The Responsibility to Protect was born in Rwanda. It is dying in DR Congo

The world’s promise of “Never Again” is crumbling in the very region that inspired it. In 2005, the United Nations embraced a doctrine called the Responsibility to Protect, or R2P. It was meant as a binding promise: never again would the world stand idle in the face of genocide, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing. The pledge was forged from the agony of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda, when over a million people were killed while the world looked away. ALSO READ: 80-year-old pastor reflects on lifetime of injustice, attacks in eastern DR Congo Nearly two decades later, that promise is unraveling in the very region where it was born. In eastern DR Congo, violence is once again spiralling. In Ituri, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) militias terrorize civilians. In North Kivu, the genocidal FDLR militia and more than 260 other armed groups operate unchecked. And now in Uvira, a new militia, the Wazalendo; armed and encouraged by the Congolese government, has been accused of targeting and killing Tutsi communities. ALSO READ: Narratives over evidence: The politicization of human rights in DR Congo These are not random outbreaks. They are warning signs of a crisis that could engulf Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, reigniting regional wars that Africa cannot afford. The Great Lakes region is a Blaze with warning signals the world dares not ignore. The hollow promise of R2P R2P was meant to ensure that when governments fail to protect their people, the international community has the duty to act. Sovereignty, the doctrine declared, could not be a license for mass violence. ALSO READ: Why genocide ideology doesn’t dissolve three decades after dispersion of genocidaires But in DR Congo, a U.N. member state, the government has not only failed to protect vulnerable populations; it has at times supported their persecution. International actors, meanwhile, have retreated to statements and hand-wringing, as if the crisis were a distant echo instead of a fire on their doorstep. R2P was born in Rwanda. Will it also die in the Great Lakes? The alarms are ringing. Mass atrocities rarely erupt overnight. They are preceded by smaller, preventable crimes: hate speech, scapegoating, targeted killings. The massacres in Ituri and the persecution of Tutsi civilians in Masisi, Minembwe and Uvira, should be seen for what they are: not isolated tragedies, but flashing red lights. ALSO READ: Scholar tells how Burundi, FDLR connived in DR Congo village massacre If those alarms are ignored, the cost will be catastrophic, another cycle of mass killings, another refugee crisis, another betrayal of the ideals that independence leaders like Patrice Lumumba and Julius Nyerere fought for: dignity, unity, and freedom from fear. For the United Nations, the African Union, and regional powers, the Great Lakes Region of Africa is not just another conflict. It is a credibility test. If R2P cannot be implemented where it was conceived, in the aftermath of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, where can it ever work? Silence here is not neutrality. It is complicity. And it sends a chilling message worldwide: that R2P is not a binding principle but a hollow slogan. A way forward It is not too late. Governments that enable or tolerate atrocities must face consequences, through sanctions, investigations, or the suspension of aid. The African Union and Great Lakes Region of Africa states must coordinate responses that prioritize civilian protection, not political gain. And the international community must shift from reaction to prevention, through diplomacy, reconciliation, and intelligence-sharing that stops violence before it spirals into genocide. R2P is not only about intervention with soldiers. At its core, it is about prevention, listening to early warnings, and refusing to let sovereignty become a shield for mass killing. Never Again, again? The Great Lakes Region of Africa is hovering. The world must choose: act now, or watch as “Never Again” becomes “Yet Again.” The Responsibility to Protect was born from Rwanda’s agony. If it dies in DR Congo, it will not only be Africa that pays the price. It will be the entire international system that loses its moral compass. The time to act is now, before the alarms of today become the funerals of tomorrow. The writer is an international relations and diplomacy enthusiast.

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The Responsibility to Protect was born in Rwanda. It is dying in DR Congo