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3 weeks ago | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Lionel Manzi
Allies Belgium and the DRC face a grim reality. The Congolese army is in disarray, losing every battle against the AFC/M23 rebels and ceding territory in the process. But even as well-meaning actors pin their hopes on Qatar’s facilitation and the EAC-SADC-led process, Brussels and Kinshasa have a different priority: to buy time, halt the rebels’ advance and rebuild a combat-capable Congolese army.
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2 months ago | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Lionel Manzi
Following the fall of Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province, speculation about Rwanda’s alleged plans to annex parts of eastern Congo has intensified. Could there be any basis for such claims? Weighed against historical facts, current realities and international power dynamics, the theory simply does not stand up to scrutiny. Rwanda’s troops were present in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from 1996 to 2003.
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Jan 19, 2025 | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Lionel Manzi
President Kagame’s speech at the annual diplomatic lunch in Kigali has made waves on social media. But while the DRC made up the bulk of Kagame’s speech, it was only the centre piece of his demonstration of the West’s long-standing hypocrisy in dealing with the crisis in eastern Congo.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Lionel Manzi
On 26 November 2024, Kinshasa finally relented and adopted the Angola-negotiated concept of operations (CONOPS) to neutralise the genocidal FDLR, the implementation of which remains a precondition for Rwanda to review its defence posture. However, there is no indication that Kinshasa intends to implement this plan, even though it was agreed by Angolan, Congolese and Rwandan security experts.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
panafricanreview.com | Peter Kagwanja |Maureen Barasa |Charles Onyango-Obbo |Lionel Manzi
Brigadier General Joseph Rugigana, who as a young officer in the Burundian army was in charge of protecting President Melchior Ndadaye, has recently published his version of events on the night of the coup d’état of 20 October 1993. The book, “Ma vérité sur l’assassinat de Ndadaye“, has reignited a recurring debate about one of the country’s darkest moments.
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
panafricanreview.com | Charles Onyango-Obbo |Lionel Manzi
Fighting has resumed in Eastern Congo between the M23 rebels and the government coalition, which includes the genocidal FDRL group. And as more territory falls under rebel control, more papers written by supposed Western experts on the DRC, purporting to remind the ‘international community’ of its responsibilities towards the country, have appeared in prominent media outlets such as Al Jazeera.
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Oct 10, 2024 | 
panafricanreview.com | Charles Onyango-Obbo |Lionel Manzi
In a recent article, I argued that the M23 is the perfect buffer between Rwanda and Congo, given its ideological clarity and the fact that it shares a common enemy with Rwanda: the FDLR, a genocidal group formed by the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, which has gone on to kill Congolese Tutsi and wreak havoc in eastern Congo.
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Oct 2, 2024 | 
panafricanreview.com | Charles Onyango-Obbo |Lionel Manzi
The M23 is a very well organised and equipped army. The UN peacekeepers do not have the means to confront them. This was the essence of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ message to French media in 2022. At the time, the rebel group, which had been dormant since its return to Congo in 2017, was at war with the DRC government again, following unprovoked attacks on its positions by the Congolese army, the FARDC, in late 2021.
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Aug 21, 2024 | 
panafricanreview.com | Mordecai Gisanura |Chinaecherem Thankgod Ugwu |Lionel Manzi
Since the end of 2021, the Tshisekedi regime has been engaged in a deadly confrontation with the M23 rebels. Meanwhile, relations between the DRC and Rwanda have broken down. Kinshasa accuses Rwanda of supporting the rebels, while Kigali points to the integration of a genocidal outfit – the FDLR – into the Congolese army (FARDC) as an existential threat that must be neutralised.
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Aug 2, 2024 | 
panafricanreview.com | Mordecai Gisanura |Chinaecherem Thankgod Ugwu |Lionel Manzi
Recently, as part of Pan African Review’s monthly community outreach programme, I interacted with members of the Peace and Love Proclaimers (PLP) – an organisation devoted to awakening the potential of Rwanda’s youth to bring about positive societal change. We discussed the elections in Africa in general and Rwanda in particular, as well as the ongoing protests in Kenya.
