Nairobi, Feb. 17 -- Watching the upheaval in the Democratic Republic of Congo in recent days, one is tempted to invoke the African proverb that "the man who marries a beautiful woman and the farmer who grows maize by the roadside have the same problem."

The police fired tear gas on Monday to disperse protesters who burned tyres and US and Belgian flags near Western embassies and UN offices in the capital Kinshasa, angry about insecurity in eastern Congo.

The protesters claim the West supports Rwanda, which they and their government accuse of backing the M23 rebellion, whose advance could see them seize the strategic border city of Goma in the east.

This is a new phase of what has become an entrenched tradition of the Congolese oscillat...