The Democratic Republic of the Congo has finally done what many have long demanded: it has hauled Rwanda before the International Court of Justice. The charge? Decades of military meddling, resource theft, and slaughter in the eastern provinces. This is not a sudden fit of pique. It is the culmination of a grudge that has festered since the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when the aftermath spilled across the border and plunged central Africa into a chaos that makes the Thirty Years' War look like a squabble in a tavern.
Let us be clear. Rwanda has long played the victim card, brandishing its genocide scars to deflect criticism. But its actions in Congo are those of a predator, not a penitent. Kigali has funded rebel groups, looted coltan and gold, and carved out a sphere of influence that treats Congolese sovereignty as a fiction. The evidence is mountainous, from UN reports to eyewitness testimonies detailing the rape, pillage, and murder that have become a horrid routine in North and South Kivu.
Now, Congo’s President Félix Tshisekedi has chosen to act. The submission to The Hague is a masterstroke of strategy and symbolism, turning a regional grievance into an international spectacle. The timing is immaculate: with global attention divided between Ukraine and Gaza, Congo reminds the world that Africa’s crises are not forgotten. Yet one must ask: will the court deliver justice, or will it become another stage for diplomatic theatre?
The ICJ is painfully slow and toothless when great powers are involved. Rwanda counts on this. It will drag proceedings for years, citing procedural hurdles and historical grievances. President Paul Kagame, that master of geopolitical chess, will paint himself as the aggrieved party, the protector of Tutsi victims, while his proxies continue their bloody work. The court may rule, but it has no army. The only enforcement is shame, and shame has lost its power in a world grown indifferent to African suffering.
What Congo truly needs is not a legal victory but a political one. The ICJ case is a clarion call for the international community to cease its hypocritical silence. For too long, Western nations have turned a blind eye to Rwanda’s behaviour, distracted by Kagame’s reputation for efficiency and stability. But efficiency built on corpses is not civilisation. It is a charnel house with good public relations.
If the ICJ finds Rwanda guilty, the moral force could trigger sanctions or arms embargoes. If it does not, Congo will have exposed the court’s irrelevance. Either way, Tshisekedi has drawn a line in the sand. The question is whether anyone will cross it with him.
History will judge this moment, as it judges all moments of imperial overreach and colonial resentment. The Congo is not a footnote in Rwanda’s narrative; it is a sovereign state with a right to exist without being carved up by its neighbours. The Hague is a start. But justice, real justice, must be carved out on the ground, in the mud and blood of the eastern hills, where the dead do not read court documents.
