The strongman reshaping central Africa

For years, Paul Kajami, the uncompromising leader of Rwanda, denied that his country would support the Tutsi militias in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, not to mention that the forces of the Rwandian army had infiltrated the giant, minerals.
But since last month, when Rwanda -backed M23 rebels walked rudely to Goma, the largest city in the eastern Congo with nearly 2 million people, no one pretends to believe him.
The US Secretary of State, US Secretary of State, told 67 -year -old in a small, inappropriate country in Central Africa that the United States was “very turbulent” by the arrest of M23 for Juma in which nearly 3000 people died, according to. I said approximately 3000 people. A senior United Nations official.
accident delay I found that even before the fall of Goma, Moniciain is supported by Rwanda, with the support of up to 4,000 Rwandan forces, they were tightening their grip on large parts of the Eastern Congo. This week, after abandoning a unilateral fire stop, the M23 took the city of Nepoy mining as it advanced to the province of South Kivu. David Lami, British Foreign Secretary, told Kagame that the invasion endangered $ 1 billion in aid.

Rwanda, who recovered from the 1994 collective genocide to become one of the few developmental success stories on the continent, is now in the risk of igniting the regional conflict that can be absorbed in other countries.
The apparent negligence in Kagame in covering its paths may expose the country’s self -acquired reputation for stability, which helped establish Rwanda as a tourist destination and conferences and attracted investments such as Volkswagen, Qatar Airways and Biontech, making MRNA vaccines.
For a small country, only ninety nine than the size of the resource Congo, Rwanda sponsored a global brand through such successes, as well as through care deals with Arsenal, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint -Germain football and high -level partnership with the National Basketball Association for the states United. Kinshasa is now pressing sports privileges to give up Kigali.
“Restoring the genocide through the will and leadership of Kagami is one of the small wonders in the world,” said Xidi Odikincalo, a professor at Fletcher College at Fletcher in Fletcher. “But Kagame’s refusal to accept the Steel of the Pacific in the eastern Congo will be a terrible stain for its legacy.”
Rwanda’s leader has long followed a high reputation line between the hero and the villain. It has been praised on his country clear – then Exaggerate – Development successes and distortion of the harsh way he imposed his will at home, through political persecution and abroad, through the targeted assassinations – which is a matter of Kagame.
In the first two decades of this century, Rwanda grew more than 7 percent annually and added a year expected every 12 months.
“You can never reduce the ability of Rwandan public relations and do not despair of the entire aid industry for the story of success,” said Joe Stodoil, an academic and author, who seeks to explain the readiness of the Western supporters of Kajami to overlook the authoritarian faces and external ambition.


Kagame rejects what he sees as a democracy in the Western style as he ignores the facts of the country in which the majority of Huto tried to eliminate the Tutsi minority, as he divided 1 ml in Tutsi and their sympathy from the Huto.
Daily Olugidi, who won the Politzer Award for his coverage of the Rwandan genocide and its effects, says that Kajami’s actions can only be understood in the context of the horrors of 1994. He said that the madness of greatness controls. “
Kagame has so far maintained a precise ambiguity for the “strategic depth” of Rwanda in the Eastern Congo -free Congo, where more than 100 militia groups compete to control gold mines and critical metal resources needed for mobile phones and laptops.
But in recent weeks, analysts say, the mask has slipped. when CNN Put it in Kagame in an interview this week that he was behaving like Russian President Vladimir Putin, and it appears that the leader of Rwanda is almost compared. “I may be called anything. What can I do about it?” “We have to do what we have to do to ensure that we have survived any storm that blows all over our country.”

The United Nations Report says that in one year, 150 tons of two colors, used in the field of electronics, were exported, “they have been fraudulently exported to Rwanda and mixed with Rwandian production.” Kinshasa claims that Congo is losing $ 1 billion in revenues through the minerals that have been smuggled to Rwanda.
Kagame accused the Congolese government of “working alongside armed groups genocide like the FDLR targeting Rwanda”, referring to an armed group of Huto with its roots in the genocide that fled from Rwanda when the Kajami Army walked to Kigali in 1994.
Analysts have reduced the threat of FDLR to Rwanda, but Olujdi says that Rwanda Kagame, like Israel, will do anything to protect its people at home and abroad.
While some experts argue that Kagame is overcoming his hand, others say they have calculated correctly that the time has come to raise risks. In an era in which the border is threatened by Greenland to Gaza, it seems that the leader of Rwanda has concluded that this is an appropriate moment to redraw the colonial map.
Ben Shepherd, a consultant fellow at the Chatham home in the UK, says Kagame may take a deliberate gamble that controlling Congolese minerals deserves more than international aid.
“Perhaps this is Kagame, who reads the room accurately,” he said. “Reaching there early and creating facts on the ground – regardless of the costs of Congolese civilians and regional stability.”
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2025-02-07 11:00:00