The FDLR is urged to shoot escaping DR Congo troops immediately

The genocidal FDLR militia has revealed that its fighters were specifically ordered to shoot any Congolese soldier who fled the battlefield.

President Felix Tshisekedi’s coalition of military, local and foreign militias, and European mercenaries in the ongoing war against the M23 includes the FDLR, which was established by hardline groups connected to the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi.

Listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations, the FDLR has gained significant support from Kinshasa and is now a major force in the ongoing conflict.

Former FDLR fighters, both those who were taken on the battlefield and those who walked away from the conflict, have now disclosed that the militia was authorized to shoot any FARDC soldier who tried to escape for their lives.

A 29-year-old former FDLR militia soldier named Corporal Olivier Cyuzuzo stated last week, “We had clear instructions to watch them.” “We shot them, literally on sight,” he added, referring to any FARDC soldiers who seemed to flee on their own.

The Mutobo Demobilization Center is hosting a pre-integration course for the ex-rebels.

Tens of thousands of former fighters have been reintegrated into the society over the years thanks to the Rwanda Demobilization and Reintegration Commission, which operates the facility, which is based in Nyabihu.

For ten years, Cyuzuzo was a member of the FDLR’s special force, CRAP (Commando de Recherche et d’Action en Profondeur).

He claimed that hundreds of fresh militants from his intake, which graduated from a three-month training program in Rugari in Rutshuru region in 2014, were then sent to other locations, such as Nyiragongo, Tongo, Rubaya, and Rutshuru.

When the M23 rebels fled from the capital of Goma, North Kivu, and other regions under intense UN bombardment, he added, these areas had just been cleared by the insurgents. Most of their combatants migrated to Uganda.

After reentering the Congo in 2021 to fight the ongoing insurgency over unmet promises, the M23 has already seized a sizable portion of the country, including the important cities of Goma and Bukavu, the provincial capital of South Kivu.

All of the former FDLR combatants we spoke with at Mutobo stated that FARDC commanders frequently asked for specific FDLR fighters or requested coordinated offensives with FDLR.

According to one of them, “sometimes we mixed, or we gave them individual fighters for specific assignments, or sometimes we just fought alongside each other, in a coordinated approach, each group with a particular task.”

The 49-year-old Maj. Gilbert Ndayambaje, who joined the FDLR in 1998 before being captured early this year, claimed that the militia and FARDC were not just working together on the battlefield but that “they are fighting, and losing, together.”

A former FARDC officer we saw in Goma last week provided testimony that supported this narrative. “In this war, the FDLR are the ones fighting the most and holding the most advanced positions.”

The former FDLR fighters at Mutobo also mentioned how important FDLR was to the Burundian military. “In Nyabibwe (in Kalehe territory) and many other areas, we fought together,” Ndayambaje stated.

The Congolese army (FARDC) is supported by a coalition of foreign forces, militias, and mercenaries, including at least 10,000 Burundian troops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

President Felix Tshisekedi aggressively mobilized and armed the FDLR, according to the former militants we spoke with, promising to assist them in capturing Rwanda following the fall of M23. Since then, the militia has expanded to 7,000–10,000 members.

According to them, the militia has shortened the training period for new soldiers from three months to one in order to increase its recruitment effort.

“Most of us had to join the militia.”

Conscription has been a crucial component of the FDLR’s recruitment strategy, according to Cyuzuzo, who was born in Tuonane in Masisi area. The organization primarily targets youth and even minors. “They coerce you or sometimes they just manipulate you, and most of us were forced to join.”

We asked Cyuzuzo to define “manipulation,” and he responded, “FDLR is motivated by the ideology of genocide; when they recruit you, they tell you that the intention is to return to Rwanda and remove the people in power today.”

He went on to say, “They trick you by making you feel afraid and saying that Rwanda has a Tutsi-only government and that they are simply murdering the Hutu people.”

Targeting the Tutsi of DR Congo is also a part of the FDLR’s strategy, he claimed.

According to them, they are identical to those from Rwanda.

Cyuzuzo claimed that as he grew older, this tale left him more and more perplexed. It persisted in bothering me. I secretly became perplexed because, while I was growing up in Masisi and saw Tutsi children, I had no issues with them or their parents; they had done nothing wrong to us. However, now your leader is telling you that those people are wicked and should not be allowed.

Inconsistencies, deception, and manipulation…

What I was taught and what I saw growing up were completely different, and I was unable to make sense of that contradiction.

