Congolese have today woken up to news about military reshuffles in their national army FARDC. The debate on the reshuffle have nevertheless been hilarious. While many believe Tshisekedi was simply in a ‘trial-and-error’ chess game, others questioned difference in changes.
Of the changes that took place, General Christian Songesha Tshiwewe who was the Chief of Staff was dropped and was appointed the defense advisor to the President. He was replaced by Lt General Jules Mwilambwe Banza who was working at the President’s office as the Deputy Head of Military house.
In the same reshuffle, Major General Chico Tshitambwe who was serving as the commander of the 3rd zone was replaced by Lt.General Pacique Masunzu and was relocated to oversee operations in the 1st Zone. FARDC commanding zones are divided into three. 1st Zone covers Kinshasa and different areas in the west; the 2nd Zone oversees mostly the central part of the country while the 3rd Zone covers the entire Eastern DRC, mainly two Kivus.
Obviously, Tshisekedi’s recent reshuffles are nothing but a guesswork, having seen that most of his generals have not been able to fight, resist and or dislodge M23, with the latter being on unprecedented speed of liberating swathes of territories, he has resorted to hopeless exploratory approaches of hits and misses.
The appointment of General Pacique Masunzu who hitherto has been commander of the 2nd Zone to head operations in Kivus, Tshisekedi has removed trust from Lubas, his own tribesmen and placed it onto others. Masunzu being a Munyamulenge is the currently the last hope of Kinshasa regime to fight M23.
What is laughable from Tshisekedi is to think that General Pacifique Masunzu, born Munyamulenge is a more Congolese than General Sultan Makenga from Bagogwe tribe, when all of them are of Kivu origins. Tshisekedi and his regime refers to General Makenga as a Rwandan.
The appointments on the other hand have everything to do with the ongoing assaults of the constitution. It is no longer a secret that in the quest to alter the constitution which Congolese have vehemently opposed, Tshisekedi wants to apply massive forces hence bringing his trusted Luba tribesmen to first handle bloody operations in Kinshasa and other stronger cities.
Of all these reshuffles, one can pause a simple question, now that Tshisekedi has mainly reshuffled army generals based on results at the battle fields and M23 continues its unbeaten victory record, how many times is the ruler of DRC going to make changes within his demoralized and weakened army?