 Hello, you're watching People's Dispatch, and today we're going to be talking about the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where over the past few weeks we have seen both protests, we have seen violence against protesters, we have seen a lot of discussion about the security situation there, an issue we have often talked about on this channel as well. And a lot of this culminating in the president of the country, Felix Cicady, calling for the withdrawal of the UN force, which is called Monusco, in the UN General Assembly session in his speech over there. But of course, there's more to this than meets the eye, and to understand all this we have with us, Kambale Musawili. Kambale, thank you so much for joining us. Kambale, of course, we've had what do you call a very eventful month to say the least, and you actually often talked about this for People's Dispatch as well. And one of the recent incidents was the firing on protesters who were very unhappy with the presence of foreign forces, including the UN peacekeeping force in the regions which are affected by the M23 insurgency. So maybe let's take a look at that first before coming to the politics of the force itself. Could you maybe take us very quickly through what happened at that time? What has been, you know, why were these protesters shot at and killed? What has been the state of the investigation? It's also very important to know where they were shot. They were shot before even the protests started. So they were even killed before they could even go in the street. There is a group of Congolese in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, specifically in Goma, in the city of Goma, a group called the Wanzalendo, who called for a protest to denounce presence of foreign militaries in the DRC, specifically the United Nations and the East African military force that's in the DRC right now deployed. The reason why they want those forces to live is that they are there for a mission. They are there to bring about peace and stability. And we don't see peace and stability taking place in the DRC, since they've been there. And they call to action. The military actually went to the radio station of the Wanzalendo and killed the Basics people. And afterwards, they went around the city and arresting people and scrutinizing people. I mean, the numbers keep going up. I think the official number was a 65, but every time you speak to people in Goma, they tell you at least 100 people were killed. And when you even see how they were killed, thankfully the people of Goma film are the killing. That's the only way we can know that the numbers are high. You see a lot of bodies in trucks being pulled away from where they were killed. And how did that happen? The soldiers after killing are dragging the bodies and putting them into trucks to go hide the bodies. This is a practice that's been known to the DRC for a very long time. So who killed them? We say in the Congolese Security Forces military. It's not just any force that killed them. This is the Republican Guard. The presidential guard. This is an elite unit trained by the Israelis and who are supposed to be protecting the president of the Congo. And they are also deployed in the eastern part of the country. So one will ask, is this what the Israelis are teaching the Republican Guards to shoot and kill civilians? Of course, when we look at the different military training that Israel has done to foreign countries, we've seen this type of violence, including when we look at in the United States, the NYPD receiving training for Israel. And we see also the actions that they do on the ground and so on. So we know that this type of violence is often connected to militaries who are trained by Israel. You have to say that in a general sense. So the people of the Congo are very frustrated with the killing. And they are calling for accountability. They're calling for commanders who made the order to shoot civilians to be held accountable. It has not been done. The eastern part of Congo, where the killing took place, the province of North Kivu is under martial law, as I call it. They're calling it state of siege. And this means that the governor of the province is a military. The mayor of many of the cities are militaries. So we have soldiers running the city, running the province, and they're not being held accountable. The president of the Congo should be held accountable. He is the one who has tutored the state of siege for over a year to bring about his stability. The consequence of that is that Congolese are dying. So why also beyond just saying that the East African forces or the UN forces must leave. Why also are they calling for withdrawal of the forces? This is also because there is a town called Bunagana in the eastern part of Congo that the Congolese government and the Congolese people do not have access to for over a year now. This town is controlled by rebels. The rebel force called M23 backed, equipped, trained, financed by the Rwandan government, by the Rwandan military, according to the UN group of experts to report showing how the chain of command goes directly to the Rwandan military. And these rebel groups control the city and they have not been removed. There is actually a buffer zone created by the East African forces whereby Congolese cannot even go into the town while these rebels control the town. They are taxing people, they're doing operations. So people are really under occupation and being protected by these forces. This is why the