A Ugandan diplomat on Tuesday, May 31, backed Rwanda in condemning all manifestations of hate speech and Genocide ideology in the region.
Amb Adonia Ayebare, Uganda's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, was speaking at the United Nations Security Council briefing on the situation concerning the DR Congo.
He said: "We condemn hate speech in all its forms and manifestations, given the recent history of our region where over one million people perished in the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.”
"Hatemongers have no place in the discourse to address challenges facing our region. We call on the UN Special Adviser on Prevention of Genocide to take interest in hate speech coming out of our region of recent.”
Tensions escalated between Rwanda and the DR Congo, following the recent resurgence of the M23 rebellion in the latter’s restive east. The fighting between the Congolese army (FARDC) and the rebels near the common border is threatening to drag Rwanda into what is actually an intra-Congolese conflict.
For the past few days, Kigali watched, in shock, as numerous videos and other material continue circulating on social media spreading hate speech by Congolese nationals.
Shedding light on Rwanda’s ongoing conflict with neighbouring DR Congo, Amb. Claver Gatete, the Permanent Representative of Rwanda to the UN, noted that even more disturbing, is a factor that should be of global concern, beyond the region.
Amb Gatete said: "The blatant resurgence of anti-Rwanda hate speech and calls for Genocide, that are being encouraged by some officials and politicians in the DR Congo and spreading through the population.
"There should never be silence on this issue by this Council and the international community in view of what happened in Rwanda in 1994.”
The Rwandan envoy said they are calling on the Government of the DR Congo to stop the proliferation of hate speech and messages inciting genocidal violence.
Kigali is, among others, concerned that for close to 30 years now, there has been consistent collaboration between the Congolese military and the FDLR, a Rwandan genocidal armed group based in eastern DR Congo. The FDLR comprises remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. After killing more than one million people 28 years ago, they fled into eastern DR Congo, where, Kigali says, they have been tolerated and preserved by Kinshasa.
According to Kigali, over the years, Kinshasa sanitised the genocidal militia group to the extent that it is currently co-located, and fighting alongside the Congolese army.
It is not clear how much progress was made, but President Paul Kagame and his Congolese counterpart Félix Tshisekedi have talked on phone in an attempt to resolve the current impasse. The Chairperson of the Africa Union, Senegal President Macky Sall, on Monday, May 30, thanked both leaders for "our telephone conversations” on Sunday and Monday, in the quest for a peaceful solution to the dispute between the DR Congo and Rwanda.
On May 23, rockets from the Congolese side of the border injured several people in parts of Musanze district, in Rwanda.
The Congolese military and the terrorist FDLR militia, according to Kigali, also kidnapped two Rwandan soldiers who were patrolling along the common border. Rwanda has also stressed that it has no intention of being drawn into an intra-Congolese matter, but Kinshasa claims that the M23 rebels are supported by Kigali.
Kigali says these "allegations are a pretext by some spoilers within” the DR Congo to externalise the conflict for domestic political gains which is dangerous and should be denounced.