Dear Congolese, Someone once said: “If there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm.” You have been told to look across your borders, to blame Rwanda, to believe that your suffering comes from elsewhere. Yet most of your problems are caused by your own leaders who choose greed over people, corruption over progress, and excuses over responsibility. ALSO READ: Kabila: DR Congo should stop blame games and fix its problems Tell me, my Congolese brothers and sisters, is Rwanda responsible for the betrayal and assassination of Patrice Lumumba? Was Rwanda behind Mobutu’s three decades of kleptocracy? Is it Rwanda that welcomed the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and gave them shelter and allowed them to regroup – and spread a poisonous genocide ideology – on your territory, and destabilize the region? Should Rwanda be blamed for the Congo Hold-Up scandal? Does Rwanda steal the money meant for hospitals and health systems, leaving your families to die from Ebola, cholera, and malaria? ALSO READ: Dag Hammarskjöld’s death and the UN’s long failure in DR Congo Is Rwanda responsible for the shame of the N’Djili Airport blackout that delayed your president’s plane for 40 minutes just across river Congo, one of the world’s greatest rivers? Or for the bad incidents in September 2025, when your own citizens destroyed Kinshasa’s stadium after losing a football match against Senegal? Is Rwanda responsible for Congolese children dropping out of school, or for the fact that 62% of your people living on less than $2 a day despite your country being one of the richest in minerals? Is Rwanda behind your army’s failure to defend your land from more than 200 armed groups? Is Rwanda responsible for your former Justice Minister being convicted of embezzling funds earmarked for prison construction? No, dear Congolese. These are your own failures. Some of your own people already know the truth. An activist in Goma asked: “We are tired of Kinshasa blaming Rwanda. Who in Kigali stole our hospital money?” A teacher in Kasai said: “I have not been paid in six months. Yet ministers drive new cars. Is Rwanda my employer?” A displaced mother in Ituri wondered: “They say it’s M23, but who protects us from our own soldiers who steal our food and abuse us?” ALSO READ: 80-year-old Congolese reflects on lifetime of injustice, attacks in DR Congo Even Che Guevara, after seven months in your country, concluded: “There is no discipline, no unity, no leaders. No one can free them if they don’t free themselves first.” Dear Congolese, you deserve leaders who put the people first. You deserve another Patrice Lumumba, a visionary leader who puts people before power. Just as Burkina Faso rediscovered Thomas Sankara through Ibrahim Traoré, DR Congo too must demand leaders who value discipline, accountability, and sacrifice. ALSO READ: Former Congolese minister condemns genocidal threats against Banyamulenge in South Kivu You deserve a health system that heals, not steals. An education system that empowers, not abandons. An economy where your minerals build roads and hospitals, not villas overseas. An army that protects civilians, not preys on them. And a justice system that delivers truth, not verdicts for sale. Instead of wasting energy hating President Paul Kagame, perhaps you should pray for a Congolese leader with his seriousness and vision. Imagine if you had such a leader? Today, DR Congo would be an ideal place that shows what paradise looks like. Wake up, dear Congolese. The enemy is not Kigali. The enemy is the refusal to fix Kinshasa. The day you take responsibility, DR Congo will rise. But not until then. With love and prayers, from your brother just across the border. Signed, Bertin K. Ganza, a concerned African and neighbor.
