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The event, which saw the planting of over 1,000 trees, took place in Cyimpima marshland, located between the Kigabiro and Munyaga sectors.

The initiative was held in collaboration with Twibumbe, a farmers’ group consisting of four cooperatives: COCURICYI, CORICYA, COCURIGA, and COCURIBU. Together, these cooperatives comprise more than 2,500 members.

The trees planted include a variety of fruit-bearing species and other tree types that will help prevent water flow disruptions in areas where excess water from the hills tends to flood rice fields.

Ignace Musangamfura, the Managing Director of Goshen Finance Plc, explained that the tree-planting activity was part of the company’s broader effort to engage with their clients in promoting environmental sustainability.

“Our role as a financial institution goes beyond providing loans and encouraging savings. We also recognize that environmental conservation plays a vital role in supporting the livelihoods of our clients. This is why, alongside offering financial services, we are committed to contributing to sustainable development and environmental protection,” he said.

He further emphasized the importance of such initiatives in the face of climate change, stating, “As we navigate the challenges of climate change, it is crucial that all development activities prioritize environmental conservation to mitigate its effects and secure a better future for all.”

Rice farmer Théogène Uwizeye expressed his appreciation for the support, noting, “We are grateful for Goshen Finance’s involvement in this initiative. Our farms, located in the marshlands, have always been vulnerable to flooding. The trees will help manage the water flow, preventing damage to our crops and reducing losses. It’s wonderful to have a partner who is genuinely concerned about our well-being and farm protection.”

Christine Niyonsaba also welcomed the initiative, highlighting the positive impact it will have on their farming practices. “Not only will these trees help prevent soil erosion and control water flow, but they will also improve the quality of the air in our community. We’re excited about the potential of this project to boost our productivity.”

The Executive Secretary of Munyaga Sector, Damascène Munyentwari, commended Goshen Finance Plc for its partnership with the community.

“We encourage the farmers to take good care of the trees. These trees represent an investment in the land. As they mature, they will not only protect the environment but also generate income when sold.”

Currently, Goshen Finance Plc has a capital base of 35 billion Rwandan Francs (Rwf), with plans to increase this to Rwf 40 billion by next year.

The company is also focusing on expanding its support for youth and women, particularly in projects that contribute to environmental sustainability, and is working to strengthen its relationship with clients.

With nine branches across Rwanda, Goshen Finance Plc serves 70,000 customers and is aiming to expand its reach to 100,000 clients, including cooperative members. The company also plans to increase the number of agents to better serve its growing customer base.

This school, set to be a key player in Africa’s aviation sector, will provide comprehensive training in piloting, aircraft maintenance, and other vital skills necessary for air transportation. It aims to meet the increasing demand for skilled professionals as Rwanda’s aviation industry continues to grow.

The CEAS will be built by Akagera Aviation, a company already known for providing domestic air services and operating a pilot training school that trains up to 20 students annually. Upon completion, the new facility will have the capacity to train 70 to 80 pilots annually and will offer certifications like the Commercial Pilot License and Airline Transport Pilot License, among others.

Eng. Jean de Dieu Uwihanganye, the State Minister for Infrastructure, highlighted that the new school will have nearly three times the capacity of the current Akagera Aviation School.

The school will also be open to students from across Africa, positioning it as one of the leading aviation institutions on the continent.

Construction is scheduled to begin next year and is expected to take 18 months, with the school set to open in 2028.

“This school will play a critical role in producing skilled professionals for the aviation industry, with training conducted entirely in Rwanda,” said Eng. Uwihanganye.

“Rwanda is making significant investments in air transportation, including the Kigali International Airport being built in Bugesera, which will serve as the cornerstone for future aviation development. These projects require a skilled local workforce, including pilots, to drive them forward.”

He also noted that Rwanda currently relies on foreign pilots for about 40% of its aviation workforce, with only 60% of pilots being Rwandan.

