Banyamulenge denounces fugitive Kayumba Nyamwasa’s statements from South Africa

The Banyamulenge community is upset because South African television station Newzroom Afrika gave RNC founder Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa a platform when he asserted that the Congolese community was no longer persecuted after the late 1990s.

Representatives of the Banyamulenge community wrote to Newzroom Afrika on February 5th, stating that Kayumba, a Rwandan fugitive who is currently in South Africa, “denied the genocide committed against the Banyamulenge,” a Tutsi community in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s South Kivu province, by asserting that their “issue ended in 1998.”

“Those here in South Africa who are talking about Banyamulenge are mistaken, it’s a lie,” he continued.

Community representatives from Canada, Belgium, South Africa, the United States, Burundi, the United Kingdom, Kenya, France, Denmark, Norway, Uganda, Finland, Sweden, and Europe signed the letter.

They further accused Kayumba of being responsible for the instability of the Banyamulenge homeland in South Kivu through the actions of his militia, the RNC, which was a member of the P5 alliance.

The interview, according to the Banyamulenge representatives, caused them great concern and distress, not only because Kayumba’s assertions were untrue but also because they supported ongoing efforts to deny the genocide against the Banyamulenge and Congolese Tutsi in general.

In the letter, the representatives stated, “We think Kayumba’s comments are just another attempt to minimize the seriousness of the atrocities committed against our people. These campaigns have taken many forms.”

We are writing to vehemently denounce these damaging, slanted, and untrue claims regarding the Banyamulenge people’s continued suffering. Although Kayumba admits that our people have historically been persecuted, it tries to assert that this stopped after 1998, the statement continued.

In spite of their centuries-long presence on the land of what is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Banyamulenge have been falsely labeled as “foreigners (from Rwanda)” for decades, the community added. This has been “a damaging narrative” that Congolese politicians have frequently used to rally support, especially during election campaigns, using xenophobic rhetoric.

A few pivotal moments in history were also mentioned in the letter, including the second Congo war in 1998, when former President Laurent Désiré Kabila demanded the eradication of all Congolese Tutsis and his foreign minister, Abdoulaye Yerodia Ndombasi, called them “vermin” that needed to be eliminated.

The letter claimed that terrible atrocities on our people nationwide followed such calls to violence. More than 20,000 Banyamulenge were driven out of Katanga in 1998 alone, and many of them perished in the process. However, individuals who committed these crimes were never brought to justice, and some of them are still employed by the government.

Since then, the Banyamulenge, Congolese Tutsi in North Kivu, and even members of the Hema group who have physical characteristics with Tutsis have been persecuted. According to the letter, “a campaign of violence against Congolese Tutsi and those assimilated to them (Banyamulenge and Hema) has continued to this day since the assassination of President Kabila in 2001.”

It remembered that 166 Banyamulenge refugees were killed in Burundi’s Gatumba refugee camp in 2004, making matters worse, and that many more crimes took place in the years that followed. The delegates said that these attacks went on unchecked in spite of the UN forces’ presence.

The violence against Banyamulenge in South Kivu’s highlands has escalated since 2017. Thousands of people have been forced to live in substandard conditions in improvised camps after entire villages were destroyed. Rwandan genocidal troops [FDLR] operating in South Kivu and North Kivu, as well as hostile local armed groups, including as Mai Mai from the Fuliiro, Babembe, and Banyindu communities,” it stated.

The letter went on to say that numerous political personalities have been encouraging violence against the community on social media, and hate speech against Banyamulenge has also spread widely.

The community further refuted Kayumba’s assertion that Banyamulenge people are in prominent places in the DR Congo administration, stating that this is untrue because the persons he identified have also been slain, displaced, or lost their houses.

In 2011, a Rwandan military court condemned Kayumba Nyamwasa in absentia to 24 years in jail for terrorism-related activities, including planning grenade attacks in Kigali in 2010.

He also enlisted combatants from the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo to invade Rwanda.