Marco Rubio Fumbles Congo: As M23, a Congolese insurgent group continues to solidify control over eastern Congo, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s State Department sanctioned two officials, one Rwandan and the other M23’s spokesman, as well as two companies. The State Department’s logic? M23 drives conflict in Eastern Congo.
This is factually wrong and morally inverse. It is the African equivalent of stating that Ukraine is responsible for Russia’s onslaught, or that Kuwait deserved Iraq’s 1990 invasion.
Belying the idea that grievance about Ukraine’s behavior motivates Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression against the country are Putin’s own words. On July 12, 2021, Putin published an essay in which he questioned Ukraine’s right to exist. “The idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians started to form and gain ground among the Polish elite…. Since there was no historical basis – and could not have been any, conclusions were substantiated by all sorts of concoctions,” Putin explained. In other words, the idea of Ukraine is foreign and artificial. Those who profess Ukrainian nationalism are illegitimate foreigners.
Back to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo: The current crisis is inextricably linked to the 1994 Anti-Tutsi Genocide in Rwanda. Based on eugenics introduced to Rwanda during periods of German and Belgian rule, Hutu militants argued that Rwanda’s Tutsi minority was foreign, alien interlopers who came to the region from the Ethiopian highlands. It was pseudoscience at best, but also irrelevant. The Tutsis had been part of Rwanda’s patchwork for centuries.
Most Americans know about the Rwandan Genocide from the 2004 film “Hotel Rwanda.” What matters today is its aftermath: Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Force droves the French-backed Hutus génocidaires into Eastern Congo where, instead of disarming them, the international community indulged them. The United Nations welcomed them into its refugee camps that, like so many Palestinian camps, became engines for incitement. A new generation arose in the camps with one goal about which they spoke openly: Invade Rwanda and eradicate Tutsis, wherever they could be found.
Rwanda responded as necessary: It became stronger than the threats beyond it borders but it was not just Sparta: It sought peace and, indeed, achieved it inside the Democratic Republic of Congo for a time. Five years ago, Kigali and Kinshasa cooperated with intelligence against myriad armed groups that operated in eastern Congo. To ensure its Chinese mineral extraction contracts continued, the Congolese government demonstrated its ability to crack down on militias when it wanted to do so.
What changed was not Rwanda but rather Congo. Observers acknowledge Félix Tshisekedi stole the 2018 election, though many in Washington loath to acknowledge that as it countered the notion that the Democratic Republic of Congo had turned the corner. The trouble started as he approached his second term: With absolutely no accomplishments, corruption spinning out of control, and the Catholic church turning against him, Tshisekedi turned to ethnic incitement. Night letters appeared on doors of Congolese Tutsi houses warning them to leave the country they and their family had lived in for hundreds of years or be killed. Militiamen raped Tutsi women. Promised reforms evaporated. It was in this context that the M23 rebellion reactivated.
It was also in this context that the Paul Rusesabagina affair occurred. The popular narrative is that Rwanda’s security forces kidnapped Hotel Rwanda’s real-life protagonist because they feared his political opposition to the dictator Kagame. Reality eluded many in Hollywood and on Capitol Hill, including Rubio. Rusesabagina transferred money via Western Union to Hutu militants in Burundi who then attacked and slaughtered civilians in southern Rwanda. What Rubio and others describe as a kidnapping was not: Rusesabagina voluntarily boarded a private plane that he thought would take him to Burundi. Publicly, he stated he was invited to speak at a church.
This made no sense: What church—let alone in Africa’s poorest country—charters a private jet for a man of moderate fame to give a sermon? In reality, the previous Trump administration sought to stop Burundi from terror sponsorship. After Burundi’s president agreed to stop cross border attacks on Rwanda, Rusesabagina rushed to Burundi to convince the president to again greenlight the rebels he funded.
Other myths consume Washington: Rwanda loots Congolese resources. The problem with this narrative is that it confuses normal border trade with something more ominous. Talk to traders at the border and reality is clear: Customs duties on the Ugandan and Rwandan borders are an order of magnitude less than internal taxes in Kinshasa. It is easy to blame Rwanda, but the problem is Kinshasa’s corruption. Indeed, by terms of the Congolese constitution, Kinshasa is supposed to remit 40 percent of revenue to the provinces. Tshisekedi has refused, leading many in eastern Congo simply to stop sending resources into Kinshasa’s black hole and Tshisekedi’s overseas bank accounts.
Washington is also consumed with unhinged animosity toward Kagame. This is misplaced. Kagame is not a democrat in the Western sense; he is more analogous to Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew. What both sought was societal transformation. The difference between the two is that Hutu génocidiares who settled in Belgium and London proceeded to set a revisionist narrative to revenge their ouster.
Only fools believe it. The narrative about Kagame is further unhinged because he refuses to engage in traditional dependency to aid and humanitarian groups. He has embraced capitalism and self-sufficiency in a manner Washington should celebrate, not punish. That Rubio sanctions the country suggests he has become Blinken 2.0, an empty vessel to channel the State Department’s worst instincts and biases.
Back to Congo today: When regime control fails with the rapidity with which M23 has driven through eastern Congo, it is usually a sign that the existing government lacked legitimacy among the local population.
For Rubio to side with those who promote genocide, incitement, and loot the region to the benefit of a corrupt dictator more than 1,000 miles away in Kinshasa runs counter to U.S. interests and threatens peace.
That M23 now consolidates control along the Congolese border with Burundi, in contrast, provides the only hope for peace because it will prevent Burundi, one of Africa’s most failed states, from continuing to pour fuel on the Congolese conflagration by breaking the dynamic by which Tshisekedi pays his Burundian counterpart for troops to serve as his mercenaries.
Congo deserves peace. Siding with Tshisekedi’s pro-China regime will not bring it. Only accepting reality, ending Hutu militancy in eastern Congo, and creating a federal buffer akin to Iraqi Kurdistan can bring peace, justice, and prosperity to the region.
About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin
Dr. Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. He is also a 19FortyFive Contributing Editor. The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own.