The new aviation school is seen as a key step toward reducing this dependency and ensuring the country’s long-term sustainability in the aviation sector.

“We need more pilots because, in two years, when the new airport is completed, we will be bringing in new airlines and expanding our services. It’s crucial that we have a local workforce capable of supporting this growth,” he added.

Eng. Uwihanganye encouraged Rwandans to take advantage of the opportunity to train at the new school, noting that it will help the country develop a pool of locally trained aviation professionals who can work both within Rwanda and internationally.

In late 2023, the Rwandan government announced a $53.5 million project for the CEAS. However, budget constraints delayed its implementation.

In November 2024, the African Development Bank approved a $23.6 million loan (over 30 billion Rwandan Francs) to support the construction of the school, recognizing its importance in advancing aviation education in Africa.

Additionally, in February 2025, the Ministry of Education announced plans to expand the national curriculum to include aircraft maintenance courses and prepare for the launch of an Aviation Academy.

These efforts are part of Rwanda’s broader strategy to develop its aviation sector in anticipation of the new airport in Bugesera, expected to be a major hub for air transportation in the region.

Once fully operational, the airport is expected to handle up to eight million passengers annually, a substantial increase from the one million passengers served by RwandAir in 2024.

Research indicates that over the next 20 years, Africa will need 50,000 aviation professionals, including 15,000 pilots, 17,000 aircraft maintenance technicians, and 23,000 other aviation-related workers.

Over the past 12 years, Akagera Aviation School has trained 106 Rwandan pilots, including both helicopter and commercial aircraft pilots, making a significant contribution to the country’s aviation industry.

In a statement issued by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), the South African government said the deportation of seven Kenyan nationals by the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) was carried out in full compliance with the country’s immigration statutes.

The individuals were found to be engaging in employment without required work permits, in violation of immigration regulations, it said, adding that South Africa will not negotiate its sovereignty and the implementation of the rule of law.

During the operation, DHA officials, in cooperation with the police department, arrested and later deported the Kenyan nationals who were allegedly employed at a facility processing applications for so-called “refugees” seeking resettlement in the United States.

Several U.S. media outlets reported that two U.S. staff were “briefly detained and then released” during the operation.

The DIRCO’s statement rejected allegations concerning the handling of private information of U.S. officials, describing such claims as “unsubstantiated.”

“South Africa treats all matters of data security with the utmost seriousness and operates under stringent legal and diplomatic protocols. We categorically reject any suggestion of state involvement in such actions,” the statement said.

The DIRCO said that while firmly dismissing unfounded claims, Pretoria remains committed to principled and transparent diplomacy, and official channels have been opened with the U.S. government to seek clarity on the matter and to reinforce the importance of mutual respect and fact-based dialogue in bilateral engagements.

The statement was issued against the backdrop of heightened diplomatic tensions between South Africa and the United States following an operation conducted by South African immigration authorities in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

The U.S. State Department issued a statement condemning what it described as the detention of U.S. officials. “The U.S. condemns in the strongest terms the South African government’s recent detention of U.S. officials performing their duties to provide humanitarian support to Afrikaners.”

Claiming U.S. officials’ passport information had been publicly released, the U.S. State Department called it “an unacceptable form of harassment.”

“We are seeking immediate clarification from the South African government and expect full cooperation and accountability,” said U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott, adding that interfering in U.S. refugee operations is “unacceptable.”

The DHA, however, said in a statement published on Wednesday that no U.S. officials were arrested during the operation and that the enforcement action was not conducted at any diplomatic site.

“The presence of foreign officials apparently coordinating with undocumented workers naturally raises serious questions about intent and diplomatic protocol. The DIRCO has initiated formal diplomatic engagements with both the United States and Kenya to resolve this matter,” the DHA said.

Relations between South Africa and the United States have deteriorated since early this year, with analysts pointing to growing divergences between Pretoria and Washington on major international issues, including South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

In February, the U.S. administration denounced South Africa’s new land law, accusing the government of discriminating against white citizens, and issued an executive order cutting off U.S. aid.

