Looking at ongoing events in eastern DR Congo, a question, one that’s as old as independent Africa itself, rises for the umpteenth time. When will the continent’s former colonizers ever have the good grace to stop intervening in the most harmful ways, by taking sides in issues best left to Africa’s peoples to sort themselves out? For instance, by now everyone with even the most fleeting interest in current affairs should be well aware a section of Congolese, marginalized by their government; targeted for hate speech by their country’s president, Félix Tshisekedi and his top officials, most notably his information and justice ministers; victims of a campaign of pogroms and ethnic cleansing, all because Tshisekedi made a very cynical political calculation to incite hate against them, took up arms to defend themselves. But no, that’s not the image of the Afc-M23 that’s emerged internationally. Rather, they have been portrayed, predominantly, as “a Rwanda-backed rebel group” – with the negative connotations associated with the word ‘rebel’ amped up – fighting the government, allegedly for control of DR Congo’s mineral resources. In the process, they have fought, tooth and nail, to implicate Rwanda in the Congolese conflict, implying great wrongdoing in the process – regardless how many times Rwanda has protested, with facts, that it has nothing to do with M23, which is a movement purely of indigenous Congolese communities. But facts have been crushed under the weight of misinformation, especially that peddled by big international media. Now, a lot of consumers of social media, regionally and internationally, seem to know about Afc-M23, only through distorted lenses, as villains. M23 struggles mightily to get the message out that as a movement, it was born of the most urgent imperative of all: to fight for the rights of a marginalized people – DR Congo’s Tutsi citizens, whose ancestral homes are well within that country – whose very existence has been put under threat, by their very government. The caricature of the outfit as “an evil Rwanda-backed rebel group fighting for Rwanda to take control of the Congo’s resources” has come about not merely as a result of Kinshasa propaganda, but also of efforts of Western media (you know who they are) that relentlessly tarnish Afc-M23, all the while amplifying Tshisekedi regime talking points, to their audiences of millions. That, ladies and gentlemen, is neo-colonialism at its finest. Believe it or not, the big, mainstream North American and European international broadcasters, newspaper and magazine websites, and more, may proclaim they are “independent” purveyors of news and opinion. That’s a claim that’s never stood scrutiny. Those entities work for their country’s corporate and political interests; which are inextricably intertwined and which, when you scratch just a little bit below the surface, are the same groups that work strenuously to maintain an Africa that’s powerless, subservient, and that should never, at any cost, do things in ways not directly aligned with their interests. It matters very little whatever happens to any African society or community that may suffer harm as a result. Sadly, this continent’s post-colonial history has been characterized by the success of those overseas corporate and political interests in their objectives. Their success in manipulating international opinion – including in much of Africa itself – against Afc-M23 is just one more instance of this. The acts of a regime in Kinshasa that’s demonstrably evil (to mention only a few examples: the hate speech utterances of President Tshisekedi, and his information minister Patrick Muyaya, and the sinister “minister of justice” Constant Mutamba; the sight of the Congolese military and its auxiliaries such as the genocidal FDLR or Wazalendo militias killing their victims in indescribably gruesome scenes) should long ago have removed doubts as to the righteousness of the Afc-M23’s cause. Instead, Tshisekedi government propaganda, as amplified by big Western media – which work for the corporate, political interests of their countries, which in turn happen to favor the Kinshasa regime, its victims be damned – have managed to cast Afc-M23 as the Devil, and Kinshasa as the victim. It’s a sleight of hand they’ve repeatedly managed to pull off: casting victim as aggressor, and aggressor as helpless victim. It was very telling that when African leaders gathered in Addis Ababa where the continent’s issues – foremost the DR Congo crisis – were to be discussed, the president of the DR Congo chose to jet off to Munich, Germany, to a security conference of Western powers, to badmouth Rwanda there. Tshisekedi knew that in Africa, he would have to answer difficult questions (why not dialogue with Afc-M23? Why not adhere to the Luanda-Nairobi processes?) whereas in Munich he would get a free pass. All good Africans, and people of good conscience everywhere else, should not relent in asking Tshisekedi: Why is he so determined to maintain his belligerent stance against fellow Africans like Rwanda? And why, rather than find solutions through dialogue and diplomacy as so many have begged him, does he hanker only to go on persecuting and killing a section of his population? Why?