Congolese are protested and unfortunately they're being killed and there is no serious accountability to the military chain of command. Right, Kambali, in this context just talking a bit to go a bit deeper into the question of this UN force which is called Monosco itself. I believe reports say that the UN deployment in the DRC with Monosco and its earlier forces perhaps the longest in the world. So why is it that there's been so much dissatisfaction with the presence of UN forces which at least on the face of it, they're supposed to be neutral. They're supposed to provide security, et cetera, et cetera. When the UN forces have been there for over two decades now or about two decades in the DRC, they've had different mandates while they were there but the general mandate is to bring that peace of stability in the DRC and they have what they call chapter seven. Chapter seven for UN peacekeeping forces means that they have the power to enforce peace which means that they can actually militarily engage not just be neutral, they can actually engage the rebels to remove them from places. Unfortunately, they have not done so. Patrick Cammert who's a former UN commander of the UN forces in the DRC around the year 2009 if I'm not mistaken, said something very interesting in a radio station while it was being interviewed. He said that the UN forces, they can use military pressure but the problem on the common is a political problem and military pressure will not end the conflict. So what does that actually mean? When you have a UN commander saying that and now actually add another element that the UN secretary general himself in an interview on France 24, a TV station of the French government. France 24 during that interview, Antonio Guterres says that the UN forces are ill equipped to actually fight the M23 rebels because the M23 rebels have sophisticated weapon. Now, if the UN secretary general says that and a former UN commander says that we must actually look at another solution. There is not a military solution to the conflict in the Congo. There was a political solution and the political solution found this answer in the UN Security Council. We have two specific members of the UN Security Council who can have an impact in DRC. That's the United States and the United Kingdom. These two countries have supported nations that stabilize in the Congo. London and Uganda, US ally, British allies on the so-called war on terror have been equipped finance with their taxpayers' money and they use the support that they receive to destabilize the DRC in total impunity. So for me, if the United States, the United Kingdom, don't hold to account the allies, the United nation peacekeeping forces will never have the political will to end the conflict because they have enough evidence from the UN themselves. The UN group of experts have documented random support to rebels in DRC, Uganda support to rebels in DRC, yet all we see are condemnations in a statement of press releases. So pressure from them will have an impact. Unfortunately, we know it's not going to come. So it's really up to the people to continue to fight, to liberate themselves from these foreign powers, foreign militaries who are in the country so that they can live in peace and stability in the near future. Absolutely, especially now since Paul Kagame has announced that he's going to seek another term as Rwanda's president, I think that aligns very much likely to continue. And of course, Rwanda has it's also important for the UK for its so-called refugee policy. But coming to elections, also wanted to, you know, ask about Felix Shasekedi himself. He went to the UN, gave the call for the withdrawal of forces just maybe a month after his own forces had fired on people who were asking exactly the same. So, and we also know that he has elections coming up. So how is, has he changed his position on this or what is, what really is his strategy over there? I think it's rhetoric. We know what it means to actually have foreign military force removed from your country. They need to be official notification. It's not press conferences and, you know, speaking on the podium at the UN, that's not what removes. We know that also because we see what has happened in Mali and Niger and Burkina Faso. These countries have asked for France to leave. They had an official notification certified by the government giving them a deadline that are such as such that you need to leave. That's not what we see in DRC. So I'm seeing that more as a political rhetoric from the communist government or from the communist president. He knows what he needs to do. You need to submit an official request to the UN asking for the removal of the forces and giving them a timeline. Until he does that, I do not believe to, I don't believe in what he has actually said. Now, the other way to think about this is the communist president has given so many promises to the DRC. From the moment he was announced as the winner of the presidential elections to the DRC to now. But his actions are not surprising to me. He has always said things and he does something else. For example, he has said, right, that he will move the headquarters of the Congolese military to Goma and that he himself as the president will move to the North Kivu province for peace and stability. We are still waiting for the day we will do that. So that was a political rhetoric that he made in his speech in front of the Congolese people to promise them peace and security and we never saw that happen. So a