KAGAME AND RAMAPHOSA RATTLE SABRES

Rwanda’s president has fired off a belligerent series of tweets at his South African counterpart - warning that Kigali is ready for war with Pretoria.It comes after 13 South African soldiers were killed in eastern DRC as Rwanda-backed M23 rebels advanced on the Congolese city of Goma.In response, Cyril Ramaphosa told Paul Kagame that there’d be consequences if any more of his troops perished at the hands of Rwandan troops or proxies.Or so he tweeted. Kagame tweeted back that that’s just bluster and that no such warning had in fact been issued during their recent call.Nevertheless, the Rwandan leader said his country was prepared for any ‘confrontation’ with South Africa. He also mocked Ramaphosa for posing as a peacemaker while allegedly backing his own proxies in DRC.Kagame was referring to Pretoria’s participation in SAMIDRC - the Southern African Development Community (SADC) peacekeeping mission in the DRC, which he claims is actually one of the belligerents in the war.He also has a historical axe to grind with soldiers from the southern part of Africa: when Rwanda and Uganda invaded the DRC during the second Congo war in the late ‘90s, it was troops from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe (i.e., from southern Africa) that drove out the invaders.

Sources:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/13/rwandans-charged-murder-exiled-critic

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/rwanda-denies-using-pegasus-spyware/2318398

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/assassins-linked-to-kagame-regime-9700529.html