By BK Kumbi
Mary Robinson said:
Let’s not be blind anymore. 8 million of dead in the Great Lakes region is too far ENOUGH.
”I think there is a recognition that we need to deal with the deeper causes because underneath the rebel group M23 is real grievance of Tutsis who don’t feel at home in their own country, the Congo.”
If I had the opportunity to talk to Mary Robinson, I would ask her why and how as Congolese we should take into consideration the grievances of people who do not belong to the Congolese nation?
The Tutsis and their partner in crime, US, GB, Canada and Belgium have continued to find reasons to justify the fact that they were on the Congolese territory. When the argument of the FDLR is not as effective as it should be, they use the argument of ”ethnic minority in danger”.
This argument was the basis for the invasion of Rwanda by the RPF in 1990, and the Rwandan militias, the RCD, CNDP and now M23 also seek to use it to justify their criminal adventure in the Congo.
Why this argument they are all trying to use is particularly misleading? These people and their allies rely mostly on the fact that ordinary people will not, for the most part of them, try to go look at what the official documents governing the issue of nationality say, namely the Constitution here?
As Patrick Mbeko discusses it in his work on Canada in the wars in central Africa, the Congolese constitution, all along in time and despite some back and forth, kept a principle , namely that of a single nationality. This means that when you are Congolese, you can’t hold another nationality.
This principle is enshrined in the Decree-Law No. 197 of 29 January 1999, initiated by Laurent Désiré Kabila to oppose Tutsi Rwandan conflicting inclinations and secure the way Congolese citizenship was granted.
The text of the law states the following in its second chapter:
53 years after, the struggle continues. We are going to fight for the heart of Africa until death.
” Shall be Congolese a person whose ancestors, at least one, who is or was, on the date of June 30, 1960, a member of one of the tribes settled in the territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo in its borders of August 1885, as amended by subsequent agreements.”
Patrick Mbeko also adds that on the 19th of December 2005, the latest version of the Congolese Constitution strengthens the decree of 1999. It says:
”Shall be Congolese persons belonging to ethnic groups whose people and territory constituted what became Congo (now DRC) at the Independence.”
The principle of single nationality laid down by the Congolese Constitution is completely inconsistent with the Code of Rwandan nationality of September 28, 1963, which states in Article 1:
”Shall be Rwandan any person born to a Rwandan father or the possession of Rwandan State is established. ”
Plus the Rwandan Organic Law N° 30/2008 OF 25/07/2008 relating to Rwandan nationality in the Article 6 says:
”Shall be Rwandan any person whose one of the parents is Rwandan,” is again inconsistent with Congolese Law related to Congolese nationality.
One sees in these articles how the legal norm bases (Congolese and Rwandan) citizenship on ius sanguinis (right of blood) but when the Rwandan Organic Law specifies that one can hold two nationalities, the Congolese Law says that one is allowed to hold a single nationality.
Bosco Ntaganda and Paul Kagame
Unless the Tutsi Rwandans who claim to be Congolese have given up their Rwandan nationality, they cannot technically be Congolese. Looking back at history, one can assume that James Kabarabe, who was once chief of staff of the Congolese army, Laurent Nkunda (batware) who was welcomed in Rwanda after all the atrocities he has committed in the Congo or Bosco Ntaganda, have never renounced their Rwandan nationality and that their presence on Congolese soil has always been that of foreigners and we can probably say the same thing for Sultani Makenga.
One could further discuss the question of ethnicity and show how, again, Tutsis demands are based on a complete mystification. Counterfeiting history has become a favorite game in Paul Kagame’s Rwanda and one should not be surprised that its militias do the same in the Congo.
The so-called Congolese Tutsi well aware of what is stipulated in the Congolese Constitution often argue that they are an ethnic group called Banyamulenge. One who denied them this claim was … James Kabarebe, a Tutsi and not the least Tutsi! On August 22, 2002, the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), in front of thousands of people, students and teachers from the Free University of Kigali, (ULK) simply said that the Banyamulenge did not exist:
“The Banyamulenge do not exist. The alleged Banyamulenge are, in reality, Rwandans because, they speak the Kinyarwanda, and have Rwandan culture. Unfortunately, they are Rwandans opportunists and cowards.“
North Kivu areas that saw the recent defeat of M23
If James Kabarebe notes that the ”Banyamulenge” people speak Kinyarwanda it is precisely because, and as Mbeko shows it, in Congo each ethnic group is defined, not necessarily by the geographic location it has invested but by the language it speaks and there is a territorial homogeneity in the way these languages are designated. Thus, the Bangala speak Lingala, the Bembe from Kivu speak Kibembe, the Baluba the Chiluba, the Bayanzi the Kiyanzi etc … But it is clear that the Banyamulenge speak neither Mulenge or kimulenge but Kinyarwanda. To this must be added that even the ethnic categorizations made by the Belgians in the Congo do not state anywhere that there is a people called Banyamulenge.
If there is any truth to all this, it is that Rwanda and Uganda, supported by the United States, invaded Zaire in 1996. This invasion is merely the expression of an enterprise of destabilization that began well before the fall of Mobutu, when we Congolese offered hospitality to a Tutsi population in search of a haven. Today the lies must stop, facing the millions of lives that were lost, Ms. Robinson should keep quiet.