Focal point of the United States in the Great Lakes region during his 32-year reign, the late Mobutu Sese Seko, the « Leopard of Zaire », was the handyman of the United States in this region, before being released and handed over to the AFDL rebellion, supported by the Rwanda-Uganda-Burundi coalition. After Mobutu, the Rwandan Paul Kagame took on this role of watchdog of the United States in the Great Lakes, with the mission of destabilizing the DRC for the predation of its natural resources. Different times, different customs, they say. Washington is apparently changing its approach, increasingly reducing the Rwandan president’s room for maneuver in the Great Lakes. Like Mobutu, in his time, the strong man of Kigali is no longer in the odor of sanctity with his American mentors. Signs of friction are quite evident. political scientist, Freddy Mulumba tries to circumscribe them. Grandstand.
Two events herald the end of an era for Rwandan President Paul Kagame. First, the paradigm shift in American foreign policy: the war against terrorism is giving way to competition or rivalry between the great powers. Then, the denunciation of Rwanda by President Felix Tshisekedi at the UN, the declarations of Antonio Guterres on RFI-France 24 relaying the remarks of Mrs. Bintou Keita, representative of the Secretary General of the UN in the DRC at the Security Council, denouncing the occupation of Congolese territory by the Rwandan army. Finally, the death of the eight blue helmets in a crash of the Monusco helicopter following the firing of missiles by the Rwandan army under cover of M23.
Sign of the times, the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame is in the footsteps of Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko, the former President of Zaire, who became DR Congo.
From the War on Terror to Great Power Competition
Under the administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, American foreign policy in the Great Lakes region has seen change. As a reminder, in 1992 the Clinton administration inaugurated an American foreign policy dominated by the liberal movement. For this school, the spread of liberalism is supposed to make the world safer, more peaceful and more prosperous. It is in this context that we must place the vision of the new African renaissance launched by the team of former American Bill Clinton. He saw the African renaissance in a political perspective intended to cut the continent off from dictatorial regimes such as those of Mobutu and to put in place a new leadership embodied by personalities such as Presidents Afeworki in Eritrea, Zenawi in Ethiopia, Museveni in Uganda, Kagame in Rwanda. (Africa’New Leaders, Democracy or state reconstruction?).
And behind this African renaissance hid the ambitions of Western multinationals to take control of the wealth of the DRC. This new policy advocated by the USA in the Great Lakes has not had the expected results. It was a fiasco, as former US Under-Secretary of State for African Affairs and US Representative to the United Nations, Susan Rice, acknowledges: » I think we would have been better off explaining our approach in terms of national interests, while avoiding praising certain leaders and denouncing more forcefully their failures and abuses « . ( Susan Rice, Tough Love, My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For, Simon § Schuster, New York, 2019 ).
Having become gendarmes of the Great Lakes region, Presidents Museveni of Uganda and Paul Kagame of Rwanda waged wars of aggression and occupation against the DRC to plunder wealth with the complicity of Western multinationals with the aim of making implode the DRC. And in the context of the war against terrorism, Uganda hosts the base of operations against terrorism in the Great Lakes, while Rwanda provides soldiers in the context of United Nations operations. Rwandan peacekeepers are present in UN operations in the Central African Republic and Mozambique on behalf of the United States of America.
Following the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Paul Kagame had good defenders in the Clinton and Obama Democratic administrations who felt guilty for not having avoided this tragedy.
In this regard, Susan Rice expresses herself in these terms: “ It is difficult to express the multiple ways in which the Rwandan genocide affected me. It was a personal trauma, a source of nightmares and deep regrets. Even though I was not a high-level decision-maker, I still participated, at the operational level, in the massive failure of a policy. I carry that guilt with me to this day. This made me perhaps excessively sympathetic to Rwanda, its people and its leaders ”.
It is, without doubt, because of this guilt of the Rwandan genocide that all the reports of the United Nations experts on the Congolese tragedy, during these last 23 years, are closed without follow-up, in spite of the plundering of the wealth of the DRC or again the forgotten genocide of 10 million Congolese and its 5.5 million internally displaced persons.
In a Foreign policy article from July 29, 2020, entitled “the risks of Susan Rice”, journalist Michael Hirsh points the finger at President Paul Kagame’s support for the United Nations: “ Ms. with Rwandan President Paul Kagame supplying and financing a brutal Congolese rebel force known as the March 23 Movement (M23). Although Ms. Rice was critical of the M23, she avoided linking the group to Rwanda and Kagame. In 2012, critics said she delayed the publication of a UN report that accused the Rwandan government of protecting M23 leader Bosco Ntaganda, who was wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for committed atrocities, according to several UN and human rights reports« .
Paradigm shift
However, the entry of President Donald Trump into the White House and the rise of China and Russia on the international scene will contribute to the paradigm shift in American foreign policy. The war against terrorism is replaced by competition, competition and even rivalry between great powers. The US National Security Strategy, published in 2017, sees China and Russia as rival powers.
» It is great power competition – not terrorism – that is now America’s primary national security objective , » former Trump administration defense secretary General James Mattis said aloud. .
This paradigm shift will guide US African strategy. Although the fight against terrorism remains in force, it is no longer a priority for the United States in Africa.
For John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, » the predatory practices of China and Russia are stunting economic growth in Africa, threatening the financial independence of African countries, inhibiting American investments and interfering with United States military operations. They pose a threat to our national security interests .”
The Biden administration’s new Africa strategy, published on August 8, 2022, goes in the same direction: » Countering the harmful activities of the People’s Republic of China, Russia and other actors « . Faced with China’s economic presence on the African continent, priority will be given more to development than to the fight against terrorism.
