May Somalia, like Rwanda before it, find peace!

It may be too early to celebrate but Somalia seems to be at the threshold of finding peace at last. The conference hosted in London early this week, which saw the European Union make pledges that may go beyond $300m, demonstrated the outpouring of goodwill that the world is ready to shower on this long-abused country.

The conference was a culmination of a protracted effort kicked off as early as 2006 by Somalia’s neighbours and, later the following year, taken over by the African Union force that has delivered this faltering peace. It is a peace that has cost a lot in African lives and material, as well as European and North American material. For that and for the sanctity of Somali lives, this truly international community (including Africans, this time) is prepared to continue sacrificing.

But, of course, when all is said and done, only Somalis can save themselves. And with this abundant goodwill to build on, they should be able to strengthen this fledgling peace. There are many factors in their favour.

The first thing that works in their favour is that they are battling Al-Shabaab. For having links to Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab has earned the wrath of the West. That’s why the US and the EU have already sunk billions of dollars into the effort to root it out. This, in turn, encouraged the UN to quickly bless the AU, when it marshalled together a regional force. AMISON, with the Somali army, have delivered this peace. The good news about it is that, being regional, the force will continue to work with the Somalis.

The second thing that works in their favour, however, is more important: that Somalis are Somalis! The moment they recognise the fact that they are one people, clan or no clan, Somalis will lick their problem. Their young men and women have been fighting alongside AMISON and have got the hang of what it takes to finally do away with Al-Shabaab. The fact that the world community is now aware of what their defeat would imply should also spur them on to create lasting peace. All a weakened Al-Shabaab needs is a definitive coup de grâce.

Being one people, Somalis should know how they can work together easily. The leadership needs to immediately get down to finding ways of forging a strong working relationship with clan chiefs so as to end the clan rivalry that has dogged the country for decades. From the moment Major General Mohamed Siad Barre stopped sitting on their heads in 1991, the chiefs have been free to sow mayhem, each trying to carve out an expanded fiefdom of their own. Without resorting to such dictatorial force, the leadership can make peace with them and take them on as partners.

In fact, sometimes it is difficult to understand why Somalis find working together difficult. They share one language, one culture, one religion, many things. Sharing all these is an asset that’s lacking in many other African countries, yet these countries are at peace. Somalis should count their blessings and use this commonality to advantage. They should search their past to identify what has ever worked before. That way, they can examine the values of their tradition and from them embrace modernity to create home-made solutions.

Luckily for the Somalis, they have a living example not far, down to their south.

Rwandans, despite being one people like the Somalis – excepting sharing one religion – sank to even darker depths. Yet, against impossible (for lack of a stronger word!) odds, they rose to be the respected community they are today. The good news to Somalis is that they can source lessons on how this turnaround came to be. They would do better to approach Rwanda for advice.

The odds ranged against Somalia are trifling compared to those that Rwandans surmounted. In Somalia, there has been no UN peace-keeping force that withdrew in the face of a genocide (there may have been a country, yes, but not a world body). There haven’t been any deaths that amounted to anything remotely resembling it, either. There has been no centralised government machinery to poison the minds of Somalis and set apart, one fighting the other. Rather, a majority of Somalis are peace-seekers ready to do battle with the terrorist minority.

Most importantly, there is no super power that galvanised its African allies so that together they could whip sane-thinking Somalis on the battleground.

In Rwanda, even when that battle in the field failed, the super power continues to lend diplomatic support to that dying génocidaire machinery and also sell its cause to fellow super powers. It’s for that that, despite Rwanda having long ago decided to fix her gaze to the east, accusations from these powers of meddling in the affairs of a neighbour to the west are unending. No one pauses to consider the evidence that these accusations are false, when actually it’s everywhere.

All the above notwithstanding, however, Rwanda trudges on, roadblock after roadblock. And with every step, she gathers speed. Somalia would be well served to learn why.

As Somalis bask in the glory of the abundant largesse of the West, then, they should know that they can get truly effective assistance and vital lessons only from their neighbours in the region.

