Belgian lawyer on why genocide ideology doesn’t dissolve three decades after dispersion of genocidaires

French veteran journalist Jean-Francois Dupaquier, interviewed Bernard Maingain, a Belgian lawyer who has, for several years, condemned the anti-Tutsi hate speeches in eastern DR Congo. In this interview first published by AFRIKARABIA on December 30, 2022, Maingain, in a vivid legal perspective, sheds light on many things, including why the genocide ideology did not dissolve with time after the flight and dispersion of the masterminds of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, close to three decades ago. In the DR Congo, Maingain explained, the plan to complete the extermination of the Tutsi was never lost sight of by the genocidaires who managed to stay in the country and mingle with the population. It is under the impulse of these people, he said, that the ideology is propagated while in Europe their relays speak of human rights being flouted. The excerpts: Jean-François DUPAQUIER: - Mr. Maingain, you have just co-organised a press conference on 19 December where you documented speeches of racial hatred emanating from high authorities or Congolese influencers on social networks. They more or less directly call for the extermination of the Tutsi in the DRC, if not in Rwanda [1]. This is a problem that you have been raising for several years, with growing concern. Does this mean that we are heading straight for genocide against the Congolese Tutsi, as in 1994 against the Tutsi of Rwanda? Bernard MAINGAIN: - Three years ago, I was contacted by representatives of the Banyamulenge [a group of Rwandan-speaking cattle breeders who have been living on the plateaux of South Kivu for several centuries]. Last May, the Tutsi of North Kivu, who have a long and distinct history between Goma and Rutshuru, but who are also stigmatised as Tutsi, in turn turned to me to defend them because their situation had become much worse: several of their members had been victims of pogroms in Goma, in Kinshasa... The situation of the Congolese Tutsis had become much worse.’ These crimes are the consequence of racial hate speech that is growing in North and South Kivu. In recent years we have continued to denounce these speeches, without managing to stop their development. Already, in a press conference in 2021[2], I pointed out that these speeches were reminiscent of the racist propaganda in Rwanda before the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. - Do you consider that the excerpts of speeches you quoted on 19 December echo those of the extremist magazine Kangura and the broadcasts of RTLM in Rwanda before and during the genocide against the Tutsi? The similarity of the supposedly 'racial' hate speech is striking, with the same morphological stereotypes, etc. We can see the origin of all this... - Can we not consider that the aggravation of this hate speech is linked to the resurgence and territorial conquests of the M23? I would like to remind you that I am a lawyer and that my job is to defend in accordance with the law. Armed rebellions undermine the norms of modern states, which reserve the monopoly of armed violence to representatives of the state, but in return for such a privilege, they must act in scrupulous compliance with the norms that govern their activities. In the Kivus, these basic principles have not been respected for many years by many actors. Many armed groups are self-defence groups while others are pure predators. The M23 is no exception to the controversy, but we intellectuals have a duty to analyse such phenomena without falling into caricature, because only an in-depth analysis makes effective action possible. Many armed groups are self-defence groups while others are pure predators.’ Let me conclude with an important point: where a risk of genocide exists, it is the primary responsibility of all forces involved to ensure that the target population is protected. I do not want to have to remind you of the obligations enshrined in the Genocide Prevention Conventions and the responsibilities incurred by States that fail to do so. What characterises the Great Lakes region is that after 1994, the international community was unable to impose a programme of what I will call 'denazification'. - In the Great Lakes region, nothing comparable to what was carried out by the Americans and the British in Germany after the fall of Hitlerism in 1945? Nothing indeed, not even the beginnings of a pedagogy against the anti-Tutsi hate speech on the international level. If in Rwanda the new authorities, whose families had been decimated for the most part, carried out such a programme, those who fled abroad - many of them involved in the genocide - did not care. In the refugee camps in Zaire (now DRC), the genocidal leadership was able to continue its anti-Tutsi propaganda in full view of the humanitarian community and the international community. I myself closely followed the bloody attacks carried out at the time from the UNHCR camps against the populations of Northern Rwanda and simultaneously the murderous attacks in Masisi and, already at the time, the Masisi herders had consulted me to question the responsibility of the UNHCR for what was happening. All this in a context where, despite these events, tens of thousands of refugees were welcomed in Rwanda. In the refugee camps in Zaire, the genocidal leadership was able to continue its anti-Tutsi propaganda.’ At the same time, Western countries welcomed a number of genocide suspects, even massively in France and Belgium, where Christian Democrat circles and certain socialists of the Mitterrandie, but also those of Françafrique, had close and historical links with women and men who had been involved in the genocide. It was these circles that fuelled an intellectual blindness to the crisis that had just occurred. In Germany, the denazification programme very quickly posed major questions to the vast majority of those who, from near or far, had participated in Hitler's enterprise. How could a whole people 'not see' or 'tolerate' or even 'rally' to the massive violation of the ban on murder? Later, their children put words to their unspoken words and were indignant about what their parents or grandparents had done, and they freed themselves from this to support other ambitions in the political order. Nothing of the sort for the children and grandchildren of Rwandan genocidaires in exile, nor for those who, on the strength of their alleged superiority in Europe, have never questioned anything. Think of a Védrine in France, a Frank Swaelen or a Jean-Luc Dehaene in Belgium, who practised good conscience despite the evidence of their erring ways. This denial has served as a breeding ground for hatred and has unleashed anti-Tutsi hate speech. One only has to look at the content of certain websites based in Belgium that I do not need to name... Or the books by Rwandans, nostalgic for the anti-Tutsi segregation, published in France by certain publishers. In a more allusive way than in the DRC, they convey an ideology that calls for 'finishing the job'. - Do you consider the term Nazis to be relevant to the Rwandan genocidaires on the run and the hate-mongers among their progeny and supporters? To say the words of the tragedy correctly seems to me to be important for moving forward. All Rwandans in the state apparatus, the army, the militias, etc., who participated, without reservation, without a qualm, in the genocide against the Tutsi, must be qualified as Nazis. In The Last Man, Primo Levi writes: In Nazi hatred there is nothing rational: it is a hatred that is not in us, that is foreign to man. This is what Rwanda was about in 1994. Moreover, using this word to explain the programmed extermination of the Tutsis is not new. The historian Jean-Pierre Chrétien was the first to speak of tropical Nazism in 1994 to describe the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda [3]. So are those who maintain this racist propaganda to this day. It seems to me that you wrote about this in Afrikarabia two years ago [4]. - Why didn't the genocide ideology dissolve with time, with the flight and dispersion of the genocidaires? Théoneste Bagosora, the 'architect of the Tutsi genocide', one of the main defendants before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, expressed the programme most clearly in various writings and during his trial. In summary, and I hope correctly, he said: We have lost the war in Rwanda for the time being, but we will come back to power sooner or later because that is the way of history.” This is the ideology we are facing today. I will remember for a long time the image of a new generation of extremists, shouting at the big barrier in Goma on 15 June 2022, that they will cross to complete the genocide in Rwanda... How can these words be uttered today? In the Congo, the plan to complete this programme of extermination of the Tutsi was never lost sight of by the genocidaires who managed to stay in the country and mingle with the population. It is under the impulse of these people that the ideology is propagated while in Europe their relays speak of human rights being flouted. The entire Great Lakes region is now infested by this Manichean discourse that led to the massive act of violence in Rwanda in 1994. In the Congo, the plan to complete this programme of extermination of the Tutsi was never lost sight of by the genocidaires.’ It should be remembered that this discourse had been formulated and refined in Rwanda since 1959: The Tutsi are a predatory race, the only solution is to eliminate them, from the child to the old man.” With the emergence of social networks, this discourse is taken up again and again and is growing in the DRC, but much further afield, as hate speech can be found in Belgium, France, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Eastern Congo is also a region where the population lives in great economic precariousness and is permeable to the scapegoat strategy. And the easy scapegoat is the Tutsi. The anthropologist René Girard describes in his book Violence and the Sacred [5], this theory of the scapegoat that flourishes in a society in crisis. The purification of the group is achieved through the sacrifice of a group. The Tutsi are the scapegoats and I don't understand why there are not more intellectuals to denounce this process that allows those who are not part of this group to be 'exonerated'. This is a perversion in the age of human rights. In Christian societies, this role was assigned to the Jews. In the Great Lakes region, acculturated by Christianisation, the Tutsi has taken the place of the Jew [6]. I also find in Jean-Paul Sartre's thought this observation that, before being an ideological construction, hatred of the Jew is a passion. Passion is morbid. Pathi, to suffer in Greek. The other must suffer so that I can escape suffering. This is the macabre ritual in which hate speech flourishes. The Great Lakes region, acculturated by Christianisation, has seen the Tutsi take the place of the Jew.’ In the highlands of South Kivu, for several centuries the Banyamulenge community has become rich in cattle breeding and speaks a language close to Kinyarwanda. Even before the 1994 genocide, this community had been designated by Kinshasa as a target group and suffered discrimination, violence and denial of its 'Congoleseness'. Ivorianness, Congoliness, the white and Christian race, these are the pretexts for the denial of the other. Finally, as with the Jews, the economic dimension of this 'racial' war against the Tutsi should not be underestimated. There is a debate in North and South Kivu about the appropriation of wealth. This debate has perverted the 'never again', which should have been the keystone of the meeting of leaders and peoples. It is a question of justice, including social justice. Here too, my experience of the region leads me to believe that predation is a cycle of impoverishment of the populations that finds its source in an alliance between businessmen of all nationalities who are 'shooting up' with dollars and the military or militias that secure the appropriation of wealth under the benevolent eye of heavily corrupt political leaders. There is no healthy economic circuit and it is the most modest who pay the price. I am personally committed to the modest people who live by their work. These are the same mafiosi who find in anti-Tutsi ideological simplism the effective means of camouflaging the reality of their predation. Restoring the rule of law also means putting a stop to these criminal practices, but who is going to come out of the caricature on this subject? Mafia members find in anti-Tutsi ideological simplism the means to camouflage the reality of their predation.’ It is also a question of memory. It is a pity that work is not being done with the Congolese masses to ease tensions. It is not only the problem of the Congolese. The Kivus are a martyred territory and the burden is on the new generations. It goes back to colonisation and the creation of borders that cut in two groups of populations with families divided between Congolese, Ugandans, Rwandans, Burundians... But nobody thinks of apologising for this in my country which bears such a heavy responsibility. It has to do with the manipulation of Rwandan-speaking groups in the Congo as part of a labour policy that has never had the well-being of the people in mind. This is due to the construction of ethnist Darwinism which has divided social links into racial theories. It has to do with the fear of communism that led colonial powers to destroy all leaders of African emancipation and the groups in which their ideas could flourish. And what can be said about the claim of the religious to substitute their symbolic order for that of exceptional civilisations. What a mess... Memory deadlocks are still maintained today in the European academic world, for example at the University of Antwerp. Let Europe stop interfering and show humility and listen to the peoples who have been so badly treated. To my Congolese, Burundian and Rwandan brothers, allow me to say: my friends, work together to identify these massive destruction and build your coexistence in brotherhood by giving Africa a new impetus. This is your real civilisational challenge. It is also the challenge of the law. - Are you referring to the theses of Bernard Lugan in France and Filip Reyntjens in Belgium, to name just two of the many influencers? I'm not interested in these people, but we must denounce their pollutions, which are regressive. In the West, those who maintain the myths of exoticism, of African savagery, have the vocation of preventing public opinion from understanding the universality of genocide. In the DRC, they have a strong influence on Congolese historians... I have never believed in these stereotypes. There are people of immense quality in Rwanda, in the DRC, in Burundi, in Uganda... There is no African savagery but there is a universal evil and each of us tries to coexist with our demons, our impulses and... our acts. The communities too. The righteous are to be found everywhere. Bernard Lugan, Filip Reyntjens... we must denounce their pollution.’ For my part, I have always been very happy to meet righteous people in apparently confrontational societies. This is why I was very happy during the press conference on 19 December to note the presence of Ludovic and Basile, two personalities from Kassaï who are so attached to their country that they cannot stand the stigmatisation of the Tutsi, this slow poison that destroys life together. They are not Tutsi. They come from other groups and they question the way Congolese society has been constructed and manipulated. One of them recalled that negationism is one of the elements of the genocidal process and its perpetuation. This negationism allows the continuation of racial killings today. - But the Tutsi scapegoat policy began in the Congo even before the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda... A genocidal process takes years to erupt into collective madness. In the Great