Human Rights Watch (HRW), now with a lost reputation, was once built on exposing abuses and holding power to account. That, at least, was the official story, the Hollywoodian framing. That was until the advent of the Tshisekedi regime in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Here, the organisation’s record is conspicuously selective. The regime, which has presided over mass atrocities, ethnic persecution, and the systematic silencing of dissent, seems to enjoy a level of sympathy from HRW staff that would be unthinkable for any other government in the region.
Consider the evidence. In June this year, Dr Bojana Coulibaly noted that HRW released a new report backing regime propaganda following meetings with Kinshasa authorities. The report accused the AFC/M23 and the Rwandan army of killings in South Kivu without presenting the slightest evidence to back up the claims, not even a field investigation. The HRW delegation during that meeting included its Executive Director, Philippe Bolopion, and its main reporter on the Great Lakes, Clémentine de Montjoye. Bolopion and Montjoye had in-person meetings with DRC Prime Minister Judith Suminwa and DRC Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Guy Kabombo Muadiamvita, she remarked.
In 2023, Dr Coulibaly had already exposed the organisation’s determination to cover up state-incited ethnic-based killings taking place in eastern Congo. “When a lynching takes place in 2023, consisting of stoning and burning alive a living human being for the sole reason that he looks like a Rwandan or Tutsi, and the so-called human rights organisation doesn’t even bother saying something… the world has gone mad,” she said.
In Nturo, North Kivu, in 2023, more than 300 homes belonging to Congolese Tutsi were burned to the ground by Kinshasa-backed FDLR and Wazalendo militias. HRW said nothing.
Similarly, in July 2026, an attack on Banyamulenge civilians in the Minembwe region left dozens dead after drone strikes and ground assaults by Kinshasa’s coalition. HRW noted the attack but failed to frame it within the broader pattern of state-sponsored violence against Congolese Tutsi. The dead were counted, but the perpetrators were not named with the same urgency reserved for other conflicts.
Then there is the deliberate starvation of Tutsi communities in Minembwe and elsewhere. Kinshasa has imposed a blockade on humanitarian aid, cutting off food and medicine to tens of thousands of civilians. HRW has yet to denounce the regime’s policy of using starvation as a weapon of war. This should worry everyone who still believes the organisation is a human rights organisation.
The regime’s crackdown on dissent is equally brutal. Journalists have been attacked in their countries of residence, even as far as Europe. Journalist and regime critic Pero Luwara was violently assaulted in Belgium and nearly killed. Government critic Denise Dusauchoy was lured into a trap in Tanzania and extradited to Kinshasa. Opposition leaders like Martin Fayulu have faced violent repression. Yet HRW’s reporting on these cases has been episodic, lacking the sustained pressure that the regime’s abuses demand, or simply nonexistent.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that HRW is Kinshasa’s best friend, covering up its crimes with alternative stories or framing that leaves it off the hook. The Tshisekedi regime is the deadliest in the Great Lakes, yet it is treated with kid gloves. HRW is part of the reason why.
ellenkampire