Good neighbours? Rwanda’s strategies to defend its interests in Congo – By Kris Berwouts | African Arguments

Kris Berwouts (author)

Central Africa has been shaped by complex regional dynamics, through which local cleavages and national conflicts have spilled over national borders. Each country in the region has a complex internal situation and a violent recent history where local contradictions have become polarized and entangled with those of neighbouring countries.

Following the end of the Cold War and throughout the 1990s these regional dynamics developed into an avalanche of killing and destruction. During the two wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), (1996-1997 and 1998-2002) which followed the genocide in Rwanda, the Congo and particularly its eastern provinces became the battlefield of ‘Africa’s First World War’. The DRC’s natural resource wealth has been an important factor in fuelling conflict as warring factions competed for control of parallel networks for the illegal flow of resources onto international markets..............

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Good neighbours? Rwanda’s strategies to defend its interests in Congo – By Kris Berwouts | African Arguments

Pro-Bosco M23 Rebels Fleeing into Rwanda - News of Rwanda

M23 rebels in Goma late last year, as they prepared to withdraw as part of a regional peace plan

The Government of Rwanda announced Saturday that a new wave of Congolese refugees including combatants fleeing recent fighting between two factions of M23 rebels have crossed into North Western Rwanda overnight.

Foreign Affairs Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said “over 200 combatants” have entered Rwanda. There have been reports that the M23 group is currently in two factions. One group is led by the former top military commander Sultani Makenga and the other led by former M23 president Bishop Jean Marie Runiga, who is allied to Gen Bosco Ntaganda................

FULL ARTICLE:  News Of Rwanda -Rwanda News - Kinyarwanda | East Africa | Rwanda Genocide | News of Rwanda

Rice’s Failure in Rwanda Precludes Her from Becoming Secretary of State

That Susan Rice either willfully misled the American people on the Benghazi attacks, or lazily absorbed intelligence briefings without the least bit of personal involvement, is obvious. That she was covering for the Obama Administration in denying a terror attack just weeks before the election is speculative but likely. That she does not, therefore, deserve to become Secretary of State is arguable.

But what is not arguable is that she deserves to be denied the post for a different reason altogether: Rwanda. What emerges when taken together--Rice’s weak response in Benghazi, blaming the murder of four Americans on a stupid video, and her shameful lack of action in the Rwandan genocide--is a career diplomat of singular weakness, lacking the spine or muscularity to assert American moral influence in the world.

FULL ARTICLE HERE: Rice’s Failure in Rwanda Precludes Her from Becoming Secretary of State

Gaddafi is gone; what are Africans mourning? | The Rwanda Focus

Gaddafi is gone; what are Africans mourning?

Many news reports liked to refer to the late Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi as “the maverick leader.” That obviously was some conscious editorial decision on the part of the media houses to be more diplomatic than would be the case if they used apt words, for instance: the stark raving lunatic of Tripoli.

The late Muammar Gaddafi. (Internet photo)

Gaddafi’s behaviour, especially in the later years of his rule, wasn’t that of a sane person. Far from it. And that fact became obvious for anyone who came in touch with him. The foreign affairs minister of Kenya Moses Wetangula for example, in a recent interview on the BBC told of his astonishment – and that of a number of other dignitaries at an African Union meet – when Gaddafi slapped his foreign affairs minister, Abdelati Obeid accrss the face in full view of everyone.

Reports of the man’s eccentricities are many. There was the all female guard of voluptuous brunettes who went everywhere with “the guide of the Libyan Revolution.” There were the cam­els they transported everywhere the guide went, to provide him the favourite ingredient of his breakfast – fresh camel milk. There were the numerous headaches he gave his hosts, with his insis­tence on pitching a tent in the middle of whatever city he visited, preferably in the main square; the man even tried to pitch a tent in a New York City square a year ago during the annual UN Gen­eral Assembly.

Gaddafi was as disruptive as he was eccentric. I was a journalist in South Africa in 2002 and I remember news reports the week the African Union was inaugurated to take the place of the defunct OAU. That was to take place in the South African coastal city of Durban. Every other head of state observed the normal proto­cols: bringing in pre-agreed upon numbers of members of their entourages; proscribed numbers of personal bodyguards with agreed-upon amounts of small weapons, and so on. Well, Gaddafi wouldn’t have been Gaddafi if he instead didn’t see an opportunity to display a sample of the firepower at his command. Six Boeing jumbo jets flew into Durban from Tripoli, positively bristling with machine guns, SMGs, assault rifles, RPGs…, as well as several mem­bers of the Libyan military.

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Gaddafi is gone; what are Africans mourning? | The Rwanda Focus