The Congolese Army FARDC spokesperson Gen.Sylvain Ekenge’s divisive remarks against the Tutsi people have stirred a global backlash and could reset diplomatic engagements.
Gen.Ekenge took to the national broadcaster (RTNC) and demonised ethnic Tutsi people in what has been described as state sponsored genocidal agenda against ethnic Tutsi people.
Gen. Ekenge claimed, “when you marry a Tutsi woman, you have to be careful. When you are a leader, like a great traditional chief, you are given a woman, but you will receive at your home a member of her family who will be presented as a cousin or a nephew, when in fact it is the person who will come to have children with your wife in the house, and you will be told that the children are born Tutsi because the Tutsi race is superior to their ethnicities.”
Prevot Maxime, the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Affairs and Development Cooperation of Belgium has been dumbfounded by remarks made by the Congolese Army General.
“I am Extremely shocked by the remarks made today by the spokesman of the Congolese army, Gen Ekenge, targeting the Tutsi community,” Maxime said on Sunday.
“This is absolutely unworthy of an official representative. I condemn them with the utmost firmness. All hate speech must be rejected in all circumstances. National concord can only be built in a spirit of inclusion of all communities,” The Belgian Premier said.
Gen.Ekenge’s remarks come at a time the AFC/M23 rebels largely composed of ethnic Tutsi Congolese have taken control of vast territory stretching from North Kivu to South Kivu provinces.
Some of the reasons that compelled the rebellion included a determination to prevent ethnic cleansing of Tutsi Congolese.
For the past three decades, the Congolese government has allied with a Rwandan FDLR militia largely made up of perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against ethnic Tutsi in Rwanda that claimed over a million lives.
According to Olivier Nduhungirehe Rwanda’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Gen. Ekenge’s divisive remarks are a borrowed script from the ‘ten hutu commandments’ that were very instrumental in accelerating extermination of ethnic Tutsi people in Rwanda.
Minister Nduhungirehe explains, “this Congolese general doesn’t even stop there and goes so far as to reprise colonial theses that laid the foundations for “ethnic” division and genocide against the Tutsi, namely the idea that the Tutsi are “Nilotics” who conquered Rwanda and subjugated the Hutu, even appropriating “their Bantu language,” Kinyarwanda.”
“Rwanda in particular, will never, ever accept a repetition of its tragic history,” Nduhungirehe said in a detailed response to threats announced by DRC Army Spokesperson Gen Ekenge.
