When the armed terrorist group called March 23 Movement (M23) entered the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in June 2022 from Uganda and captured the town of Bunagana bordering Uganda and DR Congo, many of the international observers were surprised.
This is because M23 was militarily defeated in 2013 with the collaboration of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) and the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO).
M23, a Rwanda and Uganda-backed bandit group, was then known as the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) and was led by Laurent Nkunda Batware, who himself came from the Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by Rwandan president Paul Kagame.
It is a proxy army created by the neocolonial government of Rwanda in collaboration with the neocolonial government of Uganda for the purpose of destabilizing DR Congo and maintaining access to Congo’s minerals. It is led by officers straight from the Rwandan Patriotic Front, known today as the Rwandan Defense Force (RDF).
The white colonial backers of the governments of Rwanda and Uganda from Europe, the U.S., France, Israel, Australia, and elsewhere need war and chaos to loot Congo’s strategic minerals such as coltan, nickel, gold, and more.
Kagame and the African petty bourgeoisie Tutsi ethnic tribalist supremacists want land in the Congo to transfer the Tutsi population from Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania to Congo.
Rwanda and Uganda’s control of Congo or parts of Congo means the U.S. has unlimited and unrestricted access to the resources of Congo, too.
This part of Congo is one of the most fertile lands in Africa, where you can grow crops from all climates—hot and cold alike—all year round. This region also has gas and oil, and geothermal energy is also available due to volcanic activity in that region. It is also ripe for tourism because it is gifted with a unique ecosystem.
Kagame’s regime and its supporters use colonial arguments to justify this colonial aggression, claiming that his troops are in Congo to protect the Tutsi in Congo from attacks by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and from discrimination by Congolese.
These are pure lies. The FDLR has no ability to attack Rwanda, and the Tutsi petty bourgeoisie has been part of the power elite in Congo since the time of the regime of Mobutu, and even more so in Kabila and Tshisekedi’s regimes.
Uganda and Rwanda’s Armies Are Colonial Shock Troops
M23, CNDP, AFDL, ADF, and RDF are all proxy armed groups in the service of colonial corporations led by the U.S. colonial government. Ugandan and Rwandan armies are colonial shock troops for the colonial corporations, which are the primary benefactors of the minerals stolen at gunpoint from Congo.
They are the “askaris,” “slave raiders,” and the “harkis” of today in Africa. They fight and massacre African people in the most despicable and unimaginative ways for white colonizers, and they brag about it.
Between 2005 and 2024, Rwanda sent troops to the following countries: Central African Republic, Benin, Mozambique, Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, Chad, Liberia, and Ivory Coast.
U.S., EU, and UK Colonial Leaders Back the Rwandan Military
Ugandan and Rwandan petty bourgeois leaders know very well that the West’s collective colonial sanctions are not for them.
They have been enjoying over 30 years of impunity in the genocide in Congo and Rwanda. Sanctions are for those who challenge the rule or power of the colonizers.
When British foreign affairs, under the leadership of David Lammy, an African neocolonialist, made a statement supposedly against the war in the Congo, it was meaningless. The statement released in the name of the G7 foreign ministers and the high representative of the European Union stated:
“We strongly condemn all attacks against diplomatic missions in Kinshasa. We urge the Congolese authorities to take all appropriate steps to protect diplomats and the premises of diplomatic missions, as is their responsibility in accordance with international law.”
However, no significant and meaningful sanctions were ever launched against the criminal government of Kigali. It was just business as usual.
U.S. Policy Responsible for History of Genocide
The bourgeois press does not mention the over six million killed since the invasion of Congo in 1994.
They just talk about M23 and Rwandan armies in Congo with no acknowledgment of genocide.
The UN Mapping Report, a must-read document produced by the UN in 2010, makes public the documented mass murders by Kagame and Ugandan president Museveni’s armies in pursuit of U.S. and other Western colonizers’ interests.
These quotes from a U.S. diplomat that appeared in a 2015 article on the University of Missouri’s website expose the U.S. role in the genocide in Rwanda:
“Despite having an unmatchable military that ‘spends more on defense than all other nations in the world together,’ the United States had no desire to utilize that military for the aid of the Tutsis.”
In a 2002 Foreign Affairs article, Kaufmann writes:
“The United States not only did not halt the killing but actively prevented other willing powers from taking effective action.”
Kaufmann continues, after Hutu soldiers killed ten Belgian peacekeepers:
“The United States advised pulling out and also played a decisive role in persuading the UN Security Council to cut the strength of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda from 2,500 to 500 just two weeks after the genocide began.”
The Congolese army is a moribund neocolonial army, trapped in all kinds of corruption and heavily infiltrated by Museveni and Kagame’s agents. Some of its generals are in front, not to defend the people and country, but to make money. They are businessmen first.
The leadership of DR Congo’s president Félix Tshisekedi is problematic. His ascension to power is controversial, and his tribal policies have divided the country—including the army—further weakening the morale of the troops, who are cannon fodder for the RDF and M23.
Solve All Contradictions to Advance the African Revolution!
For Africa’s future, what counts is the people’s mobilization and organization in DR Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, and throughout the world—to resist this colonial war in the context of advancing the universal struggle of black people for universal freedom and power!
As we call for an immediate ceasefire, we are also calling for Africans, under the leadership of the African Socialist International led by Chairman Omali Yeshitela, to build the largest anti-war mobilization against all wars against Africa and black people everywhere.
We need our own plan to stop this war of aggression and genocide in Congo and rapidly advance our struggle for African independence and unification in the region and throughout the world.
Kagame is calling for a dialogue with Tshisekedi because the relationship of power is in his favor. The masses in Congo are opposed to any negotiations to surrender to Kagame and his imperialist backers.
No Surrender! No Compromise!
