By referring to the FDLR terrorist group as "a movement," the Congolese minister of communication, Patrick Muyaya, officially declared the militia free from guilt, responsibility and punishment, for their role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and other atrocities they are committing in eastern DR Congo, observers say.
In an interview with Al Jazeera’s UpFront programme, aired on YouTube on February 17, Muyaya described the DR Congo-based FDLR as a "movement,” even as he acknowledged that the militia killed Congolese citizens and was also responsible for the murder of an Italian ambassador in February 2021.
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Rwanda has for long denounced the collaboration of the Congolese army (FARDC) with FDLR, particularly in launching rocket shells on Rwandan territory in 2022.
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Al Jazeera’s Marc Lamont Hill pressed Muyaya on the Congolese army’s collaboration with multiple armed groups, including the Rwandan genocidal militia group, in fighting M23 rebels in eastern DR Congo.
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During the interview, Hill told Muyaya that: "One FDLR fighter, for example, told Human Rights Watch in October of 2022 that he himself witnessed four transfers of ammunition and he says that it's the government ‘that would always provide us with ammunition.’
"There are credible reports that document the supply of arms, ammunition, food – all to these groups. Why is your government backing these militias,” Hill asked.
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Instead of answering Hill’s questions, Muyaya dodged and blamed Rwanda for HRW’s reports, alleging that "it is the specialty of the Rwandan government; spreading bad news and fake news.”
In a tweet, the Rwandan government spokesperson, Yolande Makolo, said Muyaya made "interesting revelations.”
Makolo highlighted Muyaya’s acknowledgement of the fact that the genocidal militia killed the Italian ambassador to DR Congo and that it is a security problem yet he calls it "a movement,” and not an armed group, or a terrorist group.
In September 2022, Congolese president Félix Tshisekedi told the UN General Assembly that FDLR does not exist and that it is a "pretext” for what he alleged was neighboring Rwanda’s aggression.
Makolo noted that Muyaya actually knows who the genocidal militias are and what they do, but calls them a movement.
"What is what?” she posed.
The FDLR, a UN sanctioned genocidal force based in eastern DR Congo for close to three decades, has launched attacks on Rwanda throughout the years, including in 2019 when fighters of its RUD Urunana faction killed 14 civilians in Musanze District in Northern Province.
According to Lonzen Rugira, a researcher, Muyaya’s description of the genocidal militia as a movement meant that it has a legitimate and acceptable cause it is fighting for.
"This comes after Tshisekedi said that Rwandans (clearly FDLR since they think it’s a movement) need to be assisted to cause regime change in Rwanda,” Rugira tweeted.
"The sanitizing of FDLR from a criminal outfit to a ‘movement’ is a testament,” Rugira noted, to DR Congo’s policy of using the terrorist group "as the vehicle for executing Tshisekedi’s regime change in Rwanda.”
It all means, Rugira added, that FDLR has all resources – military or diplomatic – of the Congolese state "at its disposal in pursuit of this goal.”
According to MP Theoneste Safari, Muyaya’s comments could also reveal that the genocidal militia have become Kinshasa’s "business friends.”
A 2022 report by Pole Institute, a non-governmental organization operating in DR Congo, indicates that the FDLR militia makes enormous amounts of money in different illegal trade activities in eastern DR Congo. It shows that the economic empire of the FDLR is based on three pillars – illegal exploitation of the country’s timber, poaching, and collection of royalties for agriculture as well as transport exploitation.
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In 2008, a report by the watchdog group, Global Witness, revealed how the FDLR and the Congolese army, were in a relationship of "tacit support or even, in some cases, connivance or complicity,” in illegal mining, contrary to the peace seeking initiatives at the time.
Contrary to what was expected of the Congolese army – flushing out the FDLR rebels and other armed groups – the report said members of the army and the militia group were actually cooperating in mining operations in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.
Jeanine Munyeshuli, another Rwandan, said: "Sanitizing the FDLR, from state sponsored genocide militia to ‘movement’ is – first and foremost – self-absolution. Muyaya knows exactly what he is doing. The crime of genocide is imprescriptible.”
For Ladislas Ngendahimana, the Secretary General of Rwanda Association of Local Government Authorities (RALGA), when the DR Congo government spokesperson defends the genocidal militia group as a movement and not an armed group, this "speaks volumes.”
The unrelenting collaboration between the Congolese army and the more than 130 armed groups, especially FDLR, operating in the volatile east of the country is at the heart of the ever worsening insecurity in the region.
Located in a natural resource-rich area, the FDLR has been identified as the largest illegal foreign armed group operating in eastern DR Congo.
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The militia group which, as reported, controls 95% of the charcoal trade in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, and generates more than $45 million annually amasses wealth by illegally exploiting and transporting resources such as gold, timber, poaching and taxing the local population in areas it controls.