{"id":2000123140,"date":"2026-08-20T13:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T11:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/?p=2000123140"},"modified":"2026-08-20T13:03:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T11:03:02","slug":"minister-nduhungirehe-condemns-fayulus-cynical-remarks-targeting-banyamulenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/minister-nduhungirehe-condemns-fayulus-cynical-remarks-targeting-banyamulenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister Nduhungirehe condemns Fayulu\u2019s \u2018cynical remarks\u2019 targeting Banyamulenge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fayulu made the remarks during a press conference in Brussels, Belgium, where he argued that the Banyamulenge are not Congolese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said ethnic groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have their own languages, but claimed that the Banyamulenge do not because they speak Kinyarwanda, which he used to argue that they originate from Rwanda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhich Congolese person does not have a language? Raise your hands. Is Kinyamulenge a language spoken in Congo? They speak Kinyarwanda,\u201d Fayulu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He went on to question whether the Banyamulenge are among the ethnic groups that make up the DRC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre the Banyamulenge Congolese? Look at the ethnic groups in Congo. There is no such ethnic group,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amb. Nduhungirehe condemned Fayulu\u2019s remarks, drawing a comparison with rhetoric used by a section of Rwanda\u2019s political class in the years leading up to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEthnic hatred, historical distortions and cynical remarks have reached a worrying level within the Congolese political class, including part of the opposition,\u201d Amb. Nduhungirehe said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis strangely reminds me of a section of Rwanda\u2019s political class between 1990 and 1994 which, as part of a genocidal process of delegitimisation, claimed that Rwandan Tutsi were not true indigenous people,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the years preceding the Genocide against the Tutsi, extremist propaganda sought to portray Tutsis as foreigners who had taken control of Rwanda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 1992, L\u00e9on Mugesera, a prominent figure in the then-ruling MRND party, delivered an inflammatory speech in Kabaya, in the former Gisenyi Prefecture, in which he called for Tutsis to be sent back to \u201cAbyssinia\u201d through River Nyabarongo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questions surrounding the citizenship and identity of the Banyamulenge have remained a longstanding source of political controversy in the DRC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human Rights Watch has documented how, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s, some politicians in then-Zaire sought to strip Banyamulenge of citizenship by portraying them as immigrants from Rwanda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amb. Nduhungirehe also criticised those who give platforms to politicians making such statements, warning that they could eventually be held responsible for doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt some point, those who roll out the red carpet for these unscrupulous politicians, instead of taking action against them, will also have to answer for it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Minister Nduhungirehe likened Fayulu\u2019s remarks on the Banyamulenge to rhetoric used by a section of Rwanda\u2019s political class between 1990 and 1994 to delegitimise Tutsis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rwanda\u2019s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Olivier Nduhungirehe, has strongly criticised Congolese opposition politician Martin Fayulu over remarks questioning the Congolese identity of the Banyamulenge community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000123141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[151,69],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-2000123140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-editors-choice","tag-homehighlights","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000123141,"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/08\/olivier-13-69469.jpg","alt":"","caption":"Minister Nduhungirehe likened Fayulu\u2019s remarks on the Banyamulenge to rhetoric used by a section of Rwanda\u2019s political class between 1990 and 1994 to delegitimise Tutsis.","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":960,"height":801,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/08\/olivier-13-69469.jpg","width":960,"height":801},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/08\/olivier-13-69469.jpg","width":960,"height":801},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/08\/olivier-13-69469.jpg","width":960,"height":801},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/08\/olivier-13-69469.jpg","width":960,"height":801},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/cdn.igihe.com\/en\/2026\/08\/olivier-13-69469.jpg","width":960,"height":801}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000123140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000123140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000123140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2000123142,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000123140\/revisions\/2000123142"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000123141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000123140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000123140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000123140"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=2000123140"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=2000123140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}