If truth had a face, it would wince every time Human Rights Watch (HRW) and its ilk opened their report-writing laptops in the Great Lakes region. For an organization that prides itself on objectivity, its chronic allergy to nuance, cultural context, and the bloody consequences of romanticizing violent actors is more than just intellectual laziness. It is complicity. Willful, dangerous, and unforgivable complicity. Take, for instance, the tragic tale of Delphin Katembo Vinywasiki, alias Idengo Delcato, who died under unclear circumstances on February 13, 2025. HRW was swift—feverishly swift, in fact—to amplify speculation that the M23 or the AFC (the armed forces aligned with M23) were involved in his death. I can imagine even the body wasn’t even cold. The toxicology results were not yet in. But the report was ready. Because nothing sells quite like the mythology of a rebel group being the root of all evil in eastern Congo, especially if it has Tutsi fighters. What HRW and its copy-paste echo chambers failed—or refused—to do was examine who this man really was. Delcato was not merely “an engaged artist,” as some noble phrase in their press release claimed. He was a hate-monger in lyrical form. His song, “Dawa ya Mututsi” (translated as “The Cure Against the Tutsi”), was not a misguided metaphor. It was a genocidal anthem. It was the soundtrack to ethnic cleansing. Imagine, for one second, if someone recorded a song titled “The Cure Against the Arabs” or “Kill the Blacks” in any other part of the world. Would Human Rights Watch praise the composer as a committed artist? Would he be labeled a symbol of resistance? Would journalists line up to mourn his passing without first reckoning with his lyrics that danced on graves and incited bloodshed? But in Congo, it seems, the Tutsi are fair game. Songs targeting them? Artistic expression. Massacres of Banyamulenge? Tribal conflicts. Hate-filled pamphlets? Local color. A deadly doctrine of ethnic purity under the mask of patriotism? Merely a case of contested nationhood. It is a moral collapse so cavernous that it echoes. Delcato was not just a musician with a microphone; he was a militarized mouthpiece. He played a central role in the FAR-W, one of the “Wazalendo” (patriotic) militias propped up by none other than Minister Muhindo Nzangi Butondo. Yes, that same government official who coined the term “Wazalendo” to rebrand a stew of armed groups—Mai-Mai, ADF, FDLR—as righteous defenders of the nation. Groups so patriotic they massacre civilians, loot villages, and torch schools with anthems like Delcato’s booming from Bluetooth speakers tied to child soldiers’ waists. But the same M23—who call for negotiations, openly state their grievances, and refrain from hate speech—are labeled “terrorists” by Kinshasa’s palace of glass and smoke. Apparently, patriotism in the DRC means never having to say you’re sorry for hate or homicide—as long as your enemies are Tutsis. And where was LUCHA in all of this? The “citizen movement” that basks in international grants and moral high ground? Silent. Eerily silent. Delcato was their member. Their child. Their mobilizer. But once his genocidal lyrics began to gain traction—once he crossed the line from activism to armed ethno-nationalism—they fled the scene like patrons from a burning theater. Not a word of reckoning. Not a whisper of accountability. Just the sound of keyboards typing out the next grant proposal to some European donor blissfully unaware that “civil society” in Congo has become the polite term for militia-adjacent nationalism. LUCHA’s silence is not just cowardly; it is damning. It signals a deeper rot—the ease with which so-called human rights groups slip into ethnic partisanship while still collecting checks for preaching tolerance. Let us ask an uncomfortable question: what if Delcato had released a song titled “The Cure Against the Luba”, or “Dawa ya Muhutu”? Would he still be called a symbol of resistance? Would HRW still flash their cameras and tweet their condolences? No. Because the international community—especially the Western liberal institutions that drive discourse—has a twisted and selective memory. The suffering of Tutsis is background noise. Their massacres are minor chords. Their dignity is negotiable. This is not accidental. It is rooted in the exoticism and intellectual laziness of foreign NGOs who cannot be bothered to understand the region’s history beyond the Wikipedia version. For them, it is easier to align with whatever narrative pours from Kinshasa’s press machine. Easier to label M23 as Rwanda’s stooges than to unpack the legitimate claims of Congolese Tutsis in the Kivus, who have been hounded from their homes, lynched in marketplaces, and now demonized in death by songs like Delcato’s. It takes effort—ethical and intellectual effort—to investigate the ideological role of artists in conflict. It requires acknowledging that art is not always resistance; sometimes, it is incitement. It demands cultural competence. And above all, it demands courage—the courage to tell donors, presidents, and movements: your martyr is a menace. Delcato is mourned today not because of what he said, but because of who he targeted. If he had sung about exterminating another group, he would have been arrested or at least disavowed. But since it was Tutsis—those forever foreign, perpetually suspect, unwanted citizens—his bile passed as ballad. Human Rights Watch is not alone in this complicity. Several journalists, think tanks, and regional analysts suffer from the same disease: the allergy to complexity. They know full well that ethnic hate is being laundered through “patriotic” rhetoric in the DRC. They know that figures like Muhindo Nzangi are arming militias while dressing up their violence in flags. And still they pretend that Congo’s woes are imported. That M23 is the virus. That Rwanda is the only villain. This intellectual fraudulence has a cost. It emboldens hate-preachers like Delcato. It grants impunity to ethnic supremacists. It legitimizes genocidal propaganda disguised as protest music. And it exposes, most tragically, how easily the international community can be manipulated—how quickly it forgets Rwanda 1994 until the next genocide rears its head. Delcato’s death is tragic, but not because he was a resistance hero. It is tragic because the hatred he vocalized is still alive—still thriving—in the policies of ministers, in the lyrics of new “artists,” and in the reports of organizations who cannot distinguish activism from atrocity. It’s time we drew the line. There is no excuse for hate—no matter how musical, how artistic, or how tragically dead the author may be. If Delcato had been a German musician calling Jews “vermin” in lyrical form, he would have been rightly condemned. If he were an American rapper calling for Latinos extermination, no NGO would dare praise his artistic merit. But since he sang in Swahili, from a remote corner of Congo, about Tutsis—he is misunderstood. He is “complicated.” He is mourned. We must stop mistaking bigots for freedom fighters. We must stop tolerating genocidal lyrics as cultural resistance. We must demand more from movements like LUCHA and hold ministers like Nzangi accountable for their ideological grooming of militias. And Human Rights Watch? If it cannot bring itself to understand the weight of history, the complexity of local dynamics, or the horror embedded in songs like “Dawa ya Mututsi”—then perhaps it should consider a new line of work. Maybe fiction writing. At least then, their fabrications wouldn’t cost lives. It is no longer enough to mourn victims of hate once their killers act. World must also learn to name, denounce, and disarm the merchants of hatred before they become martyrs of confusion. If international organizations continue to shower praise where condemnation is due, they will not be defenders of human rights but midwives to the next massacre.
