The world's super powers refuse to listen when Kigali talks about the direct threat FDLR poses to Rwanda's security arguing that the genocidal militia’s combatants are just a bunch of old and weak people, and that Rwanda is using them as a pretext to invade Congo for minerals, foreign minister Amb Olivier Nduhungirehe reiterated on Saturday, March 1. ALSO READ: DR Congo must cut ties with FDLR, abandon plan to attack Rwanda – RPF leader This was a few moments after FDLR’s Brig Gen Ezechiel Gakwerere was repatriated from eastern DR Congo alongside 14 others captured by AFC/M23 rebels in the ongoing war with the Congolese government coalition which includes Burundian forces, troops from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and local militias known as Wazalendo. Gakwerere is believed to have taken part in the murder of Rwanda’s last queen, Rosalie Gicanda, during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. We told western countries many times that, for the past 30 years, the FDLR genocidal force has been a permanent threat to Rwanda, especially as they are now supported by the Congolese government and embedded in the FARDC. Unfortunately, these world's powers refused to listen to... https://t.co/CyFzoZhoWf pic.twitter.com/ZBnph2JO1B — Olivier J.P. Nduhungirehe (@onduhungirehe) March 1, 2025 Soon after Gakwerere, 61, and some other genocidal militia fighters were handed over to Rwandan authorities by AFC/M23 rebels at La Corniche One Stop Border Post, in Rubavu District, the minister tweeted : ‘‘We told western countries many times that, for the past 30 years, the FDLR genocidal force has been a permanent threat to Rwanda, especially as they are now supported by the Congolese government and embedded in the FARDC. ALSO READ: Inside FDLR’s frontline base 3km from Rwanda border “Unfortunately, these world's powers refused to listen to us, arguing that the FDLR combatants are just a bunch of old and weak people, and that Rwanda is using them as a pretext to invade Congo for minerals. Yet, the FDLR, a movement that has continuously recruiting on its genocide ideology, was even supported by MONUSCO, a 26-year-old UN peacekeeping mission that was supposed to neutralize them, as per several UN Security Council resolutions.” “And today, a group of FDLR combatants captured on the battlefield (including Brig Gen Ezechiel Gakwerere, one of the murderers of Queen Rosalie Gicanda - here in a FARDC uniform -), were handed over to Rwanda by the AFC/M23, a rebel movement that is doing the very job that the self-righteous international community should have done over the past 30 years. But guess who they now call the ‘villain’...” FDLR is a DR Congo-based terrorist group formed by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Integrated into the Congolese army coalition which is battling the AFC/M23 rebel movement, the genocidal militia joined forces with Kinshasa’s allies, with a plan to attack Rwanda. Genocide ideology threat The genocidal militia’s genocidal ideology is the biggest threat to Rwanda, and the region. ALSO READ: Envoy reiterates Security Council’s need to take Rwanda’s concerns seriously On February 21, Amb. Ernest Rwamucyo, Rwanda's Permanent Representative to the UN, once again, stressed the need for the United Nations Security Council to focus on the root causes of eastern DR Congo’s endless predicament as well as taking Rwanda’s security concerns seriously so as to find a sustainable solution to the conflict. Rwamucyo said: “We believe that any outcome that doesn’t take Rwanda’s security concerns seriously will not offer a sustainable solution to the conflict. The security challenges posed by FDLR and its splinter groups are of very serious concern for Rwanda.” ALSO READ: M23 are no terrorists, the Congolese army is – say Bukavu residents The envoy reiterated Kigali’s stance that the Congolese government must be held accountable for “its continued preservation of FDLR,” embedding it in its army, equipping it with sophisticated weapons and using it as an ally and fighting force. ALSO READ: Why genocide ideology doesn’t dissolve three decades after dispersion of genocidaires When the Rwanda Patriotic Army defeated the genocidal regime and stopped the Genocide against the Tutsi, in July 1994, the ousted regime’s army (ex-FAR), politicians, and Interahamwe militia that had committed Genocide – runaway, en masse, with their weapons, to eastern DR Congo, then known as Zaire. The remnants of the ousted genocidal regime’s army and militia later banded together into what they called the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR). In 2000, soon after the US government listed it as a terrorist organization following its murder of American tourists in Uganda’s Bwindi Forest, they formed FDLR to evade or distance themselves from their horrendous crimes. On May 1, 2000, its initiators gathered in a large hall in Lubumbashi, DR Congo’s second-largest city in the southeasternmost part, along the border with Zambia, and formed the militia. The genocidal militia’s plan is to return to Rwanda, forcefully, and continue its genocidal agenda. Nduhungirehe on February 26, called on the UN Human Rights Council not to remain silent in the face of hate speech and targeted killings of Tutsi communities in DR Congo, whose government is implicated in the atrocities. Speaking during the 58th Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, he said in recent days Congolese government forces carried out attacks on Banyamulenge communities in South Kivu province. ALSO READ: Drones, MONUSCO intelligence used in Minembwe, Uvira civilian massacres, warns M23 He said hate speech and targeted violence against Congolese Tutsi communities “have become distressingly commonplace.” In eastern DR Congo, he said “hate speech, persecution, lynching, and even acts of cannibalism against Congolese Tutsi have become distressingly commonplace.” ALSO READ: Rwandans ‘express deep concern’ over UK's stance on DR Congo crisis He pinned the Congolese government on such crimes against humanity, giving examples of South Kivu province, where the Tutsi communities of Banyamulenge are bombed in Minembwe by government forces and are subject to persecutions in different cities like Uvira. “In Bujumbura, Burundi, they are even rounded up like in the old days and taken to unknown destination. In Kinshasa, Congolese Tutsi and even Swahili speakers are persecuted and lynched in broad daylight, while in Ituri, up north far away from Rwanda’s border, the Hema ethnic group is being slaughtered by the CODECO militia allied to the [Congolese] government and the Islamic state-backed ADF, in total impunity,” he said.
