🇨🇩 Congo peace deal in tatters as full-scale offensive begins
The Democratic Republic of Congo has launched a major offensive against M23 rebels across the entire front, following more than 15 hours of airstrikes overnight.
Government forces, backed by Burundi's military, P5 Coalition fighters, and Wazalendo militias, are pushing on multiple fronts around Bukavu and North Kivu as heavy fighting intensifies.
If this offensive continues, the Trump-mediated peace deal is effectively dead.
Source: RN Intel / Writer: Ian
Today, October 23, is President Paul Kagame’s birthday. We join his family and all Rwandans to honor this towering political giant on our planet, a leader who made what was seemingly impossible, possible: the reconfiguration of the Rwandan state, the reconstruction of the Rwandan economy and the reconstitution of Rwandan society that had been tone asunder by the most horrific genocide in history.
More than that, we honor a leader who pulled a country out of obscurity and oblivion into a shining star on our continent, an example of what good leadership can do for a people. He did this because he stuck to his ideals and tenaciously defended the goals he sought for his country when it would have been much more profitable to compromise them at the alter of political convenience.
President Paul Kagame inspires hundreds of millions across our planet because he has defied the odds, because he has held his ground, because he has kept his word, because he has persisted and endured in the pursuit of the Rwandan dream where many would have given up.
I have been traveling across Africa and witnessed so many post colonial hopes dashed because leaders, in seeking to hold power and reward friends, abandoned the goal of building the nation and serving its people and where the sacrifices of the many were turned into the benefits of a few. In Rwanda, Kagame said NO. I have watched him, at very close range, lose friends and antagonize allies who stood in the way of developing Rwanda.
Today we celebrate this moral clarity and the integrity of his personality. Happy birthday my friend and hero. May you live to be 150 years and thereby defy biology the way you have defied political and military realities.
A word to the haters of Kagame. I know you will come here and hurl insults and abuses at me. I forgive you because I know you envy his achievements and are tortured by his greatness. I am sorry I cannot help you out of your misery!
Happy birthday Afande @PaulKagame. May you have many more. Thank you for your exemplary leadership that is a beacon for Rwanda, the region and Africa. Long live the friendship and strategic alliance between our two countries.
“If you want to know how many times the FDLR has attacked Rwanda, just look at the travel advisories some of your countries have issued. Every time the FDLR attacks Rwanda, you advise your citizens not to travel to that part of the country."
If 21 attacks in 31 years are not enough to invoke Article 51 of the UN Charter, which threshold justifies that?
“It happened to us once. We listened to preachers, and we were slaughtered like cows. It will never happen again.”
Rwandan UN Ambassador @martin_ngoga to the UN Security Council.
We are the media now ✊🏿
Please share this to the world 🙏🏾
Rwanda has experienced the worst genocide the world has ever seen. We know how it starts, we know each stage and we know how it can be avoided.
Congolese government can never change the history where victims are painted as perpetrators and perpetrators as victims.
Tshisekedi’s regime has armed FDLR and this must stop.
Proud of Rwanda ♥️♥️
There’s this village journalist from Belgium who wanted to come to Rwanda. Rwanda denied him entry, and now all the colonial clerks and their supporters are shouting!
Africans get denied entry to Belgium and Europe by the hundreds of thousands every year, and somehow that’s okay 😅, but a Belgian being told “No” becomes a headline? 😅 Why? Is it because he’s white? Africans are supposed to never say no to colonials? This is Rwanda, my friend.😅😅
A reminder; Rwanda have cut ties with Belgium due to Belgium’s superiority complex thinking they are better than Rwandans 🤷🏾♂️ No diplomatic relations. And Rwanda walks the talks.
Just to clarify, Belgians who mind their own business have entered Rwanda by thousands. The ones who think Africa is theirs have been told NO. A very big NO
Welcome to new Africa.♥️
Les formules médiocres et les hashtags telephonés du porte-parole du gouvernement congolais, élaborés par des conseillers en communication à Kinshasa, ne suffisent plus à cacher la situation alarmante à Uvira, Sud Kivu, où la milice criminelle VDP Wazalendo, soutenue par Kinshasa, a:
1) refusé le déploiement d'un général FARDC pour le seul crime d'être né Tutsi (position publiquement appuyée par le député UDPS de la région, Justin Bitakwira);
2) empêché l'inhumation à Uvira d'un général FARDC, pour le même crime d'être né Tutsi;
3) diffusé des messages à tous les Banyamulenge et autres Congolais Tutsi, leur donnant un ultimatum de dix (10) jours pour quitter le Congo et rentrer "chez eux" au Rwanda;
4) armé des enfants, leur demandant d'aller "tuer les Banyarwanda";
5) tabassé, lynché et humilié en public des Congolais Tutsi et autres civils;
6) interdit aux jeunes élèves congolais d'aller à l'école, menaçant de mort tout enseignant et élève qui contreviendrait à cet ordre.
Malgré que tous ces crimes et délits aient été commis en public, pris en vidéo et postés sur les réseaux sociaux, malgré que tous ces actes aient été commis dans un contexte de bombardements continus des Banyamulenge par des drones d'attaque de Kinshasa, @PatrickMuyaya a toujours l'outrecuidance de recycler ses formules haineuses et ses accusations en miroir.