Tensions further escalated on Aug. 7, when the United States imposed a 30 percent tariff on South African exports, the highest rate applied to any sub-Saharan African country.

The latest round of rhetorical clashes began in November, when Washington openly boycotted the Group of Twenty summit hosted by South Africa.

In his message on International Migrants Day, observed annually on Dec. 18, Guterres said migration is a powerful driver of progress, lifting economies, connecting cultures, and benefiting countries of origin and destination alike.

“Yet when migration is poorly governed or misrepresented, it can fuel hate and division, endangering the lives of people seeking safety and opportunity,” he said, adding that with borders tightening and smugglers and traffickers thriving, “women and children are among the most at risk.”

Pointing to the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration adopted seven years ago, he said the international community “can and must harness the power of migration to advance sustainable development and build more resilient societies.”

“This starts with challenging the narratives that dehumanize migrants, and replacing them with stories of solidarity,” Guterres said, calling on the international community to “stand together for the rights of every migrant, and make migration dignified and safe for all.”

In December 2000, the UN General Assembly, taking into account the large and increasing number of migrants in the world, proclaimed Dec. 18 as International Migrants Day.

The new outlet, located in Gisenyi, along the main road near the Rubavu Mosque, marks a significant step in promoting sustainable cooking options.

According to the seventh integrated household living conditions survey (EICV7), the number of households in Rwanda using environmentally friendly cooking stoves reached 5.4% in 2024, up from just 1% in 2017.

BioMassters operates a factory in Rubavu with a capacity to process 15 tons of materials per day.

The company has been selling its products in various shops across Kigali for the past two years.

The stoves come in two models: the “Iryacu” stove, made in Rwanda using bricks, and the “Inzuchief” stove, made from metal. Both stoves are known for their durability, cleanliness, and efficiency, using 50% less fuel compared to charcoal stoves.

Claudia Muench, the CEO of BioMassters, told IGIHE that their stoves are designed to cook efficiently without producing smoke, making them a healthier option for households.

“Our stoves offer a solution for families—they are affordable, and the pellets used for cooking are cheaper compared to other traditional methods. They promote better health for users while protecting the environment as the forests are preserved,” she said.

Despite the challenges posed by the small size of the factory and the fact that many people are still unaware of their products, Muench is optimistic that these issues will be overcome over time by raising awareness through different campaigns and plan to build new factories.

Mulindwa Prosper, the Mayor of Rubavu, emphasized that the opening of the BioMassters outlet will boost the local economy.

“BioMassters’ initiatives help residents maintain cleanliness, protect the environment, and assist the government in safeguarding public health. The smokeless pellets contribute to better health outcomes, and they are made from sawdusts and forests left overs.

We appreciate BioMassters for opening a branch in our district, creating new jobs, and contributing to the national economy,” he stated.

Mulindwa also noted that, compared to charcoal, the cost of using pellets is 50% cheaper, which will help local residents save money.

BioMassters’ stoves use pellets made from wood and crop residues, which are both eco-friendly and affordable. A kilo of pellets costs between Rwf 350 Rwandan Francs in BioMassters stores and Rwf 380 from other partners across the country.

To date, BioMassters has distributed over 8,000 stoves to households, reaching more than 70,000 people across the country. The “Iryacu” stove costs 40,000 Rwandan Francs, while the “Inzuchief” stove is priced at 50,000 Rwandan Francs.

The organization, affiliated with Swiss-based charitable foundation Sight and Life (SAL), has introduced multi-layered evidence-based interventions to improve child, adolescent, women health as well as training and assisting farmers towards self-sustenance.

SAL Rwanda’s achievements were highlighted during a policy dialogue jointly organized by the Embassy of France and SAL Rwanda. The timing of the discussions was particularly relevant, as findings from Rwanda’s Sixth Demographic and Health Survey (RDHS) show that 33% of children are stunted, while 25% of pregnant women are affected by anemia.