Rwanda’s resolve to break the shackles of panyarring

If you happen to be Kiswahilophone, you might associate panyarring with panya (rat). Don’t! Else, students of African history – and some of us who are history! – will have a field day, laughing at you. Panyarring has nothing to do with rats. It has everything to do with you and me.

Panyarring was the practice of seizing and holding persons pending the payment of a debt or the resolution of a dispute. It was a common practice along the West African Atlantic Ocean coast in the 18th and 19th centuries. Of course, history books will tell you that the practice was common among the natives of the area. But the fact alone that the word has its root in Portuguese (penhŏràr, to seize) should be revealing, as to who wrote the books.

Moreover, when the debt was not repaid or the dispute not resolved, those seized were sold into slavery. We all know those who practiced slavery and, if it was done by others, for whom it was practiced.

And so, you’ll ask, what does an ancient, primitive practice have to do with Rwanda?

Think about it. You, as a sovereign state, approach another sovereign state because you require a loan and the two of you enter into an agreement. The state gives you the loan and decides, of its own volition, to accompany it with aid. Again, you enter an agreement.

Then one morning the media breaks the news to you that the state has put a halt to everything. In time, the news filters to you that the state – or states, to be exact – did it following rumours that there were elements speaking your language, who were causing trouble to your neighbour, another sovereign state.

Your protests of innocence, and explanations as well as evidence that your language is spoken by many in your neighbourhood, all go unheeded. Your expectations of a gentleman’s word are given short shrift.

When you depend on such shifty agreements for your sustenance, haven’t you been seized? When your survival is dependent upon being the good boy as another wants, isn’t your soul being held captive? This, whether you ask me or not, is panyarring at its most vicious.

And, indeed, Rwanda saw it from the outset. For, even in their culture, Rwandans knew that a man (and that includes woman) was a man only when he could stand on his own feet, rely on his own means. And they knew that he could prosper and lead a dignified life only if he pooled his energies with the energies of others. The values of self-sustenance and community were strong.

Thus, when they got a leadership that awakened them to the reality of this panyarring, Rwandans rose in their totality and rallied together, as they’d done in their history before colonial interference. They came together to seek ways of eventually pulling themselves out of it. That’s how they quickly started to work on their unity and reconciliation. Only by working as one could they put into practice the policies of their government. And thus, the genesis of the dizzying progress they’ve been registering.

All Rwandans, within the country and without, rallied together to join their leadership in answering the call of self-advancement. And, as individual incomes of those inside the country grew, so did the remittances of those in the Diaspora swell. When the country got the rude awakening of aid-cut threats, they responded by setting up their own Agaciro Development Fund. Even if it could not totally replace donor funds, it could cushion the fall that such sudden cuts inevitably engender.

But Rwanda would not be the Rwanda Inc she has been dubbed if she didn’t totally go the way of other companies. And so, for the first time, she launched her treasury bond to test her debt worthiness in the investor community. The $400m Eurobond may have been small for a country, as some in the media have been quick to dismiss it. But, again as some in the media have been quick to point out, by its being over-subscribed it has demonstrated that the markets have endorsed Rwanda as truly “the ultimate turnaround”.

It’s not surprising, therefore, that countries that threatened aid-cuts seem to be doing a rethink. Maybe they were missing something that the markets have been seeing all along. Barring the seemingly now-ignored existence of the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) problem in the jungles of D.R. Congo, Rwanda has no bone to pick with any neighbour – or anybody further afield; apparently, many out there are interested in them (FDLR).

Still, it must be clear that the grudge is not due to FDLR constituting a threat; the stability, transparency and future of this country are secure. Rather, the terrorist group is allowed to continue holding innocent women and youth hostage. These, together with others scattered in capital cities of the world because they are held captive to its misguided ideology, constitute hands that Rwanda badly needs.

When it comes to the war against panyarring, it must be all hands on deck. But, still, no amount of donor-turnaround or FDLR-ideology subscription can divert Rwanda from her sworn mission.

Rwanda will break free of this panyarring and investors know they can take that to the bank.

After 19 years, no single survivor should be grieving!

