Once again, the Kinshasa regime has demonstrated that it’s pursuing a different agenda from what regional and international stakeholders recommend as the best way to find sustainable peace in eastern DRC.
On the sidelines of engagements with the regional facilitator of eastern DRC, former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, DRC Minister of State for Regional Integration, Mbusa Nyamwisi deliberately uttered misleading statements about Kenyatta’s visit.
As it has now become the norm of the Kinshasa regime officials to cover up their failures with dishonest or misleading statements, Nyamwisi told media that Kenyatta’s principal purpose on the visit was “to assess modalities for the cantonment of the M23 fighters!”
But the truth was that Kenyatta’s main item on the agenda was to make it clear to the Kinshasa regime that only political negotiations, as opposed to military confrontation, would guarantee lasting peace. Not Kinshasa’s chosen path of making constant threats of military confrontation!
Negotiating peace, which requires direct political dialogue with the M23 Movement, is the recommendation made by regional and international stakeholders. During a visit to Kinshasa last week, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa made it clear that resolving the crisis in eastern DRC requires negotiation.
In a statement last week, even the European Union prescribed that “political dialogue must be preferred to military confrontation, because military options will only prolong the conflict and increase the suffering of the populations”.
The Kinshasa regime has the option of listening to the voices of reason as advanced by regional leaders as well as the International Community to bring lasting peace. Or it can choose to persist with their belligerent stance, thus threatening regional stability.
No one is buying its lies however.