{"id":109621,"date":"2025-09-10T16:06:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T16:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/all-news\/elder-congolese-reflects-on-injustice-and-attacks"},"modified":"2025-09-10T16:20:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T16:20:38","slug":"elder-congolese-reflects-on-injustice-and-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/policy\/elder-congolese-reflects-on-injustice-and-attacks","title":{"rendered":"Elder Congolese Reflects on Injustice and Attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Rwanda. <\/strong><\/span>Rusingizwa Bitebetebe, 80, carries the weight of a lifetime scarred by violence and displacement.<\/p>\n

Born in Kavurwa, Uvira Territory in South Kivu, he has endured decades of persecution against the Banyamulenge, rooted in ethnic ideologies entrenched by Belgian colonial rule. He had never once left his homeland, where he served as a pastor for 50 years, until recently.<\/p>\n

The Banyamulenge, a Congolese Tutsi community, have endured decades of systematic persecution in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He is also a pastor who gave fifty years of his life to ministry in Minembwe, a mountainous settlement in South Kivu. For most of that time, he refused to leave, believing that a shepherd must remain with his flock no matter the danger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always believed my duty was to remain with my church and my community,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cTo share in their frustrations, suffer with them, and endure the same persecution they face every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

That conviction held for decades, until April 2023, when a medical trip to Nairobi upended his life.<\/p>\n

Exile without choice<\/b><\/p>\n

After treatment in Kenya, Bitebetebe tried to board a flight home. To his shock, he was stopped. His name, officials told him, was blacklisted\u2014he was considered complicit in the political storm surrounding his community. Returning would mean certain death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had never thought of fleeing my country,\u201d he said, his gaze fixed on the floor. \u201cBut suddenly, I was told I could not go back. It felt like being erased.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoping to find another way, he traveled to Rwanda, thinking road transport might lead him back to South Kivu. But more than two years later, he remains in limbo, stranded in Kigali, his family fractured across borders. His wife and youngest child are still in Minembwe.<\/p>\n

His other children have fled to different countries, scattered by conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried everything,\u201d he said. \u201cI even paid people who promised to arrange my return. In the end, they told me my case was too dangerous, that I was one of those being deliberately targeted.\u201d<\/p>\n

When peace shifted slightly in early 2025, after the AFC\/M23 rebels captured swathes of eastern Congo, he made another attempt. He traveled as far as Bukavu in search of a safe passage. But the landscape was still fractured\u2014rebel-held towns encircled by government troops and militias, roads blocked, planes grounded. He returned to Rwanda once more, defeated.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family is still in Minembwe, near the airport,\u201d he said quietly. \u201cI am ready to return to them the moment it becomes possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Memories of a Homeland<\/b><\/p>\n

The old man\u2019s story stretches across Congo\u2019s turbulent history, blending personal memory with the broader struggles of his community. He recalls the heady days after independence in 1960, when the country shook off Belgian rule but remained entangled in neocolonial ideologies.<\/p>\n

He remembers the Mulele rebellion, and the years of Mobutu Sese Seko\u2019s long dictatorship.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring Mobutu\u2019s era, we had a short time of peace,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it did not last. Soon, we Banyamulenge were branded as not truly Congolese. We were denied the right to vote. Even when they finally allowed us to vote, we could never stand as candidates.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the 1990s, the narrative had hardened. The Banyamulenge were increasingly painted as outsiders\u2014\u201cRwandans\u201d masquerading as Congolese. It was a dangerous label in a region still raw from Rwanda\u2019s 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.<\/p>\n

The consequences were brutal. Villages burned. Neighbours turned into enemies. Ordinary Banyamulenge were accused of dual loyalties and punished with violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have lost many in my family,\u201d Bitebetebe said. \u201cMy father, my brother, and others close to me. I saw people burned alive, others cannibalised, denied even a burial. These memories do not fade. Sometimes I have to remove my glasses and stop speaking, because the pain is too heavy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Systematic persecution<\/b><\/p>\n

The atrocities, he insists, were not random outbursts of violence but the result of state-sanctioned ideology. Successive governments, he argues, weaponised ethnicity to unite their bases and deflect from corruption and failure. The Banyamulenge became the convenient scapegoat.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince tensions began, our community has been relentlessly targeted,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have lost families in village burnings, our people dismissed from government positions, stoned in broad daylight. Many have been burned alive, their bodies desecrated, cannibalised.\u201d<\/p>\n

