In December 2023, Burundi's President Evariste Ndayishimiye accused neighboring Rwanda of backing RED-Tabara, a Burundian rebel group based in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is blamed for a string of attacks in his country since 2015.

"These armed groups have been provided with shelter, food, offices and money from the country that hosts them. I mean Rwanda," Ndayishimiye said.

Despite Ndayishimiye crying foul, a bilateral arrangement signed in 2021 between the DRC and Burundi governments led to more than 1,000 Burundian troops being deployed to South Kivu Province, to conduct joint operations with the Congolese army against Burundian rebel groups, the FNL and RED-Tabara.

In July 2022, Burundian rights groups reported that Burundi had been secretly sending thousands of troops and members of Imbonerakure, a youth militia affiliated to the Burundian ruling party, CNDD-FDD, to DRC since 2021 to fight Burundian armed rebel groups.

Burundi Human Rights Initiative, one of the rights groups, said that the main target of the operation was RED-Tabara, referring to it as the most active of the rebel groups which is deemed a terrorist organization by Burundi.

A 2019 report by the UN Group of Experts on DRC noted that collaboration between local and foreign armed groups on Congolese territory was an exacerbating factor. As noted, in DRC’s South Kivu Province, Burundian armed groups, including RED Tabara, collaborated with local armed groups in the plains of Uvira. In turn, at least two military incursions were launched on Congolese territory by the Burundian armed forces alongside Imbonerakure.

Why, then, would Burundi deploy troops to South Kivu to fight RED-Tabara, if it was Rwanda that hosted the rebel group, as Ndayishimiye alleges?

Gitega should have deployed Burundian troops and Imbonerakure to Rwanda where they are, allegedly, hosted. Right?

No single report has ever indicated that RED-Tabara operates from Rwanda’s territory.

Founded in 2011, RED-Tabara has been accused of a string of attacks in Burundi since 2015, from its bases in eastern DRC. In September 2023, the rebel group claimed responsibility for an attack on the international airport in Bujumbura, the country’s economic capital.

The rebels claimed responsibility for a December 2023 attack that reportedly killed 10 security officials. The Burundian government said 20 people were killed, majority of them civilians.

“I would like to clarify […] Red-Tabara, is …a Burundian rebel movement whose elements fled [Burundi] and are [operating] on Congolese territory,” Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs Christophe Lutundula said on January 13, during a press conference in Kinshasa.

Lutundula told reporters that the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in the Great Lakes region based in Nairobi contacted him and said there are certain members of RED-Tabara who agreed to return to their home country, for reintegration and that facilitation was needed from the DRC side.

According to the minister, Kinshasa responded positively.

Ndayishimiye is now busy lying about RED-Tabara’s whereabouts, instead of supporting efforts to reintegrate the rebel group.

The Burundian president’s plot is to divert the attention of nation’s public from the chaos the Burundian army is engaged in eastern DRC where it is fighting alongside the Congolese army coalition, against M23 rebels, and getting a bloody nose.

Burundian families and some commanders are not been happy with the deployment of their army, Force de Défense Nationale du Burundi (FDNB), to eastern DRC to fight M23, a Congolese rebel group which the Congolese government alleges is backed by Rwanda.

Dozens of Burundian soldiers were killed and others injured in the battle against M23 rebels in North Kivu Province.

Some 150 Burundian troops were sent back to Burundi in early December 2023, following their protest against orders from Gitega to support the Congolese army coalition in fighting the M23 rebels. They did not understand why Burundian soldiers are dying in a war they do not benefit from.

While Ndayishimiye is poorly managing the crisis, his false accusations aim to tarnish the image of Rwanda while appeasing his friend Tshisekedi whose government has been in dispute with Rwanda since late 2021, when the M23 rebellion resurfaced.