Photo credit Bojana Coulibaly, 2024.
By Bojana Coulibaly
The international community has played a crucial role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. It continues to play a significant role in genocide denial, the last stage of genocide, and in the targeted killings and persecution of members of the Tutsi minority in the Democratic Republic of Congo, namely of the Banyamulenge, the Congolese Tutsi, and the Hema. The responsibility, and at times, the complicity of the international community in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and beyond, is exemplified primarily through the actions of Belgium, France, the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire), the United States, the United Kingdom, and the United Nations.
The role of Belgium and its endorsement of the Hamitic ideology
Belgium’s involvement in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda begins with the racial division of African people by European explorers, anthropologists, and colonial administrators in the 19th century, with its implications in the 20th century. This racial division is the product of the so-called “Hamitic myth”, theorized in the mid-nineteenth century by the English explorer John Hanning Speke. It is based on the biblical story of Ham and Canaan and has divided Africans in the Great Lakes region into “real” Blacks, “indigenous”, or “Bantu”, a misnomer as all population groups in the Great Lakes are Bantuphone, and “false” Africans, or “Nilotic”, qualified as “foreigners”. The Hamitic ideology, which was central to the European administration of its African colonies, thus artificially identified the “Hutu” as “Bantu”, and the “Tutsi” as “Nilotic”. sustaining the scientific racism experiment which led to the 1904-1908 genocide against the Herero in Namibia, as well as the Holocaust, and thus constitutes genocide ideology.
The Hamitic ideology was used by the Belgians to control its colony of Rwanda by politically instrumentalizing the above-mentioned artificially constructed “ethnic” and “racial” categories, formalized by the creation of identity cards, which would freeze “Hutu” vs. “Tutsi” identities, and therefore, the fate of the Tutsi designated for extermination in 1994. Following the quest for independence initiated by the Tutsi intellectual elite and the resulting so-called “social revolution” of 1959 in Rwanda, whereby the Hutu were manipulated by the Belgians into believing that their sociopolitical revolution should not be directed against the Belgian colonizer, but rather against their fellow Tutsi compatriots, targeted killings and pogroms of Tutsi by Hutu extremists began. It led to the killings and exile of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi between 1959 and 1990, until the return of Rwandan refugees organized as RPF-Inkotanyi.
Belgium played an active role during the genocide. While ten Belgian UN peacekeepers were killed by Hutu extremists on the first day of genocide, April 7, along with the Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, Belgium pulled out of Rwanda thereafter, with its nationals, diplomats, and peacekeepers. Their departure represented the go-ahead for the perpetrators to begin the extermination of the Tutsi in Rwanda. Belgians thus abandoned Rwandans to their fate, after having planted the seed of ethnicism and genocide ideology, and after having benefited from it for over half a century.
Belgium continues to be one of the leading voices of genocide ideology in Europe. Since the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Belgium has hosted former Rwandan dignitaries who maintain links with the FDLR, the armed group created by the remnants of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, today sponsored and supported by the DRC government, as per the latest reports of UN Group of Experts, and per the explicit declarations of DRC’s executive leadership. FDLR operates in eastern DRC and commits violence against Congolese Tutsi, having openly stated their intent to attack Rwanda and overthrow its current government.
The FDLR, former genocidaires, their offspring, and supporters of anti-Tutsi genocide ideology, have established the Jambo ASBL network in Belgium with the objective to cover-up the responsibility of genocide fugitives. The Jambo ASBL network, with its own media and political structure, led by notorious genocide deniers, has received full support from Belgium. None of its members have ever faced justice for hate speech and incitement to violence against Tutsi communities in the Great Lakes, for genocide denial, for promoting genocide ideology, or for having direct links with the FDLR, a UN-sanctioned armed group, responsible for the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Belgium today is one of the principal hosts of FDLR leaders and notorious genocide deniers.
