Negative forces seem bent on undoing pacification efforts as FARDC continues with military assaults on rebels

Muzito’s remarks are quite laughable and weird for he never considered the option of Rwanda annexing his country in his dream, and most political pundits in the region now hold a low opinion of him because the very government he served had failed to contain the insurrection for years.

BY GEORGE KALISA

Former Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Coordinator of the opposition coalition dubbed Lamuka Adolphe Muzito Fumutshi joined a cohort of greedy war mongers and states in the Great Lakes region. Muzito said that his country should consider the possibility of threatening and annexing Rwanda accusing it of peddling into his country’s politics.

Muzito said that the mineral rich African nation needs to wage a war on Rwanda in a bid to find a lasting solution to insurgency in the Eastern part of the country which has been home to both local and foreign rebel groups for over two decades.

“We have to wage war on Rwanda to restore peace in our country. Rwanda influences our politics. So does Uganda,” said Muzito at a presser on December23, 2019 in the capital Kinshasa.   

“We can only make peace by threatening Rwanda, by occupying its territory if possible by annexing it,” added Muzito.

Muzito, 62, a member of the Unified Lumumbist Party (PALU) served Joseph Kabila’s government as Prime Minister from 2008-2012 after relinquishing the post of a Budget Minister under PM Antoine Gizenga (2007-2008).

In 2012, the Congolese Police investigated him over alleged graft reportedly behind his self-aggrandizement and inexplicable wealth in New York and Washington.  

Now, most observers in the region including Rwanda’s State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Olivier Nduhungirehe found his utterances ridiculous.

High profile Congolese opposition politicians Jean Pierre Bemba and Moïse Katumbi immediately distanced themselves from Muzito’s wild proposal.    

“We learned with surprise – through broadcasts, remarks made, this Monday, December 23, 2019, in Kinshasa, by the former Prime Minister ADOLPHE MUZITO, supporting the treacherous theory alleging that to restore peace in the East of DR CONGO, our country should wage a war against RWANDA and annex it to the DRC, ” said the statement in parts.

“We strongly disassociate ourselves from these remarks, which would reflect lack of seriousness on our part. We would like to remind all that in light with international law and bilateral agreements with our neighbouring country, such an approach can certainly not receive approval by our forces or the international community”, added the statement.

The duo reminded the coordinator of the LAMUKA platform that the fight they are engaged in consecrates respect for national laws and international regulations. In no way, and for whatever reasons, would they be inclined towards engaging in, or support actions that break these laws.

Rwanda never took Muzito’s opinion serious. Currently Rwanda enjoys excellent diplomatic relations, and Congolese President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi and his Angolan counterpart President João Lourenço mediated in the Luanda bilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Uganda and Rwanda.

“The day @adolphemuzito will restore peace with an entity named “REASON” and the day reason will occupy a territory named “BRAIN”, it will be a great feat!” said Nduhungirehe through a tweet.

Opposition leader Martin Fayulu is another Congolese politician who has nursed anti-Rwanda obsessions would not survive Nduhungirehe clout though he has kept a low-key since he lost to President Tshisekendi in the Presidential polls a year ago.  .

“The silence of @MartinFayulu is already deafening. Any inaction on his part will only confirm his propensity for conspiracy theories in the region and for his primary anti-Rwanda stance,” said Nduhungirehe.

Muzito’s remarks are quite laughable and weird for he never considered the option of Rwanda annexing his country in his dream, and most political pundits in the region now hold a low opinion of him because the very government he served had failed to contain the insurrection for years.

The Ex-PM cannot utterly escape blame for the previous escalation of insecurity in the region.  

FARDC repeatedly assaults rebels  

Muzito’s utterances come on the heels of repeated deadly assaults on the rebels launched by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) since October.   

Two top leaders of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), Mouhamed Mukubwa Islam and Nasser Abdullayi Kikuku were killed as FARDC combed the jungles Mapotu in the restive region of Beni, Northern Kivu Province. ADF has roots in Uganda.

Other negative forces undoing the pacification efforts in the region include the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), RUD-Urunana the Conseil National pour la Renaissance et la Démocratie (CNRD).

A UN report said the P5, a merger of Rwandan rebel groups and led by Rwandan dissident Gen. Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa operates in Eastern DRC.  

DRC has been repatriating to Rwanda militias linked to the remnants of the genocide Army, EX-FAR and Interahamwe for now the last two years. They have recently suffered humiliation as most of their leaders were killed during the FARDC operations

Some 746 Ex-FDLR combatants including women and children that had lived in the DRC since 1994 were repatriated by DRC authorities November 2018.

On December21, DRC again repatriated 1, 400 family members mostly from CNRD and 71 FDLR combatants after it had received some 291 militias a week before.     

The repatriation process is aligns with 2018 decision of regional Heads of State which set the deadline for repatriation without preconditions of the disarmed FDLR combatants and their dependents located in transit camps in eastern DRC by October20, 2018.

The regional bodies including Southern African Development Community (SADC) and International Conference of the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) took the decision as part of the quest to find lasting solutions to peace and security challenges in DRC and the region.