When, in 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front stormed the Kagitumba border in an open come-home-fight against Forces Armees Rwandaises (FAR), then Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana called on his Zairian counterpart and friend, Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Zabanga, to send troops to bolster the fight against the invading Ugandans.” The Zairian troops sent to reinforce the FAR were, soon, to be recalled home for their unexpected suffering on the frontline from the Rwandan Patriotic Army's heavy fire. That was DRC's first fruitless collaboration with genocidal forces. At the defeat of the genocidal government and capture of Kigali by the Rwandan Patriotic Front in July 1994, members of the Forces Armees Rwandaises (FAR) alongside civilian Hutu extremists who had committed genocide against Rwanda's Tutsi, armed with their weapons, fled to France-created Zone Turquoise which covered the Cyangugu-Kibuye-Gikongoro triangle on the Rwanda-Zaire South Western border. Zone Turquoise was France's first attempt at creating a safe place for genocidaires fleeing the advancing Rwandan Patriotic Army. France would soon count on Mobutu's friendliness towards genocidaires to help them flee to DRC territories neighboring Rwanda and would house them there, still under the humanitarian umbrella, even when among the refugees, were armed Ex-FAR and Interahamwe fighters. It was from these refugee camps that the ex-FAR and Interahamwe reorganized into Rassemblement pour le Retour et la Democratie au Rwanda (RDR) and launched countless attacks on Rwanda in the full knowledge of Congolese government officials and foreign Non-Government Organizations operating in those refugee camps. After Rwanda's transitional government made intense calls and begged the international community to disarm the Interahamwe militia and ex-FAR and, or separate them from civilian populations in vein, the Rwandan Patriotic Army in alliance with the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL)- an anti-Mobutu group of Congolese under Laurent Desire Kabila- entered DRC territory in 1996 to fight RDR and repatriate Rwandan civilians under its captivity in what is commonly called the First Congo War. The war ended with the defeat of Zairian Armed Forces and ouster of Mobutu marking a second futile collaboration between Kinshasa and genocidal forces. Today, the re-emergence of the M23 and DRC government's decision to collaborate with and ramp up its support for the FDLR in, supposedly, retaliation to Rwanda's aggression against the DRC is another event which will, eventually, end with Kinshasa losing more than it thought it would from collaborating with the genocidal FDLR. The M23's cause-for-existence and fighting is known and from time-to-time successive DRC governments have held peace talks in a bid to put an end to the group's fighting. From the 23rd March 2009 Peace Agreement with the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP)-the M23 predecessor organization- to the 17th December 2013 Peace Agreement with the M23, successive governments in DRC have not acted in good faith as regards their commitments, made in writing to the M23. Agreeing to the demands of the M23 is, first and foremost, sufficient acknowledgement of the group's Congolese nationality and, secondly acknowledgement of the existence of the suffering of Kinyarwanda-speaking, majorly Tutsi, communities whose rightful claim to Congolese nationality, peaceful existence and right to political participation in the DRC is the M23's reason for fighting. Even if the claim that Rwanda was supporting the M23 was true, DRC's best and lasting solution to the problem would not be collaborating with and supporting the FDLR because doing so neither puts an end to M23 fighting nor stops Rwanda's support to the group. Farther from that, it justifies Rwanda's support for the M23 in its fight against the FDLR (which has terrorized Tutsi communities in DRC for decades now). Given Rwanda's commitment to Never Again,” which is Rwanda's commitment to not let genocide happen, ever again, either in Rwanda or elsewhere where Rwanda can help in preventing it, it is only worthwhile that Rwanda supports a community determined to defend itself against extermination by a genocidal force or an alliance of militias with the national army. On certain occasions certain Congolese politicians have claimed that the FDLR is non-existent and that its remnants are merely bandits who do not pose any security threat to Rwanda. And others openly called for Rwanda to sit on a negotiating table with the FDLR. It should be clear to any person, though, that Rwanda does not seek a neutralized FDLR because the government is impatient to political opposition as FDLR affiliates and sympathizers have always claimed. What Rwanda is impatient to,instead, is continued existence and rearmament of a genocidal terrorist group hellbent to continue the killing of Rwandans. Kinshasa is aware of Rwanda's rehabilitation and reintegration programs for exFDLR combatants who willingly commit to dissociate from the group and return home. With the knowledge of Rwanda's rehabilitation and reintegration programs for ex-combatants, Kinshasa cannot claim that the FDLR is a sidelined political organization which seeks to be heard by Kigali through force of arms, which is Kinshasa's implicit claim when Congolese politicians say that the FDLR should sit on a negotiating table with Kigali. Kinshasa's continued support to FDLR- morally and militarily- even fully aware of the group's determination to mount heavy challenges to Rwanda's security and disrupt the country's social order, is; therefore, a great act of bad faith. Any path of action that Rwanda, in the fullness of time, chooses to take in response to the growing threat of Kinshasa-backed-FDLR to Rwanda's security will be justified by the country's pursuit of peace. Given the fact the FDLR is a threat to the security of DRC's own communities, sanitizing the group in an attempt to justify collaboration with them creates more room for the group's continued existence in the country and endless suffering to the communities it reigns over. This, in the long term, will trigger development of fissures in the political class in Kinshasa leading to the end of the current regime as the populace favors a leader who promises to end their socioeconomic misery and build lasting peace in the DRC. So, basically, Tshisekedi is shooting himself in the foot with his position on and resultant collaboration with the FDLR. The views expressed in this article are of the author.
