Protests against the US, UK, France and the EU are escalating in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as M23 rebels threaten to capture the strategic eastern city of Goma.
President Felix Tshisekedi has said nothing with intelligence sources revealing he is behind the protests the more reason police are pedestrian in this whole episode.
Protesters burnt barricades outside the UK Embassy in the capital Kinshasa and gathered outside the French Embassy, demanding an end to the West’s complicity in the worsening conflict. Earlier this week protesters also gathered in front of the US Embassy accusing Washington of arming and financing M23 rebels.
The current protests were triggered by M23’s advance towards the capital of North Kivu province, Goma, causing tens of thousands more to flee their homes. 6.9 million Congolese are already uprooted, mostly in the DRC’s east, one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
Congo, the West and a UN expert group have accused neighbouring Rwanda of backing M23, an allegation Rwanda denies. Meanwhile, the ire of protesters is increasingly being directed at their own Western-backed government under President Félix Tshisekedi, whom they accuse of enabling the rebel advance.
Since the murder of Congo’s revolutionary leader Patrice Lumumba was orchestrated by the CIA and Belgium, foreign companies have plundered the country and fuelled violence through arming and financing armed groups in exchange for minerals. Between 1996-2007 alone, six million Congolese were killed. DRC is the world’s most resource rich country and has untapped raw mineral wealth worth an estimated $24 trillion.
