Kenyan Pan-Africanist and human rights advocate Patrick (PLO) Lumumba has warned that impunity breeds repetition of atrocities, urging justice for the well-known perpetrators of the 2004 Gatumba massacre who, 21 years later, continue to live freely without accountability. He made the remarks during the 21st commemoration of the massacre held on Wednesday, August 13, under the theme “Honouring the Victims, Seeking Justice, and Combatting Genocide Denial Targeting Tutsi in DR Congo.” ALSO READ: Survivors of Gatumba massacre demand justice 21 years on The Gatumba massacre took place on August 13, 2004 when armed assailants killed 166 Banyamulenge Tutsi civilians and injured another 108, mostly women and children, at a refugee camp in Gatumba, Burundi. The victims had fled violence and political persecution in South Kivu, DR Congo, seeking safety under the protection of the United Nations. ALSO READ: Banyamulenge make fresh call for justice over Gatumba massacre The attackers descended on the camp, burning victims alive in their shelters, shooting others at close range, and killing with machetes. “The tragedy of the Gatumba massacre is that it happened under the very watch of the United Nations, in the same way that the Tutsi Genocide in Rwanda happened in 1994. We never learned,” Lumumba said, “And the tragedy is that the perpetrators are known, they are alive and well. And the methods they use to kill and maim are the most primitive. They burn, they suffocate, they rape, they disembowel.” ALSO READ: Gatumba massacre is a grim reminder of DR Congo's unending crisis Despite international recognition of the massacre and its ethnic motivations, justice has remained elusive. Lumumba lamented that neither the Congolese government nor the international community has made tangible efforts to hold the perpetrators accountable. He stressed that Gatumba was not an isolated incident against the Banyamulenge Tutsi, but part of a long history of targeted violence. “History has demonstrated that when we allow impunity, then the same thing will be repeated,” Lumumba said. “We are gathered here, therefore, not only to commemorate our lost kith and kin and those who survived and are maimed psychologically or otherwise, but we are here to remind the world that the story of Gatumba, like all other massacres, cannot be concluded until and unless those who are perpetrators are punished.” ALSO READ: M23 condemns child recruitment by DR Congo army He challenged Africans to confront the hypocrisy of advocating for unity under regional and continental blocs like the East African Community (EAC) and the African Union (AU) while continuing to discriminate along tribal lines, a colonial legacy designed to divide and rule. “In 1959 we know what happened and we know the genesis of our problems. We know that the boundaries for which we kill and maim were arbitrarily drawn in the year 1884 and 1885 in Berlin, Germany by the colonisers,” Lumumba said. “The effect of which was to divide kith and kin with the consequence that today, when our countries regained independence on the basis of those boundaries, the Banyamulenge are now characterised as Congolese, while some of their kith and kin are to be found in Rwanda and Burundi. And some of our latter-day African leaders, or may I say mis-leaders, dare to say that the Banyamulenge are not Congolese because of imposed boundaries.” ALSO READ: DR Congo crisis: Banyamulenge villages in South Kivu attacked again For Lumumba, the principle of Ubuntu must remain at the heart of Africa’s unity. “When we talk about Ubuntu, we mean that you are because I am. We live in a region where we have the East African Community, now comprising eight countries. Our declared agenda is to make East Africa one country, and ultimately the continent of Africa one country.” ALSO READ: AFC/M23 leader Corneille Nangaa states four reasons why his movement is fighting Tshisekedi govt Yet, he warned, history’s lessons have not been learned. Tribal killings, particularly against the Banyamulenge, continue to this day. He called for direct accountability from DR Congo’s leadership and moral courage from its religious leaders. “A specific letter should go to President Felix Tshisekedi of DR Congo, to remind him that he has a duty, a solemn constitutional duty to protect all the citizens of the DR Congo,” Lumumba said. “The letter should also go to all the clergy in DR Congo, for them to demand of the government to create an environment where people who choose can go back to the places where the umbilical cords were buried.”