The list of violations is long: arbitrary arrests, sexual violence, cattle looting, forced displacements into forests where families starved. \u201cIt has been systematic and merciless,\u201d he said, \u201cstripping us of dignity, safety, and a place in the country we call home.\u201d<\/p>\n

International human rights reports have long documented such abuses, linking them to the involvement of Congolese armed forces, Burundian troops, mercenaries, and the FDLR\u2014a militia formed by perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. These groups, sometimes working in loose coordination with Mai Mai and Wazalendo militias, have targeted Banyamulenge villages, all while cross-border attacks on Rwanda kept regional tensions high.<\/p>\n

For Bitebetebe, the cost is deeply personal. A father of eight, he has watched his family fragment under relentless conflict. Only his wife and youngest child remain in Congo. The others are scattered in exile, rebuilding fragile lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I think of how our people are scattered across the world, disunited and without hope for justice or reunification, it pains me,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are so many who wish to return to their motherland. But how can they, when home itself rejects them?\u201d<\/p>\n

Faith against hatred<\/b><\/p>\n

Despite everything, the pastor refuses to harbour bitterness toward ordinary Congolese citizens. He insists that hatred is not innate, but taught.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a pastor, and I lead people from different tribes in my church,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we meet, we greet one another warmly. Those who commit killings do so out of ignorance. It is the government\u2019s ideologies that have poisoned our society.\u201d<\/p>\n

What he cannot forgive is the role of his own government. \u201cWe do not hate our government,\u201d he said, his voice trembling. \u201cIt is the government that hates us. We have seen our people killed by militias in the presence of soldiers. Our cattle were seized and sold with their protection. When we try to speak up, they laugh at us.\u201d<\/p>\n

His words are both an indictment and a lament. A pastor by calling, he has no appetite for politics, yet he cannot separate faith from the daily suffering of his people.<\/p>\n

A plea to the world<\/b><\/p>\n

After decades of waiting in vain for solutions from Kinshasa, Bitebetebe now places his hope in the international community. He speaks with urgency, as if time is running out for his people.<\/p>\n

He is a munyamulenge, a Congolese Tutsi minority that has endured decades of systematic persecution in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the world truly safeguards human rights, then it should also safeguard us,\u201d he said. \u201cNo community can exist without its motherland. We only ask to live in our land, alongside our fellow Congolese, treated with dignity and equal rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

He questions why, among DR Congo\u2019s hundreds of tribes, only the Banyamulenge are so relentlessly persecuted. \u201cThere are tribes along the borders everywhere,\u201d he said. \u201cBrothers divided between countries. Yet it is only we who are labeled foreigners, only we who are hunted. Why us? What did we do?\u201d<\/p>\n

Message to his people<\/b><\/p>\n

To the Banyamulenge scattered across the world, Bitebetebe offers a message of resilience and remembrance.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were fortunate to be welcomed by the countries that now host you,\u201d he said. \u201cRemain grateful. But remember, that is not your country. Keep your motherland at heart. If peace prevails in DR Congo, return and help rebuild it.\u201d<\/p>\n

To those who remain inside the DR Congo, his words are even more urgent. \u201cHold on with hope,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we lose our land, we will be exterminated and forgotten, like birds without a nest. They persecute us while we are still on our soil\u2014what would happen if we lose it completely?\u201d<\/p>\n

For himself, his wish is modest: to be among the first passengers on a flight back to Minembwe, reunited with his family, restored to his congregation.<\/p>\n

But even as he waits, he does not forget others. His prayers include those still imprisoned by the Congolese government\u2014compatriots taken as prisoners of war, separated from their families, their fate unknown.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe long to see them free,\u201d he said. \u201cTo know they are alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

An unfinished journey<\/b><\/p>\n

At 80, Rusingizwa Bitebetebe lives in enforced exile, a pastor without a pulpit, a father with scattered children, a Congolese denied his homeland. Yet his voice carries the endurance of someone who has lived through too much to give up now.<\/p>\n

He is weary, yes, but not broken.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I look back on my life, I see persecution at every turn,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I also see faith, and I see resilience. We Banyamulenge are still here. And as long as we live, we will never stop hoping to return home.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n