As the conflict in Eastern Congo grinds on, the international community continues to pressure Rwanda to withdraw its defensive posture. But there are two fundamental reasons why Rwanda will not—and cannot—lift its defensive measures until the existential threat posed by the FDLR is neutralized.
The first reason is a matter of basic contractual logic. The Washington Accords, signed by the DRC and Rwanda, established a clear sequence: the neutralization of the FDLR was a prerequisite.
It is illogical—and diplomatically untenable—to ask one party to disarm its defenses while the opposing force, the very reason for those defenses, is not only still armed but state-backed. You do not ask a homeowner to dismiss their security detail while armed intruders are still standing in the yard.
The second reason cuts deeper than geopolitics; it is about historical memory and the West’s reaction to the current crisis. For decades, President Kagame has warned that the international community learned nothing from the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, adding that if it were to happen again, the world’s indifference would be the same. One could even argue that some might cheer.
The current crisis in the DRC has proven this point beyond any doubt.
The evidence is damning. The Banyamulenge are being bombed, their houses burned, and their cattle looted or slaughtered. Yet, the world remain silent.
In Uvira, state-backed militias issued a chilling ultimatum in August 2025 for all Tutsi to leave. When the West subsequently demanded that M23 withdraw from the town, they did not demand the protection of the Tutsi population. The result was predictable and swift: as M23 left, the militias moved in to execute their plan to ethnically “cleanse” the city. Again, total silence from those posturing as human rights defenders.
In North Kivu, the story is the same. In October 2023, reports emerged of 300 Tutsi homes being burned in Nturo. This incident was met with deafening silence. It does not feature in UN reports, Western media headlines, or the humanitarian condemnations issued daily by Western capitals.
Perhaps most horrifying are the episodes that unfolded under the watch of MONUSCO before the liberation of Goma: lynchings and even acts of cannibalism targeting Tutsi individuals. As militias ran amok, the UN mission, which had coexisted with these genocidal forces for years, failed to raise the alarm about the hate speech and violence engulfing the city.
This track record provides Rwanda with a terrifying, evidence-based conclusion: the world does not care. If the FDLR and its networks of militias overwhelmed Rwanda’s defensive lines and began massacring ordinary Tutsi—just as they do in Congo—the reaction would be the same.
For Rwanda, matters are clear.
To lift defensive measures now would be to ignore a signed agreement, and to trust the mercy of an international community that has repeatedly shown it has none to offer when Tutsi lives are on the line.
ellenkampire