DR Congo's former President Joseph Kabila described hate speech and tribalism in the country as "a cancer," accusing President Felix Tshisekedi’s administration of turning ethnic narratives into official propaganda.

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Kabila, who leads a new rebel movement called the Front pour la Refondation de la Nation (FRN), said his coalition intends to confront hate speech, tribalism and incitement to violence through the rule of law, beyond the areas under its control.

"We are not just thinking about it. We’ve already thought about it, and it’s one of the reasons why we’ve decided to create the FRN,” he said in an interview with Conspiracy Tracker Great Lakes, published on Wednesday, October 28. Filmed in FRN-controlled Goma city, it was his first media interview since the movement was announced on October 12.

"It’s like a cancer, in fact, if you don’t deal with it, it will continue to eat up the organism and you lose. What has happened today is the fact that it's now the official propaganda and official line that everyone else has to toe.”

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Kabila said hate speech had become part of the government’s official messaging, arguing that people who refuse to join campaigns against Rwanda, him or ethnic minorities in eastern DR Congo are treated with hostility.

He said this as Congolese Tutsi and Banyamulenge communities continues to suffered ethnic violence at the hands of forces and militias allied to the government.

"If you cannot insult Rwanda, cannot insult Mr. Kabila, cannot insult anybody from the East... well, you’re looked upon, you’re frowned upon,” he said.

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He argued that such rhetoric was damaging young people and undermining the foundation of a country whose Constitution was designed to preserve national unity through political, cultural and other forms of balance.

Kabila, who handed over to Tshisekedi in peaceful transfer of power, accused his successor of weakening political checks and balances after ending their governing coalition at the end of 2019, before the resumption of M23 rebellion in late 2021. He said he had warned Tshisekedi that targeting people based on their geographical and linguistic backgrounds would undermine the country’s security institutions.

"You cannot run a country on the basis of tribalism. It’s out of the question,” he said.

"You cannot come into office with an agenda to target officers from a given geographical and linguistic region serving the officers. Whatever the pretext, you cannot do that and hope to consolidate the security apparatus.”

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Kabila compared the current situation to the conditions that led to opposition to former President Mobutu Sese Seko in the late 1990s.

Kabila said the FRN, which controls swathes of territory in the country's east, would act against hate speech rather than merely condemn it, insisting that the Constitution and other laws do not permit ethnic discrimination or incitement to violence.

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"We are not only thinking about it, we are going to act upon it and make sure that at least in the areas where FRN is present and in control, you’re not going to see that or hear that,” he said.

"And we will, at one given point in time, have to impose it,” he added.

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He described the FRN’s creation as a response to what he described an existential threat to DR Congo, saying he chose to return to political action rather than allow the country’s problems to become "distant history”.

FDLR and other armed groups

Kabila linked the spread of ethnic hatred to the ideology associated with the Kinshasa-backed FDLR militia, which formed by perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi who fled Rwanda and settled in the region.

He said the genocide ideology remained alive more than three decades later and warned that the challenge extended beyond the FDLR to other armed groups operating in eastern DR Congo.

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After 2006, Kabila said, his administration pursued efforts to address the FDLR militarily, alongside the Ugandan ADF and militias operating in Ituri. Those efforts involved cooperation with other countries and consideration of joint operations with the United Nations, he said.

However, he argued that the efforts were rolled back from 2019 to 2020, accusing the current administration of empowering armed groups rather than dismantling their capacity to threaten civilians.

"These same militias, FDLR included, are now being empowered officially. Officially being empowered, officially being armed, and officially being integrated within the military and other security services,” he said, referring to the Wazalendo, the name given to armed groups fighting alongside the Congolese armed forces in the war with FRN.

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For the former president, the challenge is not only to defeat armed groups but also to prevent the ideology associated with them from spreading across DR Congo and the wider region.

He argued that military operations must be accompanied by public education and efforts to prevent recruitment into groups driven by ethnic hatred.

"It’s not only the gun that you have to use, but also you have to talk, you have to teach, and so that you don’t give room and you don’t give the necessary tools for the people who bear this ideology to continue and recruit,” he said.

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Kabila maintained that if the FDLR problem is within DR Congo, the country must build its own capacity to deal with it while securing public support for efforts to reject its ideology.

"The ambition that we have for the Congo and definitely the region is bigger than the challenge of FDLR,” he said.

He also reiterated his proposal for dialogue, national reunification and the eventual departure of all foreign troops from Congolese territory. Kabila said the withdrawal of foreign troops should remain an objective, with the timing and arrangements subject to discussion.