I always take what the Saturday BBC Kinyarwanda programme, Imvo n’Imvano, says with a pinch of salt – a fat pinch. Despite its honourable intentions when it started, the programme has often been hijacked and turned into a platform for political contest, when it comes to Rwanda. Rather than give us clarifications on the state of affairs in the Great Lakes region, it seems to be mostly preoccupied with giving a voice to unprincipled opposition.

And so, last Saturday it was with some scepticism that I listened to its reports on the condition of some orphans of the 1994 genocide against Batutsi. But even before listening, I was wondering: why don’t our numerous local FM radios think of such reviews of the conditions of Genocide survivors, for instance, at a time like this?

Why do these radios leave the task to outside radios that are only interested in finding fault, as they have demonstrated? Granted, government officials are doing a spirited job of it. And so are officials of the umbrella organisations in charge of genocide survivors, Ibuka and FARG (French acronym for Genocide Survivors’ Assistance Fund). However, as anyone will tell you, few people are willing to believe official reports or reports from partisan parties, however credible they may be.

Anyway, the three BBC reports last Saturday.

The first report was on some orphans in Bugesera District and it made for terrible listening. Not one of the orphans believed that they were in anyway being adequately catered for. The stories of how they lived on their own in houses that were falling apart, when they are not capable of repairing them, were downright heartrending.

Of course, I know Rwandans (or Africans?) – even kids – and their penchant for crying wolf any time they are given a microphone. But all the same, their conditions need to be checked out.

The second report was on some orphans in Rulindo District and what a welcome difference! One lady actually believes she is wealthy, proudly showing off the house and land given to her and how she has gone on to modernise the house and exploit the land. With the rest of her siblings, she ‘boasted’, they’ve been given enough land and decent housing in Umudugudu (group settlement). The land in Umudugudu sustains them while they use their original parents’ land, located some distance from them, for commercial purposes.

But, in the same area, the story of one young man was revealing – and perhaps tells a thing or two about the Bugesera cases also! He has a problem, he assured the BBC news stringer, but the organisations concerned with helping them have ignored him. Like the others, he was given land and a house but those cannot sustain him; he wants a job as a driver. The problem, though, is that he has not been enabled to acquire a driving licence! Did we say a penchant for grieving?

The third report was on some orphans in Nyamagabe, again making for heart-searing listening. Like their counterparts in Bugesera, they reported only grief and I couldn’t tell if it was the effect of looking at a microphone.

In particular, I thought one young man’s story needed urgent investigation. All the local leaders can vindicate his story, he assured the stringer. He has been assisted, he said, but his late parents’ land has been taken over by a soldier and even the courts have failed to do anything about it. I think, considering that he is practically invalid from genocide wounds, he should get the attention he craves.

All in all, then, these stories need to be examined seriously. There may be exaggerations, distortions or even outright lies in the stories of these kids but they should not exactly be ignored. Cases of orphans who are neglected despite their vulnerability may be few and far apart but they do exist, as students of the Agriculture Institute of Busogo have demonstrated.

On visiting one of their fellow students, the students discovered that she lived with an elder sister, Grace, who has given up school in order to look after their home. As a young lady living alone most of the time, Grace is exposed to dangers that a male neighbourhood can easily visit on her. To compound her problems, their house looks like it’s going to crumble anytime. Also, being far from any health centre, were she to fall sick, God forbid, she is not an adherent of the ubiquitous health insurance scheme, Mutuelle de Santé, when almost every other Rwandan is.

To their credit, many Rwandans have come up to answer the SOS call of these students, but there are questions that need pressing answers. If a case like Grace’s exists, and maybe some of those voiced on BBC, how many others like them exist? And if they exist, there is no doubt that somebody knows about them: why wasn’t something done about them immediately? 19 odd years after 1994, can Rwandans afford to see the condition of a single survivor made worse than it already is, by the mere fact of remembering?

No, the negligence of a few local officials should not be allowed to blight the sterling efforts of our government. Heads should roll!

In Thatcher, the world has lost an “iron-willed” leader

Rwandans stand with the British in their time of grief, with the passing of Margaret Thatcher. For, however hard Rwanda may chide the UK for giving in to the pressures of its mean media, in the final analysis, she does it as a sister would, a sister.

