In a previous article, we explored why there had never been a Tutsi rebel movement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) before 1995. Today, we examine the deep-rooted history of discrimination against the Tutsi community in Eastern DR Congo and how this systemic exclusion has denied them citizenship for decades.

From 1885 up to 1908, all the Congolese from the north to the south, east to the west, as well as the country were the properties of King Leopold II under the Congo Free State. From 1908 to 1960, when the Congo Free State became Belgian Congo, it issued identity cards for its overseas citizens of the Belgian Congo.

Among the people who were issued the Belgian Congo identity cards were the Kinyarwanda speaking communities.

The Kinyarwanda speaking communities that were on the Belgian Congo soil when the Kingdom of Belgium was issuing identity cards to its overseas citizens were of two categories.

The first category was that of Congolese native citizens who spoke Kinyarwanda and who lived in what we know today as the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Maniema.

The second group consists of the Tutsi and the Hutu who were taken from Rwanda by the Belgian colonists and settled them in Masisi and other parts of Belgian Congo from 1937 to 1945 to become workers in the fields, mines and plantations of coffee and tea of the Belgians.

At that time, every individual on the soil of the Belgian Congo was a citizen of the country and had an identity card given by the authority of Belgian Congo.

The 1958 election triggered hatred against the Congolese Tutsi

Although it is widely believed that the Kinyarwanda speaking community are a small minority in the Eastern DR Congo, it was not the case in the 60’s, and possibly today. The Kinyarwanda speaking community was the majority.

In 1958, the Kingdom of Belgian allowed its colony of the Belgian Congo to conduct local elections. As in all parts of the Belgian Congo, the population of the North Kivu organised elections that the Kinyarwanda speaking community won at 80%.

Kinyarwanda speaking people like Cyprien Rwakabuba and Nepomuscene Rwiyereka won ministerial seats at the provincial level. And Herman Habarugira won the seat of the Commissioner of the City of Goma.

The elite from the Banande, the Bahunde and the Banyanga who were not happy to see the Kinyarwanda speaking community take influential posts,started the crisis to deny the Kinyarwanda speaking community citizenship.

The crisis turned worst in 1963, when they launched what will be known as ‘the Kanyarwanda war.’ These elites accused the Banyarwanda, especially the Tutsi, of collaborating with Pierre Mulele with his Kwilu rebellion. Note here that this rebellion was happening in Kwilu, Bas Congo, 1238 km far from Goma.

But, the Banande, Bahunde and the Banyanga were able to connect it to the Kinyarwanda speaking community of Tutsi, arguing that the Kinyarwanda speaking community of the Hutu were their allies.

In his article "Discussing the causes and context of wars and conflict involving the Banyarwanda from the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,” Privat Rutazibwa wrote that " the ideology of hatred that has been sown in Rwanda by the Belgian colonial administration and the influential White Fathers missionaries, causing the massacres and the flight of the Tutsi had already spread all over the Congo.”

Privat Rutazibwa recalls a UNHCR official in DR Congo at that time called Francois Preziosi who wrote that "I found that the authorities in North Kivu are using the term Tutsi as a propaganda stunt. Everything evil in their areas is caused by Tutsi.

This word seems to be the depository of a blend of subjective fear, hate and frustration very much like the term ‘jew’ in Hitler’s Germany.

Therefore, anyone looking like a Tutsi is liable to be beaten, killed or imprisoned, likewise, anyone who helps them.” It is sad that after he wrote this, Francois Preziosi was killed on August 17, 1964, while travelling to Kalehe to visit a camp of Tutsi refugees.

After the dehumanization of the Tutsi, the leadership of North Kivu managed to convince the authorities in Kinshasa to deny Congolese citizenship to the Tutsi.

In 1964, a decree signed by Joseph Kasavubu, President of the Republic, Prime Minister Moise Tsombe and the Minister of Homeland Affairs Godfoid Munongo ordered the expulsion of Kinyarwanda speaking Tutsi. Some of them were airlifted by the UNHCR from the DR Congo to Tanzania, at Mwese refugee camp, in Mpanga District.

But in 1972, the Banyarwanda people were granted citizenship by the Mobutu government. The citizenship decree granted citizenship not only to the native Congolese Kinyarwanda speakers, but also to the refugees from Rwanda, who arrived in 1959, fleeing the first genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

The situation of the Batutsi continued to be problematic until 1981, when the MAGRIVI (mutuelle des Agriculteurs des Virunga), an organization of Congolese Hutu that was set up to harass the Tutsi in the DR Congo with the support of President Juvenal Habyarimana circulated an unsigned document at the University of Kinshasa calling for the killing of students and Tutsi families living nearby, accusing them of 'demanding the independence of some parts of the Congo, namely the Masisi, Rutshuru, Idjwi, Kalehe zones, and a part of the Uvira, Fizi and Mwenga zones'.

This complaint, accusing the Tutsi of some sort of the balkanization of the country, made Mobutu and his party the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution (MPR) unhappy, and in its National Assembly, the MPR approved a legislation withdrawing citizenship from the Kinyarwanda speaking Tutsi, a legislation that never became law.

However, the 1981 Citizenship Law stipulated that only those with an ancestral connection to the region dating to 1885 would be allowed citizenship.

In July 1993, Mobutu traveled to Goma, where he promised to Kinyarwanda speaking people citizenship and voting rights, a promise that didn’t help, because, after his death, those who committed the genocide in Rwanda and who got his suppport helped the Nande, Hunde, Nyanga and Hutu to continue the plight of the Tutsi until today, with the war between the M23/AFC and the DR Congo army.

How will this war to recognize citizenship to the Congolese Tutsi end? Hon Fred Mukasa Mbidde, a Ugandan lawyer and former speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly said recently that peace in the Eastern DR Congo is not the absence of war.

Hon Mukasa said that peace in the Eastern DR Congo will be possible only if the security of the Kinyarwanda speaking people, especially the Tutsi is ensured.