Congo-Kinshasa: Tshisekedi Ultimatums to M23 Rebels Bring Memories of France's Apocalyptic Countdown of RPF in 1991

16 November 2023
analysis

The ethnic cleansing of Congolese Kinyarwanda speaking community by the government of DRC spells that President Felix Tshisekedi has entered a new and final phase of a full scale genocidal project.

Kinshasa has launched the 'facial profiling' campaign, openly teaching Congolese to identify and kill Kinyarwanda speaking group.

Other than deal with the political grievances of the M23 rebels, and the wider Congolese people, Tshisekedi is giving ultimatums.

Using a combined force of FARDC, FDLR, Nyatura, European mercenaries and other forces, Tshisekedi is demanding that the M23 stops fighting, at the same time blaming the rebels of the rising onslaught and ethnic profiling of Kinyarwanda speakers.

In addition to months of villages being set ablaze, their animals looted and forced to leave their country altogether; Kinyarwanda speakers are being hunted down in towns and burnt alive, as witnessed recently.

The Tshisekedi coalition tells M23 rebels to stop fighting as a condition for Kinyarwanda speaking community to be safe. In a layman's language, Tshisekedi is saying, if you don't stop the fighting, there will be no Kinyarwanda speakers left when you ever reach the hills of eastern Congo.

Tshisekedi is blaming the victims for their own death - a typical write-up script of the 1990-1994 period in Rwanda.

About a year after the then Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF/A) had launched a liberation struggle in October 1990, its leader Paul Kagame was invited to Paris for a secret meeting. He had a delegation that included late Jacques Bihozagara.

The meeting was set for September 17-23, 1991. The RPF top brass didn't want their leader Kagame to go, fearing he could be arrested there, since France was fully backing the government of Juvenal Habyarimana in Rwanda, with both political and direct military support.

The RPF convened a high-level meeting to decide on the trip. They were informed that the French want to meet Kagame specifically, and no other person. For his part, Kagame told the meeting that "everything about the liberation struggle was risky" - so he was willing to take any risk.

The delegation arrived in Paris as scheduled, which was Kagame's first. The only meeting set, was with Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of then-French President, François Mitterrand. He was also his father's advisor on Africa.

This status had earned Jean-Christophe Mitterrand the nickname "Papa m'a dit" (Papa told me), in reference to how he introduced himself whenever meeting African leaders.

The Kagame meeting was also attended by Paul Dijoud, who was in charge of Africa at the French foreign affairs ministry Quai d'Orsay. Both Jean-Christophe Mitterrand and Dijoud enjoyed a very close relationship with Habyarimana.

The narration of what transpired in Paris back then, was first revealed publicly by President Kagame at an RPF Congress on May 1, 2021 - about 30 years later.

In the Paris meeting at Quai d'Orsay, Mitterrand told Kagame that they should stop the war, move to Kigali, where President Habyarimana would "see what do to for you", including getting them jobs in government.

Politely as always, the RPF delegation reminded Francois Mitterrand that their struggle was never about jobs, but a for a fundamental reform of the whole country and return of Rwandan refugees whom the government had refused entry "because the country was as full as a glass of water."

The climax of the Paris meeting was when Paul Dijoud stood up, shouting and banging on the table, while pointing finger straight at Kagame, saying if the RPF doesn't stop that war "you may never find in Rwanda those for whom you claim to be fighting."

On the night after the meeting, Kagame and his delegation were arrested from their hotel, handcuffed and interrogated for hours. They were even subjected to polygraph test, which Kagame refused to undergo, telling the French he would rather die.

The same script is being deployed by the Tshisekedi coalition - that M23 should stop the war, surrender for cantonment, after which the government will use its goodwill to decide their future and that of Kinyarwanda speaking as a community.

And if M23 don't stop that quest to stop the ongoing genocide of Kinyarwanda speakers, Tshisekedi coalition will not stop the bombardment of villages of Kinyarwanda speakers. By the time the rebels reach, they will find none alive.

The M23 rebels shouldn't wait for the last Tutsi to be killed before they make the decision to end the genocide.

While Tshisekedi has billions of dollars for which he is able to buy the latest generation of weaponry as well as well-funded international machinery fully loaded to pay off western governments to look away; M23 only has the goodwill of millions of abandoned Congolese.

Back in the 1990-94 RPF struggle, France delivered weapons and French commandos to fight with Habyarimana's soldiers. In addition, Zaire dictator Mobutu Sese Seko sent his own elite presidential guards to fight for Habyarimana.

The RPF force found itself dealing with over 40,000 coalition forces. All the while, Tutsis were massacred slowly and clandestinely, culminating into the 1994 April-July final solution, which one of the main genocide architects, Col. Theoneste Bagosora, called the "apocalypse."

The Tshisekedi coalition is drilling the same apocalypse towards the Kinyarwanda speaking Congolese community.

There are two options left: either M23 comes to the rescue their Kinyarwanda speaking community of Congo now, or the Tshisekedi coalition will annihilate them all.

Decide now!

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