Through its Minister of Foreign Affairs Hadja Lahbib, Belgium asks President Tshisekedi to cease all collaboration with self-defense groups often described as a negative forces. For the nth time a European country has shown to be more concerned about local self-defense groups than the aggression of armed revels supported by Rwanda.
This rather clumsy request comes at a time when war is raging between Kinshasa and the M23 rebel group supported by Kigali and Kampala.

This rebel movement claims to be the defender of the Kinyarwanda steaking Tutsi populations of eastern DRC who are marginalized and persecuted by the rest of the Congolese.
It is clear that no threats have been made against them despite the support that most give to the rebels.

On the other hand, this group continues to commit atrocities on local populations with the same modus operandi as the RPF during the war of conquest of Rwanda from 1990-1994 which resulted in the latter taking power.

Rape of women, humiliation of men, intimidation, systematic massacres of populations, torture, etc. This is what the Hutu population in Rwanda suffered in the areas occupied by the RPF during the 1990-1994 war and even after the capture of the power by the latter. And this is what the Bantu population in the East of the DRC has suffered for 28 years to date.

Since the resumption of hostilities more than a year ago, the M23 has returned with more aggressiveness, seeming to play its last card by putting all its zeal into it.

It is in vain that Kinshasa continues to remind the International Community to take its responsibilities by asking Rwanda to stop supporting these M23 rebels.

Apart from a few warnings received, Kigali has never been overly worried.

On the contrary, we ask Kinshasa to stop supporting patriots who fight for their own homeland. Suffice it to say that you only have the right to defend yourself under certain conditions, those that will be dictated to you.

Western hypocrisy and its double standards have always been present in the conflict in the Great Lakes region; on this occasion the West drops the veil and shows its true face once again. While a genocide is being committed against the Bantu population, the West is concerned about the way Kinshasa defends the sovereignty of its territory.

We must say things as they are: through its inertia, the International Community, particularly the West, is becoming complicit in a genocide perpetrated by the M23/RDF movement against the Bantu populations of the East of the DRC.

What Kinshasa should understand is that this maliciously maintained impunity aims not only to create a feeling of helplessness and force the Congolese people to submit, but also to provoke these people in order to commit the irreparable by by taking from the Tutsi. Which would be a boon for the M23/RDF which is just waiting for this to reinforce its grievances.

The narrative of “redeemer of the Tutsi” used by the RPF during its war in Rwanda has difficulty getting across in the DRC. If this were to be demonstrated, the M23/RDF would score points in diplomacy and propaganda, areas in which they have had difficulty breaking through so far.