To whom it may concern: no threats will deter societies from defending themselves

Here we go again, with the world reaffirming itself as a place where the strong and powerful exhibit very little sense of decency, fairness or justice when it comes to interactions with the powerless or less wealthy. It seems like the law of the jungle, under which the big beasts openly flaunt their might to maul whomever they wish, has gotten even more pronounced. We constantly hear of powerful countries calling for sanctions of Rwanda, or the Afc-M23 rebels. Most recently sanctioned is a Rwandan dignitary, and an official of the Afc-M23 – an outfit that fights for no other reason than the right to exist in their country, the Democratic Republic of Congo. But what do these sanctions tell us? That the powerful Western states or organizations issuing them give one whit about the well-being of Congolese, as they purport? That they are driven by some impulse to “humanitarian compassion”, as some terminally corrupt UN officials like to make believe? You may draw your conclusions as to what their real motivations are. But what the sanctions tell us unambiguously is this: they are a means to pressure Afc-M23 into giving up their fight, and resigning themselves to whatever (terrible) fate Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi would have in store for them. It’s the law of the jungle as administered by those in pinstriped suits sitting thousands of kilometers away from whatever horrors they tacitly abet, like the ones Tshisekedi is busy perpetrating. More about that later. Anyway, the people in air-conditioned offices in the West are far less concerned by Tshisekedi’s crimes against humanity than issuing threats to those that fight to defend themselves against him. “Lay down your arms immediately and withdraw from the areas you are in!,” they thunder. In other words, “agree to get devoured since your fighting impedes our (economic) interests.” The strong are finding ways to eat the weak, and stuff... The powerful issue their threats against Afc-M23 and against Rwanda; a country they are dead set on tying up together with the liberation movement as “the instigators of war” in an upside-down reinvention of reality by which they justify their sanctions, or criticisms. But by now it should be public knowledge that Tshisekedi’s government is perpetrating a campaign of pogroms and ethnic cleansing against the Tutsis of eastern DR Congo. He has said, loudly and in public, that he will kill the Tutsis, one by one. He’s taken action on what he’s vowed to do. The man works with FDLR, a group born of those that were the main executioners of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, whose ideology Tshisekedi shares, and whose members are now integrated into the ranks of the Congolese army, FARDC. If this weren’t enough to convince everyone about Tshisekedi’s declared intentions vis a vis his Tutsi compatriots, how about the fact he’s formed an alliance with President Evariste Ndayishimiye of Burundi, who heads that country’s ruling party, CNDD-FDD, whose central ideology is anti-Tutsi hate? Also, who doesn’t know that when Ndayishimiye sent his troops to join Tshisekedi’s, their plans included exterminating the people that Afc-M23 exists to defend? But genocide of Congolese Tutsi communities wasn’t enough. Tshisekedi and Ndayishimiye had other long-term plans to “finish off M23 and afterwards invade Rwanda.” Do the issuers of threats against M23 and against Rwanda – which sensibly built up its military defenses along its borders with DR Congo – ever pause to think about their actions when they lambast victims, but give a pass to the principal authors of the country’s conflicts, and myriad other failures besides? Do they ever pause to ask what Tshisekedi’s aims were when, a) he rejected efforts to resolve the conflict; efforts that involved bringing in an East African military force to monitor ceasefires and safe return of refugees and internally displaced persons, and b) he instead invited armies from SADC bloc countries that, unlike the EAC force, were entering the conflict as active belligerents themselves, to be later joined by European mercenaries? Why ask anyway? Tshisekedi, and not a few of his top officials in their hate-speech fulminations, have declared they either are going to kill all their country’s Tutsis – which is what his FARDC and their FDLR allies, together with the jobless, ragged bandits armed by Kinshasa and christened “Wazalendo”, do: hunt the hapless Tutsi civilians down, massacre them in broad daylight, rape them, and loot or burn their property – or expel them all to Rwanda. (Since DR Congo’s ruler has given himself the right to deprive these people of their citizenship, and reassign them Rwandan nationality). Equally serious, the man has been voicing another goal: to effect regime change in Kigali. But whatever! All these matters are of zero concern to the powerful. The only thing that matters to them is whatever Tshisekedi has promised them so as to be his enforcers. And so, we wake up to ever more threats from Western capitals; of big officials from European countries, or from North America, or the UN making tough demands that M23 “bring an immediate pause to the fighting and withdraw”; that Rwanda, “stop defensive measures along its own borders”, and so on. Moreover, the pressure is one way. Always. You will rarely hear anything close to these kinds of sanctions, threats, outright heckling directed at Kinshasa, no sir. The hecklers seem to forget one thing however: no number of threats can intimidate people without any other choice but to fight, for their existence itself. If the history of resistance struggles is any guide, Afc-M23 won’t cave to threats, and stop defending themselves. And Rwanda, which has known some awful things in its past when faced by genocidal forces, won’t ever bow to unfair, unreasonable demands from anyone. However powerful.

Opinions

To whom it may concern: no threats will deter societies from defending themselves