Charles Onana: DRC’s media mercenary for hire embarks on sinister mission

Author: Josephine Kalembe

• 2024-03-27 08:17:00

As the security crisis in eastern DRC deteriorates, Kinshasa is focused on launching a media campaign against the M23 rebels, who are fighting against government forces, branding them as terrorists.

The Congolese government has repeatedly announced that it will not talk to or negotiate with the M23 rebels. The rebels are fighting for their survival and protection of the Congolese Tutsi community.

To tarnish the rebels and the Congolese Tutsi community, Kinshasa decided to hire Charles Onana, a self-styled Cameroonian journalist well known for denying the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Onana is on a mission to spread hate propaganda against the Congolese Tutsi, Rwanda, and the M23 rebels.

At the official invitation of Patrick Muyaya, the DRC Government Spokesperson as well as Minister of Communication and Media, Onana was invited to hold conferences in universities across Kinshasa, from March 14 to 20, and to do media interviews and appearances.

As expected, Onana was quick to advance Kinshasa’s claims that Rwanda is supporting the M23 rebels, a claim that Kigali has repeatedly denied, adding that negotiating with the rebels will simply be negotiating with Rwanda, which would be a mistake.

In one of his media interviews, Onana urged the Congolese to unify and expel those who threaten their nation, meaning all the Congolese Tutsi, and M23 rebels.

Onana thrives on open racism targeting one ethnic group - the Tutsi and repeatedly paints the Tutsi as evil and says that they are responsible for all the problems in the region. His analysis comes in form of disgraceful distortions and falsification of the history of Rwanda and the region.

In April 2023, Onana published a book alleging that since 1994, militias and troops of Rwanda supported by the United States and France invaded the DRC. He claimed that there have been 10 million deaths in DRC, 500,000 women raped and 110, 000 square kilometers of devastated forests.

Onana attributed all these crimes committed in DRC to the Banyamulenge, an ethnic Tutsi community in South Kivu, and their alleged Rwandan supporters. He then accused the Banyamulenge of being behind a plot aimed at destroying DRC. Onana is on a mission of spreading anti-Tutsi hate with a sinister delight in the DRC, the Great Lakes region and Africa.

But, perhaps, what’s more troubling is why Kinshasa would hire such an individual, who clearly threatens the peace and safety of their own people.

The Congolese government has adamantly refused to acknowledge that Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese are legitimate citizens, and Congolese authorities watch idly as these people are persecuted, killed and harassed daily, which is what led to the M23 rebels taking up arms to defend their community.

Kinshasa is hiring people like Onana to fuel more hate against this community, without caring about the harm done on this community, just for the sake of pursuing an anti-Rwanda agenda.