Patrick Muyaya, the Minister of Communications of the DR Congo, recently declared that “in the DR Congo, there is a Kihutu language, and that this same language is also known as Kinyarwanda on the other side of the border” in Rwanda. In December 2025, a spokesperson for the DR Congo army, General Sylvain Ekenge, echoed the infamous Hutu Ten Commandments hate speech that was used during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Ekenge discouraged Congolese people from marrying Tutsi women. He characterised Tutsi women as tools of “infiltration” used by Tutsi people to protect their alleged “racial superiority.” To appease the situation, the DR Congo government asked General Ekenge to step down. This article argues that Muyaya extends Ekenge’s hate speech and draws inspiration from the regional genocidal theories used during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. It further demonstrates that Muyaya’s statement is deeply and structurally rooted in the DR Congo governance system, which is influenced by anti-Tutsi genocide ideology. The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)’s genocide ideology has been adopted and integrated into political practices in the DR Congo. The state's allegiance to this ideology constitutes one of the greatest security threats to the region. The ideology promoted by the FDLR has received significant and consistent support from Congolese political leaders since 1994. They have paved the way for its narrative until it has become entrenched in the Congolese collective imagination and adopted by the population, civil society, and even religious leaders. The FDLR ideology serves as an instrument for the government and political actors. It functions as a mobilising tool and a resource used to justify political failures. It is often placed at the centre of political action. The claim that there is a “Kihutu” language in the DR Congo represents a denial of the shared Kinyarwanda language spoken by Congolese Hutu and Tutsi. This claim reinforces existing government narratives that deny the existence of Congolese Tutsi in the DR Congo. Muyaya does not clarify whether both “Kihutu” and “Kitutsi” languages exist, whether they are different, or whether Tutsi speak “Kihutu” or have their own language. Do Hutu and Tutsi on the “other side” in Rwanda speak different languages? This ideology has often been exploited in the region to construct conspiracy theories of “othering.” It also generates mythical alliances designed to rally people around the idea of a so-called “Bantu” race (Hutu and other non-Tutsi groups). These racial myths were used during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. A well-known newspaper, Kangura, published the Ten Commandments of the Bahutu, which sought external alliances with neighbouring countries — the “brothers of the Bahutu” — asserting that the “Bantu” race was conducting a legitimate war to free itself from “Tutsi domination.” A notorious propagandist speech by senior Rwandan politician Léon Mugesera urged Hutu to kill their Tutsi “enemies” and to find a “shortcut” to send Tutsi bodies “back” to Abyssinia via the Nyabarongo River (which flows through Rwanda to the Nile via Lake Victoria). The metaphor of “chopping trees” was used to describe what should happen, and the familiar language of “invaders” and “outsiders” permeated genocide propaganda broadcast by Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), the main Rwandan radio station at the time. Where does Muyaya derive his rhetoric? In her ethnographic study Mythico-Histories of Burundian Refugees in Tanzania, Malkki (1995:152) refers to the thoughts and expressions of Hutu refugees in the context of the Hamitic/Bantu myths: “In the past our proper name was Bantu. We are Bantus. ‘Hutu’ is no tribe, no nothing! Kihamite is the national language of the Tutsi. ‘Muhutu’ is a Kihamite word... which means servant. We are not Hutu; we are Abantu (human beings). Hutu is the name that the Tutsi gave us.” This mythical narrative refers to Tutsi as “Hamitic” and Hutu as “Bantu.” Yet Tutsi also speak a Bantu language, and there is no such thing as a singular “Bantu people.” In the above passage, Malkki does not specify whether the so-called Tutsi “invaders” and “conquerors” spoke “Ki-Hamite” when they allegedly arrived in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Nor is it clear how these “conquerors” would have adopted the language of their supposed subjects, the “Bantu.” It is also unclear how such racialisation of Hutu and Tutsi could have led the so-called “native” and “indigenous” Hutu to reject their original name and instead adopt a “Bantu race” as their ethnic identity. Other mythical narratives promoted by genocide ideologues in Rwanda and Burundi, inspired by Kangura, suggested that: “Everyone must know that the only language of the Hutu is Kihutu. Just as the Nande speak Kinande and the Hunde speak Kihunde, Hutu people must try to rediscover their ethnicity, for the Tutsi have taught you to ignore it.” While Muyaya appears to draw from such genocidal narratives, he fails to recognise their contradictions. On the one hand, these myths suggest that “Kihutu” was never a language but rather a name imposed by Tutsi on Hutu. On the other hand, they claim that the language of the Hutu is Kihutu. Again, there is no clarification as to whether this language differs from that spoken by Tutsi. It is also unclear whether the indigenous Batwa had a different language when “the Hutu found them in Rwanda.” If so, and if cultural and linguistic assimilation was influenced by indigenous groups, both Tutsi and Hutu could have assimilated elements of Batwa language and culture. Notions of Hutu supremacy and claims of indigeneity extended beyond denying Tutsi identity and resulted in their dehumanisation. Kangura also developed several conspiracy theories, including one claiming that “the Tutsi have created a tribe that does not exist in Africa: the Banyarwanda.” This hate speech closely aligns with Muyaya’s statement and the Hutu Ten Commandments. In this sense, Muyaya appears to be drawing from a shared genocidal ideological framework associated with Kangura. Hate speech in the DRC is not an isolated phenomenon; it is systemic and ideological. For any peace process to succeed in the DRC, it is important to confront and dismantle this racist and genocidal ideology that fuels cyclical violence in eastern Congo. If this ideology persists, it poses a significant regional security threat. The role of the United States in this conflict must take this context seriously. The author is a researcher and analyst on the Great Lakes Region.
