Speech against murders Nairobi 2022

Ladies and gentlemen,
We speak on this day in the name and on behalf of self-defense
Twirwaneho from the Banyamulenge Community, victim of very ethnic cleansing
advanced, flourishing a genocide.
First on board, it should be emphasized that Twirwaneho is not a group
armed, as the name suggests, but more of a community self-defense initiative; who uses all the means at his disposal to defeat the
complete extermination of a national ethnic component, namely the
Banyamulenge community mainly populating the Middle and High Plateaux of Mwenga, Fizi and Uvira, by local extremist armed groups and
foreigners and this under a deafening silence if not an accomplice of the Congolese State,
by his explicit and/or implicit criminal participation in certain respects.
Indeed, it is since the year 2017 that Mai-Mai armed groups have started to attack
systematically the Banyamulenge villages of the places mentioned above. Those
Congolese armed groups have entered into alliances with foreign armed groups
notably the Red-Tabara, the FNL, FOREBU and the FDRL of sad memory. Their
joint attacks would aim at the extermination of the Community
Banyamulenge or at best ethnic cleansing or purely its uprooting.
This is how these armed groups began to kill communally.
targeted and selective of all Munyamulenge found in the village, in the forest shelters
and wherever they were found in these three territories. These allied criminals have
undertook to burn entire villages as well as all its infrastructures,
including churches, schools, health centers, markets, offices
local administrators…
And the third operation was to raid the cows of the community
Banyamulenge of the Middle and High Plateaux, without forgetting also those of the plain
of the Ruzizi, which is just as extremely serious for a pastoral people
(Breeder). This reminds us of absolute war, as defined by the strategist
German Clausewitz during the second world war, which was to kill,
eradicate, decimate his adversary, his infrastructures, his factories, his means of
production, its means of communication (in short, subjecting it to a politico-military, economic, psychological, civil war and what not.), in order to force it
to flee or to surrender.
To date there are several hundred people killed, more than 500 villages
completely burned and more than 480,000 head of cattle carried away or killed on
square. More than that, 150,000 Banyamulenge were forced to take the path of
exile in neighboring or distant countries following the above inhuman violence
occasions.
As you may have followed or read through some leaflets of the armed groups
and especially through social networks, these armed groups claim to want
exterminate or chase members of the Banyamulenge Community from the
Democratic Republic of Congo, on the pretext that they are foreigners who must
leave the DR Congo willingly or by force and rendering them stateless.
As a result, they would not even be entitled to their name “of the Banyamulenges, nor to the
land, to even local entities such as the municipality, even less to all the rights
political and social (the right to live).
In short, for them the Banyamulenges have no right to their Identity, to their
Citizenship, not even life. And greater crime than the banyamulenge would have
committed is the racial profiling offence.
The most delirious in all this is the complicit silence of the Congolese State. Since
outbreak of these hostilities, we seized the Congolese State, guarantor of order
and public tranquility, National Sovereignty and the inviolability of
borders, by calling on it to make use of its sovereign prerogatives of
protection of its citizens, by lifting the amalgam sown within the tribal militias
neighboring communities through a civic awareness campaign aimed at
of these and/or the re-reading of the Constitution of the Republic in the matter;
Inspired by these legal provisions, the State knows who its citizens are and who it is not.
are not to the detriment of poisoning neighboring communities and their
criminogenic militias.
Different authorities and institutions have been informed about this drama described above,
starting with the local Army Commander based in the Hauts-Plateaux,
theater of operations, up to the President of the Republic. The answer was
strictly absolute silence at first.
Instead of answering the cry of distress that we had addressed to him, we were
unpleasantly surprised to note the explicit collaboration of the elements of
FARDC armed forces with armed groups to attack our Community.
It is in these conditions of abandonment of state institutions and in the face of death that
born Twirwanho which means defend ourselves, take care of ourselves. Young people
from each village began to organize to defend their parents and
goods and later organized on how different villages can do
assistance in the event of an attack, hence the idea of ​​Coordination. Such is his situation
until today.
At this stage, it should be noted that when Twirwaneho began to defeat
to the complete extermination and the ethnic cleansing programmed by some
tolerated by others, what was our surprise to see the FARDC who never
attacked local or foreign armed groups in these three aforementioned territories
began to organize heavy-handed operations against the Civil Self-Defense
Twirwaneho. Even during these attacks the FARDC always made themselves
accompany Mai-Mai militiamen, we have irrefutable proof of this. Is it
a simple local maneuver by the FARDC or a policy thought out from the heads of the
institutions?
Given the extraterritorial and extra-Community coloring of this cohort
criminogen and the nature of the military strategies used by this coalition gang
described above, this augurs well for the involvement of high authorities
national deputies, the incendiary remarks of certain National Deputies corroborate
this affirmation. We appeal to the spirit of fairness and justice of the President of
the Republic, guarantor of the nation, to initiate an investigation in order to establish the
responsibilities for these massacres, starting with the planners to the
last-hand performers, whose representatives unfortunately sit
with us on site and above all to carry out repairs by returning and
reconstituting our economy based on the dairy cow bequeathed by our ancestors,
for there is no true reconciliation without restitution. We hope to have a
response during these meetings.
Finally, we want to bring to the attention of both National and International opinion
that Twirwaneho is not an armed group nor is it a rebellion.
As such, he does not attack the State, institutions, he does not aim to overthrow
power. Nor does he seek to integrate the FARDC. It does not attack any
other community and don’t want to drive out any other community. Inasmuch as
self-defence movement, it fights only for the right to life. Let them
Banyamulenges live in peace and enjoy their rights guaranteed by the Constitution of
the Democratic Republic of Congo and that is not asking enough.
If no one attacks us, Twirwaneho will not attack anyone. On the other hand we
we are not ready to give our head to be cut off by the neck.
Twirwaneho will never accept that another community, another tribe, or a
armed group decide on its identity, its future or its rights, in defiance of
the law and the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
We hope that these meetings will answer all these concerns. let’s say
everyone in their place and the State will undertake to play its sovereign role and restore peace and
physical integrity for all.
Long live the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Long live national harmony and peace for all,
Long live the peaceful cohabitation of all the national components,
To Almighty God be the Glory forever and ever!
Thank you !
Done in Nairobi on April 24, 2022
Kamasa Ndakize Welcome
Twirwaneho Delegation