When Congo’s President, Felix Tshisekedi, squeezes his corpulent bulk into designer clothing, accessorised with expensive watches that would feed thousands of his immiserated citizens for years and climbs into a flying palace to shuttle around the world to weep crocodile tears and move the powerful to pity his long-suffering people, it is a diversionary dance in step with his Western audience

The lure of American investment and economic partnership could ultimately eclipse the current comprehensive peace framework as the central focus of US engagement in the region