The complicity of France and its unrelenting instrumentalization of justice
As an international actor, France has certainly had the highest level of responsibility in the genocide, reaching complicity with the genocidal regime. As it has been extensively documented, France has armed, trained, and supported the Habyarimana and the interim genocidal regimes, from 1990 to 1994. France has also evacuated into Zaire, into other countries in Africa, and into Europe, the most prominent members of the Akazu, the circle of the main architects of the genocide, as well as 1.5 to 2 million genocide perpetrators and their families, thus assisting the genocidaires in evading justice and in reorganizing to carry out their extermination plan. For close to three decades following the genocide, and to cover up its involvement, France has instrumentalized justice, providing impunity to the most wanted genocide perpetrators, delaying and therefore denying justice to the families of the victims and survivors of the genocide.
Charles Lambroschini, in the introduction to an article by French journalist Patrick de Saint-Exupéry published in Le Figaro in 1998, which looks back at what French president François Mitterrand considered to be “a genocide of no importance”, introduces Saint-Exupéry’s investigation by asking: “Why did France’s “co-belligerence” against the Tutsi exiles in 1992, extended itself to unadmitted complicity in 1994, when despite the massacres, Paris continued to deliver weapons to the Hutu killers?” French president François Mitterrand in 1994 declared that “genocide in those countries isn’t very important”. Through this discursive exercise, and in another statement in which Mitterrand used the plural for “genocide” (‘les génocides’) in Rwanda, Mitterrand will become the mastermind of the double-genocide theory. He indeed argued in his public appearances that there were multiples genocides, one of “the Hutu against the Tutsi”, and one of “the Tutsi against the Hutu”. By stating that everybody was guilty, he blurred the line between perpetrator and victim, thus erasing the occurrence of genocide. This double-genocide theory, despite it having been debunked with substantial evidence provided by experts, lawyers, researchers, historians, journalists, human rights activists, is one of the most widespread and dubious genocide denial tools used today by genocide deniers.
France’s complicity is highly demonstrated in the Bisesero massacre which took place from June 27th to June 30th, 1994. The interim regime of Jean Kambanda, under the military leadership of Bagosora and the Akazu, was keen on finishing the extermination of the Tutsi who have been resisting in the hills of Bisesero for 3 months. France, while being informed that 2000 Tutsi were resisting extermination in Bisesero, and having a UN mandate, under Opération Turquoise to “stop the killings in Rwanda”, did not intervene, resulting in the killing of 1000 out of 2000 Tutsi. Out of 50,000 Tutsi in Bisesero before the beginning of genocide, only 500 survivors remain today. This event serves as a tragic realization of what a genocide entails, i.e., the annihilation of a people.
French attorney Karine Bourdié, who is a member of the legal prosecution team in a recent lawsuit, led by the French association Survie, and which aims to show France’s complicity in Bisesero, explains that in this context, “complicity” does not consist in accusing France of “embracing genocide ideology” or “handing over the weapon” used to kill the Tutsi in Bisesero. But it is the fact of being mandated by the UN with the permission to use force to “stop the killings” — an extraordinary privilege which until then was never given to General Roméo Dallaire during the three months of the genocide — therefore having the go-ahead, the equipment, and the ability to prevent the Bisesero massacre, but yet not intervening. The complicity of France relies on its deliberate decision not to intervene to stop the Bisesero massacre, despite having been informed of the intention of the killers. This complicity in Bisesero is well conveyed in Emmanuel Macron’s recent declaration during the 30th Commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi: “France could have stopped the genocide but didn’t have the will”. Despite clear evidence of France’s complicity in Bisesero, French magistrates dismissed the case on May 29th, 2024, showing France’s persistent instrumentalization of justice with regards to Rwanda.
France has indeed on several occasions instrumentalized justice to exonerate its complicity with the genocidal government. The best example is illustrated by the Bruguière investigation. The French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, began in March 1998, a judicial investigation on the attack on the plane and assassination of Habyarimana on April 6th, 1994. The investigation was joined by the Spanish judge Fernando Andreu Merelles. Both judges issued arrest warrants against the highest Rwanda’s civilian, political and military authorities, accusing them of crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and terrorism that would have been committed in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They demanded transfer of the suspects to France and Spain. This investigation was not coincidental as it began following Patrick de Saint Exupéry’s publication of a series of articles in Le Figaro on the troubling role of France in the Genocide against the Tutsi.
