Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Clean Sheet in Agreements with Rwanda

Pretext is easily found when one needs to get rid of someone; wrongdoings are invented against those to be punished. Therefore one gives the dog a bad name to hang him. But the legendary six-minute speech is proof of commitment by a leader concerned to restoring the dignity of the DRC, so that the nation regains its letters of nobility.

For having made the intangibility of the Democratic Republic of Congo borders his priority, the Congolese President finds himself in the dock due to his defense for the Republic. DRC was a state sold for pittances by the previous regime without worrying about its future and upcoming generations of Congolese citizens, but with a twisted and fallacious ingenuity of which only the postmenopausal politicians of yesteryear know the agenda. Yesterday’s rulers patch up their hateful attempts to make Tshisekedi the nation “Cain”. It is indeed a cowardly resurgent pumice-pilatism that the people are looking forward to breaking down.

In June 2021, the President of the Republic, His Excellency Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame met for meetings in a luxury hotel in Goma, a border town with Rwanda. Public opinion still remembers that this meeting took place days after the eruption of the Nyiragongo Volcano north of Goma; an eruption which caused damage assessment on both sides of the volcano, Kagame having done the same in Gisenyi at the wheel of his jeep. Some displaced Congolese took the road to Rwanda to escape the throes of a raging volcano, and hospitality between neighbours was evident in the best of manners, signaling the virtues of living together to which Rwanda and the Congo are bound to abide by until eternity.

The DRC has been fed to the diktats of the eastern Border States, with the assistance of crooked Congolese, with hidden agendas for ages, without there being relentlessness on the scale of that is reserved for Félix Antoine Tshisekedi. Obviously, the poor leaders of a badly oiled Kabilism are endowed with an inventiveness to hide their own turpitude. They tampered with the public treasury like credit cards that were bailed out on purpose without justifying the objectives. By dint of wanting to bury the twists and turns of their hand put in the coffers of the state, these political thugs with deleterious intentions continue to act as expiatory victims and label the new regime with all the evils. It is a too easy exercise to point the index finger at others without realizing the position of their own thumbs, also accusing them for having participated in the mismanagement throughout the Republic.

This does not mean that the surge of Rwandan lust for the Congo faded, despite the courteous speeches made by the Kigali strong man, who thought he was patting President Félix on the back. However, the Congolese president, playing foolish purposefully, knew, as a scout that the rocking prose by his neighbour, was only a bit of a smokescreen. In politics public expressions rarely reflect the thoughts from the heart, which is tortuous to varying degrees. At this game of hide and seek, the son of the Sphinx of Limete had already experienced it over time. Ex leaders who accuse Félix Antoine of sleeping with the enemy, are haunted by their own accusatory conscience at the limit of the nation suicide which they impute to the newcomers.

Faced with the seriousness of the situation inherited by the current Head of State, his room for maneuver opened up to him the horizons of multiple choices. Should he balance the warlike path or favour diplomacy with its legendary slowness in terms of achievements? As in football, President Felix got ready to play Kagame who thought he was as stealthy as a mole. As a wise man, Tshisekedi favoured diplomacy; applying a saving strategy meant for President Tshisekedi that he had to beat the adversary at his own game. The twirling parody of Rwanda to be the victim of a genocide invented from scratch to ask for pity internationally was fertile with new fertilizers. The man from Kinshasa did say: “We have lost so many years living, staring at one another like statues, living in tension and in a situation of war, but also sharing hatred, now that’s enough”. All the ingredients were then  gathered for the peaceful resolution of the conflicts between these two countries whose survival of one depends on the elephantine size of the other. The Sphinx son deployed his energy, crisscrossing all the capitals of his neighbouring countries in search of this peace he had always wanted to last. This had drawn the ire of all kinds to him, making his acolytes irascible without him being himself shaken by the insults emanating from the institutions of his own country, including at the national assembly where a member of parliament treated the President of the Republic as an incompetent. Who would forget Mabunda’s remarks: “He thinks he is a lawyer when he is not”? Has the Congo made a clean sweep of the hateful remarks made by a pseudo-opposition that Felix is a puppet of Kabila, a thoughtless puppet?

The brotherhood with which Felix identified his relationship with Kagame was mocked by the enemies of democracy internally. It is the result of a puny dwarf intelligence that takes them beyond the political field. If the Shadary, Nehemie, Muzito, Fayulu and their analysts have amnesic reasoning, history reminds us all that the Shah of Iran, Noriega in Panama and Bin Laden were American products and maintained excellent relations with the United States of America. What followed is a bitter reminiscence of the perpetuation of these privileged relationships, it was the maker of these leaders, the United States, who kicked them out, each in his own time, until their certain death. In politics, there are no friends, but it is a question of interests. This metaphorical scenario will allow hateful adventurers to understand that the content of Felix’s “brotherhood” towards Kagame contained subterfuge. This band of scoundrels are full of vengeful concerns, dedicated to do whatever it takes to destroy Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo irrespective of media used. The litany of these missed “shots”, ideally testifies to the solidity of the commitments made by Mukwa Ntombolo. All the blows are mounted to get the skin of Fatshi Béton; each time these attempts are laid bare. In their place, they would hide their foreheads and walk headlong.

