In the ongoing war between the Democratic Republic of Congo armed forces (FARDC) and the M23 rebels, Kinshasa has repeatedly claimed that the Rwandan army is fighting alongside the rebels. The UN Group of Experts (GoE) has also echoed the claim of Rwanda supporting M23.

Rwandan authorities have raised concerns about the independence of these experts’ reports, which appear to be politically motivated and aim at tarnishing the image of Rwanda.

The DRC and the international community driven by their mutual interests mislead the world to believe that since M23 rebels are Kinyarwanda speaking, therefore, they are Rwandans and not Congolese. This is a gross denial of historical facts.

In 1884, at the Berlin conference that partitioned Africa, the territory of Rwanda was reduced from 168,606 Km2 to 26,338 Km2. A vast land of 124, 553 Km2 was attached to the DRC and 17,715 Km2 attached to Uganda. This was how Kinyarwanda-speaking people found themselves in different countries in the Great Lakes Region, including the DRC. 

After DRC independence, Congolese authorities started considering Rwandophones as foreigners. This led to the “Guerre Kanyarwanda”,  a conflict for land autonomy.  Rwandophones (Tutsi and Hutu) fought against other ethnic groups, such as Nande, Hunde, and Nyanga, in the region.  The Congolese army responded with systematic killings of Rwandophones in Masisi region. 

Over time, Congolese authorities passed different laws to strip Rwandophones of Congolese nationality. In particular, the 1981 citizenship bill restricted nationality to those who could prove their ancestors lived in Zaire (DRC) before 1885. 

Then Rwanda President Juvenal Habyarimana and President Mobutu Sese Seko of then Zaire organized the migration of the Hutu into Masisi in the 1980s, through what was known as “transplantation”, intending to undermine the growing land control by the Tutsi in Masisi, North-Kivu.

The transplantation was supported by the local association of Congolese Hutu farmers called Mutuelle des agriculteurs des Virunga (MAGRIVI) which later evolved into a political organization with an anti-Tutsi genocide ideology prevalent in Rwanda at the time. 

Due to this anti-Tutsi ideology, xenophobia and systemic discrimination were directed only at Rwandophone Tutsi. 

In 1993, militias known as Mai-Mai and Bangilima, composed of Hunde, Nande, and Nyanga, attacked Tutsi communities in North Kivu with the support of government authorities, causing mass displacement. 

From July 1994, the mass exodus of Rwandan refugees controlled by génocidaires, Ex-FAR (former Rwandan Armed Forces), and Hutu militia Interahamwe poured into North Kivu and South Kivu Provinces enmass. Their subsequent reorganization as a military force (FDLR-FOCA)  further spread the genocide ideology in the region and exacerbated ethnic tensions between the Congolese Hutu and Tutsi communities. 

The collaboration between Congolese Hutu and Rwandan génocidaires armed groups including FDLR intensified the killings of Congolese Tutsi, causing mass displacement of the Congolese Tutsi to Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda since 1996. 

Congolese Tutsi are a target each time there are political upheavals in DRC. 

To date, hate speech against Congolese Tutsi communities has spread nationwide by the DRC security personnel or political figures, civil society actors, and members of the Congolese diaspora, through conventional media and social media.

In June 2022, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Nderitu expressed their concerns on escalation of hate speech and incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence nationwide – and specifically against Kinyarwanda speaking community.  

More than a year later, the situation has not changed yet there are early signs of acts of genocide against the Congolese Tutsi.

Despite the fact that DRC authorities  signed political agreement with M23 rebels aimed at addressing political grievances largely based on marginalization and discrimination of Kinyarwanda speaking communities, such agreements were never Implemented.

The failure by Kinshasa to honour the agreements with M23 rebels and the continued persecution of Kinyarwanda speaking Congolese, with thousands living as refugees in neighboring countries and beyond, make the case for the continued fighting by the M23 rebel group. The latter is fighting for the rights of its persecuted Congolese Tutsi communities who re denied rights to life and citizenship in their own country, DRC.

From the above historic facts, the genesis of the crisis in eastern DRC falls under the responsibility of both the international community and the DRC government.

As long as the two actors continue to run away from addressing the root causes of the crisis but instead want to make it a burden of other countries, security in the Great Lakes region will remain elusive.