Rwanda appreciates, as a sister should, that the UK has stood with her, as no other country has, all the way from 1994. To Rwanda, the UK is not a distant, foreign “donor”. She is the kith within. And so the freedom with chides, when Rwanda feels that, unlike other countries, she (UK) should understand her standpoint. That she should not move with the crowd of other countries that grab at mere allegations to turn them into fact, and accordingly act on them.

Even then, of course, we are keenly aware that not all Britons are sad at the demise of this great lady. Nor are many in the world, going by the expressions of jubilation in some parts of it. And, let’s admit it, “The Iron Lady” courted controversy wherever she went. But show me a leader who didn’t, and I’ll show you a leader who didn’t court, or, for that matter, do, anything. The very times demanded “a conviction politician”, as Margaret called herself, and in her they got one.

When Thatcher exploded on the British scene in May 1979, she shook all the fundamentals of its government. From a government that was laden with the management of everything, from railways to home phones, she cut everything and put it in private hands, leaving a government that was as lean as it was mean.

As today’s Prime Minister Cameron has said of her, she wanted “sound money; strong defence; liberty under the rule of law.” She was convinced that government shouldn’t spend what it hasn’t earned; that governments don’t create wealth, that businesses do. A maxim that resonates with Rwanda, if you ask me. But that, to a government that wanted business as usual, even if it was defeatism business, was controversy.

So, as soon as she entered No.10 Downing Street, when she ordered government cuts in higher education spending, Margaret became the first Oxford-educated post-war PM not to be awarded an honorary doctorate by her alma mater. When she cut a free-milk programme from primary school pupils, she was dubbed “Thatcher the snatcher”!

When in 1981 riots picked in England and the din in the media was that she makes a U-turn, “Iron Lady” stuck to her guns, responding: “You turn if you want to. The lady’s is not for turning!” And the picketing by mine workers that went with the riots, all she overrode and they came to nought.

And so, as Rwandan refugees, we followed her news eagerly and watched her rabble rousing controversies. We admired her when that “not for turning” iron served a good cause but, rather too frequently, reviled her when she shocked us with a severe turn, when it came to that.

It was with horror, for instance, that in 1981 we received news of the death of Bobby Sands and nine others, all on hunger strike, in prison as suspected IRA (Irish Republican Army) terrorists. That was not all. In 1982, she ordered her army to violently eject the Argentine army that had invaded the Falklands Islands to reclaim it as its Malvinas, being within its waters.

The worst, however, to us as Africans, was when we watched as she alone stood against the sanctions imposed on Apartheid South Africa by all other Western countries. And she did not mince her words about it, either, calling the ANC (African National Congress) “a typical terrorist organisation.”

Poor soul, however, with the threat of IRA at her door, how was she to know better? So we understood, hard as it was, when she did not seem to suffer any so-called terrorist gladly.

In fact, in the whole of black South Africa, only Zambia’s President Kaunda seemed to be anywhere near cutting any ice with her, at one time even waltzing with her. But then good old Kaunda has always been a charmer, hasn’t he? Look at how he has charmed God and is still going strong to this day. All the same, Margaret’s charm with him showed in her a heart that was not all ice and stone. That’s why it’d have been all charm had she and Mandela finally met.

However, all the above rabble rousing notwithstanding, there is no denying that Margaret Thatcher was one of the few defining figures of British politics. She pulled a tottering UK economy of the 1970s by its bootstraps and placed it back among the stable and strong economies of Europe. And in the triumvirate of her, Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, they tamed Communism. Whether the world is better off for being unipolar, that’s another story.

To quote Cameron again: “They say that cometh the hour, cometh the man…..in 1979 came the hour, and came The Lady.” The Iron Lady came and made Britain great again.

And we, as kith to Britain, should rejoice in the sunshine of her life that was. May Margaret’s soul rest in eternal peace!

A time to remember, a time to celebrate

Sunday 7th April 2013

19 years ago today, this land lay engulfed in the smell of death. 1.25 million of our compatriots (not the inaccurate “less than a million”, the vague “over 800,000” or the genocide-denier estimate of “over 500,000”) stared unseeingly at a future snuffed out. Their hope was turned forlorn by fellow Rwandans who’d been consumed by greed and knew no longer what they were.

