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The recent course of events in the Democratic Republic of Congo have brought together African and Western politicians, with probably shared interests, in unconventional circumstances and ways.

These meetings started with M23 mutinies deserting the FARDC and then attacking North Kivu province of Eastern Congo from their positions close to the Ugandan border.

Though the M23 rebellion only gathered momentum towards the end of June and early July, preparations for war had started much earlier.

That explains how the�UN Group of Experts�on the Democratic Republic of Congo was able to gather so much evidence implicating Rwanda and include them in their reports.

As we remember, such involvement has been categorically denied by all Rwandan official representatives, including Paul Kagame himself at several occasions, the minister of foreign affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo, and ambassadors.

Then there was the meeting of the Family Planning Summit in London on July 11^th. Was it a coincidence or something fishy orchestrated long before the event?

Among the participants who took the centre stage were Joweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Jakawa Kigwete of Tanzania.

Are their respective countries the best models around the world in family planning?

I am not a specialist in the field. Maybe somebody else who is more knowledgeable can answer the question.

But what I can argue confidently is that these three countries are all close to the focal region of Kivu provinces in Eastern Congo where a serious rebellion M23 has started a war to contest Kinshasa�s authority. And the targeted area is rich in a diversity of minerals.

In the same week, most exactly the following day on July 12^th, former US president Bill Clinton and Rwandan president Paul Kagame, are scheduled to talk on another conference at�Oxford University. Is it still coincidence?

After the evidence of Kigali involvement with M23 came in the public domain,Paul Kagame�finds more and more difficulties in denying it.

South Africa through its Ms M E Nkoana-Mashabane Minister of International Relations and Cooperation had requested that Rwanda should be sent a strong message by the international community, even suggesting sanctions against the country.

The next thing we hear of is that Bill Clinton is in South Africa.�Nelson Mandelais celebrating his 94^th�birthday on July 18^th. And we are told that the former US president is scheduled to take part in the celebrations.

Is it still coincidence that he finds himself in a country whose stand on the continent could�ve changed the course of events in the Great Lakes region if, for so many years, stability and peace had been the priorities for local populations and the international community?

In the last couple of days, the former US president was in Rwanda and Uganda, probably finalising the last stages of how things should evolve with regard the Eastern Congo and M23 rebellion.

For many years,�international companies�have benefited from the instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Paul Kagame and Joweri Museveni have as well continued to plunder the country�s resources through a network of armed militias spread all over Eastern Congo.

There has been an official narrative which has been successively sold to the general opinion saying that the Rwandan genocide of April 1994 was a failure of the international community to protect lives in danger.

And for that reason, there are views particularly among Western scholars and foreign aid agencies claiming that the unconditional support to Rwanda over these last 18 years was a consequence of their guilt.

Either they are in denial of what they fully know, or they want to fool those among the general public who are ignorant of what has been going on.

But the truth lies elsewhere. I think neither Bill Clinton nor Tony Blair, and their subsequent successors in US or UK, have ever been or are being blackmailed by Paul Kagame.

There is one strong reality that many in the general public ignore or have been lied to.�Peter Erlinder, as defence lawyer, demonstrated at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, that if Kagame�s rebel movement in 1994 had wanted to stop the genocide, it would�ve easily done it because its military superiority against the Rwandan army at the time.

If the 1994 genocide had not happened the way it did, there wouldn�t have been change of geo-strategic influence in the region from French and Belgian to British and American.

US officials knew that if the former Rwandan president Habyarimana was to be killed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front of Paul Kagame, there would be a genocide like the one that had occurred some 7 months earlier in neighbouring Burundi, certainly orchestrated by the same strategists, this when the elected president Melchior Ndadaye was killed.

In January 1994, 3 months before April 6^th, the US Central Intelligence Agency [Rwanda desk] had produced a report predicting that there would be between 300,000 and 500,000 casualties, should Habyarimana be killed.

Their predictions were widely exceeded. Being aware of these potential outcomes, and letting Paul Kagame go ahead with the assassination of Habyarimana, does this tell anyone that this was the plan to change things in the region?

So there has never been any blackmailing, but covering up which continues until today. And still counting the casualties as the plan is carried on.

July 2012, the plan which started at the end of the Cold War when zones of influence around the world, and particularly in Africa, had to be redistributed is still being implemented.

According to North Kivu, as this note is written, local members of Congolese Parliament,�M23�occupies a territory the size of Rwanda.

They are suspicious of MONUSCO which has been in the region for more than a decade but its inefficiency against all armed militias in Eastern Congo tell a different story of their official mission of stabilising the region.

Its role does not seem different from its UN sister entity MINUAR with the Canadian General Rom�o Antonius�Dallaire�who, throughout 93/94, facilitated the infiltration of RPF weapons in the Rwandan capital � Kigali.