Lakes region too. In a more or less latent way, the politics of discrimination prepared the ground. When the genocidaires took refuge in Congo, they immediately attacked the Banyamulenge and the Tutsi herders, and this has hardly ever stopped since. Congolese soldiers, Maï-Maï, Red-Tabara militiamen, etc., associated with the FDLR, multiply the attacks to take the goods of people qualified as Tutsi and chase them away or kill them. And today, how many are the Banyamulenge surviving in Minembwe or the Tutsi herders of Masisi? A mere pittance in the general indifference while thousands of them are languishing in refugee camps and in exile. Do you think for a moment that this is bearable? - Do you think that the trials of genocidaires, before the International Criminal Tribunal or before national courts, have not fulfilled their educational role with public opinion? I would not say that. There are three truths, the media truth, the historical truth and the judicial truth. None of these three truths should be neglected. Their modes of production in the language of humans are based on different processes and on very different but interesting methods of truth-telling. Ideally, they should come together. There are three truths: media truth, historical truth and judicial truth.’ As a lawyer, I would add that the judicial truth is not enough. Against Nazism, we needed Nuremberg, we needed the Frankfurt trials. The Barbie trial in Lyon, France, was needed, even forty-two years after the fall of Hitler[7]. It is still necessary to penetrate the collective memory in the order of the symbolic in order to dismantle the construction of a genocide. And this requires work on education and memory. It is in families, in churches, in schools that the logic of hatred must be eradicated. This requires several generations working on a long-term project. This education for good and for the good relies on the exemplary work of historians, journalists, men and women of law and all those who participate in the work of education, in the noblest sense of the term. - This was not the case for the Arusha defendants, after the Prosecution of the International Criminal Tribunal proved unable to document beyond reasonable doubt the charge of conspiracy to commit genocide. Indeed, memory work is fundamental. This work has been perverted in the Great Lakes region by the genocide ideologues who managed to flee. If you ask people living in Eastern Congo, many will tell you that the history of 1994 is not clear, that there are two versions, or two groups that clashed, that the winner got a blank check, etc. These discourses are a great perfume. This is a very perfidious discourse. In the current absence of a reference point. If you ask people living in Eastern Congo, many will tell you that the history of 1994 is not clear.’ To prevent this drift, justice must intervene - when the facts are denounced - and be close to the place of the facts and the culture of the actors as well as the victims. In Brussels or Paris, many imaginary stories can be spread about the events but not when the trial takes place where the facts occurred. I experience this problem with the cases of Albert and Simba Ngezayo, who were murdered in Goma. The trial of Simba's killers was relocated to Kinshasa. But the people of Kinshasa do not know the details of the events that took place and they do not imagine that the people of Goma would not let themselves be counted on in this respect. In Rwanda, in my opinion, the gacaca courts have fulfilled this function. Beyond the imperfections, the perpetrators and victims were in the village palaver where accountability, justice and resilience were required. This is the purging effect of justice. But in neighbouring countries, since 1994 until today, where have the genocidaires been tried? To the perpetrators of pogroms? Where have the messengers of hatred been prosecuted? Nowhere! Why are my team and I bringing cases against the hatemongers? Because judging these perpetrators would be the founding act of the restoration of peace in the whole region. The question of what is unacceptable must be anchored in the social and cultural soil. - What is the connection between this situation and the resurgence of the M23? First of all, the leaders of the M23 and the men and women involved are subject to the law like all citizens. The use of armed force is a transgression of the law of the Congo. There remains the question of the circumstances that might authorise the use of force of this kind. It must also be said forcefully that there is no such thing as a clean war. Every war generates its share of crimes and the perpetrators must be held accountable when clear and precise facts are established. The use of armed force is a transgression of the law of the Congo.’ As a lawyer I do not want to intervene in the debate concerning them because I intend to remain the bearer of the legal question that has been entrusted to me. I think this group is like Janus. Everyone criticises it for taking up arms like all the rebel movements in the region, but with a different level of intensity. And at the same time, I see a huge need for protection in Minembwe and Masisi, which also explains why these groups, which are different in the two Kivus, are seen as a refuge for groups of people. It is not enough to eradicate the armed groups, it is also necessary to restore the rule of law, to tackle corruption, to improve the living conditions of the population... In short, to relaunch a virtuous circle at the service of the population thanks to a state apparatus. And in this context, the law is the foundation of state building. - Everyone has been able to read the analysis of Ms Alice Wairimu Nderitu, Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide [8]. What is the lesson to be learned from this? I can only welcome her intervention. In her recent report to the UN Secretary General, she does not repeat the simplistic couplet of scapegoats, whether they are called Tutsi, Rwandans, or President Kagame. And I will not mention the virulent attacks against President Tshisekedi every time he works within the framework of the regional dialogue, which is required under international public law... Ms Wairimu Nderitu says that the current violence is a harbinger of the fragility of society and evidence of the continuing presence of the conditions that allowed hatred and large-scale violence to erupt into genocide in the past. It is particularly concerned about the ongoing inter-communal violence in western DRC between the Suku, Mbala, Yansi, Songe, Luba, Kongo, Yaka and Teke ethnic communities. She further states that in eastern DRC, the current violence is mainly the result of the refugee crisis which led to the flight of many individuals involved in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda to eastern DRC, forming armed groups such as the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) which are still active in eastern DRC. The Special Adviser noted that a solution to the ongoing conflict in eastern DRC would require addressing the underlying causes of the violence and learning from the past. However, this is not how most media reports the situation, merely repeating that the UN is stigmatising one side, which was never the case. Refer to Ms Wairimu Nderitu's report: The abuses currently taking place in eastern DRC, including the targeting of civilians because of their ethnicity or presumed affiliation with warring parties, must stop. Our collective commitment to remember past atrocities is an obligation to prevent their recurrence. In the DRC, the underlying causes of violence should be addressed.’ This is obvious to anyone who has been following the political situation and the ravages of genocidal ideology in the Great Lakes region for decades. It is surprising that so few media outlets address this issue. Nevertheless, we can mention Colette Braeckman and François Misser in Belgium, Emmet Livingstone from the AFP office in Kinshasa[9], Maria Malagardis in France in Libération[10]... Even if I don't always share their opinions, and I'm thinking in particular of Colette in this respect, they make an effort to varying degrees to take into account the regional situation in all its complexity. - These journalists you mention are whistleblowers, but their voices seem isolated in a media system that works in a very caricatured way [11]. In the DRC, even the Lutte pour le Changement (Lucha) [12], an NGO that sets the tone for human rights and is very influential among journalists, has relayed hate speech against the Tutsis. You are right to highlight this problem. Lucha has acquired a certain prestige through its mobilisation of civil society against electoral manipulation. I myself worked with Lucha activists in 2008, when we were looking for the masterminds of Albert Prigogine's assassination and our suspicions pointed back to the governor's team, who is now a minister in Kinshasa. At the time we worked hand in hand. I was stunned to discover recently how many Lucha militants were making hate speeches of unbelievable violence. I even have a video taken on 15 June 2022 in Goma where Lucha activists are urging the population to sing the same songs as those sung by the Interahamwe before the genocide. This organisation, which is very close to Dr Denis Mukwege, is singled out in the latest UN report for relaying hate speech and for the participation of some of its members in the attack on MONUSCO premises... I was stunned to discover recently how many Lucha activists were making hate speeches I was even more surprised when I discovered that the NGO Fight Against Impunity, embroiled in Quatargate in Brussels and a beneficiary of financial means made available by the European Union, was openly and actively supporting an organisation that advocates hate speech. There is a major problem here. An organisation that claims to be a model for human rights in Brussels, which becomes a lobbyist without respect for the law and actively supports the bearers of hate speech who should be brought to justice in Goma and Bukavu. This is a real dysfunction, to put it mildly. - Let's talk about the latest UN report. What does the lawyer think about it? This new report by the UN group of experts is worth reading carefully. It underlines in particular the collusion between the Congolese army, Mai-Mai armed groups and other armed groups gathered in a patriotic coalition with the FDLR, partly made up of former Hutu genocidaires, against the M23. This coalition was born last May, during a meeting held in Pinga. This new report by the UN group of experts deserves a careful reading.’ What I have a problem with is not the action of the FARDC who want to preserve national integrity, but the alliance with groups who have made the extermination of Tutsis their daily business for years. Militias that commit crimes against humanity join forces with regular armed forces! The cycle repeats itself. The Interahamwe in Rwanda with the FAR, the Imbonerakure in Burundi with the armed forces and now the militias of hate with the FARDC. And each time, the Tutsi is in the firing line. But on this issue, journalists remain deafeningly silent. How can this tragic cycle be assessed in the light of recent history? - The Africa Intelligence website, one of the first to have access to this report, notes that the birth certificate of the patriotic coalition was signed by General Guidon Shimiray Mwiza, creator in 2014 of an armed group, the NDC. He is said to have committed numerous crimes, for which he was placed under UN sanctions. An arrest warrant was issued against him in 2019[13]. Also mentioned are 'colonels' Silencieux and Potifaro of the no less sinister FDLR, as well as FARDC colonel Salomon Tokolonga. The UN report states that the self-proclaimed general Kasereka Kabido of the FPP-AP, active in the Lubero territory in North Kivu, joined this coalition last July. It should be recalled that he is one of the most powerful Mai-Mai militia leaders. Has the creation of this viper's knot escaped the attention of Lucha and Dr Mukwege? To ask is to tell the whole story. It is fire and water. The criminal and the servant of the law. This is untenable. How are we going to do when we file our complaints about crimes against humanity if some are targeted? - Let's go back to the latest UN experts' document. According to this report, relayed by Africa Intelligence, the Mayi-Mayi leaders have proposed to mobilise 600 fighters to reinforce the regular army and recruitment campaigns have been launched. This dynamic is considered worrying in the UN report, whose authors fear the effects on the Disarmament, Demobilisation, Community Rehabilitation and Stabilisation Programme (PDDRCS) and, more broadly, on the evolution of the security situation. In addition, the embargo on arms to the DRC has been lifted - at the request of Paris in particular - and President Félix Tshisekedi has announced a plan to create a compulsory military service for young Congolese. Are we not in the process of turning the DRC into a huge powder keg? I do not wish in any way to interfere in the political choices of the region's leaders, including when they concern defence. My only real concern is the law. We know that private militias used to reinforce the regalian forces of the army and the police are always a source of problems. A well-paid army and a well-treated police force are at the service of the people and refuse any form of exaction. Private mercenaries, whether local or external militias, do not have the same vision of the ethics of the use of force. We see this with local militias, many of whose members are involved in criminal acts to the detriment of the community we defend. My only real concern is the law.’ Even the FARDC should be subjected to training that gives them a strong sense of service to the nation. But for that to happen, they need to be paid properly and embezzlement of pay, which is a criminal transgression, just like corruption, must be avoided. The UN panel of experts had written its report before all these announcements. It already highlighted the distribution of arms and ammunition by the FARDC to armed groups, including the FDLR. Do we really understand the risk that these abuses pose for the region? - For you who have known the Great Lakes region for decades, and who intervene in the judicial field, is it not despairing to note the prevalence of the risk of genocide of the Tutsis in Congo? Having experienced the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, I decided to work with all my strength to eradicate the genocidal process. I owe it to the memory of many people who, at the time, passed through the office and who held out hope for the construction of a Rwanda where hatred would be banished. But the forces of hatred won out at the time. Afterwards, naively, I thought that this work would be carried out with several friends in the time of a man's life. The eradication of the genocidal process will take more than one generation.’ I do not despair at all, but I understand and accept the laws of time in history. And this fight will mobilise much more than a single generation. Like the fight against slavery, like the fight against apartheid, like the fight against racism, the fight against the cycles of violence that lay the foundations of genocide is part of a very long process. Lawyers, historians, journalists and politicians, we must make our contribution to the symbolic structuring of the world. The generation that follows us must continue the work. As with slavery, apartheid, racism, etc., progress is slow but observable. The end of murderous identities, of hatred of the other, is our choice of civilisation. Today, we have to choose the side of this progress. It is not a choice between the pro-Congo camp or the pro-Rwanda camp, between pro-Tutsi or pro-Hutu. It is the choice of a reflection on what is a human being in a community.

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Belgian lawyer on why genocide ideology doesn’t dissolve three decades after dispersion of genocidaires