As I got older, I realized that the falsehoods and deception were motivated by the concept of genocide.

He claimed it was the final reason Cyuzuzo decided to leave the militia last year.

We also had a conversation with 17-year-old Celestin Nahimana at Mutobo, who was enlisted in the FDLR against his will in 2021 when he was only 14. He belonged to CRAP, which Cyuzuzo estimated had about 3000 combatants, but some stated a considerably lower number.

“They took me and other kids from the road in Kalenga (in Masisi) and made us walk for three days with their supplies on our heads,” he remembered. A squad of roughly ten militiamen kidnapped the four youngsters.

“We were at the Kalenga village trading center, where I was selling phone credit. We later found out that they had other young people in their company who were in training.”

Suddenly, they made us carry their meal, which included cooking oil, rice, and maize flour.

When we eventually got there, they wouldn’t let us go. Assuring us that we would destroy M23 and then go on to Rwanda, they told we had to train with the others before joining the frontlines, the former child soldier stated.

According to Nahimana, the sixth kid in an eight-member household, he witnessed three of his fellow new recruits being slain with machetes for trying to escape during his first deployment in the vicinity of Nyamulagira mountain.

“Two more were able to escape, but they were discovered and killed in Mugunga (outside Goma).”

The FDLR’s general commander, Gen. Pacifique “Omega” Ntawunguka, had moved to this rocky refuge from his previous headquarters in Paris in Rutshuru area, and Nahimana and the other just enlisted warriors formed a CRAP unit at Nyamulagira to defend him.

Later, in response to M23 attacks from the north, Omega and his CRAP protection team moved to Mount Shove, which is about 30 km northeast of Goma and near Sake and Mubambiro.

The relocations of Gen Omega and the setback for Col. Ruhinda

The fact that FDLR kept combat forces in and around Sake and Mubambiro (Bambiro) helps to understand why Omega decided to relocate to Shove. We discovered that there are still FDLR pieces stuck in the rocky areas of Shove Mountain during our trip to Goma last week.

FDLR was strongly deployed along the axes that safeguarded the city in the months prior to the M23’s takeover of Goma on January 28. These axes were Goma-Kanyamahoro-Kibumba (northeast), Goma-Nyakagina-Rusayo (north), and Goma-Bambiro-Sake (northwest).

A new road was built to connect the isolated region to Kasengese (on Goma-Sake Road) when Omega moved to Shove. This was done to facilitate the easy movement of supplies and combat reinforcements.

In addition to the FDLR, FARDC, and Wazalendo militias, the Goma-Bambiro/Sake axis was densely populated by SADC forces, UN soldiers (MONUSCO), Burundian forces, and European mercenaries, among other coalition partners.

For over a year, these coalition forces fought against M23 units that defended a number of strategic high grounds above Sake and also cut off Sake-Minova Road (this reporter returned to Sake and Bambiro last week, and the fight for these areas will be covered in a future story).

But later on, Omega would move from Shove to Kumugogo, which is about 10km east of Kanyamahoro and behind Kanyagoma. After M23 killed Omega’s right-hand man and CRAP commander Col. Protogene Ruhinda Ruvugiyimikore in late 2023, FDLR experienced a significant setback.

According to former FDLR fighters and astute observers, Ruhinda’s passing dealt a severe blow to the FDLR and its effectiveness in Tshisekedi’s ambitious plan to fight M23 and invade Rwanda.

Nahimana, Major Ndayambaje, and Corporal Cyuzuzo all concur that FDLR continues to play a vital part in Kinshasa’s military effort. “The FDLR is fighting for Congo on the battlefield; they are the ones in the front. I was on the frontlines myself, and that’s what’s happening,” Nahimana stated.

Even if he held a lower rank than his FARDC counterpart, they stated that an FDLR commander would be in charge of the operation in the event of joint offensives.

According to the former FDLR fighters, the militia would occasionally temporarily promote their officials. Another former FDLR fighter, Eric Hategekimana, 29, stated that he had been drafted by the militia in 2012.

He claimed that after Tshisekedi welcomed the genocidal militia to join his war effort, a number of FDLR officers temporarily promoted from Lieutenant to Major.

A disillusioned national army

Due to these activities, many FARDC soldiers were disillusioned and reluctant to risk their lives, especially since European mercenaries were paid at least 60 times as much as a typical Congolese soldier and Burundian soldiers were paid far more.

