When I was little, a man in my village traded obscene words and, imminently, blows with his wife. For the nth time, the village gathered at their home. Everyone had an opinion. Except those who, like me, had nothing clever to say about anything. I am tired of feeding your children, complained their next-door neighbor who went further to clarify that the said children were not drops of his own liquid.
At the end of the day, it was decided that the couple should go separate ways. The woman’s transport fares back to her home in Buhweju were collected the way you collect tithe and ‘Bwombeka’ money in your churches. At least hers was a marriage so toxic, nobody should be in it. She left on the following day before the sun rose to reveal her face which was so out of shape that she could have been mistaken by Wildlife Authorities, captured and caged in a zoo for European tourists and school children to see what a talking ape looked like.
When people say God works in mysterious ways, it’s not difficult to see why. They say a god that can be understood is no real god, and this couple blow life into that allegation. More than a decade and a half later, they are still together, (happily) married. Their God has been good to them; he has blessed them with more children than your fingers can count.
Now, this does not in any way mean that their marriage has been a bed of roses – far from that. They have since broken each other’s anterior teeth. They have starved each other sexually. Told each other that they’re worthless. Accused each other of infidelity, and rightly so. But in spite of having had a million reasons to let go of each other, they have always found that one reason to cling on to their marriage. They have believed. Against all odds and available evidence, they have hoped that better days are yet to come. Maybe one day when they are old as the turtles in Mengo, we shall look up to them and commend them for their sacrifices.
Yesterday, the UPDF troops under the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) finally completed their withdrawal from the Democratic Republic of Congo where they were not welcome in the first place. Their withdrawal is in line with the directive of the 23rd Ordinary Summit of the East African Heads of State that decided not to renew the mandate of the force beyond December 8th, 2023. They have beaten the January 7th deadline beyond which they would have been regarded as a foreign invading force. Kudos to them.
Speaking sadly after the Ugandan troops had crossed the border into Uganda, Col. Michael Walaka Hyeroba, who commanded the Ugandan Contingent, said the decision to withdraw the EACRF was made prematurely. Not without blushing, he admitted that the regional force barely achieved any of the goals they had set out to achieve when they commenced their operations in November 2022.
When the EACRF deployment was authorized by the East African Community (EAC) Heads of State at their 22nd Ordinary Summit in Arusha, Tanzania, quite a lot was expected of them. Their mandate was explicitly defined. They were expected to jointly plan and conduct operations with the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) in the Joint Operation Area (JOA), to defeat all armed elements in Eastern DRC. They were expected to support FARDC in concretizing and maintenance of law and order. They were expected to support the DRC in collaboration with humanitarian agencies to continue helping the population affected by the activities of the armed elements in Eastern DRC. They were expected to offer support in the Disarmament, Demobilization, Community Recovery and Stabilization Program (P-DDRCS).
Defining the mandate of the force did little to quell our fears. Shortly after the Ugandan troops had been deployed in the DRC, President Yoweri Museveni (who is also the Commander in Chief of the UPDF) issued a statement claiming that his soldiers were not going into the DRC for battle against M23, contrary to what was stated in the mandate of the EACRF. Ugandans were still suspicious. The Congolese were indignant. The Kenyans were apprehensive. The people of Burundi said nothing about the matter and still haven’t expressed their opinions; maybe because there’s no internet connection in that country. Why do we never hear anything from Burundi? What’s going on down there? Are the people still alive?
Over a year later, the troops have withdrawn, having achieved nothing praiseworthy. As was the situation when the EACRF occupied the Congo, the M23 rebels are still armed and at large. They were neither demobilized nor reintegrated into the civilian population. As if that failure has not been bad enough, the M23 rebels and countless other armed groups are still active in Eastern DRC, most of which remains out of control by the central government. And by the end of November, just a fortnight before the withdrawal of the EACRF, the indefatigable M23 rebels were still capturing major towns such as Kisheshe and Bambo, just about 100km North of the mineral-rich city of Goma. The same old credence still remains that Rwanda and Uganda are arming the rebels as well as reinforcing them. Isn’t it about time we pulled the ‘there’s no smoke without fire’ card? Because in this case, the facts do not matter.
All we know (and believe) is that there’s a powerful country or two supporting the M23. It’s not that hard to guess who the suspects are, but the bluer fact is that they also had a role to play in the deployment of the EACRF. Little wonder, the Ugandan soldiers were initially pictured working hand-in-hand with the M23 rebels. Instead of flushing the rebels out of Bunagana Town which had also descended into chaos, the two forces coexisted. Worked towards a common goal. Even when they withdrew from Bunagana and a few other towns, the M23 rebels were not tackled when they set up their camps within the vicinity of the EACRF strongholds. The latter force buried their heads in the sand and pretended nothing was going on.
This is not the first time we see external forces move into the Congo claiming that they will bring back the elusive peace to the people. Before the East African Community Regional Force moved in, there was the notorious UN Peacekeeping Mission (MONUSCO). The Congolese citizens had done enough to violently protest against the latter troops’ presence in almost all parts of Eastern DRC. Even when threatened with death, they did not back down.
They armed themselves with stones and teeth and did their best to disrupt MONUSCO’s activities, including expelling Ndeye Khady, the force spokesperson. Such was their determination to kick out the foreigners whom they regarded as nothing short of looters who had done nothing about bringing peace in the region they occupied. By the time MONUSCO momentarily withdrew from parts of Eastern DRC, at least 20 people had died in the violent protests against the presence and ineffectiveness of the force in their country.
It is said that the DRC will import a force of peace-keepers from Southern African countries to replace the East African Community Regional Force. This is what we call insanity – doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. We all know what the results will be because we have seen it all in the past. Since the mid to late 1990’s, the Congo has been occupied by foreign military forces. All of them have left the country more unstable than they found it when they moved in. There has been more than enough foreign intervention and by now, it should be clear as day that the DRC will not be pacified by outsiders. The fact that there are countless armed groups operating within Eastern DRC is a Congolese problem, and it needs a political solution; not a military one, let alone being spearheaded by undependable outsiders.
No amount of foreign military intervention will disarm and demobilize all these armed militias. At least not when the Congo is still mineral-rich, with crooked military officials benefitting from illicit smuggling of minerals and firearms. It is about time the Congolese citizens and leaders smelled the coffee and stopped looking outside for solutions to the problems they have sanctioned on their own. It is always highly unlikely that someone will happily sweep your house clean after you have dirtied it. When you make the bed, you should be willing to lie on it without complaining.
About the author: The writer is a worthless MugOfPorridge. His articles have appeared sporadically in print and online. He drinks, smokes and hopes to die by suicide
