DRC vigilance groups similar to 1994 Genocide militia

More than 3,000 youth have joined the ‘vigilance groups’ to start trainings as the Congolese army steps up its fight against the M23.

In 1991, then Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana, launched the “Organisation de l'Auto-Défense Civile” or Civilian self-defense program. It was an operation aimed at selecting ‘reliable and capable’ Hutu youth for military training, arming them and returning them to their communities to kill ‘enemies of the country’.

Today, in 2022, history is repeating itself, this time in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Addressing his nation on November 3, DRC President Félix Tshisekedi rallied young Congolese to organize themselves into vigilance groups, to accompany and support the security forces in what he called a ‘hefty mission’.

Tshisekedi instructed the army to establish recruitment centres across the country in response to Rwandan “aggression” - a reference to claims that Kigali is militarily supporting the M23 rebel movement in DRC's east.

The Congolese leader made the call after accusing Rwanda of backing the M23 rebels. He called upon the Congolese to defend their country, and protect the integrity of its territory against any aggression or attack from any source.

“This is an opportunity to warn all traitors and other bad apples who serve the interests of the enemy, they will be exposed and have the just punishment that this kind of behavior deserves,” he added.

The Congolese ‘vigilance groups’ are no different from the deadly genocidal militia of the Rwandan youth’s ‘Auto-Défense Civile’.

In May 1994, the first implementation of the plot to exterminate the Tutsi was to first strengthen the auto-defense program. Young people were given guns, ammunitions, grenades, and machetes to be used against the ‘enemy of the country’, meaning any Tutsi in the country or abroad.

Currently in DRC, an implementation of the initial phases of Genocide is in full force. Today, any internal conflict in DRC is attributed to the presence of the Tutsi and the Kinyarwanda speaking community in the region, and to Rwanda.

This has resulted in an enormous spread of hate speech and incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence against these communities, mostly spread by political party figures, community leaders, civil society actors, and members of the Congolese diaspora, among others.

These worrisome actions by the DRC government were followed by circulating videos on different media platforms showing the youth enrolled in this newly created militia, demonstrating in different cities, where individuals identified as Rwandans or specifically Tutsi were killed by rowdy mobs, their homes and businesses vandalized or looted.

Building armies, buying weapons, and training troops and militias, with leaders claiming that they are defending their country is part of the stages of a Genocide. The DRC is currently disguising genocide as self-defense from Rwanda.

The Congolese leadership’s actions mirror those of Rwanda’s genocidal government, which Rwandans experienced on a first hand basis. And for a country where genocide ideology has spread for 28 years, the official establishment of militias is alarming.

Meanwhile, the UN mission in DRC, the international community, and the so-called human rights organizations, are standing by idly and tight lipped as these young people are mobilized to kill fellow citizens.