Rwandan President Paul Kagame sends troops into the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to seize territory and resources, not to save Congolese Tutsis. Rwandan Genocide survivor and human rights activist Claude Gatebuke explains.
ANN GARRISON: Claude, President Paul Kagame and his Tutsi elite have for the past 30 years claimed that they and their successive militias, most recently M23, are fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to protect the Banyamulenge, a Congolese Tutsi group in DRC’s South Kivu Province, and the Congolese Tutsi in North Kivu Province. Is there any validity to this claim?
CLAUDE GATEBUKE: There is no validity to this claim. First of all, Kagame needs to pick which lie he is going to peddle. On one hand, he says that his military is not in Congo, then he says they are there to protect Tutsis and Rwanda’s security. The truth is, Rwanda’s and Uganda’s military are mercenaries of multinational companies exploiting Congo’s resources.
These Rwandan and Ugandan mercenary armies also serve their Western puppet masters by deploying in parts of the world where western leaders would rather not intervene—places like Somalia, Darfur, Haiti, Central African Republic, and Mozambique.
What is happening in Congo has been a war of aggression by Rwanda and Uganda since 1996 for the purpose of occupying Congolese territory and plundering Congo’s resources.
AG: Kagame can’t say that he’s in Congo to plunder its resources or to satisfy the West’s resource hungers, so he has to have something to say, no matter how implausible it becomes, correct?
CG: That’s correct. Thieves don’t usually admit to their thieving!!! They just get caught. If they are powerful thieves, consequences may be delayed and they, the thieves, may even force a false narrative to deflect from the fact that they’ve been caught stealing. Kagame and Museveni have to make up something that legitimizes their invasion and occupation of Congo without admitting that they are there to steal. Kagame and Museveni have crafted a narrative that many people would be sympathetic to: a fight against discrimination. But it’s not true, it’s just a cover for their egregious crimes in Congo.
AG: You refer to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s involvement, which is for some reason little understood or discussed. That’s a huge and complicated subject in itself, so can we first concentrate on Kagame’s claim—for 30 years—that his troops are in DRC to protect the Banyamulenge and the Congolese Tutsi? Can you explain who the Banyamulenge and the Congolese Tutsi are?
CG: Museveni’s role cannot be left out of the narrative because he and his regime have often used the same pretext—protecting Tutsis—to attack Congo. He and his troops share in the guilt for atrocities and the death of over six million innocent people in Congo. Museveni and Kagame follow the same template.
The Banyamulenge are one of multiple Congolese Tutsi groups. The Banyamulenge are specifically from South Kivu Province near Bukavu in Mulenge; they came to Congo in the 17th, 18th, and/or 19th centuries, depending on who you talk to. “Banyamulenge” literally means people of Mulenge.
The Congolese Tutsis are mostly in places like Masisi or other parts of North Kivu Province where Kinyarwanda, the language of Rwanda, is the spoken language.
In these places, the population is not just Tutsi, there are also non-Tutsi Kinyarwanda speakers in Congo, including Hutu and Twa people. When Kagame and Museveni claim to fight for the rights of Kinyarwanda speakers and pretend that such people are only Tutsi, they are peddling another lie to justify invading Congo.
AG: Kagame wasn’t protecting Tutsis when he set up a “Congo desk” in Kigali to organize the sale of minerals stolen and smuggled across the Rwandan/Congolese border to multinational corporations, as was documented in the 2001 UN Group of Experts report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources in the DR Congo.
Rwandan Defense Forces aren’t protecting Tutsis now in Rubayu, in Congo’s North Kivu Province. In December 2024, the UN Group of Experts reported that they’re instead forcing children, women, and men to artisanally mine coltan, transferring 150 metric tons a month into Rwanda for export to global markets under the label “Rwandan minerals.”
They aren’t protecting Tutsis at the border-crossing points from Kibumba, DRC, to Rwanda. They’re trafficking minerals, also as documented in the December 2024 report.
None of the plunder documented in decades of UN experts reports had anything to do with protecting Tutsis, but the idea that Rwandan troops are there to protect Tutsis is still given considerable credence. Why do you think that is?
CG: “Protecting Tutsis” is like Kagame’s code word for smuggling coltan and other minerals from Congo to Rwanda. It couldn’t be more evident to anyone who has paid any attention to the UN experts’ reports or spoken to people in parts of Congo occupied by Rwanda and Uganda–that Kagame and Museveni’s troops are not in Uganda to protect Tutsis. But Kagame and his regime have done an amazing PR job, selling themselves as liberators of Tutsis, who can do no wrong.
Those who pay only minimal attention to Rwanda and Congo may well believe the propaganda coming from the Rwandan regime. Showing them the facts shocks their beliefs and they would rather live with the illusion that Kagame is a savior of Tutsis and blame the Congolese for the Rwandan and Ugandan aggression which has for many years had the support of the US, UK, and EU.
There’s a saying that “It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled,” and Kagame has done a great job of fooling people around the world about his role in DRC. He has really done a number on so many people.
The second reason is that some of the people who pay attention to Rwanda are invested in Kagame’s narrative because they benefit from keeping good relations with Kagame’s regime and therefore are committed to pushing the false narrative. Some are politicians, most prominently Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, but also university professors, media personalities, athletes and athletic organizations like the NBA, Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain; pastors, and business people, all of whom refuse to admit the reality of Kagame’s and Museveni’s atrocities in Congo.
AG: Kagame’s other excuse is that a Rwandan Hutu refugee militia, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), poses an existential threat to Rwanda. What is your response to that?
CG: It is just another pretext to invade Congo. Kagame’s own generals have bragged about defeating the FDLR. If it is a defeated army, how does it pose a threat?
Secondly, many FDLR troops who were repatriated to Rwanda have been recruited into Rwanda’s military and sent back to fight in Congo. If they are such a threat, why would they re-arm them? The FDLR has served as a convenient excuse for Kagame to keep an open door policy on his invasions of Congo.
AG: Let’s go back to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s collaboration with Kagame in occupying and plundering DRC. Why do you think that is so little discussed or understood?
CG: There are three main reasons:
1. Rwandan troops have committed horrific atrocities, including torture, burning people alive, and amputating men and women’s genitals, so Congolese people remember and denounce them first and foremost because of their brutality. Given how little attention the world pays to Congo, the Congolese people usually stop at Rwanda and forget to call out Uganda as well.
2. The Congolese government has been extremely incompetent in addressing the invasion of Congo. President Tshisekedi didn’t start talking about Rwanda’s invasion of Congo until the Congolese people’s voices were so loud that they could not be ignored. In 2022, he finally rode the coattails of the Congolese people, calling out the invasion to make himself popular during the 2022 election year.
The fact that he and his government have left Uganda out of the narrative is disingenuous at best, seeing as Ugandan troops are the ones that took over Bunagana, a border town that is now under M23 and RDF control. The fact that the Congolese government has not called out Uganda is a great disservice to the Congolese people.
3. Mainstream/corporate media has been complicit in providing cover for both Museveni and Kagame and deflecting from the real issues. The whitewashing of these crimes continues in mainstream media.
AG: Claude, thank you for speaking to Black Agenda Report.
CG: You’re welcome. Thank you for covering these international crimes that the world needs to heed.
Claude Gatebuke is a Rwandan Genocide survivor and human rights activist, founder of the African Great Lakes Action Network, and co-author of the book Survivors Uncensored.
Ann Garrison is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at [email protected]. You can help support her work on Patreon.
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