For months, Rwanda has stood at the centre of renewed international accusations that it backs the AFC/M23 rebel movement in eastern DR Congo. The charge has been repeated in diplomatic statements, multilateral forums, and headlines with a confidence that suggests conclusion rather than inquiry. Yet at the core of this certainty lies a deeper problem: a global tendency to assign guilt selectively, to amplify some voices while muting others, and to treat power, rather than evidence, as the ultimate arbiter of truth. ALSO READ: How the Washington Accords implementation is a do or die deal for the African continent The accusations against Rwanda have rarely been accompanied by the same scrutiny applied elsewhere. Assertions are often recycled, references imprecise, conclusions foregone. In international politics, repetition can harden into fact, especially when it aligns with established narratives. Once a country is cast into a familiar label, evidence becomes secondary to expectation. ALSO READ: How Burundian troops in South Kivu sparked a distinct humanitarian crisis amid DR Congo’s wider war What receives far less attention is the surrounding context. Public statements calling for the overthrow of Rwanda’s elected government have been made openly by political and military figures across the border. Language that dehumanises, threatens, and normalises violence, often accompanied by actual killings, against an entire ethnic group has circulated with alarming ease. Yet these acts and declarations, explicit, recorded, and unambiguous, rarely provoke the same urgency, condemnation, or sanctions that allegations against Rwanda routinely attract. ALSO READ: Why genocide ideology doesn’t dissolve three decades after dispersion of genocidaires Hate speech, when ignored, is not neutral. In a region scarred by mass violence, words carry weight. They mobilise fear, legitimise aggression, and lower the threshold for bloodshed. International silence in the face of such rhetoric is not oversight; it is choice. And choices, repeated, form normalcy. ALSO READ: Kagame draws a line in Washington. Security comes first, always Rwanda’s insistence that its security concerns be taken seriously is often dismissed as deflection. But no state exists in a vacuum. Borders do not neutralise threats. When armed groups operate near a country’s frontier, when hostile rhetoric escalates unchecked, when regional instability spills outward, the expectation that a state should remain passive becomes less a principle than a privilege, one reserved for those whose security is guaranteed by distance or dominance. What is striking is not entirely contesting some accusations, but how unevenly the contest is refereed. Some actors are presumed credible by default; others must prove innocence repeatedly. Some violations trigger emergency sessions; others are absorbed into diplomatic background noise. This asymmetry erodes the very norms the international system claims to uphold. ALSO READ: The truth they don’t want told: Rwanda, DR Congo, and 30 years of denial The question is not whether Rwanda should be scrutinised. Scrutiny matters; it is how systems stay honest. The deeper concern is whether that scrutiny is applied fairly. Accountability that falls only on those with less power or resources is not accountability at all. It is hierarchy dressed up as principle. When international bodies seem quicker to reprimand some states while looking away from open threats, reckless speech, or clear destabilisation elsewhere, a troubling message is sent: that credibility is not earned by facts, but granted by influence and interest. Once that belief takes hold, trust in global norms begins to grind down, not because accountability exists, but because it is unevenly enforced. This imbalance is hardly new, but its damage is lasting. It sends a lesson: that power forgives what principle condemns, that outrage depends on who you stand with, and that moral language can be stretched to fit strategic interest. Over time, this double standard eats away at the credibility of international norms, not because the rules are wrong, but because they are applied as tools, not truths. ALSO READ: Never let anyone behave as if they created you, Kagame tells Rwandans President Paul Kagame’s remark, “Might is not right,” lands squarely in this terrain. It is not a claim to moral exemption, but a challenge to moral inconsistency. If the international community insists on rules, those rules must apply beyond convenience or interest. If it condemns destabilisation, it must confront it from the root cause, wherever it appears, including in speech that incites violence and delegitimises a population. The danger of selective justice is not just a diplomatic problem; it reaches deep into how the world works. It breeds resentment, rewards provocation, and teaches that escalation, not restraint, draws attention. Small nations are left navigating a system where outcomes depend less on fairness or evidence and more on who holds the most sway. None of this dismisses the suffering in eastern DR Congo, or the urgent need for peace. But peace built on double standards is fragile. Stability grounded in partial truths cannot last. Real solutions demand honesty: an accounting of actions, of words, and of the forces that decide which ones’ matter and which are ignored. Yet Africa’s struggle with the logic of “might makes right” is not entirely external; it is also painfully internal. Across the continent, some governments have at times governed as though citizens exist to affirm authority rather than restrain it. Patronage replaces merit. In the most extreme cases, leaders or factions have used power to marginalise, displace, or even threaten the extinction of entire communities, treating violence and exclusion as tools of control. In such environments, dominance becomes confused with legitimacy, and the line between authority and oppression blurs dangerously. This helps explain why Africa remains the global epicentre of external influence and modern coups. While military takeovers have become rare in much of Asia, Europe, and Latin America, they continue to erupt across African states. The causes are multifaceted, fragile institutions, corruption, external interference, and governance failures, but they converge on a single truth: when leaders shield themselves from accountability, force begins to look, to some, like the only solution. Africans should also recognise another enduring reality: he who controls your stomach controls your thinking. Dependence on foreign aid, patronage, or precarious opportunities shapes loyalty, limits independence, and narrows the imagination of what is possible. The earlier African leaders grasp this truth, the better they can safeguard national resilience. Understanding how external pressures, internal hierarchies, and dependencies shape decisions is essential before confronting the larger international debates that define the continent’s security and sovereignty. Against this backdrop, the debate over AFC/M23 is therefore bigger than one armed group or one country’s reputation. It asks a deeper question: can international justice rise above politics? Can norms survive convenience and interest? Or will power continue to replace proof? Might does not make right. And when the world acts as if it does, when evidence is sidelined, threats are ignored, and double standards prevail, it slowly erodes the very order it claims to uphold. Small states and ordinary citizens are left navigating a world where fairness is measured not by principle, but by influence. Butera John R. Mugabe is a management consultant and strategist.
