For so long, the Congolese Tutsi are persecuted in their own country, with no one caring about their grievances.

 

Young men and women have stood up to defend themselves against an existential threat. This is how the M23 rebellion emerged in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

 

Unfortunately, the United Nations is now justifying the long lasting hate speech and ethnic based killings in eastern DRC, which political analysts believe led to the looming genocide against the Congolese Tutsi.

 

Published on June 13, the final report of the UN Group of Experts on the DRC claimed that the Congolese Tutsi are instrumentalizing a genocide narrative to make the international community understand their cause.

 

“M23 exploited the narrative that it was protecting the Congolese Tutsi and Banyamulenge communities in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo from extermination in order to justify its aggressive territorial expansion in North Kivu,” the report reads.

 

The UN lacked Responsibility to Protect the Congolese under existential threat, but joking about their plight is intolerable.  

 

“The Group of Experts notes that, while incidents of violence against Rwandophone communities in the current context were beyond doubt, the manipulation of the genocide narrative by M23[…] has significantly increased the risk of civilians being targeted and could trigger widespread inter-ethnic violence between communities,” the report added.

 

The UN knows the truth but ignores it.

 

In early 2023, there was a release of US classified cables on DRC dated October 29, 1965. André J Navez, then US Consul in Bukavu, informed his country with a detailed account on the killings and discrimination the Rwandophones in North Kivu were facing.

 

The issues back then are almost similar to the current issues under President Félix Tshisekedi’s rule.

 

But why does the UN go on turning a blind eye?

 

The US cable written 58 years ago clearly points out that Rwandophones in the DRC are legitimate Congolese citizens, and their persecution began in the 1930s.

 

 “For its own political ends, the WaNande-controlled North Kivu Provincial Government seeks to picture the Banyarwanda [Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese] as refugees (which they are not) and not as Congolese citizens (which they are) …. No attempt has been made by the provincial government to correct or even recognize the grievances of the Banyarwanda [Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese]. Instead, the North Kivu Government claims that there is a vast conspiracy organized by the ‘Rwandan emigres,” the document reads.

 

Successive Kinshasa governments failed to solve the problem which requires political will, and can only be solved by Congolese as many politicians urge.

 

The US Consul concluded that if the North Kivu government continued to support the Hunde in their domination of the Rwandophones, the situation would get worse.

 

This is what is exactly happening in eastern DRC. The UN understands the genesis of the crisis in eastern DRC but deliberately ignores it.

 

Again, the UN Group of Experts reported that the crisis related to M23 accentuated ethnic rifts among the warring sides and “continued to stoke xenophobia and hate speech against Rwandophone populations living in DRC, notably the Tutsi and the Banyamulenge”.

 

This argument contradicts the statement of the UN's Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, after her visit in eastern DRC, in 2022.

 

Nderitu noted that the current violence in east DRC mainly stems from the refugee crisis that resulted as many individuals involved in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda fled to eastern DRC, forming armed groups such as the FDLR which is still wreaking havoc in the region.

 

She expressed concern over an escalation of hate speech and incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence nationwide – and specifically against the Kinyarwanda speaking people; noting that hate speech had been spread by political party figures, community leaders, civil society actors, and members of the Congolese diaspora.

 

The UN's Special Adviser was deeply alarmed by the escalation of violence in the region where a genocide - the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda – happened.

 

“The current violence is a warning sign of societal fragility and proof of the enduring presence of the conditions that allowed large-scale hatred and violence to erupt into a genocide in the past,” she said.

 

By justifying hate speech and escalated violence against the Congolese Tutsi, the UN Group of Experts is ruining all international and regional efforts being made to restore peace and security in east DRC.