Amb. Nduhungirehe: Rwanda’s FDLR threat was ignored by world powers

Foreign Minister Amb Olivier Nduhungirehe reiterated on Saturday, March 1, that the world’s superpowers will not listen to Kigali’s claims that the genocidal militia’s fighters are merely a group of “old and weak” individuals and that Rwanda is using them as a pretext to “invade Congo for minerals.”

This came shortly after FDLR Brig Gen Ezechiel Gakwerere and 14 other FDLR members who had been taken prisoner by AFC/M23 rebels in the ongoing conflict with the Congolese government coalition, which consists of Burundian forces, Southern African Development Community (SADC) troops, and Wazalendo local militias, were repatriated from eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is thought that Gakwerere participated in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, which resulted in the assassination of Rosalie Gicanda, Rwanda’s final queen.

Since the FDLR murderous army is now backed by the Congolese government and is part of the FARDC, we have repeatedly warned western nations that they pose a constant threat to Rwanda and have done so for the past 30 years.

The powers of these worlds, regrettably, would not listen.

The minister tweeted shortly after AFC/M23 rebels turned over Gakwerere, 61, and a few other genocidal militia fighters to Rwandan authorities at La Corniche One Stop Border Post in Rubavu District: “We repeatedly told western countries that the FDLR genocidal force has been a constant threat to Rwanda for the past 30 years, especially as they are now supported by the Congolese government and embedded in the FARDC.”

These world powers, regrettably, ignored us, claiming that Rwanda is using the FDLR fighters as a pretext to “invade Congo for minerals” and that they are simply a group of “old and weak” people. According to multiple UN Security Council resolutions, MONUSCO, a 26-year-old UN peacekeeping force, even backed the FDLR, a group that has been actively recruiting on the basis of its genocide doctrine.

“And today, the AFC/M23, a rebel movement that is carrying out the exact task that the self-righteous international community should have done over the past 30 years, turned over a group of FDLR combatants captured on the battlefield to Rwanda. Among them was Brig Gen Ezechiel Gakwerere, one of the murderers of Queen Rosalie Gicanda, who is shown here in a FARDC uniform. But guess who they now refer to as the “villain”?

The terrorist organization FDLR was founded by former members of the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 and is headquartered in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The homicidal militia joined Kinshasa’s partners in the Congolese army coalition fighting the AFC/M23 rebel organization, and they planned to assault Rwanda.

menace of genocidal ideology?

Rwanda and the area are most at risk from the genocidal ideology of the murderous militia.

In order to find a lasting solution to the conflict, Rwanda’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Amb. Ernest Rwamucyo, emphasized once more on February 21 that the UN Security Council must take Rwanda’s security concerns seriously and concentrate on the underlying causes of the endless predicament facing eastern DR Congo.

“Any outcome that does not take Rwanda’s security concerns seriously will not offer a sustainable solution to the conflict,” stated Rwamucyo. For Rwanda, the security threats presented by the FDLR and its affiliates are extremely concerning.

Kigali’s position that the Congolese government must answer for “its continued preservation of FDLR,” including integrating it into its army, arming it with advanced weaponry, and utilizing it as an ally and fighting force, was reaffirmed by the ambassador.

After the Rwanda Patriotic Army overthrew the genocidal government and put an end to the genocide against the Tutsi, the former FAR, politicians, and Interahamwe militia members who had carried out the genocide fled in large numbers, armed, to eastern DR Congo, which was then known as Zaire, in July 1994. Later, the remaining militia and army members of the overthrown murderous dictatorship formed what they dubbed the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR).

To avoid or disassociate themselves from their heinous actions, they founded FDLR in 2000, shortly after the US government designated it as a terrorist organization for killing American tourists in Uganda’s Bwindi Forest. Its founders assembled in a spacious hall in Lubumbashi, the second-biggest city in the southeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is located along the Zambian border, on May 1, 2000, and established the militia.

The goal of the murderous militia is to return to Rwanda with force and carry out its genocidal mission.

On February 26, Nduhungirehe, whose administration is linked to the crimes, urged the UN Human Rights Council to speak out against hate speech and targeted killings of Tutsi villages in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Congolese government forces have attacked Banyamulenge communities in South Kivu province in recent days,” he stated addressing the 58th Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

Targeted violence and hate speech against Congolese Tutsi groups “have become distressingly commonplace,” he claimed.

For Congolese Tutsis, he claimed, “hate speech, persecution, lynching, and even acts of cannibalism have become distressingly commonplace in eastern DR Congo.”

He accused the Congolese government of committing such crimes against humanity, citing South Kivu province as an example, where government forces bomb Banyamulenge settlements in Minembwe and persecute them in other cities like Uvira.

As in the past, they are even gathered up and sent to an unidentified location in Bujumbura, Burundi. Congolese Tutsis and even Swahili speakers are being persecuted and lynched in broad daylight in Kinshasa, while the CODECO militia, which is affiliated with the [Congolese] government and the ADF, which is backed by the Islamic state, is slaughtering the Hema ethnic group in Ituri, far up north from Rwanda’s border, with complete impunity,” he said.