Numerous Congolese commanders and generals have also been charged of deserting soldiers and military hardware in combat zones and losing territory after territory, with many of them later being jailed for alleged cowardice.

In the meantime, young FDLR militants don’t see the point in risking their lives to defend a foreign government, while a small group of ideologues who control the militia profit from it.

According to Ndayambaje, “Tshisekedi supplies FDLR with arms, medicine, and food, everything,” and the militia leaders were making money off of the continued battle.

The FDLR secretary-general, Brig Gen. Ezechiel Gakwerere, who was taken by the M23 and later turned over to Rwanda along with Ndayambaje and 13 other individuals earlier this month, was the contact between the FDLR and FARDC and the other coalition partners, he said.

According to the youngster, Nahimana, FDLR leaders had tricked a lot of young Rwandans, including himself, into thinking they had a legitimate cause to fight for.

“I had seen enough; so many (FDLR) fighters died in battle for no reason,” he continued. “What I witnessed inspired me to face my fears and leave.”

Last year, after intense fighting in Kanyamahoro, which is only 3 km from Rwanda, the former child soldier decided to flee to Mugunga, where his mother lived, with the intention of eventually returning to Rwanda.

He then traveled to a United Nations base in Goma, from where he was returned to Rwanda, reaching Mutobo on January 9.

“I will never forget what I witnessed in Kanyamahoro. There, many of my coworkers perished, regrettably without cause, as a result of the bosses’ deceit and manipulation of us.

The child was born in Nyagatare and arrived in Masisi with his parents, who he claimed owned agricultural land in Rwanda, when he was a small lad. He claimed that while his mother is probably still in Mugunga, his father passed away in Masisi from what was believed to be poisoning.

It makes me proud to see former coworkers wearing RDF uniforms.

He added that his choice to quit fighting and return to Rwanda was influenced greatly by one of his siblings who was in Rwanda. “He stayed in contact, which enabled me to learn the truth.”

He mentioned the fierce conflicts he fought throughout his time in FDLR, claiming that they had no justification “because the people they always told us were evil and killers are the same people that received me and are treating me well here.”

He continued, “My own brother is among the former coworkers who came before us and have received good treatment.”

Our interviewees also told us that they had seen and spoken to some of the former FDLR fighters who are now wearing RDF uniforms, demonstrating the large number of them who have subsequently been incorporated into the RDF.

Cyuzuzo grinned and said, “We see some of them proudly discharging their duty and patrolling outside of this compound.” He also said he was prepared to follow in their footsteps if given the chance. After everything we endured together, I am glad to watch them serve their nation.

Having moved to DR Congo with his family in 2005, Hategekimana, a former warrior who was born in Rutsiro, expressed his hope that his former colleagues who were “still trapped in FDLR ideology” would soon find the fortitude to leave the militia.

“How it all fell apart was unbelievable to everyone.”

“As Rwandans, we are one people, and this country is ours to build and protect,” the former militia fighter asserted, emphasizing that he had survived intense combat in areas like Kwamadimba and Kanyamahoro.
The former FDLR fighters told The New Times that an FDLR Major named Benjamin Ndimubutumwa had previously served as the commanding officer of the former FDLR base at Kanyamahoro, which is only 3 km from the Rwandan border. This was part of an 18-kilometer stretch of pro-Kinshasa coalition forces’ collocated encampments along the Goma-Kibumba axis.

However, he added, the commanders and their troops continued to switch places, with a new group taking over.

As previously reported by this newspaper, they also verified that the FDLR kept artillery-wielding supporting units in the elevated fields behind Kanyamahoro, Kilimanyoka, and the other locations where the other coalition soldiers were positioned on the Goma-Kibumba axis.

Among the hills in concern are Amabere y’Inkumi, Nyamushwi, Kanyabuki, and Kanyagoma. These hills also served as a barrier for Omega’s base at neighboring Kumugogo.

The New Times toured the military trenches of the coalition forces (FDLR, FARDC’s Hiboux special, SADC forces, and European mercenaries) on this axis and found that, similar to the artillery weapons left there, they all face eastward toward Rwanda, even as the M23 occupied positions to the north.

This, together with the finding of massive arsenals of superior weaponry and ammunition in Goma and data from a coalition troops’ joint command center at the Goma airport, have refuted claims that Tshisekedi’s public threats to invade Rwanda were empty rhetoric.

Ndayambaje stated, “Everything appeared to be in place for a decisive assault, so it was only a matter of time.” “No one could comprehend how everything fell apart.”