Over 1,500 Congolese were killed by the ADF rebel group in just one year. The FDLR, remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, has killed more than a million people over the past decade, in eastern DRC. And yet, the Kinshasa regime has chosen a different villain, which is the M23, a movement composed of Congolese citizens demanding the rights their country denies them.
The regime in Kinshasa – a morally derelict group – has perfected the art of distraction. The country’s president Felix Tshisekedi and his allies have fed the world a fiction. That the M23 is the core of DR Congo’s instability, a puppet of Rwanda, a band of rebels sowing chaos in Eastern DRC. this is a manufactured lie.
It is an open secret that the M23 was born from domestic betrayal. M23 was formed in protest of the DRC government’s repeated violations of peace accords signed in good faith. These were agreements that promised reintegration, security, and representation; promises that were quickly broken once the ink dried.
For years, the Congolese Tutsi community has endured systemic persecution: denied citizenship, hunted by genocidal militias, and labeled foreigners in the only country they’ve ever called home.
Yet, instead of addressing the root cause of the crisis, Kinshasa doubles down on its scapegoat. M23 has become the perfect distraction for a regime that can’t control its borders, its army, and its coffers.
The Kinshasa regime is silent on the real killers. The ADF, an Islamist militia linked to ISIS, regularly massacres civilians. The FDLR, composed of genocidaires, has embedded itself deeply in Congolese territory, often with cooperation from FARDC (National army).
Then there are Wazalendo and Mai-Mai militias, who have carried out brutal attacks on Banyamulenge civilians and Congolese Tutsi, in places like Uvira, where even police officers from this community have been tortured and killed simply for existing.
Why are these groups never the focus of Kinshasa’s rhetoric? Because they are useful. And they help prop up a broken regime. Because it is easier to keep the world distracted with the phantom of M23 than to confront the ugly reality.
It is high time the international community stops treating M23 as the root of DR Congo’s chaos and starts asking tougher questions:
Why are genocidal forces like the FDLR still tolerated?
Why is the Congolese army colluding with militias that carry out ethnic violence?
Why has the Kinshasa regime repeatedly violated its peace commitments?
And most importantly: Why is it still acceptable to ignore the voices of Congolese Tutsi, labeling them “Rwandan” as a pretext to silence or kill them?