. There has never been a greater lie. The motley collection of Mai Mai groups, the FDLR and ADF have that honour of violent attacks against civilians. It is simply another lie peddled by the DRC government, NGOs with an eye to foreign funding, and even MONUSCO. There is, of course, a sense in which the M23 can be rightly singled out. It is as different from the rest as can be and that is perhaps why it is the target for lies and vilification. It is the only one with a credible political cause, the only one that only fights government forces and protects civilians in the areas in which it operates. Furthermore, it exposes government inefficiency and duplicity in its refusal to honour agreements. It also reveals the inefficiency and bias of the huge UN peace-keeping force in DRC, as well as the biased self-interest of various organisations operating there. And so the lie must be invented to cover up these inefficiencies and reverses on the battlefield. For this lie, the government of DRC is hurtling to war whose outcome is not in their hands. And yet there are other, less costly and more productive options. But war is not as simple as spreading a lie. It takes place in the real world, not that of fiction, except, of course for those with a collective death wish. For those, their action may be like that of a moth that hurls itself into a bright, hot flame. The views expressed in this article are of the writer