The forum aimed to assess the current state of nutrition in Rwanda, with a particular focus on pregnant women and young children, and to review progress. Results from recent national initiatives, including the government’s decision to replace iron and folic acid supplements with a more comprehensive Multiple Micronutrient Supplement (MMS) for pregnant women, showed tangible progress.

The limited nutrient composition constrained the impact of iron and folic acid constrained its impact. The newly adopted MMS formulation contains 15 essential vitamins and minerals, offering broader nutritional support during pregnancy and contributing to improved maternal health and birth outcomes.

Elvis Gakuba, the Sight and Life Regional Director for Africa, stressed that improving nutrition for pregnant women and children is not just a health issue but also a vital investment in Rwanda’s long-term economic growth.

“Promoting adequate nutrition for pregnant women and children is not just about healthcare; it is an essential investment in the future of Rwanda. By prioritizing nutrition and well-being of both mothers and children, we are contributing directly to the nation’s development,” he explained.

Gakuba further shared that through a study conducted in partnership with UNICEF and RBC, SAL Rwanda has distributed MMS across all Rwandan districts. “We have reached close to 90% of pregnant women,” he said.

Stéphane Le Brech, the First Counselor at the French Embassy in Rwanda, responsible for cultural cooperation, noted that the discussions were organized in line with commitments made during the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit, held in Paris in March 2025.

The Rwandan government remains steadfast in its commitment to addressing malnutrition, particularly among children and pregnant women. The National Strategy for Transformation (NST2), set to run from 2024 to 2029, aims to combat malnutrition and reduce the current stunting rate of 33% to 15% by 2029.

Sight and Life works across Rwanda, Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania, South Africa, and Nigeria, integrating nutrition with livelihoods and food system strengthening.

In Rwanda, for instance, the organization’s project to reduce post-harvest losses, including efforts to combat aflatoxins in maize, have supported 2,400 farmers, reducing crop losses by up to 40%. Around 6,500 tons of crops have been saved from aflatoxin contamination.

The organization also runs a Food Fortification Project aimed at enriching widely consumed foods with essential vitamins and minerals to improve nutrition and combat nutrient deficiencies.

With a $3.5 million grant from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Sight and Life is implementing the “Nutrition in City Ecosystems – NICE” project, which works to improve nutrition in urban areas of developing countries through community-led initiatives.

The project fosters collaboration between the agriculture, food, and health sectors, and supports public-private partnerships, with a focus on women and youth entrepreneurship.

NICE enhances urban governance and promotes the development of sustainable food systems, increasing the availability of healthy, locally grown food produced through agroecological practices, while also raising awareness about environmentally responsible diets.

Over the past seven years, Sight and Life has provided training in agroecology and sustainable farming practices to farmers, supported 14 cooperatives in fishing and livestock, and provided agricultural inputs and project management skills to 25 early childhood development (ECD) institutions – reinforcing the link between nutrition, resilient livelihoods, and long-term national progress.

In reality, it is a style, far more familiar—and far more dangerous. It is a carefully coated act of genocide relativism, FDLR rehabilitation, and selective truth-making, draped in the language of critical geopolitics.

The article, despite its anti-Rwanda tone—it is more pro-impunity, pro-genocide denial, and unquestionably associated with the long-standing ideological mission of Jambo Asbl: to launder génocidaire networks into respectability while delegitimizing any discourse that focuses on Tutsi vulnerability—whether in Rwanda or in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

{{The sanitization of FDLR}}

Few sentences better demonstrate how denial dresses itself as analysis. “The FDLR does not represent a strategic threat to Rwanda.” Says Ishimwe. The argument is very familiar and increasingly recycled: the FDLR has not launched “major” cross-border attacks for over twenty years; most of its members were children or not yet born in 1994. Its members, according to Ishimwe—are socially embedded refugees rather than ideological actors. Hence, Rwanda’s security concerns are a political construction rather than a security reality. It sounds dignified, almost civilized. It is none of those things.