For the promise of mere earthly trinkets, Rwandans became killers.

This proud land today, of an erstwhile renowned people of integrity, who were known as indomitable warriors when provoked but unbending companions when befriended, was brought down on its knees. All the heroic accounts of women and men who’d fought to defend this land against foreign tribal invaders and enslavers were thrown to the dogs in a frenzy of killing that saw a Rwandan kill a fellow Rwandan; that saw shame thrown in the face of this land.

All are sad, who remember. All, not only in Rwanda but on the globe.

Rwandans turned maniacal by colonialism lost all senses and set upon their kindred. Let’s remember that era gone by, that none should ever forget to stand against the faintest whiff of a possibility of its recurrence. Let’s reclaim the integrity of our ancestors and forever defend it. And let it be known to all future generations that the moment they go against this pledge will be the moment they stop going against anything else. They’ll never go against anything – they’ll be erased.

But without seeming to engage in empty poetry, seriously who’d have imagined then that this country would be where she is today? At the rate of over a million people in a hundred days, how many days would it have taken to kill all 8 million, the estimated population at the time?
And make no mistake, after killing their perceived enemies, the killers would have turned against one another. At the very least, the architects of the slaughter would have turned against the pawns that they cheered on.

It’d have been survival of the fittest; who knows, maybe one ‘fittest’.

Remember, the tempo of killing rose with every killing registered, as did the number and variety of targeted victims. If at first the excuse was a perceived ethnicity and defence thereof, next it would be the difference among home regions. Suspicions would then grow among those who killed more and those who killed less. Next, those who saw others killing would be targeted; then those caught on camera would target those who were not. In the end, it would be short versus tall; dark complexion versus light; kinky hair versus straight; ad infinitum.

If anybody doubts that blood begets blood, they only need to listen to, or read, the news these days. In a country where there’d never been a report of a man killing another man or beating a wife, stories that have always been common in other communities, today you hear the odd story of a man beating his wife dead or a wife hacking her husband to death.

Save for the strict laws of the country and a vigilant security force that ensures their observance, we’d be seeing more. There is no doubt that the firm decorum of Rwandans has taken a severe bruising.

However, severe as the bruising may be, it has never succeeded in destroying that decorum. It may have been dented but the decorum is still there and it’s strong. It’s strong because it’s bonded by brother/sister-hood and shared values. The values of seeking a decent life together; defending common dignity, integrity, honour; together seeing respect from others as deserved and going ahead to claim it.

Rwandans are in a necessarily symbiotic existence.

For, after everything is said and done, Rwandans know that they owe their lives but to themselves. As they say, ako hanze kaza imvura ihise (whoever volunteers to help comes after the rain). The true meaning: assistance from out, vital as it may be, never comes on time or in the desired form. An adage not to be taken for ingratitude; it applies to every society.

And so as some Rwandans revelled in killing their very own, others put their lives on the line in defence of their very own, victim and killer alike. Today, the victim and the killer of yesteryears are living side by side, equally engaged in the business of building a better tomorrow. As it happens here, so does it out in the Diaspora. Oppositionists and loyalists may throw harmless jibes at one another but it’ll be only the committed reactionary, wishing for a return to pre-1994, who will be totally shut out by kith.

That’s how ‘self-exilees’ and ‘home-reactionaries’ are trooping back in the fold. And, to boot, being received with open arms – and a juicy post here or there. If in doubt, ask a few honourables – or ask the “mother of all oppositionists”, Faustin Twagiramungu, when in June he makes his grand entrance. And you thought this was porcupine politics! Chuckle? You can bet, this time he’s going to laugh out loud (LOL)!

As they remember, then, Rwandans have innumerable reasons to cheer and chuckle.

What drives Rwanda’s transformation?

As happens every year, last week the bigwigs of this land stopped all business and for two days were holed-up in a hideout where they bared it all.

But I am getting ahead of myself. When I heard that these heavyweights were going for their National Leadership Retreat, one of those uniquely effective home-made work-methods that Rwanda is now becoming famous for, I asked to tag along as a fly-on-the-wall, watching in from the sidelines.