There is also the last piece in the puzzle which was concocted in Addis-Ababa at the African Union Summit this month: an�international force�between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Small�gestures�from the usual unconditional of Kigali may show that something is changing. But they are too timid to impact on the ambitions of the protagonists.

Though several voices including personalities such�Paul Rusesabagina, the inspiration of Hotel Rwanda movie, may continue to call upon to these African and international leaders who seem blinded by their greed in the face of millions of lives lost because of them, unless concerned Rwandan, Burundian, Ugandan and Congolese survivors come together to confront them and all their Machiavellian strategies, the tally will only carry on increasing.

Source: The Rising Continent.

Sat Jul 21, 2012��- The U.S. government said Saturday it will cut military aid to Rwanda for this year, citing evidence Kigali is supporting rebels in the Democratic Republic of�Congo, in a significant step by one of Rwanda’s staunchest allies.

Rwanda has denied reports by United Nations experts and rights groups that it is backing eastern Congolese rebels, including the M23 group, which has seized parts of North Kivu province in fighting that has displaced over 260,000 people since April.

The U.S. State Department cited evidence of Rwandan support for the rebels in announcing the military aid suspension.

“The United States government is deeply concerned about the evidence that Rwanda is implicated in the provision of support to Congolese rebel groups, including M23,” said Hilary Fuller Renner, a State Department spokeswoman, in an emailed statement.

“We will not obligate $200,000 in Fiscal Year 2012 Foreign Military Financing funds that were intended to support a Rwandan academy for non-commissioned officers. These funds will be reallocated for programming in another country,” she said.

Washington has stood by Rwanda in the past despite the tiny nation’s long history of involvement in wars in vast neighboring Congo.

Rwanda’s foreign minister has previously said reports of its involvement in Congo fighting were “disingenuous” and a bid to make Rwanda a scapegoat for its neighbor’s problems. Officials in Kigali were not immediately available for comment on the U.S. aid cut.

Renner said Washington was in the process of assessing whether further steps should be taken in response to Rwanda’s actions in Congo.

She said the United States would continue to help Rwanda support peacekeeping missions. Rwanda has a major peacekeeping presence in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Although the amount of cash being withheld is small, analysts said the move clearly signaled Washington’s displeasure.

“The U.S. government has been a longstanding ally of the Rwandan government. This step, even if symbolic, is emblematic of a shift in perception – if not necessarily in aid – in Washington,” said independent Congo expert Jason Stearns.

Rwanda sent its army into Congo, then called Zaire, in the mid 1990s, ostensibly to hunt down Rwandan Hutu rebels who fled there after the 1994 genocide.

A decade of conflict followed, in which Rwandan forces helped Congolese rebels topple the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. They then fell out with the rebels they initially backed, sparking a war that sucked in other neighboring armies and officially ended in 2003.

The current rebellion comes after three years of generally improved relations between Kinshasa and Kigali since the latter helped end a 2004-9 eastern Congolese uprising, which Rwanda was also accused of backing.

The leaders of Congo and Rwanda agreed at a meeting this month to allow a neutral force to be deployed in Congo to defeat each others’ rebels, but the plan’s details have not been announced yet.

Source: Reuters.

Saturday, July 21, 2012 – The US State Department has released a statement on cutting military aid to Rwanda. It’s a symbolic amount of $200,000, but this is an interesting development, as this is the first time Washington has cut aid to Kigali for political reasons.

Here is the entire statement:

In light of information that Rwanda is supporting armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Department of State has decided it can no longer provide Foreign Military Financing (FMF) appropriated in the current fiscal year to Rwanda, considering a restriction imposed by the 2012 appropriation act.

As a result, we will not obligate $200,000 in Fiscal Year 2012 FMF funds that were intended to support a Rwandan academy for non-commissioned officers.� These funds will be reallocated for programming in another country.

We will continue to provide assistance to Rwanda to enhance its capacity to support peacekeeping missions.

The Department continues to assess whether other steps should be taken in response to Rwanda�s actions with respect to the DRC.

The United States government is deeply concerned about the evidence that Rwanda is implicated in the provision of support to Congolese rebel groups, including M23.

The United States has been actively engaged at the highest levels to urge Rwanda to halt and prevent the provision of such support, which threatens to undermine stability in the region.

Restraint, dialogue, and respect for each other�s sovereignty offer the best opportunity for Rwanda and the DRC, with the support of their partners, to resume the difficult work of bringing peace and security to the broader region.

We are encouraged by the ongoing high-level dialogue among the states of the Great Lakes region, and we join the Security Council in taking note with interest of the communiqu� issued by the eleven member states of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) on July 12.

Developing a disciplined and unified army as part of a comprehensive security sector reform process remains critical to the stabilization of the DRC.

We support efforts to bring to justice alleged human rights abusers among the mutineers, including Bosco Ntaganda, who is the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant. We are concerned by reports that the mutineers have forcibly recruited child soldiers.

Hilary Fuller Renner
Spokesperson
Bureau of African Affairs
U.S. Department of State