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Victoria Dimandja

Obama’s second term opens with the worst kind of display of US power – backing Rwanda, who is hell-bent on creating mayhem against its neighbour.

UN will do nothing against Rwanda.

The UN mission in Goma, a major city in the eastern part of the DR Congo, removed all non-essential staff from the area. The peacekeepers, with a threadbare Congolese army force, remain to defend the city. On its outskirts sit the M23 (March 23) Movement rebels, backed by the Rwandan armed forces.

They moved rapidly to get to this crucial city, the capital of North Kivu. There are already 2.4 million internally displaced people in the DRC, with 4.5 million suffering from food insecurity, and a million children under five suffering from severe acute malnutrition. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on November 19,

‘This new escalation in fighting in and around Goma, and elsewhere in the Kivus, adds to what are already monumental humanitarian needs in the DRC.’

‘The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned, ‘The renewed conflict is putting children and their families at risk, leaving them exposed to physical harm and mental distress.’

Over the weekend, the UN Security Council met for an emergency session, listening to the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous. The Council considered a French resolution on Goma, which condemned ‘the resumption of attacks by the M23 and demand their immediate cessation.’ There was a tepid finger raised toward Rwanda, whose armies have not only armed the M23, but they seem to be directing them.

In 2010, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published a comprehensive report, ‘DRC: Mapping Human Rights Violations, 1993-2003’, which showed the complicity of Rwanda’s government in war crimes, crimes against humanity and even genocide in the Congo. This damning report, solicited by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, was barely given any consideration. It should have been at the center of a UNSC discussion on eastern Congo. But it has not.

Rwanda will never be hauled over the UN coals. The United States will prevent any serious discussion of the military adventures of its ally, Rwanda. Criticism of the M23 movement is allowed, but there will be no allowance to criticise its sponsor, the Rwandan government of Paul Kagame.

During the Clinton administration, three heads of government were chosen as the new generation of African Renaissance leaders – Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki and Rwanda’s Kagame. All three have atrocious records in their own countries, and as far as Kagame and Museveni go, in the Congo. The DRC’s Lambert Mende said that M23 is a ‘fictitious force,’ and that the ‘real aggressor’ is Kagame’s Rwanda. But there is silence on this, as Rwanda is immunized from any serious criticism by the UN, and therefore the ‘international community.’

Dossiers filled with appalling behaviour and genocidal language flood the UN missions. Paul Kagame is on record as having called the Congolese, in his native Kinyarwanda, Ibicucu, nobodies or good for nothings (by Colette Braeckman in Les Nouveaux Predateurs, 2003). He speaks cavalierly about their ‘removal.’

UN Human Rights Council’s silence on Goma is as stark as its loud noises during the lead-up to the NATO intervention in Libya. Navi Pillay, who called for the 2010 report on Rwanda’s behavior in the Congo and who tried her best (along with her legal advisor Mona Rishmawi) to implement the Goldstone Report, was allowed to fulminate about Libya and Syria but is subdued on Goma. When atrocities are useful for US foreign policy, morality and outrage are muted…

Meanwhile, the UNSC sanctioned the M23, but did not put any pressure on Kagame. That UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called Kagame and DRC’s Joseph Kabila to come to some kind of accommodation, shows that there is open acknowledgment that the M23 acts with Rwandan backing. Yet, no sanctions on Rwanda.

VP

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