Several illegal steps and errors were made during the investigation by the two judges. These include the “violation of the secrecy of investigation and presumption of innocence”, “indictment based on non-credible witnesses”, “use of threats to extort evidence”, “violation of diplomatic immunity”, “negation of an internationally established and recognized genocide”, as well as fabrication and falsification of facts. The investigation also involved Paul Barril, a former French gendarme contracted by the Akazu as an advisor before and during the genocide, who also provided training to the Interahmwe. Barril, in addition to presenting false evidence including a fake “black box”, also selected, as the interpreter in the case, a Hutu power extremist, Fabien Singaye, who had put together lists of Tutsi to be eliminated during the genocide. The Bruguière investigation was also sponsored by Habyarimana’s widow, Agathe Habyarimana, a close friend of Paul Barril, and one of the most prominent members of the Akazu. The main objective of the Bruguière-Merelles investigation was to accuse the RPF of downing the plane and triggering the killings of Tutsi, making RPF responsible for the death of 1 million Rwandans in 1994, therefore denying genocide and helping the perpetrators evade justice.
In 2007, judge Marc Trevidic will take over the investigation in France, eventually dismissing the case due to its plethora of flaws. Trevidic’s examination of evidence in fact has pointed to the responsibility of the Hutu extremists and FAR in the assassination of the Rwandan president mainly by identifying the location where the missiles were fired from, i.e., from the Kanombe military barracks. Despite present evidence of the responsibility of the Akazu, the FAR, and the Interhamwe, France has not pursued the investigation and has instead provided immunity to Agathe Habyarimana, most likely responsible for the assassination of her husband, and who lives in France, after having been evacuated from Rwanda 30 years before, and provided protection and means of subsistence by French authorities, since then.
Many unanswered questions surrounding the downing of the plane remain, including an alleged complicity of France, according to eyewitness testimonies. All in all, several elements of the Trevidic investigation showed that the onset of the genocide on April 7 was announced days before on the hate media RTLM. This is added to all the elements being present for a genocide to be carried out, including roadblocks, readily available firearms, machetes having been shipped from China ahead of time, training of killers performed to execute as many Tutsi as possible in a short period of time, lists of Tutsi to be eliminated having been prepared. France continues to host, within its borders, and fail to prosecute, genocide deniers who continuously use this mirror accusation strategy to accuse the Tutsi of triggering their own extermination supposedly “to achieve power.”
What is more, France in 1994, under the umbrella of the Operation Turquoise, has helped the members of the Akazu flee into Zaire of Mobutu who provided safe haven to the genocidaires in the refugee camps in Goma. They carried, along with the 1.5 million perpetrators and their families, their heavy artillery, firearms, and the whole of Rwanda’s wealth and assets. France then continued to ship weapons to the ex-FAR and the Interahamwe militia under the leadership of the Akazu. Signed by the new army head Augustin Bizimungu himself, the minutes of a meeting of the High Command of Forces armées rwandaises in Goma from 2 to 8 September 1994, show the scheme of FAR and Interahamwe to reorganize, retrain ideologically and politically, and return to Rwanda to complete their extermination plan. Despite being aware about this plan, carried out ideologically, politically and militarily by the FDLR in the last thirty years, France had continued to arm the genocidal government in exile. Members of the Akazu, which France has evacuated to Zaire, have had direct links with the FDLR. For example, the genocide suspect, Callixte Mbarushimana, the son-in-law of Félicien Kabuga, the principal financier of hate media RTLM and Kangura, was the Executive Secretary of FDLR.
30 years later, France continues to shelter genocide suspects, including Agathe Habyarimana. This is added to the most prominent genocide deniers freely disseminating denialist theories in French media, including non-French genocide deniers being invited to promote genocide ideology, the most recent example of this anti-Rwanda hate campaign is illustrated by the Forbidden Stories “Rwanda Classified” “investigation”, by a consortium of 50 foreign journalists, and 17 news outlets including the French public media Le Monde and Radio France.
