ONGOING efforts by SADC and the East African Commission (EAC) to end the seemingly never ending conflict in the DRC are not only driven by the desire to bring unity, peace and development to the war-torn country and the rest of the African continent, but also to unravel and deal decisively with the historical challenges posed by divisive colonial borders.
It was because of these dreadful colonial borders that Africans were fragmented into deeply divided communities driven by destructive tribal wars such as the ones now affecting the resource-rich DRC.
For instance, M23 (March 23 Movement), a rebel group named on March 23 2009, the date the accord between the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), an alleged Tutsi-led rebel group, and the DRC government was signed to end a revolt by the Tutsi people in eastern DRC, has been on the prowl in that part of the country.
In 2012, M23 rebelled against the Congolese government, claiming the government had reneged on certain sections of the 2009 agreement which included, among other things, integrating Tutsi ‘fighters’ into the army, equal distribution of resources and protecting the citizens.
Prior to its January 27 announcement that it had taken over the mineral-rich Goma region, the grouping had reignited its ‘fight’ in 2022, taking control of North Kivu, where Rubaya, a coltan mining town is situated
According to the UN, M23 makes US$800 000 per year in taxes on sales of the mineral.
Last month, the group captured the towns of Katale, Masisi, Minova and Sake before getting into Goma, with its leaders openly declaring that they are eyeing the DRC’s capital city, Kinshasa.
It is, of course, not difficult to unveil the ever intrusive hand of Western countries who have been accused of funding M23 to loot the vast mineral resources in the eastern DRC.
With the UK and the US having been implicated in fuelling the agonising conflict in the DRC, it is not difficult to understand why their role in the latest violence that has displaced more than 400 000 people this year alone.
“Without US and UK guns, funds and impunity, Paul Kagame (neighbouring Rwanda president who has been accused of funding M23 rebels) could not have continued to aid violence in the DRC to the extent he has done since 1998, resulting in more than 5,4 million Congolese deaths in the first 10 years,” reads part of a February 14 2024 report by The Guardian titled ‘It’s time to ask why the US and UK fund while atrocities mount up in DRC’.
“British and North American taxpayers are funding violence in DRC — and I cannot help but wonder what exactly the policymakers are getting in return for enabling all this suffering?”
But these troubles for the long-suffering Congolese have not gone unnoticed with SADC and the EAC, of which the DRC is a member, declaring over the weekend that they would be dealing with the matter once and for all.
At their historic meeting in Dar es Salaam recently, SADC and EAC leaders, in a rare exhibition of solidarity, demonstrated that it is only through unity that people of the DRC will finally be freed from their painful woes.
There they were, in Tanzania, the focal point of many African countries’ struggle for independence, speaking with the same voice and unity of purpose and making bold declarations to finally end the misery of the Congolese people.
SADC Chairperson, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, duly led from the front, reminding the gathering that only African solidarity would bring peace to the DRC.
“The unity, solidarity and unbreakable bonds of the peoples of the continent must stand the test of such trying times,” he said.
“We must remain as solidly united as we were during the struggle for the complete emancipation and independence of Africa from colonialism.
“We, thus, have a duty and collective responsibility to comprehensively, frankly tackle and address the various challenges that are impeding the realisation of peace and security for the people of eastern DRC.
“Drawing from our rich African values and heritage and further emboldened by the spirit and letter of the United Nations Charter, the Constitutive Act of the African Union, as well as the treaties of both SADC and the EAC, let us seize this opportunity to ensure convergence and a coordinated response which is mutually reinforcing towards one common objective.”
This means having to do away with colonial borders and colonialism which were specifically designed to divide the people of Africa into pockets of minimal resistance, along tribal lines while paving the way for colonialists to have unfettered access to the continent’s abundant mineral resources.
The conflict in the DRC is far much bigger than narrow tribalistic inferences that the world has been led to believe that it is the cause of the war.
It is about control and seizure of the many resources that are at the DRC’s disposal, about exterminating as many Congolese as possible in order for the driver of those war to lay their hands on those minerals.
What it, therefore, means is that the people of Africa must now unite and fend off the marauding West.
The troubles in the DRC, and elsewhere across the continent, that are now at Southern Africa’s doorsteps through the US’ aggressive fight against South Africa must now compel the people of Africa to adopt the ‘African solutions to African problems’ mantra to the letter and spirit.
Let those with ears listen.
