The FDLR, a militia linked to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, is embedded in the Congolese army (FARDC), especially the Presidential Guard, and is continuously being rearmed, according to AFC/M23 rebels’ military commander Gen Sultani Makenga. ALSO READ: South African lawmakers welcome SADC decision to withdraw troops from DR Congo The FDLR are everywhere in the FARDC, including in the presidential guard, Makenga, whose fighters now control Goma and Bukavu cities, told former Belgian senator Alain Destexhe, in a March 12 interview published Friday, on X. They have been re-equipped and re-armed. They can't win the war against us, but they can still attack civilians in our area, which is very large and where the villages are far apart. Three days ago, they killed 40 people in the village of Kirumbu. The FDLR, along with the FARDC, are also destroying the Virunga National Park.” ALSO READ: Inside FDLR’s frontline base 3km from Rwanda border The Congolese army has been battling AFC/M23 rebels with the help of allies including hundreds of European mercenaries, a Rwandan genocidal militia group known as FDLR, a group of Congolese militias known as Wazalendo, over 10,000 Burundian troops, South African-led SADC forces, as well as UN peacekeepers. One of the most dangerous elements in the Congolese coalition, FDLR, is a DR Congo-based terrorist militia founded by remnants of the masterminds of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. ALSO READ: Makenga: It’s unacceptable that European mercenaries came to kill Congolese people The latest fighting between the Congolese government army coalition and M23 rebels started in 2021. M23 is now part of a larger rebel coalition, Alliance fleuve Congo (AFC), created in December 2023. AFC is fighting for governance that supports basic human rights, secures all Congolese citizens, and addresses the root causes of conflict. Its leaders have vowed to uproot tribalism, nepotism, corruption, and genocide ideology, among other vices, widespread in DR Congo. ALSO READ: M23 are no terrorists, the Congolese army is – say Bukavu residents In January, the rebels quickly advanced across North and South Kivu provinces, liberating swathes of territory. Following heavy fighting triggered by constant violations by the Congolese army coalition, of an earlier set ceasefire, on January 27, the rebels captured Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province, and restore order there. As the security situation in South Kivu deteriorated amid reports of violence, looting, and abuses propagated by the Congolese army coalition, the rebels again reacted, first capturing the strategic airport of Kavumu, before moving south to capture the regional capital, Bukavu, on February 15. Kigali expressed concerns that the Congolese army coalition was planning to attack Rwanda. While Kinshasa has downplayed the influence of FDLR, Makenga insists that the genocidal militia is not only active but has been integrated into the Congolese military where it continues to operate with full support. ALSO READ: M23’s Makenga welcomes Angola-mediated negotiations with Kinshasa The AFC/M23 rebellion continues to denounce Kinshasa’s killing of unarmed Kinyarwanda-speaking communities like the Banyamulenge in Minembwe, Uvira, and surrounding areas in South Kivu Province. Lately, villages inhabited by Banyamulenge civilians have been targeted and destroyed by the drones, Sukhoi fighter jets, and mortars of the Congolese army coalition in South Kivu Province, according to rebels. ‘When they kill our people, no one is upset’ Commenting on international sanctions imposed on Rwanda, and M23, Makenga denounced them as unjust. “It is unfair. The truth will eventually emerge. When they kill our own people, no one is upset, and there are no sanctions. When we react, we are punished,” he said. ALSO READ: Genocide ideology trends linked to DR Congo-based FDLR Makenga reiterated that M23’s fight is an existential struggle, not merely a political rebellion. “We are fighting for our survival. We are united as AFC/M23, and we seek a decentralized and federal Congo that urgently addresses development and governance issues,” he said. ALSO READ: DR Congo must cut ties with FDLR, abandon plan to attack Rwanda – RPF leader Kinshasa’s ‘scapegoat’ tactic Makenga accused the Congolese government of using Rwanda as a scapegoat for its internal failures, particularly in governance and conflict resolution. He dismissed claims that M23 is a proxy for Rwanda, asserting that Kigali has always been against the FDLR, given its direct threat to Rwandan security. “With Rwanda, the Kinshasa regime is looking for a scapegoat for the problems it created and failed to resolve,” Makenga said. “Rwandans understand us, and they try to explain our situation to the world... We still have around 100,000 refugees in camps in Rwanda who want to return home,” he added. ALSO READ: SADC summit terminates mandate of military mission in DR Congo A SADC summit on March 13 terminated the mandate of SADC’s military mission in eastern DR Congo and “directed the commencement of a phased withdrawal” of its troops from the country. This was a day after it was announced that direct peace talks between AFC/M23 rebels and the Congolese government are set to start in Luanda, Angola, on March 18. Nearly 300 European mercenaries surrendered in January after the fall of Goma and were repatriated to their countries, through Rwanda. The world's superpowers 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 March 1. That 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. Gakwerere is believed to have taken part in the murder of Rwanda’s last queen, Rosalie Gicanda, during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. ALSO READ: Why genocide ideology doesn’t dissolve three decades after dispersion of genocidaires The conflict in eastern DR Congo was not started by Rwanda, “and we will not accept to bear the burden of” the DR Congo’s governance and security failures, Nduhungirehe pointed out, on March 10, when meeting Kaja Kallas, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, in Brussels. ALSO READ: Amb Nduhungirehe: World powers refused to listen to Rwanda on genocidal militia threat Nduhungirehe stressed that the unhelpful misreading of the eastern DR Congo crisis and the one-sided measures against Rwanda will not lead to a solution. The unhelpful misreading of the eastern DR Congo crisis and the one-sided measures against Rwanda, he reiterated, “only serve to embolden” the Congolese government “in its choice to prolong the conflict, and undermine the African-led mediation process, to which Rwanda is fully committed.” ALSO READ: How Tshisekedi scuttled FDLR neutralisation plan at last minute When the rebel 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. ALSO READ: Drones, MONUSCO intelligence used in Minembwe, Uvira civilian massacres, warns M23 Besides the genocidal militia’s threat to security in the region, by and large, the international community remains silent in the face of hate speech and targeted killings of Kinyarwanda-speaking communities in DR Congo.