Zaire’s long-term support of the genocidal government and of its remnants in DRC today
Mobutu was a very close friend and ally to Habyarimana’s genocidal regime. He supported Habyarimana since his coup against Kayibanda in 1973, advising him and welcoming him to Zaire for two decades. In October 1990, Mobutu had sent his troops to support the FAR against the Rwandan Patriotic Army. Mobutu, while championing the Arusha Accords in 1992, served the interests of Habyarimana who was firmly reluctant to share power with the RPF or with any other political entity. Habyarimana’s regime was indeed a one-party rule and he had severely repressed any freedom of speech. In July 1994, after the RPF-Inkotanyi stopped the genocide, Zaire was the only country which opened its borders to the members of the Akazu and the 1.5 million perpetrators and their families, with their weapons. Zaire then supported France in further rearming the genocide perpetrators as well as in helping them reorganize to return to Rwanda and finish their extermination plan. Today, the DRC, former Zaire, hosts, fuds, and arms the FDLR, the political and military successor of the genocidal regime, an armed militia responsible for the violence in eastern DRC and for the targeting of the Congolese Tutsi and Banyamulenge communities.
The responsibility and denialist attitude of the United States
The United States refused to name what was happening in Rwanda “genocide”. Along with all its signatories, the United States was bound by the 1948 UN convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide to intervene and prevent genocide anywhere it may occur. The refusal to use the word “genocide” was a strategic decision made by the Clinton administration to not intervene in Rwanda. Because the United States has been at the forefront of intervention in various parts of the globe since WWIII, the rest of the world, particularly the UN Security Council and the General Assembly member states, would use the judgement of the United States to assess the necessity to intervene in a particular crisis. The United States was perceived as a model of “democratic values” and expertise in international security and information. Hence, every head of state in the world watching CNN broadcasting the language contortions of the U.S. State Department spokesperson Christine Shelley, calling “acts of genocide” the slaughter of 10,000 people per day for 100 days, had thought that there may not have been any “genocide” in Rwanda after all. This tacit influence on the rest of the world creates the conditions for the United States to be held accountable for its minimization of what was happening in Rwanda, which further emboldened the killers, precipitating the extermination of the Tutsi.
The United States continues to fail to name properly the 1994 genocide, despite a UN resolution voted by the General Assembly in 2018 designating April 7 as the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. U.S. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken has persistently used the phrase “Rwandan genocide” to insist, in his words, on the fact that the Hutu and the Twa have also perished during the genocide. This outlook further contributes to maintaining ambiguity regarding the group which was targeted during the genocide. What makes genocide a unique event is precisely the fact that a distinct group is being targeted for extermination by another group. The U.S.’ attitude with regards to the nomenclature of the genocide has emboldened genocide deniers who argue that between 1990 and 1994, there was “a civil war” where “all groups” had committed violence against each other, and therefore that all groups were in fact “guilty victims”. This discursive practice is analogous to Mitterrand’s double-genocide theory, which minimizes the genocide’s occurrence. It describes Rwanda as a place where “ethnic groups”, despite “ethnicity” in the region being a racist colonial invention, have naturally and since time immemorial been engaging in “inter-ethnic hate” and violence. This suggests that the current attitude of the U.S. towards Rwanda is denialist in nature.
The U.K.’s refusal to indict or extradite genocide suspects
Having been part of the international community which had failed to act to stop the genocide, particularly as a UN Security Council permanent member, aware that a genocide was taking place in 1994, the UK has also continued to promote impunity for the genocide fugitives in the last thirty years. Despite multiple requests made by Rwanda, the United Kingdom hasrefused to indict or extradite genocide suspects living on its territory. This is for instance the case of five key suspects, namely Vincent Bajinya, a medical doctor who headed the ONAPO (National Population Office) during the genocide and who coordinated the Interahamwe in Kigali, the former mayors Célestin Ugirashebuja, Charles Munyaneza, Emmanuel Nteziryayo, who ordered killings of thousands of Tutsi by Interahmwe in their respective municipalities, and the pastor Célestin Mutabaruka who led killing squads in Bisesero.
