The truth they don’t want told: Rwanda, DR Congo, and 30 years of denial

For three decades, the dominant narrative about Rwanda and DR Congo has been shaped less by facts than by denial. What is often repeated as “thirty years of war” is, in reality, 30 years of evasion — a refusal by powerful actors in the international system to confront the genocidal forces that ignited the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and have since been sheltered, rearmed, and recycled under new names. ALSO READ: Why genocide ideology doesn’t dissolve three decades after dispersion of genocidaires This denial has not only obstructed justice but also allowed the cycle of violence to persist, with devastating consequences for millions of people in the region. Already, 31 years ago, in 1994, the United Nations Security Council was amply briefed about the preparation and buildup of what would become the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. The UN had a presence in Rwanda, including a peacekeeping force whose commander filed numerous reports warning of the gravity of the situation. The Security Council knew that hate speech, amplified by the media, was dehumanizing the Tutsi and inciting citizens to act – start killing their neighbours – when the time came. ALSO READ: April 12, 1994: ‘The signal for genocidaires to move toward the apocalypse’ Yet, no action matching the urgency was taken. And when, on April 6, 1994, the presidential plane was shot down as it approached Kigali, the entire genocidal machinery was unleashed. For 100 days, over a million Tutsi were slaughtered while the world watched. Worse still, when the genocidaires were finally defeated, they were not dismantled. Instead, with France’s support and Mobutu’s complicity, they were given a safe haven in Zaire (today’s DR Congo). ALSO READ: Habyarimana's role in planning, implementing 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi From there, they regrouped, rearmed, and launched cross-border attacks against a fragile Rwanda struggling to recover from catastrophe. Despite two major wars in DR Congo that drew in other African states, the genocidal forces were never eradicated. Successive Congolese regimes sheltered, tolerated, or directly collaborated with them. Would the Allies, after World War II, have tolerated a surviving Nazi army on their borders? The comparison is telling: what was unthinkable in Europe was permitted in Africa. What made this possible was not ignorance but complicity. Since 1999, the United Nations has deployed its largest-ever peacekeeping force, MONUC — later renamed MONUSCO — in DR Congo. When it began, there were just four armed groups active in the country. Today, there are over 200. When Félix Tshisekedi entered office, there were 28. Under the UN’s watch, armed groups multiplied, the Rwandan genocidal militia, FDLR, entrenched itself, and atrocities continued unchecked. Each year, “UN Experts” have been mandated to report on the situation, yet their recruitment, methodology, and conclusions have been opaque. These reports consistently shaped a narrative that blames Rwanda while exonerating Congolese authorities and the UN itself. The truth is that MONUSCO never dismantled FDLR. On the contrary, at times it even cooperated with them. Today, in Ituri Province, horrific massacres continue despite MONUSCO’s heavy presence. Meanwhile, Tshisekedi’s government has actively deepened the crisis. He has integrated FDLR into his forces, multiplied local militias known as Mai-Mai — later rebranded as “Wazalendo” (Patriots) to deflect international criticism — and even contracted foreign mercenaries. Romania, a NATO member, deployed a contingent that was captured when rebel AFC/M23 forces advanced on Goma. The United States, through Erik Prince, founder of the notorious Blackwater, has supplied another contingent. Neither the UN, nor the EU, nor even the African Union — despite its 1977 Convention banning mercenaries in Africa — have condemned this blatant violation. The hypocrisy is staggering: Rwanda is scrutinized for defensive actions, while Congolese authorities are given a free pass to employ genocidal forces and foreign mercenaries alike. ALSO READ: DR Congo crisis: Russia condemns Western silence on captured European mercenaries The denial is reinforced by manipulated statistics and narratives. The oft-cited “millions of deaths” figure is drawn from a flawed UN “Mapping Report” covering 1993–2003, which was so poorly executed that it reads less like professional documentation and more like a political indictment aimed at Rwanda. While no one disputes that thousands have died in DR Congo — from violence but also from state collapse and mis-governance — the report was constructed to incriminate Rwanda while whitewashing UN failures and Congolese culpability. Worst of all, it erased the primary victims of the conflict: the Congolese Tutsi, who have been targeted, displaced, and forgotten for over 30 years. This selective blindness is not accidental. For three decades, Western chancelleries and UN agencies have been, at best, bystanders — and at worst, accomplices. They have tolerated genocidal forces on Rwanda’s borders, allowed instability in eastern DR Congo to fester, and then turned the narrative upside down by portraying Rwanda as the aggressor. That inversion was on full display in the recent UN Security Council session on DR Congo, and again at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, where Tshisekedi staged a side event designed to depict Rwanda as the source of violence while erasing his own responsibility and that of FDLR. It is time this truth be told without euphemism. This has never been 30 years of war. It has been 30 years of denial — denial that has allowed the perpetrators of genocide to survive, denial that has shielded those who benefit from chaos in DR Congo, and denial that turns victims into perpetrators while protecting the powerful in New York, Geneva, and Kinshasa. Rwanda’s insistence on exposing this hypocrisy is not aggression. It is the bare minimum demand for accountability in a world that still claims to uphold justice and human rights.

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The truth they don’t want told: Rwanda, DR Congo, and 30 years of denial