Déjà Vu…

Once again the timing could not be any more appropriate. The entire world is captivated by the sensational US presidential elections and the devastating effects of the financial crisis are being felt from North America to East Asia and every region in between. Meanwhile, a regional conflict is brewing in Central Africa with the intensifying fighting between the military troops of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The international community is once again distracted, passive, committed elsewhere or simply unwilling to take concrete actions.

In the process, innocent human lives are being affected at a disturbing rate – lives that increasingly seem to be taken for granted as constant media reports of war, AIDS, famine and sufferings in Africa have become all too familiar thus desensitizing viewers. According to official reports, the death toll amounts to 5.4 million people throughout the eastern region of DRC since 1998. “Never again, never again” was the rhetoric of the international community after the human tragedy in Rwanda yet nothing has changed except that today the same evils have resurged a few miles west in neighboring DRC.

Let us rewind to 1998. In the days following the bombings of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the first full-fledged regional war in Africa broke out in Eastern Congo – better known as the Second Congo War – involving 6 different nations (Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe…just to name a few) with their troops fighting on Congolese soil. No one saw that one coming except the fighting factions. More recently, in December 2004, it was also during US elections fever that rebel general Laurent Nkunda broke away from the DRC army to form his National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) and take over Bukavu, the capital of the eastern province of South Kivu. Today, just days before America goes to the polls, it is the same rebel general Nkunda – the self-proclaimed protector of Tutsis in DRC – who is closing in on the strategic town of Goma, the capital of North Kivu. A Tutsi of Congolese citizenship himself, Nkunda is receiving assistance of some sort from Kigali. Every time, the eyes of the world are focused on another major event.

Some may ask why Africa always waits for the international community – namely the West – to come to its rescue. Firstly, nations on the continent lack the resources and military might to secure their borders and defend themselves without support of some kind from their former colonial leaders. Secondly, it is not in the interest of Western nations for Africa to be on par with them in terms of military technology or to, at least, train and develop more autonomous forces. Thirdly, nations such as the United States, Great Britain, France and Belgium (only within the context of its colonial experience in Rwanda and DRC) are the most powerful in the world in terms of decision-making and renowned for spreading the gospel of democracy, peace and freedom to all corners of the planet. Three of the aforementioned nations are permanent members of the UN Security Council, the victors of World War II who have the crucial veto power. That should say it all. It is only fair for the West to come fix the problems in the region because, most of the time, they are the ones instigating them behind closed doors in the most sophisticated, untraceable methods that would cause accusations such as mine to be dismissed as groundless in the eyes of many. At any rate, these nations have the power and authority to intervene efficiently in the current crisis. They should play their role as leaders of the free world and execute their mission as eagerly as they did recently in Kosovo and in Georgia. Okay, okay, I am not naïve: I am well acquainted with the concept of national interest.

Not to say that African regimes are not to blame for all their troubles because, in fact, they are equally responsible for the torments they endure. DRC, being a prime example, has squandered many critical opportunities to unify the vast nation and draft sound policies that would yield long term dividends during those few periods when the country enjoyed relative calm and stability. The short-sightedness and get-rich-quick scheme of successive administrations have spoiled the future of the country in more ways than one. Nevertheless, under such conditions, it is an insurmountable task to prevent foreign meddling and influence on home affairs when corruption is rampant, national institutions are weak and members of the State are divided along ethnic lines. Basically, there are more than enough actors in this conflict to share the blame, both in Central Africa and in Western capitals.