The UK has demonstrated explicit bias in its approach to justice with regards to Rwanda. While it shelters high profile suspects of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, it has on the other hand arrested, in June 2015, the former head of the NISS (National Intelligence and Security Services) Lt. Gen. Emmanuel Karenzi Karake following an extradition request by the Spanish judge Fernando Andreu Merelles, the joint investigator in the Bruguière case, which as indicated, is based on a plethora of legal errors and falsified facts. The UK court will eventually drop the extradition case against Lt. Gen. Karake in August 2015, nonetheless, the incident further illustrates the contempt of the UK for justice, particularly as it relates to Rwanda.
The inaction and responsibility of the United Nations in 1994 and beyond
In her book A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide published in 2000, Linda Melvern writes that “[what] happened in Rwanda shows that, despite the creation of an organization to prevent a repetition of genocide — for the UN is central to this task — it failed to do so, even in the face of indisputable evidence.” There are numerous accounts of how the United Nations, the UNSC, and its permanent and non-permanent members, as well as the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, were aware that a genocide was taking place. Despite the numerous reports of an ongoing genocide produced by UN personnel, human rights organizations and journalists, the UN minimized it, failed to intervene, withdrew its peacekeepers, while preventing Romeo Dallaire to use the necessary force to stop the genocide.
By minimizing what was happening in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994, the UN not only abandoned Rwandans to the killers, but created obstacles for the RPF-Inkotanyi to put an end to the genocide. After close to three months from the beginning of the genocide, which had already claimed the lives of about 1 million people, the UN mandated France in June 1994 with the Operation Turquoise, which officially was presented as a mission to “stop the killings in Rwanda” and provide humanitarian aid to the victims and internally displaced. France however continued to assist the genocidal government with weapons and logistical support, evacuating the genocidaires to Zaire, where they reorganized to relaunch attacks in Rwanda. The genocidaires, once in the camps of Goma took hostage of over one million refugees attacking them and using them as human shield while launching their attacks against the RPF.
While the RPF, including Kagame himself pleaded at the UN Security Council for the refugee camps in Zaire to be closed as they represented sanctuaries for the perpetrators of genocide who were taking hostage the civilian refugees, thus sowing insecurity in the camps and beyond, the United Nations failed to assist, refusing to disarm the militia by force, and thus turning a blind eye to the risk of continued genocide by the ex-FAR and the Interahmwe militia. Paul Kagame warned the UN Security Council at the time that if they didn’t close the camps, the RPF-Inkotanyii will be compelled to do so themselves. Following attacks by Abacengezi, name given to Hutu extremists infiltrating Rwanda from Zaire, the RPF-Inkotanyi decided to dismantle the camps to bring back to Rwanda both the refugees and the perpetrators.
Whereas an International Criminal Court for Rwanda was created in Arusha, Tanzania in November 1994 to prosecute genocide perpetrators, the process was innefective as only 75 perpetrators were prosecuted in 20 years. To deal with the immediate challenge of reconstruction and reconciliation, Rwanda created its own home-grown judiciary process called Gacaca which brought to justice over 1 million people. The witness testimonies and their cross-examinations helped uncover the truth about who the victims and who the perpetrators were, provided the location and time of the killings, the location of the remains of the victims, and above all, it enabled Rwanda to engage on a positive path to reconstruction through reconciliation and co-existence of both victims and perpetrators. The genocide perpetrators were reintegrated into Rwandan society after serving their sentences, many were simply pardoned as it was not sustainable to keep over a million people in prison. The international community again has failed to recognize how challenging this process was. It failed to provide support, and it is still failing to recognize the rebirth of Rwanda, its socio-economic development, the creation of a safe environment for the Rwandan people, as it continues to practice and be complacent with genocide denialism, which adds insult to the wounds of survivors and families of victims of the genocide.
