At a recent press conference, Patrick Muyaya the Tshisekedi regime mouthpiece has shown the true regime attitude to the war in the east of DR Congo. Muyaya says that because the war is “2,000 km away from the capital,” it supposedly does not concern the entirety of the Congolese population.
This narrative, increasingly promoted by members of the current regime, is not a communication error. It reflects a political strategy aimed at insulating the regime from accountability, and minimizing a humanitarian catastrophe that continues to devastate millions in North and South Kivu.
Muyaya’s claim that North and South Kivu represent “only a small percentage” of the DRC’s vast landmass is technically true, but outrageous. Basically they to them the communities of eastern DRC are foreigners! This attitude shows that the value of Congolese lives is determined by their distance from Kinshasa.
Also, the consequences of this rhetoric are dangerous: it normalizes violence in the east, as it disconnects national consciousness from the country’s most affected regions, plus it allows the regime to evade accountability for its failures to protect its citizens.
Muyaya’s comments are not isolated.
Just days earlier, Minister of Foreign Affairs Kayikwamba claimed that the international community “had forced the government into negotiations with the AFC/M23.” Her Statements reveal the callousness of that illegitimate regime. They insist, on the other hand, that there is no real war, because Kinshasa is not directly affected, yet simultaneously engage in negotiations that acknowledge the scale of the conflict.
Incredible!
While the capital chooses denial as a political shield, armed groups continue to commit atrocities with impunity across eastern Congo: ADF and Codeco kill at will and continue to terrorize Ituri. Wazalendo and FDLR continue to kill Congolese Tutsi daily, and enforce their own laws in areas they control.
For the people living these realities, the conflict is very real and disastrous. It is not distant. It is their everyday existence.
But the political culture in Kinshasa that views Congo through the narrow lens of the capital, marginalizing the regions most affected by conflict, shows its true self. When so-called leaders insist “there is no war in the DRC because Kinshasa is calm,” they reveal a disturbing truth: for them, the nation ends where Kinshasa starts.
This is not a government of the people, at all.
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