Written by Aské for La Flamme, central organ of the Communist Party of Bénin, June 14 | Translated by Sofia D. for the Red Phoenix–

A rebel attack perpetrated on Friday, June 7, in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has left 41 dead. This makes for new victims suffering from these massacres, of which there have already been more than 80 this month. The attacks are the work of members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), according to a spokesperson for the Congolese army. If we include the people killed since the beginning of the month by this group, we reach at least 150 victims. This is not even counting the other victims killed on the part of the other group of rebels, M23, sustained by Rwanda, which operates in the same area to the detriment of the population.

It must be said that the ADF are a coalition of Ugandan armed groups, the most important of which was opposed to the regime of Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni. This rebellion has withdrawn since 1995 into east Congo, and is considered the deadliest of the hundreds of armed groups active there, which sends thousands to their death among the population. We, [the Communist Party of Benin] assert that “Daesh [ISIL]” (an armed Islamic group) has designated the ADF as its branch in central Africa since 2019.

The massacres perpetrated by these rebel groups arouse criticism and even uprisings by the population and organizations of civil society. The protests and uprisings lay the blame on the Congolese government in particular for its inability in recent years to assure the protection and security of the population against the rebels, who do not hesitate to kill, rape, and destroy everything in their path to terrorize and thus guarantee the plundering of the country’s resources.

In previous publications, we have covered the just struggle of the population in their denunciations of this war of pillage, denunciations which forced the government to deport MONUSCO (Mission of the United Nations for the Stabilization of the Congo), present in the country since 1999 without bringing the expected peace. Just like in the Sahel, this “peace” mission rather serves to cover up the policies of terrorizing the population, and pillaging natural resources; and the population understand this well.

Despite the announced and ongoing departure of these occupation forces, the war of pillage continues with massacres of the population, who do not accept it lying down. They resist so much that the pressure on the government and on foreign powers who support the rebel groups forces these group to expose each other. This is what explains the reports by the UN, and the press release from the U.S. State Department and French government, which denounce Rwanda’s complicity in certain rebel groups, specifically M23 – but they make no sanctions against Rwanda.

Worse, we saw the commission of the European Union sign a memorandum of understanding for the exploitation of “strategic minerals” with Kigali [capital of Rwanda] on January 19, 2024. This is denounced by the Congolese Government, who point out that there is not only this agreement for what the EU calls “premier strategic materials,” but also the agreements for security and military cooperation. This leads to the conclusion that “the EU is making itself complicit in the pillage of our resources and the aggression of Rwanda against our country.”

Thus, this war of rebels poorly hides the hand of foreign powers who want to monopolize at all costs the immense strategic resources of this country, considered a geopolitical scandal for daring to be endowed with immense reserves of gold, diamond, cobalt, copper, petroleum, gas, lithium, not to mention wood (the second largest tropical forest in the world), arable land, etc… This is unacceptable – stop the massacre of the peaceable population!

Categories: Congo, International