The continuation of the international community’s responsibility resulting in targeted violence against the Congolese Tutsi, the Banyamulenge, and the Hema communities in DRC
The responsibility of the international community in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda has resulted in its failure to prevent crimes of genocide in the Congo today. This is despite its 25 year-long physical presence in DRC through the U.N. peacekeeping mission MONUSCO, preceded by MONUC. As it is well documented, the context of violence and insecurity in the Congo is directly linked to 1994. Indeed, the genocidaires that were provided sanctuary in Zaire by France and the U.N. in 1994, have expanded their power and influence, now controlling politically and economically the entire eastern DRC. They have reorganized in the last three decades into a politico-military group called FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), but they comprise other armed entities such as the Congolese locally created Nyatura militia. They have integrated a coalition led by the Congolese national army, FARDC, and U.N. sanctioned militias today called Wazalendo. This coalition also comprises the Burundian national army, the armed force of SAMIDRC (the SADC regional mission in DRC), as well as about 1000 European mercenaries. They are waging war against the Congolese Tutsi minority in North Kivu whose security is protected by the M23 politico-military movement.
FDLR has had full political control over eastern DRC for three decades. The genocide ideology its founders carried into Zaire, now DRC, has connected with half-a-century-long populist and xenophobic sentiment against the Tutsi minority. This specific ideology had led to the pogroms in Rwanda in the 1950’s, 1960s’, 1970’s, and then to the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. The former Hutu Power genocide ideology has contaminated the Congolese society, resulting in a political use of ethnicism, anti-Tutsi prejudice and exclusion, with the Congolese president Félix Tshisekedi and his government openly expressing Tutsiphobia, their support for genocide ideology, and for the armed groups whose main objective is the elimination of Congolese Tutsi, Banyamulenge, and Hema from eastern DRC. The endorsement of genocide ideology by the Congolese authorities has resulted in the conflict we are witnessing in Congo today, with 7 million internally displaced Congolese, over 1 million Congolese Tutsi and Banyamulenge refugees in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and around the world, the massacres of several thousands of Hema in Ituri, the lynch mobs and acts of cannibalism against those perceived or assimilated to Tutsi, the more than five hundred Congolese Tutsi, Banyamulenge and Hema locked in prison after being arbitrarily arrested, the systemic sexual violence against women and girls, the hundreds of thousands of livestock of Congolese Tutsi and Banymulenge being killed and looted. This systemic violence has pushed the targeted communities to be left at the mercy of a xenophobic and failed DRC state, with the only options to either let themselves die, go into exile, or stand their ground by defending themselves.
The persecution and targeted killings of members of these communities, as signaled by the U.N. Special Adviser on the prevention of genocide, are taking place in broad daylight while the U.N. through MONUSCO is stationed there, in full knowledge of its past failure in Rwanda, and while the international media, experts, and human rights activists are distorting facts, failing to denounce the root causes of the crisis, keeping silent about the targeted violence. By being simple bystanders, the international community has emboldened not only the killers, that is, the over 200 armed militias operating freely in DRC, but also the government of DRC which directly collaborates with these criminal forces and in full impunity, trivializing the death of the members of the Tutsi minority, whose annihilation, despite being slow, is becoming definite.
A case in point of the international community’s default of accountability and explicit responsibility in the exacerbation of the conflict in Eastern DRC, impacting the entire region, is demonstrated in the treatment of the FDLR issue by international actors and the United Nations, tasked to disarm and neutralize the group, following several resolutions. This is most reflected in the international community’s unwillingness to cooperate in dismantling the FDLR global support network outlined in the UN Group of Experts (GoE) reports, and in particular, in the GoE reports published since 2009. The 2009 midterm Group of Experts report identifies the FDLR global support network in various countries and within the Catholic church. In this report, the Group analyzed frequent satellite telephone communications between FDLR military high commanders and contacts in 25 different countries in Europe, North America and Africa. A high degree of communications frequency was reported between FDLR and contacts in Germany, Belgium, France, Norway, the Netherlands, the United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda, Congo (Brazzaville) and Rwanda. Financial support was also provided by contacts in those countries to FDLR officers.
