By Amanda Khoza.
Former president Thabo Mbeki says that for as long as the Democratic Republic of Congo refuses to look after the Rwandan-speaking Congolese population in the eastern part of the country, then military groups like M23 will continue to exist.
Mbeki shared his thoughts on the current conflict in the Eastern DRC on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) on Thursday morning.
The former president also said part of the problem in the country is that the Congolese did not have the capacity to govern the eastern part of the Congo, which is why military groups such as M23 emerged.
Mbeki said: “What we need to do with regards to the Eastern Congo is that President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo should say to everybody: ‘I am president of the Congo, and I am president of all of the people, including the Banyamulenge’. And then, the government in Kinshasa needs to improve its capacity to govern in the eastern part of the Congo.”
Mbeki’s remarks come during heightened tensions between Pretoria and Kinshasa following the deaths of 13 SA National Defence Force (SANDF) soldiers in the eastern DRC conflict.
The conflict dominated discussions during a Cabinet lekgotla which was chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa in Pretoria on Wednesday.
Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders are meeting on Thursday to discuss a way forward on whether to withdraw troops from the region.
News24 reported on Thursday that diplomatic lines with [Rwandan capital] Kigali remained open despite a public spat between Ramaphosa and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
Kagame responded in a tweet to Ramaphosa on Wednesday night, accusing him of “distortion” and “even lies” in his communication over the death of South African soldiers in the Eastern DRC.
His tweet ended with the statement: “If South Africa prefers confrontation, Rwanda will deal with the matter in that context any day”.
On Thursday morning, presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said on X: “We will always stand and fight for peace. We will see through our commitment to Africa’s Agenda 2063!!!!!”
Mbeki said: “As you know part of the population in the eastern DRC is Rwandan speaking. Part of the problem in the Congo is that… they refused to believe that Banyamulenge are Congolese.”
They might be Rwandan-speaking but these are Congolese and it is the responsibility of any government in Kinshasa to look after this section of the Congolese section like any other but you remember what happened in the BaHutu years.
“BaHutu took the position that these are foreigners. It’s like South Africans saying: ‘There are Tswana-speaking people here in the North West, and suddenly the rest of the country says those are not South Africans; they must go to Botswana.’ What happened in the Congo case… that’s why you had the Mai-Mai emerge in the Eastern Congo.
“The Mai-Mai were specifically targeting the Banyamulenge to drive them out of the Congo into Rwanda. But I am saying it is the responsibility of the government in the central Congo to look after this population, which is Congolese, Rwandan speaking.”
Mbeki said the second problem is that the administrative footprint of the government in Kinshasa does not reach the east.
“So you find a part of the country which has got a very light experience of being governed by the government in Kinshasa. The country is very big. So, you have a weak government, a weak imprint of the government on the east, and it means that other forces emerge and take over.
“You see the M23, you can’t avoid the phenomenon of the M23 as the government of the Congo. Unless you say: ‘We, the Congolese government, will protect the Banyamulonge because these are Congolese.’ If you don’t say that allowing other people to do whatever they wish to the Banyamulenge, then M23 will continue to exist. They will get arms to defend themselves.”
Mbeki said this problem was discussed with President Joseph Kabila.
“It’s your responsibility to look after those people in the east.”
He went on to say that after the Sun City negotiations, there were discussions on how the nations could be properly integrated into the government of Congo.
“But, that process collapsed somewhere…”
Mbeki said Kagame and Kabile said: “You need to govern your relationship in a particular way because part of the problem is that the people who have committed genocide in Rwanda ran over to the Eastern Congo, and so Rwanda is saying. ‘Those ones you are accommodating there, they are ones who want to kill us, they have killed us already and they want to kill us some more’. So how do you govern this relationship?”
Mbeki said the leaders negotiated an agreement about how to interact with each other because “you can’t disentangle them (Rwanda and the DRC)”.
He said an agreement was eventually signed.
“I think it collapsed along the way, but you need those processes. The government of the Congo (needs) to take charge of the eastern parts of Congo.
“Then, we need an agreement between the DRC, Uganda, and Rwanda to govern the relations among those three. I think that is what we need in order to resolve the problem in the Eastern Congo.”