North Kivu: the civil society warns of what it describes as a plan for the balkanization of the DRC by neighboring countries

The provincial coordination of the civil society in North Kivu, east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, warns of what it calls “a macabre plan of balkanization and exploitation of the Congolese soil and subsoil resources by neighboring countries under the cover of multinationals and the international community”. This denunciation was made by the vice-chairman of the local civil society in a conference organized for youths in Butembo town in the district of Bulengera. The conference was centered on the problem of the persistence of the war in this part of the country. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

Edgard Mateso denounced the involvement of neighboring countries, multinationals and the international community in the unending war that has scoured the province of North Kivu since the 1990s and whose mission is to exploit the wealth and/or balkanize the country, according to the activist.

“Our neighboring countries, multinationals and the international community want to exploit our wealth, they want to balkanize our country. It is for this reason that we have sounded the alarm bell. That young people can become aware of this war which is in consuming our brothers and sisters. We must resist to stop this war, we must continue to denounce and we must take charge of ourselves”, he told young participants.

Aware that the denunciation alone is not enough, the vice-president of the provincial coordination of the civil society in North Kivu calls for self-care of the Congolese population in general and in particular of the Congolese youth.

“Let us be vigilant, we must take charge of ourselves to stop this plan which targets our country. The youth must take charge of themselves. This has to be done through allowing the youth to enter the country’s institutions to impose leaders a new policy that can help save the country from badly negotiated agreements and infiltrations. Young people must enter the police, the army and security services of the country to have to impose a new governance on this country”, he continued.

Since June 13, 2022, part of the territory in the east of the country has been under occupation by the M23 rebellion.

Congolese authorities have repeatedly accused Kigali of providing human and material aid to this rebellion made up of Congolese Tutsis.

After multiple denunciations of the invasion of the Rwandan army in the DRC, the international community has also embarked on the game of denunciations without doing anything concrete, charges the local civil society. Its inaction, it believes, angers the people of the DRC that accuse the international community of colluding with the aggressor countries in order to “loot the country and ultimately carry out the plan of balkanization”.

Rwanda has always denied the accusations made by Congolese authorities, accusing in turn the FARDC (Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo) of “collaborating with genocidal FDLR in order to destabilize its territory”.

The Rwandan government also denounces the “persecution” of which the Rwandophone communities living in the DRC are victims. Congolese authorities, army officers and part of civil society are indexed.

With the exception of Rwanda, all the countries of the East African community have sent armies to eastern Congo since mid-August 2022 as part of a regional force decided by heads of state of the EAC in June this year to try to “find a solution to the Congolese crisis”. But the local armed groups refused to lay down their arms, arguing that “we and our communities will be in insecurity if we lay down our arms while foreign rebel groups have not yet been expelled from the territory of our country”.