Fatshi’s famous agreements with his Rwandan brother Kagame are an open secret. The President of the Republic insisted, more than once, to bring the content of these agreements into the public domain, so much did he have nothing to blame himself for that their drafting was irreproachable. The first agreement concluded focused on the promotion and protection of investments between the two countries; the second was aimed at a convention between the two countries with a view to avoiding double taxation and preventing tax evasion with regard to income tax, according to the final press release published at the end of the tête-à-tête by the two leaders, broadcast live by the public television stations from both countries. The third memorandum of understanding concerned gold mining which involved the Congolese gold company (SAKIMA SA) as well as the Rwandan company DITHER LTD. In addition to this goodwill by the Head of State, Rwandair flew over the national territory and landed in some of the main airport hubs in the DRC. Absolutely, there are no hidden agreements that Tshisekedi would have signed to give the DRC to Rwanda, as thought by former Congolese political guard whose establishment was ready to receive pittances by selling off the country and its varied mineral resources. Never again will Kagame’s trickery go unnoticed; he who always believed he had a cut above when it comes to the DRC. His words from the past: “This is why President Tshisekedi and I agree that the absence of peace and stability must not become a permanent situation in our two countries. We can’t afford to get used to this,” were just half-hearted decoys.

But on December 12, 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya, Ugandan President Yoweri Musevini made a shocking announcement. The kabilie described as a long-awaited “historic” act the signing by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the former rebels of the March 23 Movement (M23) of specific agreements. Both parties pledged to end the conflict in the east of the country, as set out in documents signed to that effect. These agreements with the M23 rebellion which occupied part of North Kivu, including the city of Goma, contained a clause calling for the establishment of a new model for the balkanization of the national territory based on “the need for better possible account of the sociological realities in the country”. The aforementioned agreements included the acknowledgement of the provinces of North and South Kivu as “disaster areas” as well. Having conquered the city of Goma on November 20, 2013, the M23 rebels demanded political negotiations with the then head of state, Joseph Kabila, before any withdrawal therefrom.

The resurgence of the M23 and the war waged by Rwanda against the DRC finds its origins in the refusal to incorporate into the FARDC the elements from these hybrid rebellions, which meant the inclusion in the Congolese army of Rwandan soldiers. The M23 spokesman, Jean Marie Runiga, demanded that the Congolese government respect the clauses of the agreement signed on March 23, 2009 between the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) of former General Laurent Nkunda and the Kinshasa regime. M23 military leaders are mostly from the CNDP. Among the clauses, the same proposals for a new model of the DRC balkanization were advanced, supposedly to help the rapprochement between administrators and administered. These agreements contained the integration of the CNDP forces within the FARDC and the national police, with the recognition of their ranks, while also demanding an amnesty law in favour of its men (CNDP), covering the period from June 2003 until the date of its enactment. Also according to these agreements, the CNDP and the government had agreed on the need to set up reliable and effective mechanisms of good governance at all levels and in all areas, including certification, mining, evaluation and control of natural resources.

There is no shadow of a doubt that if the DRC would have been sold, the seller will never be Félix Antoine Tshisekedi. Fatshi Béton is fighting to snatch the Congolese booty from the lion’s mouth. Fighting against the subjugation of the greater Congo by Rwanda makes Béton the ideally easy target towards which the crossbows of war are directed. The foregoing story demonstrates the wickedness by those who accuse Fatshi Béton of making do with Rwanda. The story is so stubborn that it is difficult to entertain Congolese and divert their interest from the real stakes pursued by Rwanda and the former leaders. Fatshi’s agreements with Rwanda have nothing to do with the balkanization of the country which was part of the obligations contained in these agreements signed by the Kabilists, the CNDP and the M23. Félix Antoine Tshilombo remains the nacelle of the Congo; the only rudder that still holds despite the roaring waves and the raging waves that shake its stability  on all sides.

Whether it is about fake news and exaggerated variance intox, DRC will no longer be a ship that will run aground on different navigable reaches before being refloated; especially not by an infinitesimal Rwanda. Under the leadership of a very determined Fatshi Béton, the surge of jealousies for its natural and mining wealth is only a crippling vice. But the betrayals will sink like houses of cards, the Congolese will be united as one man and will be standing in numbers like the sand of the beach. They will set themselves up as saviors and will sing the anthem of the nation which will be the adoring hymn, without an infiltrated army, or administrators dictated by Kigali. Thus its hour of glory will come then, the cornerstone for the erection of a great edifice in the image of the subliminal and dazzling Congo.