However, when I alighted from one of those indistinguishable buses – for everybody (big-guns and those like ‘Fly-on-the-wall’!) and borrowed from government institutions – things began to go awry. After alighting, my spectacles lost a lens; later, I got some flu; and when at the end of the retreat I ‘drank’ a cure, the cure turned me into damaged goods! But, even with the drama, I am not the story. The aim of the retreat is.

And the aim of the retreat is a story that involves all Rwandans and their representatives from all aspects of Rwanda’s life. The retreat itself was for representatives from the executive in government, legislature, judiciary and government organisations. It involved envoys in foreign countries as well as mayors and representatives from the private sector. All boarded buses last Wednesday, headed for the military barracks of Gabiro School of Infantry in Mutara.

But, as the road to Gabiro revealed to me, the story is much bigger than the above barons.

When I first travelled the road in 1995, all around it was semi-arid land of withering grass that barely fed the wild animals roaming it. Human settlement could only be found some kilometres towards Kigali, on the Kigali-Kagitumba road, and further north towards Kagitumba, bordering Uganda. Today all that has changed. Thanks to such work-methods, the area is lush green and teeming with trees, where before, if you spotted a tree, it was the occasional hardy acacia. Now organised farming and cattle-rearing have found a home there.

Yet a look at the area in 1995 reminded me of a remark by a fellow student back in our secondary school days. We were in Mpororo, Uganda, an arid area. When we jumped down from the school lorry we were travelling in, the student looked around, puffed out his chest and proudly declared: “I am the first Munyankole to discover a tree in Mpororo!”

Of course, as you’ll have guessed, he was making sarcastic reference to the explorers in our history books who claimed to discover geographical features that Africans had lived with for centuries. Even then, though, I felt like making the same remark as a Munyarwanda in Mutara.

But I digress. I was on the story.

When the bigwigs reached their ‘double-decker’, ‘out-door-shower’ dormitories, they brushed up for the night and in the morning, after cleaning up their sweaty, ‘chaka mchaka’ bodies, they were bent over their desks in the hall. Then, after their head had spelt out what needed to be done, they started their intensive two-day self-examination that bared all.

Every head of an institution made a presentation of the pledges they had met, explained why, if they had not, and how they’d do it. And then they made new pledges for the coming year. After presentation, they sat and watched as their presentation was torn to shreds! Amicably, however, together they all reassembled it, showing how everything could come out better.

They examined how they can collaborate better and improve collaboration among and between their institutions. They showed how, with determination, they can inspire one another and all Rwandans to work towards achieving an economic growth of 11.5% and make poverty history, even when developed countries are hitting their all-time low.

The leaders pledged to always hold meetings that are result-oriented and to demand it of their development partners, who seem to be opening up their purses again. They looked at how they can overcome capacity challenges; how they can espouse a culture of being open-minded, to listen more than to give directives. They showed the overriding need for implementation of government’s policies.

When after the session they came up for air, it was time to unwind. In a camaraderie that you thought these workaholics were incapable of, they let down their hair, skin-heads as most of the male members of the group were!

While the faithful rejoiced in prayer in the quiet of their dormitories and in the joy of conversation, in the hall the ruckus was up and it was jokes, laughter, dance and booze. Looking at all this, I recalled the celebrations and laughter of citizens and their leaders, as they chewed on maize, just after the 2010 elections and thought I saw a vision.

Yes, I’d seen it. The transformation of Rwanda and Rwandans is the story.

A country that was regressing before 1994, bogged down by division, repression, corruption, suspicion, outright hatred, lack of visionary leadership and all the evil possible, today holds hope for a transforming people.

Yet, looking at these leaders tensely bent over their desks as they began their session, anyone would have been tempted to agree with some outsiders who mistakenly take Rwandans to be a repressed, closed society. Except that the retreat soul-searching was open to the media.

Yes, the National Leadership Retreat is one of the drivers of Rwanda’s transformation.

Ntaganda in The Hague alone no solution to DRC problems

The pundits are in a quandary; their punditry has fallen apart!

I talk of the West European and North American ‘experts’ whose ‘authoritative knowledge’ of the Great Lakes region is quoted on every platform wherefrom we other mortals must draw, to know the condition of our region.

