I happen to know something about Congo, Rwanda and Kivu, a province on the Eastern border of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that has become the center of "rebel activities." The movement of March 23, 2009, hence its name of M23, is in fact armed, managed and financed by the neighboring country of Rwanda. The United Nations recently published a damning report on the role of Rwanda and Uganda in this war. The United States Ambassador, Mrs. Susan Rice and the Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Clinton made sure that the name of Rwanda would not even be mentioned in a UN recent resolution.
Rwanda has launched a war on the DRC.
Why does the United States cover this aggression? The role of President Kagame in the first Rwanda genocide remains extremely obscure: for all practical reasons, he might have been indicted for war crimes if political interference at the The Hague Tribunal had not stopped the prosecutor to instruct a genocide that killed 800,000 people in the mid-sixties. He got power of the country through military action and runs a complete autocracy.
President Bill Clinton, now a friend of Rwanda, ignored the genocide while he was fully informed.
There is even a newly established self-proclaimed Republic of Kivu where the speech of the "president" is in English (language of Rwanda since Kagame has been educated in Uganda) while French is the language of the province!
Fighting for natural resources
The Kivu province is rich in minerals, and particularly gold that is being shipped via Rwanda to... the Middle East markets. A gigantic black market dominates the region of the Great Lakes. Rwanda would like to dominate the region and annexing Kivu on the other side of the lake would give it size, stature and wealth. That does not seem to bother the United States at all. Might there be Western financial interests in Kivu?
Congo is a rogue State
It is not as if Congo was a victim.
As the M23 was entering Goma, the Congolese Army fled and packed, leaving the population to their fate in the hands of the M23. President Joseph Kabila was not more legitimate when he succeeded by force after his assassinated father.
The history of Congo since the assassination of Prime Minister Lumumba with the support of the CIA is a long story of social and political unrest.
The International Confederation of the Great Lakes Region has told President Kabila to listen to the legitimate concerns of the M23.
A Human Rights question: What is the value of an African life?
While we create a media storm on a "cleansing" activity by Israel on Gaza, hundreds of thousands of refugees overwhelm the limited capacity of the NGOs in the region, killings, looting and rapes on a large scale are perpetrated by the M23.
The United Nations has an 18,000-strong force that cannot play a military role but are only there to "protect the population." They definitely do their best, but the "rebels" of M23 have the higher hand.
The United States must denounce the Rwanda aggression on Congo.
Unless we consider that the arming of rebels to occupy a country is not aggression or invasion, but "civil unrest," the United States is currently violating its own foreign policy principles. The appalling lack of expertise on Africa at the State Department might explain why Mrs. Clinton never really paid attention to African genocides or border conflicts.
It is, however, the new frontier, where the Chinese are winning.
The United States credibility is at stake in this conflict. Will it recognize it?