Yesterday in Rome, Patrick Muyaya, Tshisekedi’s minister of misinformation, rehashed a familiar lie: “We have a neighbouring country (Rwanda) that invaded us, that attacked us, that’s the origin of the crisis in the first place.”
This is a lie, repeated ad nauseam by the Tshisekedi regime, in the hope it becomes fact. It erases the root causes of the Congolese crisis and seeks to externalise blame, while deflecting from systemic governance failures, rampant corruption, and ethnic persecution, especially against Congolese Tutsis.
This propaganda is not new. It is the same recycled lie that Tshisekedi’s regime has used to deflect blame for its own catastrophic governance, failure to provide security, and complicity in atrocities. By branding the Congolese political-military movement M23/AFC as a foreign force, Muyaya and Tshisekedi insult not only the Congolese Tutsi population but also deny the obvious: that M23/AFC is a homegrown movement with Congolese members resisting marginalisation and state-sponsored persecution.
The Trump administration and Qatar, key sponsors of the Washington and Doha peace initiatives, have seen through this propaganda. Unlike the EU or some corners of the UN system, neither Trump’s team nor the Emir of Qatar have taken Tshisekedi’s allegations against Rwanda at face value. Instead, they’ve rightly prioritised dialogue between the M23/AFC movement and the Tshisekedi regime, and between the latter and Rwanda, recognising that durable peace will not come from addressing root causes.
Muyaya’s claims are all the more cynical for their omissions. He ignores the atrocities committed against Congolese Tutsis: lynchings, mutilations, even cases of cannibalism, all under the direction of the same regime he defends. This propagandistic storytelling feeds a violent nationalism that excludes entire communities, fueling cycles of revenge and militarisation.
The consequences are already visible: military escalation, rising ethnic tensions, and the undermining of promising peace efforts. In liberated zones, the M23/AFC has demonstrated a capacity to restore order and foster coexistence, something the Tshisekedi regime has failed to achieve in over six years of his usurped presidency.
In short, Muyaya’s propaganda should prompt real scrutiny from the Trump administration and the Emir of Qatar, leading them to recognise that Tshisekedi’s regime continues to wield power through the systematic discrimination of its own citizens, particularly those it falsely labels as “Rwandans”.
This, not any foreign interference, is the true root of the crisis in eastern DRC.
ellenkampire