For decades, facts have shown that FARDC military men, whether officers or commanders from places like Katanga, Kasai, Mbuji-Mayi, Lubumbashi, Bunia, those in the far west or at the opposite east cannot speak one language when it comes to command and instructions.
While credible leaders use diverse skills, values, and or behavioral differences of soldiers to build a strong army, Tshisekedi’s FARDC has failed to come together. The differences and cultural backgrounds drive the army apart. When people say that FARDC is dead from the core, this is what they mean.
It is not a secret that FARDC commanders fighting M23 in the Eastern DRC were often into perpetual friction due to behavioral differences or lack of proper communication, even when they have French as their language of instruction. Strangely enough, not all of them speak French or Lingala, and such has always led to serious misunderstanding and miscommunication.
Disunity in FARDC, coupled with a lack of basic values that constitute an army, like patriotism, devotion, discipline, and others, cannot make Congo’s national force any worse than it is today. The weak state of the current FARDC makes it prone to everything challenging, not even M23 alone. Against all those weaknesses, they resorted to soliciting support from genocidal and armed groups like FDLR, Mai-Mai (Yakutumba, Nyatura), PARECO, ACPLS, and mercenaries like the Wagner group.
Sources following the ongoing fighting between M23 and FARDC state very well that without the support of FDLR, members of FARDC-from junior officers to senior officers, no one would dare take up an arm and fight. They always operate behind FDLR, whose mission is completely different- that of reorganizing and attacking Rwanda.
Until DRC leaders fully understand the magnitude and implications of having a divided, unmotivated, incompetent, corrupt, and cowardly force like FARDC, they will always have all odds against them. No one else is to blame except the incompetent leadership of President Tshisekedi.