Many have not perceived the deep meaning of the diplomatic zeal of the Emirates of Qatar in wanting to reconcile Kagame with Tshisekedi.
This interpersonal role is not without interest. A few years ago, Qatar financed 60% of the capital in the launch of the Rwandan airline, which is in fact a subsidiary of Qatar Airways. And he didn’t stop there. He also decided to finance the construction of a gold refining plant in Kigali, leaving to be reimbursed in kind via the gold looted on Congolese territory.
The rupture of relations between Kigali and Kinshasa combined with the freezing of economic agreements between these two neighbors is turning everything upside down. In the end, it turns out to be counterproductive either for Rwandair, deprived of the vast Congolese airport market, or for the gold refining plant deprived of raw materials.
For those who have not yet understood it, Rwanda and the DRC have entered into an economic war which does not say its name but whose reactions will go so far as to shake the interests of all the international partners to whom Rwanda has promised mountains and wonders about minerals belonging to a third country.
Between Qatar, Rwanda and the DRC, a Bermuda triangle is emerging, an area of high diplomatic and military tension where so-called falsely emerging economies risk disappearing. A zone of all risks, the future of which may hold two emission scenarios for us.
The first would be that the DRC is winning the war against Rwanda not by force of cannons but by an aggressive campaign to sensitize public opinion and by the economic asphyxiation of the illicit and illegal channels of Rwandan enrichment. . Kinshasa is strangling Rwanda by preventing its wallet from inflating.
If the DRC has managed to remain firm on its position of refusing dialogue with Rwanda as long as the latter maintains its military forces on Congolese territory and above all it has succeeded in convincing international partners of the non-necessity of going through Kigali to trade raw materials from the Congo, then we would be one step away from a new political and security era in the Great Lakes region.
The second scenario is that of an announced war. In which way ? Faced with Kinshasa’s intransigence, the Rwandan economy, which is fed 60% by the looting of mining resources in the Congo, 30% by international aid and 10% by agriculture, mainly coffee and tea (including part also came from the Congo in a clandestine way) will inexorably experience an accelerated decline, resulting in the internal weakening of Kagame’s RPF regime.
Faced with the very recent failure of the Doha meeting, Kagame will have no choice but to relaunch the war for his own political survival and for the economic health of his country, which has functioned for two decades on the rent of an economy of war and plunder.
It is therefore important that the Congolese know where we are bringing the upheavals of the latest political events in the sub-region and to prepare accordingly to defend the homeland and its sovereignty. Roman wisdom imposes itself here with force: “si vis pacem, para bellum”, if you want peace, prepare for war.
This article was written by
Father Germain Nzinga
Priest of the Diocese of Matadi
NOTE: The views represented in this opinion are the author’s and do not represent the position of the publication.
