Announced with great fanfare by the Congolese Presidency, its press and communication organs, as well as the Congolese media, the mini-summit of heads of state of the Great Lakes region which was to meet this weekend at the Hotel Serena from Goma, Presidents Yoweri Museveni from Uganda, Paul Kagame from Rwanda, Evariste Ndayishimiye from Burundi, João Lourenço from Angola and Felix Antoine Tshisekedi from DRC, did not take place.
The Burundian and Ugandan presidents have posed a rabbit to their Congolese counterpart. The Angolan president did not announce himself in Goma either.
Here are the elements of our analysis of the reasons for this announced fiasco:
1 / Burundi and Uganda consider that Goma is within direct military reach of Kagame and indirect of militias in his pay. Let us remember the words of James Kabarebe who declared casually that Rwanda controls every square inch of eastern DRC, while specifying that he “knows very well the situation in Kivu and everyone there. . ”.
2 / Burundi is at war with Rwanda and Uganda is in a serious diplomatic and security crisis with Rwanda.
3 / In the note verbale from the Burundian Minister of Foreign Affairs addressed to his Congolese counterpart, we read that Burundi would first like to deal with security issues at the common borders with the DRC before involving the other neighboring states.
4 / According to our sources, Uganda would have evoked the same wish in addition to the security problems of its delegation, in addition to believing that it is Rwanda which constitutes the problem of the sub-region.
5 / Presumably, in-depth bilateral preparatory meetings initiated by Congolese diplomacy were not carried out well upstream to meet the wishes of the various stakeholders at this mini summit. Likewise, the Congolese emissaries did not obtain formal confirmations from the senior Ugandan and Burundian authorities relating to their presence in Goma, which also demanded other meticulous and drastic security adjustments and clear guarantees from the party. Congolese. This does not appear to have been accomplished, according to our local Congolese security sources.
6 / Choosing a securely favorable meeting framework in Rwanda is a strategic error of appreciation and an apparent indicator of incompetence and inconsistency of the advisers / collaborators of President Tshisekedi. The latter did not understand that the choice of a negotiating framework remains very decisive in diplomacy for the success of a summit.
7 / The Congolese presidency and its plethora of communication and press services should have adopted a low (strategic) profile rather than blindly launching into the effect of triumphalist announcement with great fanfare of a summit where everything hinged on the edge of the razor seen the reciprocal mistrust of the various stakeholders in this mini-summits
Diplomacy is also an art which consists in anticipating and preventing strategic ruptures, in particular by a fine and rigorous analysis of the geopolitical stakes of each protagonist in a conflict where improvisation has no place.
Jean-Jacques Wondo.