One of the main goals of the new strategy, according to Biden administration officials, is to “ emphasize diplomacy and development and direct more funds to it in order to move away from military engagement. ” priority in parts of Africa, particularly in the Sahel region, which has dominated US policy for the past two decades, when Washington’s foreign policy was primarily focused on counterterrorism , » says Robbie Gramer. , a reporter for Foreign Policy magazine.
One thing is certain: competition with China and Russia in Africa is a priority for the United States and the fight against terrorism becomes secondary.
Rwanda plays against American interests and values, the UN and the DRC
Protected from Westerners because of their guilt in the Rwandan genocide and guarantor of Western interests in the African Great Lakes region, blind support for the Paul Kagame regime is coming to an end. The first telltale sign is the position taken by Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.
In his letter dated July 20, 2022 to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, prior to his African tour, U.S. Senator Robert Menendez expressed concern about the Rwandan government’s continued disregard for human rights and raised the issue of the need for a more effective American policy. The senator noted that American policy towards Rwanda is increasingly out of step with American interests and values. » While the Rwandan soldiers are trained by the American army, the Rwandan army is engaged in 2012 and 2022 in actions to destabilize the DRC by supporting M23 rebels and deploying its soldiers on the territory « , noted the senator.
And to continue: I intend to carefully consider any assistance requested from Congress for Rwanda, and to suspend all security assistance, starting with several million dollars in support of the Rwandan blue helmets, because I fear that all U.S. support for the Rwandan army as it is deployed in the DRC in support of rebels responsible for attacks on Congolese civilians, Congolese troops and UN peacekeepers, could send a troubling signal that states States tacitly approve of such actions. The United States cannot support Rwandan contributions to peacekeeping in parts of Africa while turning a blind eye to the reality that Rwanda is fomenting rebellion and violence in other parts of the continent.« . Senator Robert also urged Secretary of State Blinken to undertake » a comprehensive review of US policy toward Rwanda «
As a result, the American senator is not the only one to embarrass Paul Kagame’s Western sponsors. Since the war of occupation waged by Rwanda and Uganda with the complicity of Western multinationals against the DRC, it is for the first time that United Nations Representatives take a clear position on the Congolese tragedy indexing Rwanda. On June 29, 2022, Mrs. Bintou Keita, Special Representative of the Secretary-General in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Head of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Security Council: « The M23 has a combat arsenal superior to those of MONUSCO and the FARDC and is able to shoot down military helicopters, to terrorize the province of North Kivu and to commit other crimes in eastern Congo”. And to clarify:The M23 is a militia of the Rwandan army ”. The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterresn during a television program on France 24, acknowledging that the M23 rebels are armed by a neighboring country without having the courage to mention Rwanda.
It was Congolese President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi who took the courage to denounce Rwanda at the 77thordinary session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Paul Kagame’s regime, in defiance of international law, the UN Charter and the Constitutive Act of the African Union, once again not only attacked the DRC last March by direct incursions of its armed forces, the RDF, but also occupies localities in the province of North Kivu by an interposed armed terrorist group, the March 23 movement known as M23, to which it provides massive support both in war materials and in men of troops. President Félix Tshisekedi also denounced the M23 with the support of the Rwandan army, which even shot down a Monusco helicopter and killed eight blue helmets. Information passed over in silence by the Secretary General of the United Nations.
Therefore, Felix asks the President of the Security Council to officially distribute to the members of the Council the latest report of the UN experts on the security situation in eastern DRC and to have it examined diligently by him in order to draw all the necessary consequences in terms of the law of international peace and security. The UN’s image and credibility are at stake. For Congolese opinion, there is the impartiality of the UN as well as the complicity of some of its members in these crimes. This finding is no coincidence. Since the United Nations experts are making reports indexing Rwanda in looting and human rights violations in the Congo, no serious debate is organized on this subject in the Security Council.
Knowing the objective pursued by this 23-year war of attrition led by Rwanda and the project of the implosion of the DRC, President Tshisekedi was very clear before the world community: the Congolese people and their leaders are determined to always defend to the supreme sacrifice the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of the DRC. In any case, with American foreign policy prioritizing competition between the great powers, the new leadership of Félix Tshisekedi in the Great Lakes Region and the embarrassment of Paul Kagame’s sponsors in the crisis, the strong man of Kigali is in the footsteps of Marshal Mobutu. Indeed, during the Cold War, the leadership of Central Africa was entrusted to President Mobutu in the fight against communism. He backed rebel Jonas Savimbi against MPLA’s Agonisto Neto. The Zairian army at the time intervened in Chad against the Libyan army of Gadafi and in Rwanda to support the Hutu government of Habiriyamana.
With the end of the Cold War, President Mobutu did not understand his mission was over. It took seven years for the Mobutu regime to collapse. The special envoy of the Usa Richardson came to ask him to leave power if not his executive shot in the street.
At this level a parallelism can be established with the Regime of Paul Kagame. In the context of the fight against terrorism, Rwanda was a link in the US system in the Africa of the Great Lakes. Paul Kagame was a main interlocutor in the crisis in the DRC for the West in particular for the USA. At present, its leadership in the Great Lakes is challenged by the competition or competition between China and the USA and Russia. In this confrontation, the United States needs powerful allies and not small countries to stir up trouble in the region. The other element that downgrades Kigali in the new international environment is the energy transition. The attitudes of President Kagame and his Minister of Foreign Affairs are eloquent on this subject.
When questioned by a France 24 journalist asking if he had a phone call from the White House, President Kagame answered, in a nervous tone, that he calls those he wants to call. And during the press conference of Secretary of State Blinken and the Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs in Kigali concerning an American subject of Rwandan origin, director of the film Hotel Rwanda, the head of Rwandan diplomacy had indicated that » Rwanda is a sovereign country and that this American subject is Rwandan and that he is accountable to Rwandan justice « . Sign of time!
