Below, the photo of General João de Matos, a decorated Angolan General who died on 1st November 2017 of pancreatic cancer and young Lt Gen Joseph Kabila.
Geberal João de Matos is the architecture of the destruction of Rwanda’s forces in Kitona, who had attacked DR Congo through a madman’s military strategy orchestrated by Criminal Paul Kagame and his house boy General James Kabarebe, who airlifted a contingent of troops to 1,500 kilometers across DR Congo to Kitona air base, located 320 kilometers west of Kinshasa near the Atlantic coast.
In August 1998, with limited intelligence information, criminal Paul Kagame and his house boy General James Kabarebe assumed that this force would easily March and capture Kinshasa.
These two peasant corporals who awarded themselves the rank of a general assumed that along the way from Kitona towards Kinshasa troops sizes would grow in numbers with Congolese deserters and dissidents joining the ranks of the invading forces. The rest is history, as these columns of Rwanda’s forces were decemented by a combination of Angolan, Namibian, Zimbabwean and Desire Kabila’s forces.
In this audacious plan which was fraught with risks. Criminal Paul Kagame and his house boy General James Kabarebe, expected this small force consisting of four strong battalions would push across more than 320 kilometers of difficult terrain, seizing several intermediate strategic sites along the march to Kinshasa and at the end occupy a city of 6 million people. Those who have been in Kinshasa know the sheer size of the capital.
While planning this attack, criminal Paul Kagame and his house boy General James Kabarebe didn’t not consider:
1) The response of SADEC countries i.e Angola.
2) They didn’t not consider the logistic challenges especially Kitona being on the Western Coast of DR Congo, it was a nightmare operation in terms of logistic supplies, reinforcement or escape/retreat in case of battle ground defeat.
3) They totally didn’t not consider the terrain and the land to be covered especially for such a small ground force without any single air support.
4) They didn’t consider the mood and reaction of Congolese especially Kinshasa dwellers who had strong anti Rwandese sentiment.
For these two corporals, Paul Kagame and James Kabarebe, they didn’t not consider any privations or the adversary. They totally undermined the capacity and the will of DR Congo forces under president Desire Kabila.
They merely counted on the psychological impact of the operation. Surprise, and networks of DMI agents in Kinshasa. They assumed this would ensure panic and the collapse of president Desire Kabila’s regime.
Due to their military naivety and amateurish, Criminal Paul Kagame and his house boy General James Kabarebe sent hundreds of young men to their deaths, and those who survived it was due to General Jonas Savimbi the Supreme Commander of UNITA who provided a retreat path for Rwandan forces and an airstrip for the remaining defeated forces to be airlifted back to Kigali.
Currently, all military Colleges around the world use the Kitona military operation as a case study. And all military lecturers in these different colleges ridicule military planners of the war.
By Gakwerere Rpf
