Why denying rights to Congolese Banyarwanda puts Tshisekedi’s rule at risk

In my previous article, I concluded that President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi recognises the Banyabwisha, whom he classifies as Hutu, while denying citizenship rights to South Kivu’s Banyamulenge and other Banyarwanda, most notably the Tutsi of North Kivu. In this article, I examine what this selective exclusion means for his political survival. As I showed earlier, the Banyamulenge, Banyabwisha and Bafumbira prioritised local, place-based identities over their wider Banyarwanda heritage for two reasons. They wanted to secure their status as indigenous groups and distance themselves from regional conflicts associated with the Banyarwanda identity. The denial of citizenship did not stop with these three groups. It affected other Banyarwanda communities across the Great Lakes region. These communities needed no local landmark to prove their roots because the Banyarwanda had settled across the region long before colonial powers drew new borders. Their claim to the land rests on history, not on a single place name. The Kigezi Agreement, signed on October 30, 1911, established the borders between Uganda, Rwanda-Urundi and the Congo. It stripped Rwanda of a vast territory and its native Banyarwanda population. The treaty transferred about 124,553 square kilometres, covering present-day North and South Kivu, to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo). It gave another 17,715 square kilometres to Uganda. In total, the agreement handed 142,268 square kilometres of land to Rwanda’s two neighbours. Uganda integrated its Banyarwanda as the Bafumbira. DR Congo did the opposite. Its Banyarwanda remain unrecognised and are denied citizenship. Within the borders established by the Kigezi Agreement, this community inhabits an area spanning more than 124,553 square kilometres. The root cause of the instability is a contradictory policy: the state seeks control over this vast and vital territory while denying rights to its inhabitants and displacing them. This contradiction lies at the heart of the conflict. On May 8, 2026, Tshisekedi authorised the first National Hutu Day, formally recognising the Congolese Hutu. Yet his administration also endorsed a nationwide campaign to eliminate the Congolese Tutsi. A government cannot honour one part of a people while targeting the other. The contradiction is striking because both groups formed the population known as Banyarwanda before the border demarcations of October 30, 1911. History in the Great Lakes region shows that state-sponsored exclusion is self-defeating. Regimes that turned citizenship into a weapon against the Banyarwanda, especially the Tutsi, brought about their own collapse. Governance built on systemic discrimination cannot last. Juvénal Habyarimana in Rwanda, Milton Obote in Uganda and Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire all fell after adopting segregationist strategies, particularly against the Tutsi. By contrast, Tanzania’s Mwalimu Julius Nyerere demonstrated how a unifying vision could build lasting regional stability. The lesson is plain: a leader who divides citizens by origin loses the support needed to govern. Does Tshisekedi’s strategy depend entirely on whether foreign mercenaries and private fighters, such as those from Erik Prince’s Vectus Global, can secure a military victory? They cannot. Private military contractors cannot resolve a crisis rooted in political irresponsibility and identity-based persecution. A Kinyarwanda proverb captures the difference between mercenaries and the fighters of the Front pour la Refondation de la Nation (FRN): “Umwana ujya iwabo ntabara iminsi, iyo abaze iminsi ntaba agitashye.” It means: “A child journeying home never counts the days. To count the days is to ensure you never arrive.” Mercenaries count the days of their contracts. Those fighting for their survival do not measure time. There are no shortcuts to resolving the conflict in eastern DR Congo. Peace will be achieved only when existential threats are removed and the population’s citizenship and ancestral land rights are restored. The writer is a media specialist, historian and playwright.

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Why denying rights to Congolese Banyarwanda puts Tshisekedi’s rule at risk