Albert Rudatsimburwa
Africa-Press – Rwanda. Belgium still behaves as though it is Europe’s natural interpreter of Central Africa, a role inherited from its colonial past and rarely questioned in European circles.
For decades, Belgian officials and experts have framed the region for Europe, shaping European policy toward Rwanda, Burundi, and DR Congo. But today, this old reflex is steering Europe towards simplistic narratives and worsening misunderstanding of the region under the weight of its own blind spots. The Great Lakes region has moved on. Belgium has not.
The recent behaviour of Belgium’s foreign minister illustrates this shift. After several years of confrontational rhetoric toward Rwanda, including public accusations regarding the crisis in eastern DR Congo, he has suddenly attempted to reconnect, even seeking Qatar’s assistance to reopen diplomatic channels. His encounter with Rwandan officials during the Francophonie summit in Kigali was not the sign of a confident power returning to the table; it was the gesture of a state realizing, belatedly, that it has isolated itself. Rwanda does not expect Belgium to mediate regional conflicts. That era is long gone. But Rwanda would welcome a normal, constructive relationship with a partner capable of maturity and honesty.
Such honesty begins with history. Belgium continues to avoid acknowledging the most fundamental fact shaping Rwandan and eastern Congolese identity politics today: it was Belgian colonial rule that invented the racial categories of “Hutu,” “Tutsi,” and “Twa.” Precolonial Rwanda was a unified society whose social categories reflected economic roles and mobility, not biology or ethnicity. But Belgian administrators, using the racial anthropology of the early 20th century, declared these categories to be “races” and inscribed them on identity cards under that label. The same racial doctrine was applied in the Belgian Congo, where Congolese Banyarwanda were classified along these invented “racial” lines.
This was not a minor bureaucratic intervention. It reshaped social perception, hardened identities, and prepared the ground for the segregationist regimes Belgium later supported. It also influenced how Congolese authorities came to view Banyarwanda populations on their soil, an attitude that continues to fuel conflict and exclusion to this day.
Yet one of the most consequential and least acknowledged aspects of Belgium’s legacy is that it orchestrated the first mass violence targeting Tutsi communities, long before Rwanda became independent.
In the late 1950s, Belgian administrators, convinced that the monarchy and the so-called “Tutsi elite” posed an obstacle to their plans for political transition, deliberately supported and supervised anti-Tutsi pogroms, which they then presented as “popular revolts.” Colonial officers such as Colonel Logiest openly described these operations. These campaigns produced the first large-scale flows of refugees on the African continent, years before the wave of decolonization. Entire families fled Rwanda, and many would remain stateless until the 1990s. Belgium rarely mentions this foundational fact when diagnosing today’s crises.
The consequences of this selective memory were on full display during a recent information session in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives on the crisis in eastern DR Congo. Belgian diplomats and researchers confidently repeated the same reductive explanation: Rwanda is in DR Congo to plunder minerals. With remarkable ease, they skipped over the entire historical and political terrain that makes the region what it is. No mention of the borders Belgium helped redraw in 1910, severing the Rwandan kingdom and leaving Banyarwanda communities on both sides. No acknowledgment that these Congolese Banyarwanda have lived there for generations. No reference to Belgium’s support for segregationist governments after independence, which kept Tutsi refugees in limbo for decades. No reminder that Belgium helped evacuate the families of the genocidal government in 1994, offering them safe haven while Rwanda was still counting its dead.
More strikingly, the Belgian analysis ignored a central element of the current conflict: the ongoing failure of the Congolese state to protect its populations. The suffering in eastern DR Congo is not solely caused by external actors. It is also the result of decades of weak governance, politicized exclusion, and the presence of multiple armed groups, including the FDLR, the reorganized genocidal forces that crossed into DR Congo in 1994 and have operated there ever since. Any credible discussion of the region must acknowledge DR Congo’s own responsibilities. Yet Belgian officials rarely do. It is as if the Congolese state has no agency, no obligations, and no role in shaping the conflict on its territory.
Belgium’s blind spots are not only historical or geopolitical; they are also domestic. The country became a refuge for some who were linked to Rwanda’s former regimes, including families close to the segregationist systems that paved the way for the 1994 genocide. Some have since integrated into Belgian political and civil society networks. Their influence is subtle but real. It contributes to a political climate in which hostility toward Rwanda is culturally embedded, while Belgium’s own historical involvement remains conveniently unexamined.
What complicates matters further is Rwanda’s trajectory itself. Rwanda rebuilt from the ashes of genocide without Belgian guidance, without Belgian tutelage, and without Belgian structures. It stabilized, reconciled, and developed in ways that defied the expectations of those who predicted state failure. For a former colonial power accustomed to shaping Rwanda’s institutions and discourse, this success is disorienting. Belgium is not resented in Kigali; it is simply no longer essential. Some in Brussels have struggled to adjust to this new reality.
But there is a path forward… if Belgium chooses it. Rwanda does not expect Belgium to mediate regional crises, nor does it seek validation from its former administrator. What Rwanda expects, like any sovereign and mature partner, is honesty. Belgium can regain relevance only by reflecting on its own legacy: the invention of racial categories, the creation of colonial borders that still define communities, the direct role it played in early anti-Tutsi pogroms and refugee flows, the decades of support for segregationist governments, the sheltering of genocidal elites, and the refusal to acknowledge Congo’s governance failures.
If Belgium addresses these truths with humility instead of nostalgia, it could still be a respectful and constructive partner in a region that has moved beyond its shadow. But if Belgium continues to cling to simplistic narratives and selective memory, it will remain what it is rapidly becoming: a former power still talking, long after others have stopped listening.
Source: The New Times
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