few things happen at the UN. It's not just the speech of him saying that the UN forces will leave, but on the sideline, he met with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. And his meeting was quite telling. The president of the Congo announced that now officially the DRC will have its embassy in Jerusalem, right? It's two steps or even more steps from the initial position. When he was invited as one of the African presidents to speak at APEC a few years ago, he did announce that Congo will have its diplomatic mission in Jerusalem, right? He said that he will move the economic section of the Congolese embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. We don't know if it ever happened. No, there has not been clear follow up on that. But his position of even moving today, the Congolese embassy to Jerusalem, is against the African Union, right? And he's a former chairman of the African Union. The African Union is very clear on the issue of Palestine and the issue of Jerusalem that they do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel. Very clear on that position. So any African nation or any nation doing so, like the United States and the Donald Trump, is going against the will of the vast majority of citizens of the world because most nations in the world do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. So when you see that happen, the president of the Congo is strengthening the propaganda by Zionists in Israel, where they are slowly but surely taking over the lands that do not belong to them. We still wait for the day where we will have the official map of Israel because every year the map changes. Every other year it changes. The people of the world want to live in peace. People of Palestine have the right to exist. They have the right to live peacefully on their land, and they should not wake up every other day and see the land taken. And unfortunately, the president of the Congo is playing that card. And as you heard earlier, there is a reason, right? There could be a deal that exists from Israel providing support to the DRC. One that's very obvious is that the presidential guard, right? The Republican guard. The soldiers who killed the Congolese citizens in Goma are trained by the Israelis according to African intelligence. So hearing him say that and seeing his rapprochement to Israel, it's not a shacker to me and he's not had a very clear position. It's up to people of the world to continue to expose what is happening so that people are not confused by the DRC. They're not confused that the Congolese people chose a leader who wants to be close to Netanyahu. We did not do that. In 2018, Congolese went to the poll to elect a leader. The result that was published in December did not reflect the reality of the people. It was announced that she said she won, but mainly all the information that exists today shows us that the elections were rigged and that there was a secret deal between Chisikedi and the former president, Kabila, whereby they chose to place him as the president of the Congo. And that's the deal was signed in front of representative of Egypt, Kenya, and South Africa, published in many publications so far. So we know he was not elected by the Congolese. Now that in December, 2023, it is scheduled to have a presidential election. That's something also to see. We are not sure if the elections will take place, but we'll see in the next three months what would happen. But if the elections take place, we see every indication that the elections will be rigged. How do I know so? All the process of registering voters. Can you imagine that we had a new voter role and people who want to register to vote receive a new electoral card? So they changed the electoral card from the previous election. And anyone who was head in electoral card, a new electoral card today, their face on the card has disappeared. It has actually faded. One, that gives you the quality of the card. And two, that gives you a sense that even the Electoral Commission is not interested in having a fair election when the electoral card, where you cannot even see the face of the individual. So anyone can come to the poll and vote on your behalf because they cannot verify your face from the card. And there are so many other issues from putting opposition leaders in jail, burying them from organizing protests. So one of the leaders, Mattifai Ula, has decided not to participate in the elections. So we're seeing already tension rising. And one opposition leader was just assassinated. Surely, Mero Kende, a former MP now, was assassinated after he was kidnapped in the parking lot of the Congolese constitutional court, where he went to declare his assets. So the tension is palpable as we are coming to the December elections, but Congolese continue to remain vigilant and they will continue to expose the contradiction, the internal contradiction that exists in the country so that the world know that we are not condoning the behavior of the president of the Congo, the actions of the president of the Congo, is rapprochement with Israel, is rapprochement with Morocco and so on. We are still fighting to have a free and liberated Congo. Thank you so much, Kambale, for that very comprehensive update. Like you said, the next couple of months, very vital for the country. And we will be coming back to you to actually track some of these developments as well. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's all we have time for today. Do keep watching People's Dispatch.