La RDC, qui soutient déjà les FDLR, a créé un autre monstre génocidaire nommé Wazalendo, qu'il a armé et financé, un monstre qui commet ses crimes à ciel ouvert, sans réaction de la communauté internationale, y compris les Nations unies, pourtant présentes sur le terrain.
Au moment où ce monstre commence à devenir incontrôlable, Kinshasa ne peut, pour autant, se dégager de ses propres turpitudes et de sa propre responsabilité, et devra en assumer toutes les conséquences.
To everyone who keeps sharing and liking ♥️ what I write; a very big thank you 🙏🏾 that why my posts gets far.
We won't let the Western media decide what we have to read and believe. We live in the Great Lakes region, and no one knows what's happening in Rwanda or Congo better than we do.
We speak the local languages and we understand the region. This time the world has to sit and listen. They will have to watch and read what we share because we are there.
Just because you live in Europe or America doesn’t mean we have to blindly follow you or believe whatever you say.
We are the media now, and it’s time for us to share what’s actually happening.
Thank you for being part of this. Just know that we Africans have the power to share our own story.
Reuters, BBC, and CNN all write with the interests of their countries in mind; you won't see them trolling their own countries.
To everyone who keeps sharing and liking ♥️ what I write; a very big thank you 🙏🏾 that why my posts gets far.
We won't let the Western media decide what we have to read and believe. We live in the Great Lakes region, and no one knows what's happening in Rwanda or Congo better than we do.
We speak the local languages and we understand the region. This time the world has to sit and listen. They will have to watch and read what we share because we are there.
Just because you live in Europe or America doesn’t mean we have to blindly follow you or believe whatever you say.
We are the media now, and it’s time for us to share what’s actually happening.
Thank you for being part of this. Just know that we Africans have the power to share our own story.
Reuters, BBC, and CNN all write with the interests of their countries in mind; you won't see them trolling their own countries.
I have learnt with sadness about the death of Kenya's beloved teacher, writer, playwright, and public intellectual, Prof Ngugi wa Thiong'o. The towering giant of Kenyan letters has put down his pen for the final time.
Always courageous, he made an indelible impact on how we think about our independence, social justice as well as the uses and abuses of political and economic power.
In his bold and creative career, Prof Thiong'o showed us how to make contributions that cannot be ignored and speak in ways that both supporters and opponents cannot ignore.
His patriotism is undeniable, and even those who disagree with him will admit that Prof Thiong'o's discourse always sprang forth from a deep and earnest quest for truth and understanding, devoid of malice, hatred or contempt.
Many Kenyans cannot remember a time when we were not united in the hope that Prof Thiong'o would finally receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, which we all felt he more than deserved.
Be that as it may, he will always remain the champion of literary emancipation and innovation in our hearts and minds.
May his family find peace and comfort in this period of mourning, and may Prof Thiong'o rest in eternal peace.
European ambassadors in Uganda, whose governments are funding a genocide in Gaza, somehow find the moral authority to condemn torture here. This is not about human rights. It is about power. They don’t believe we can fight for our rights ourselves! They do not see us as active participants in the struggle for our rights. They see us as passive spectators in it, mere beneficiaries of international charity handed to us by benevolent Europeans.
This is colonialism 101. Colonialism justified itself with claims of seeking our emancipation; so its mission was to liberate us from the tyranny of our customs and the despotism of our chiefs and kings. It’s flag were the three Cs: Christianity (to emancipate our sounds from “devil worship”, yes our religions were called satanic), Commerce to liberate us from our poverty, and Civilization (to liberate us from our institutional
backwardness).
Today the three Cs have been renamed and repurposed for continued control of our affairs. Christianity has become democracy; commerce is now trade and investment (foreign direct investment that either displaces or stifles the growth of our local bourgeoisie) and civilization, the imposition of European bureaucratic systems on our societies.
There are gross human rights abuses in Europe and North America but our ambassadors in their capitals are not lecturing and hectoring their leaders over this. Japan and South Korea are democracies who give us money but don’t indulge in these arrogant lectures. China funds our government but does not insist we become Chinese in our governance. India does similar. What is this in the European mind that gives them the feeling and entitlement to interfere in our internal affairs against international law - written by them?
We are facing a problem of a racial superiority complex. This is deeply embedded in the conscious, sometimes subconscious and even unconscious European mind. It just comes naturally to them often without them noticing it. Africans do not need help from Europe. We need collaboration. We should seek to liberate Europeans from their racial superiority complex. We can do this by being bluntly honest with them.
Ugandans deserve the right not to be tortured. But that is our domestic issue. It’s a war for us Ugandans to fight and win. When Europeans insert themselves in our struggles, they make local agency look like fifth columnists of foreign powers seeking regime change. This undermines the legitimacy of local activism.
Dear Europeans, while i acknowledge the importance of international solidarity in our struggle, I reject the means you use. Issuing lectures, summons and threats to our governments is neither prudent nor desirable; it is neither effective nor necessary. On the contrary, it discredits local agency.
For Ugandans (and all Africans) be wary of these interventions. On the face of it, they may look well intentioned and it is possible sometimes they are. But they are rarely helpful. Experience shows that they have done more harm than good. We can see their results in Libya, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, - the list is endless.