France for example counted a high degree of communications frequency with FDLR members in 2008 and 2009 and despite the Group’s multiple requests to French authorities to identify these members, France has not cooperated in providing any information. Some high-level FDLR members were identified by the Group as residing in France, and the Group has concluded that “France is being used as a base for the activities of FDLR leaders and supporters in the diaspora.” The FDLR network was also identified in Belgium and the Netherlands, countries where the Rwandan diaspora is the largest. The report further provides information about FDLR’s Hutu militia leaders’ collaboration with FARDC, later integrated into FARDC, and their support networks in Europe and North America.
As shown in that report, despite the FDLR global support network being identified by the Group, all the host countries refused to cooperate by providing information to the Group. This illustrates the unwillingness of the international community to learn from its past failures and avoid further contributing to the problem. What is noticeable is not only the progressive omission of this FDLR global support network in the subsequent GoE reports, but the overall laundering of the FDLR as the principal driver of violence and instability in DRC and the region. The idea that a genocide ideology in DRC is operating freely through the FDLR network, perpetrating crimes of genocide against the targeted Tutsi community, has become accepted and normalized, and the blame has shifted from the perpetrator, driven by Hutu extremist genocide ideology, to Rwanda’s leadership which has fought the same genocide ideology since 1990, and has been at the onset of the struggle which liberated the victims of the genocide in 1994.
What is more, the UN Group of Experts established the link between Victoire Ingabire, the president of FDU until 2019, and still an active political member of the neo-genocidaire global network, at the time based in the Netherlands, and the FDLR. Yet, the Group at the same time describes Ingabire as a “Rwandan opposition politician”. Despite this highly problematic connection with the genocidal network, Victoire Ingabire has received support until this day from human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, that present her as a political opponent and advocate for democracy.
When looking at the UN system itself, Western countries seem to use it to their advantage while covering up their responsibility in the DRC crisis. Indeed since 2004, most of the members of the GoE originate from countries with a historical role in the DRC; 9 from Belgium, 8 from France, 7 from the U.K., and 7 from the U.S. This puts in question the objectivity of the UN, the lack of transparency in their selection, and seems to suggest their willingness to blur the root causes of conflict in DRC, including the effects of colonialization, of the Hamitic ideology imported from the West, as well as the impact of Western interference in advancing their interests.
The reversal of responsibility from the perpetrator to the victim has reached its full realization in the approach of the international community to the conflict in DRC. The GoE reports that followed 2009, through the above-identified methodological shortcomings, started blaming the Tutsi communities in DRC, abandoned to the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda by the same international community. To survive, the Congolese Tutsi minority ultimately has no other option than to take up arms to defend themselves. All the recent GoE reports, while continuing to identify FDLR, and the support it receives from the DRC authorities, as the main driver of violence and instability in eastern DRC, have eventually begun to blame the Tutsi minority, which has thus resorted to organizing itself in the shape of the M23 self-defense movement. The UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO has explicitly expressed its support for the DRC government coalition which has integrated FDLR, and which commits atrocities against the Tutsi minority.
Through the UN’s indirect but conscious collaboration with FDLR, the Luanda and Nairobi peace and mediation mechanisms that have been put in place with the support of the UN and the international community to address the crisis, have been abandoned in both theory and practice by the same international community. This has left the Congolese Tutsi minority to its own fate and has exacerbated insecurity in the region, further creating a serious national security issue for the people of Rwanda. This is not only because of the tolerated presence of FDLR at the border with Rwanda, but also because the DRC has threatened to overthrow the Rwandan government with the assistance of FDLR, while repeatedly violating the Rwandan air space in the last two years. Today’s international community’s accusations of violation of DRC’s territorial integrity by Rwanda is a blatant diversion from its laundering of FDLR and its fully established genocide ideology. This approach by the international community is in full contradiction with its apparent promotion of a peace and stability building and mediation process in the region, and it further demonstrates the full responsibility of the international community in the violence taking place in the Great Lakes region.