The Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Olivier Nduhungirehe questioned the reinstatement of Maj Gen Sylvain Ekenge as spokesperson of the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC), saying it raises concerns over the treatment of hate speech targeting Congolese Tutsi. ALSO READ: Outcry as DR Congo army spokesman spreads anti-Tutsi tropes In an X post on Sunday, September 27, Nduhungirehe it was “troubling and indecent” for Ekenge to return without being prosecuted or otherwise held accountable for discriminatory remarks he made against Tutsi women in late December 2025. ALSO READ: Kinshasa made ethnic division 'a business opportunity', says governor Although there has been no public announcement formally reappointing Ekenge to the position, an official FARDC statement issued on September 25 and announcing the deaths of two senior military officers in an aircraft crash was signed by Ekenge and identified him as “Spokesperson of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo.” ALSO READ: Silence and indifference are enablers of Genocide Ekenge was suspended after making remarks on state broadcaster RTNC that targeted Tutsi women and families. During the December 27 broadcast, he warned Congolese men against marrying Tutsi women and advanced a claim that Tutsi families were using marriages and childbirth to preserve what he called their “race.” ALSO READ: Gen Ekenge's scandal: A sign of the downfall of a genocidal regime Months later, Ekenge has appeared again in an official FARDC communication in the same spokesperson role, without a public announcement explaining the lifting of his suspension or a formal reappointment. Nduhungirehe said Ekenge’s return was significant beyond the individual officer, arguing that it showed that hate speech against Congolese Tutsi and the ideology of genocide in the DRC could no longer be dismissed as the actions of isolated individuals within the state. “This is a confirmation, if any were still needed, that the hate speech against Congolese Tutsi and the ideology of genocide in the DRC are not the work of black sheep in the army or renegades in the government, but rather a political project fully embraced by the State,” he wrote. ALSO READ: In Kinshasa incitement to hatred is indiscipline He also questioned how the development was made public, arguing that Ekenge’s return was announced indirectly through a statement concerning a tragic event rather than through a direct communication on his reinstatement. “This is information that was made public almost on the sly, through a statement from Sylvain Ekenge announcing a tragic event; and this was done in order to smother or intimidate any internal or international criticism related to this reinstatement,” Nduhungirehe said. ALSO READ: How Kangura inspired Ekenge and FARDC He recalled Ekenge’s remarks in which he warned Congolese men, saying “when you marry a Tutsi woman today, you need to be careful.” Ekenge went on to claim that Tutsi women could bring Tutsi men into their marital homes, presenting them as cousins or nephews, so that they could father their children and preserve their “race.” Nduhungirehe described the remarks as an “incendiary statement” and said Ekenge was making his own the first of the “Ten Hutu Commandments”, published in December 1990 by Hassan Ngeze, who was later convicted of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). “In the face of the international outcry provoked by this statement, Major General Sylvain Ekenge had then been ‘suspended’ from his duties as spokesperson for the Congolese army, without, however, being prosecuted by the justice system,” Nduhungirehe wrote. “Nine months after his misdeed, the senior FARDC officer has just been reinstated, through the back door, in his functions,” he added.
