US stance on FDLR a threat to Africa’s great lakes region

Author: Samson Kasujja

• 2024-02-20 05:01:00

The US government has puzzled the world with its stance on the FDLR genocidal militia in eastern DRC, something that poses big threat to the security of the African great lakes region where the terrorist group has been, among others, spreading its genocide ideology, carrying out deadly attacks, and killing thousands of unarmed civilians including women and children.

 FDLR is a Rwandan terrorist group formed by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda who fled to eastern DRC, then Zaire, after their genocidal regime had been overthrown by the current Rwandan government. For the past three decades, various Congolese governments have accommodated and shielded them.

Fast forward. An October 2022 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted that FDLR fighters have killed hundreds of civilians over the years in eastern DRC, at times hacking them to death with machetes or hoes, or burning them in their homes. The genocidal militia has committed countless rapes and other acts of sexual violence.

The FDLR's main agenda is driven by a genocide ideology inherited from the regime that masterminded the massacre of more than one million Rwandan Tutsi within 100 days, in 1994.

In December 2001, the US State Department added FDLR to the Terrorist Exclusion List under the provisions of the Patriot Act, after the militia group murdered, and in some cases raped, eight Western tourists in Uganda. The year 1999 saw FDLR elements – then known as ALIR a.k.a. Interahamwe, ex-FAR – killing two American tourists in Uganda's Bwindi Forest, along the Uganda-DRC border.

From then, the US referred to the group as terrorists. Shockingly, the US’ statement issued on February 17, referred to FDLR as “an armed group named as a ‘negative force’ by regional bodies”. The US acknowledges that FDLR exposes the civilian population to risk and has called on Kinshasa to cease cooperation with the group, but failed to appropriately name the group as it is: a terrorist group.

This way of puzzling the international community about the US’ stance on the naming of FDLR threatens the security of the great lakes region since the Congolese government will feel comfortable in its collaboration with the militia group. The FDLR will destabilize Rwanda and the entire region if not stopped. Kinshasa harbors and has been heavily arming FDLR, in a bid to destabilize Rwanda.

“It’s the [DRC] government [troops] that would always provide us with ammunition,” an FDLR fighter told HRW, adding that he witnessed four transfers of ammunition.

“They also gave us uniforms and boots.”

“Congolese army units are again resorting to the discredited and damaging practice of using abusive armed groups as their proxies,” said Thomas Fessy, a senior Congo researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“The Congolese government should end this support, which leads to military complicity in abuses, identify officers responsible, and hold them accountable.”

The FDLR is the strongest in genocide ideology among other armed groups in DRC, creating and training other militias.

In February 2021, an Italian Ambassador to DRC, Luca Attanasio, was killed in an attack which the governor of North Kivu province at the time, Carly Nzanzu, said was carried out by the FDLR.

In September 2019, Rwanda saw its bloodiest attack in over two decades when dozens of civilians were killed and many others injured by FDLR in Kinigi, a touristic area in Northern Province. No other armed attack has claimed so many victims in Rwanda in recent years. The genocidal militia attacked the inhabitants of Kinigi with knives and rudimentary weapons.

These are few among many other attacks which the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide plotted in Rusizi back in 1996 and later in North-west Rwanda (Gisenyi and Ruhengeri) in 1998. Hundreds of victims lost their lives.

Kinshasa exploited the international community’s silence on FDLR and integrated it in its national army. In return, the terror group has used the FARDC cover to launch attacks on Rwandan territory over the years. Of recent, the Congolese army and FDLR deliberately shelled on Rwandan territory several times killing civilians and destroying property.

The Congolese political and military leadership, including President Félix Tshisekedi, has also repeatedly declared their intention to invade Rwanda and change its government by force.

“Rwanda will seek clarification from the US Government to ascertain whether its statement represents an abrupt shift in policy, or simply a lack of internal coordination,” reads a statement issued by the Rwandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on February 18.