You’ve seen these Western cowboys and girls who come, roam our jungles and savannahs or, very often, simply cursorily rove the maze of internet, and bingo! They become the authoritative voice of the region. They alone understand its situation and no explanation or analysis is credible unless it carries their stamp of authority. Any other opinion, especially if local, counts for nil.

And so they came, or browsed, and saw and understood. And lectured, as they should, knowing all, and we listened while they defined our situation.

This riffraff collection of rebel groups in DR Congo, they averred, even with their murdering, pillaging and raping, was nothing. We knew FDLR, Mai-Mai and its many copies and the coterie of other rebel groups to be responsible for all the mayhem in this sorry country, maybe as much as M23, but no, they said. The true villain was one: M23, though formed only last April 2012.

It was the true villain because, except for its raping and child-soldier recruitment, it looked like RPA. RPA, for those who may not know, was the fighting wing of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), the rebel movement that stopped the Genocide in 1994 and is now the ruling party in Rwanda. But, no, the pundits reconstructed its pre-1994 fighting force and placed it in DRC.

See, it was equally strong and equally disciplined (even as rapists? Beats logic). But we listened as soon it was made to be stronger than the RPA. It had more sophisticated gadgetry, like night vision binoculars, complex weapons, all, and could stage lightening attacks and even capture Goma practically overnight. No, this sophistication could only be from a country in the vicinity. And which other country had Tutsi elements in the region (we stifled our urge to protest)? So, what they had always told the world was confirmed. All aid to Rwanda, repeat all, should be cut, they shouted!

Then the vaunted formidable force came apart. From RDF (Rwanda Defence Forces), which it seemed to have been turned into, M23 became not only ‘un-RPA’ but truly Congolese. Its rebels forgot about whatever they were fighting for and set upon themselves. Soon, some among them vaulted across the border and joined their parents in Rwandan refugee camps. And then they ejected the ‘skeleton’ out of their cupboard and, voilà!

Bosco Ntaganda, the master child recruiter, was here in flesh. The chief rapist, who had evaded the dragnet of the West (forget about the ICC), was now in the open. “Terminator”, the Hitler who was responsible for all the agonies visited on DRC, was out and about.

And he was – not in the welcoming arms of his constructed kith in Rwanda but – at the gates of the American embassy. I can imagine the flurry of activity as the man stood at the reception last Monday morning and announced: “I am Bosco….Bosco Ntaganda……the terminator of life in DRC.” The phones in Kigali and Washington must have vibrated themselves un-functional!

And so the pundits were placed bang in the horns of dilemma.

M23 did not only fall apart around their feet but Bosco Ntaganda, instead of running to Rwanda as they’d made the world believe he would, ran into the arms of Americans. It says volumes. And that ‘volumes’ cannot include the fact that the man went there to pick the $5m on his head, himself. But, of course, that ‘volumes’ is not in the pundits’ area of interest. Their interest lies elsewhere and, as we speak, kilometres of reports must be on the production line. Soon we’ll be told how all this is a trick being played by Rwanda.

Unfortunately, some with similarly vested interest – and aims of implicating this country – are not helping out. Kayumba Nyamwasa, the Rwandan general in a South African ‘cupboard’, says Ntaganda cannot walk the length of the DRC-Kigali road without being detected by the hawkish Rwandan security. He forgets that he (Nyamwasa) did exactly that, on another route. Granted, you can’t go far with a grenade, for instance, but otherwise there are no roadblocks on the way, if you entered disguised as a harmless refugee.

And that’s exactly why the US embassy should feel free to transport Bosco Ntaganda to the airport for his onward transfer to The Hague. Beyond that, they should need no government co-operation.

If it’s a matter of the cost of the flight, staff in the US embassy can heed Justice Minister Karugarama’s advice and help themselves on the $5m their country put on Ntaganda’s head. God knows he has worked for it but he won’t be needing it anytime soon.

Dollars, reports, The Hague or joy of the Congolese, however, none should forget. Our suffering brothers and sisters in DRC will not be lifted from their pain unless a lasting solution is found. As a diplomat would say, all should remain seized of that matter.