Susan Rice Causes Ill Feelings Between Paris and Washington

If we are to believe Foreign Affairs, the best American foreign policy review, the meeting that took place two months ago at the head of the French mission to the U.N. was considered turbulent on the Richter scale of diplomatic meetings. Words, sometimes accompanied by unkind adjectives, were thrown like missiles between the meeting’s three participants: the U.N.’s French representative, Gérard Araud, his British counterpart and the American U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice. The subject: massacres and atrocities of all kinds committed in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (the former Belgian Congo) by self-named rebel group M23. The movement is supported and armed by Rwanda, neighbor and enemy of the Congolese President Kabila.

It is not the first time that an armed rebellion has threatened the central power of the capital, Kinshasa. It has become a sort of ritual that periodically returns to challenge the unity of the country, which is composed of an incredible ethnic mosaic. It is a ritual that began in the 1960s, when leader Moïse Tshombe declared rich Katanga’s cessation from central power under the leadership of Patrice Lumumba, the Che Guevara of Africa.

Conflict of Interest?

What annoys the Western countries that have a past with Africa is that, rather than looking to calm things down by wielding the threat of sanctions against the protagonists of the insurgency and their supporters, the U.S. refuses to publicly condemn the Rwandans’ intervention alongside the rebels. Last month, Hillary Clinton criticized the M23 for venturing as far as the town of Goma, throwing onto the streets almost 300,000 civilians who had to flee from the battles and subsequent massacres, without a word of warning to Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president. The U.S. has infinite means of applying pressure, since they help Rwanda militarily and it is Rwandan arms that are used by the M23.

Part of the explanation, though not the whole one, comes from Washington’s feelings of guilt over having allowed the unbelievable genocide of Rwanda’s Tutsi population in 1996. France has also been accused of encouraging the massacres by not restricting the arm of the Hutus committing them. The other reason can be attributed to Susan Rice, the U.S. representative to the U.N. This woman is currently predicted to replace Hillary Clinton as the head of American diplomacy. However, during the Bush years, Rice, who specialized in African affairs under President Clinton, worked for a strategic analysis company, an operational, Washington-based think tank named “Intellibridge.” Now, who do we find in the client portfolio of the analysis company? Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda!

Diplomatic Squabble

We now understand better why many insults were exchanged during the meeting at the French mission to the U.N. when Gérard Araud firmly asked Susan Rice “to categorize as shameful” the attitude of Rwanda in the current uprising in Congo. Rice’s cynical response: “Don’t count on it! It is only the Congo. If it hadn’t been the M23, there would have been another insurrection movement.”* And in the process, Susan Rice called on the Security Council to make no link in its resolutions between Rwanda and the M23.

This diplomatic squabble would not have earned much commentary had the subject not been at the point of being named secretary of state by Obama. Her actions, which are starting to appear hostile toward France’s usual positions in Africa, do not, however, currently point to a criticism of Paris’ attitude toward an affair that is still more sensitive than that of Congo. In Mali, the U.S. has made it known that military intervention via an inter-African force was not urgent in order to oppose the pressure and abuses of power by jihadists, who are close to al-Qaida and already control half of the French-allied country. Strangely, Malian Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra, who was in agreement with Laurent Fabius’ position calling for “the rapid deployment of a stabilization force” was removed from his functions and placed under house arrest two days ago.

* Editor’s note: This quote, while accurately translated, could not be verified.