Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese have lived in fear despite many changes of power in Kinshasa. From colonial era, under Belgian rule, up to date, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s leadership has failed to protect Congolese Rwandophones.

 

Sources in North Kivu province reveal that there is a plan to eliminate Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese in some territories of eastern DRC. The plot is expected to come into force on February 25. The Nande community will head the hostilities which will include looting the cattle and other properties of Congolese Rwandophones, torturing, beating, and burning them alive in their houses. They will even hack them to death.    

 

The Nande are one of DRC's 250 tribes, and among the largest in eastern DRC. Most of them live in North Kivu province, in the territories of Beni and Lubero.

 

The oppression of Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese is nothing new.

 

President Félix Tshisekedi’s government blames the M23 rebels for the current escalation of violence but during colonial era none of the M23 combatants was born yet.

 

When the Belgians arrived, the area now called Masisi territory was sparsely populated.

 

 It was inhabited in the north and west by the Nianga tribesmen, and in the east and south by the Hunde. With population problems in Rwanda-Burundi and the similarity of the Masisi highlands to large areas of Rwanda, the Belgian administration implemented, from 1931, a resettlement program of Rwandese in the Congo – movement de l' installation de la population.

 

By 1960, Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese made up 90 per cent of the population that lived in Masisi territory. They were recognized as legitimate citizens and they participated in the 1960 and 1964 general elections. However, in the 1965 elections, they were denied their rights of candidacy and of voting. In that same year, thousands of Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese were persecuted while hundreds were massively massacred. They were called refugees, foreigners who want to balkanize eastern DRC.

 

Today, Kinshasa is raising the same allegations.

 

No single government official stands to condemn the Rwandophones’ killings in DRC. They all turn a blind eye despite different calls from the international community.

 

In 1965, the Nande were using the small Hunde tribe to suppress Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese who were numerically superior. By the time, Rwandophones had not realized that their real difficulties were with the Nande and not the Hunde.

 

What is different now is that Congolese government officials openly mobilize and instigate the violence against Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese. These innocents people are killed, with impunity, in broad daylight on the streets of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, and in various villages of the province.

 

 

Rwandophones in eastern DRC

 

The 1885 Berlin conference resulted in Rwandan territories, from Bufumbira, Ndorwa, Mpororo up to Lake Albert, being given to Uganda.

 

Rwanda’s territories of Rutshuru, Bunyabungo, Masisi, Gishali, Tongo and Idjwi, among others, were given to DRC.

 

These are indisputable historical facts.

 

For the case of Uganda, Banyarwanda are one of the Ugandan tribes.

 

In Uganda, their nationality has never been disputed as is the case in DRC.

 

Kinshasa has turned the case into political turmoil which led to the long lasting insecurity in the great lakes region.

 

Many people are trapped in Kinshasa’s lies that Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese are foreigners.

 

However, these people were DRC inhabitants since a century ago. From colonial era, in this vast country resided Rwandophones.

 

Sake, Nyiragongo, Nyamuragira, Kibumba, Kanombe, Kabaya, and Kanyamahoro localities, among many others, are names of Rwandan origin.  Kinshasa recognizes these areas but refuses to acknowledge their inhabitants as legitimate citizens.

 

This shows that the DRC crisis is only caused by leadership failures, not external intervention as often misinterpreted.

 

Insecurity in eastern DRC is an internal political problem.

 

It needs an internal political solution formulated by all the concerned parties.