KID GAMES IN KAMPALA

I attended the graduation of standard 8 boys somewhere in central Kenya yesterday invited by my student who is the principal of the school, then today I went on a few hours hike, yes I do hike whenever I can. I miss the heights of Masisi and have to do with what I have at hand to keep fit! Because of these two things, you might have heard long before me of the latest kid games in Kampala. Or at least its echos. I hear the Bisimwa has ordered Makenga to stop hostilities immediately. You just wonder, what is going on in Kampala? Kid's games? How can anyone, and Bisimwa of all people, ask Makenga to stop hostilities? 

I pity today's high school kids who don't study classical thought and classical literature. they are doing plans of study engineered by the market, with its greed and total lack of depth. Those who've done classical thought, as well as those who had the privilege of listening to men of my late father's generation, can spot the absence of logical thinking in this so called negotiations in Kampala. If you ever had to translate Cicero or read Plato you know what I mean. Hence, you can see the absurdity of asking Makenga to cease hostilities. He never started them. Whoever claims to fight for peace does not start hostilities. Makenga, and Nkunda a few years ago, have shown repeatedly to which extent they are more interested in peace than war. In the last couple of weeks, Makenga has proven that to an extent many people, including Kinshasa and all its allies of the international community, are unable to comprehend. He has deliberately withdrawn his troupes from positions he held after defeating FARDC in the manner we all saw. The greedy Kinshasa and its allies read in that move weakness, and loudly praised the new found capacity to win for Kabila's army aided by Tanzanians, South-Africans and the genocidaires Interahamwe.

With the conviction of that weakness, I can see them putting pressure on Bisimwa to "order" the rebel army to end hostilities. The whole thing could have been set just to allow Kinshasa to issue a new deadline for the rebels to surrender exactly on Saturday 9th November. Tshibanda will come to Kampala to receive "a total capitulation". I have no clue about the mood in Chanzu this moment. What I can guess for sure is that, as long as FARDC and allies attack over there, the guys in Chanzu will not be sitting and watching, and much less act to please Tshibanda or his IC. Can Bisimwa ask them to stop defending themselves? No one has that right.

However, there could be another reading to the 9th November date. This new summit of Great Lakes States meeting in Pretoria needs preparation. We know Kampala was and is still a joke. It serves only to allow the looters of the DRC resources to use the historical conflict going on as a pretext to impose their own agenda, under the disguise of finding solutions. Make no mistake, Pretoria will be no different. These guys will go there to protect their own interests of which Kabila is the "guardian". But I'd dare to say, that the game of the West in this conflict is seeking to dismantle the Great Lakes region following the model of the former Yougoslavia. It was not CNDP and it is not M23 that is interested in balkanising the DRC and then others. It is the Western powers represented in this so called negotiations. CNDP and M23 have been a clear obstacle to achieving this divisionnist agenda. And since M23 is here to stay and they know it, they are going South to engineer a new way of overcoming such an obstacle. Do you remember they way they sung that Nkunda was the problem for the DRC? Anyway, right now, I'd like to look in the eyes of the guy who arrested him and see what I could read there. Was he really the problem? Or was he an obstacle to the greed of so many? If I were Tshibanda and/or his boss, I would not try to set new deadlines for M23 surrender. And you and I know why. If you don't, ask me.