This type of reasoning depends much on a deliberate misinterpretation of how genocidal ideology works. Genocide is not a once-in-a-lifetime event frozen in time. This crime is an ideology with a memory, a pedagogy, and a lineage. Genocide survives precisely because it is transmitted—through language, myth, manufactured grievance, and political organization.

Time does not dissolve an ideology when its custodians remain alive, organized, and unrepentant. To argue otherwise is akin to claiming Adolf Hitler bore no responsibility for the Holocaust because he did not invent antisemitism. Hatred does not require novelty; it requires continuity.

The claim that the FDLR is harmless because it has not staged “major” incursions into Rwanda for two decades is a morally vacant metric. Are recorded incursions inside Rwanda imaginary? Are killings in eastern Congo inconsequential because they happened on the wrong side of a border? Must violence be spectacular enough to qualify as threatening? This is selective blindness. To downplay these attacks is not neutrality—it is sympathy, bordering on disappointment that they were not deadlier.

More illuminating still is the argument that the majority of FDLR members are “young people born and raised in exile” who have never set foot in Rwanda. This is presented as an exoneration. In reality, it is an indictment of the ideology’s survival. Being born in exile does not immunize one against genocidal indoctrination; it often deepens it.

History itself dismantles Ishimwe’s alibi. On 22 November 1992, Léon Mugesera delivered his infamous incendiary speech in Kabaya, openly calling for the extermination of Tutsi and lamenting that earlier pogroms had not gone far enough. In that speech, he declared:

“I recently said to someone who was boasting about being in the PL (Parti Liberal): ‘The mistake we made in 1959, even though I was a child then, was that we let you leave.’ … Let me tell you that your home is in Ethiopia, and that we will send you back along the Nyabarongo river so you get there quickly.”

Mugesera was six years old in 1959, during the first mass anti-Tutsi pogroms he later regretted had been incomplete. Age did not prevent him from becoming one of the most articulate propagandists of genocidal ideology.

Mugesera was not convicted by the ICTR. Canada found him inadmissible for refugee protection, deported him to Rwanda, where he was tried and convicted by Rwandan courts for crimes of genocide. The correction only strengthens the point: genocidal ideology matures, travels, and waits—sometimes for decades.

Ishimwe also knows that Laure Uwase, a prominent Jambo Asbl figure, was two years old in 1994. Yet this did not prevent her from becoming active in an organization that defends convicted génocidaires, promotes genocide denial, and reframes perpetrators as victims. Youth did not neutralize the ideology. It ensured its afterlife.

Equally nonsensical is the invocation of the ICTR. The affirmation that the Tribunal “never classified the FDLR as a genocidal organization” is technically factual and intellectually dishonest. The ICTR had a clearly defined temporal jurisdiction: crimes committed in 1994. It fulfilled that mandate. Expecting it to classify criminal organizations formed afterward is like accusing a court of carelessness for refusing to rule on crimes not yet committed. Ishimwe’s appeal to the ICTR is not legal reasoning—it is a desperate attempt to borrow relevance from an institution whose purpose is being maliciously misrepresented.

Then comes the sanitization by numbers: Rwanda, we are told by Ishimwe—integrated “dozens” of former FDLR and ex-FAR members into its army and institutions. The arithmetic is ideological. It must be “dozens,” not thousands, to sustain the insinuation that Rwanda’s institutions are ethnically exclusionary and that integration was cosmetic.

The truth is simpler and far less useful to the narrative: those integrated were individual Rwandans, processed as individuals, not as representatives of genocidal organizations. Anyone credibly implicated in genocide is held to account. Integration was not rehabilitation of the FDLR; it was dismantling it—one defector at a time.

This distinction matters. Rwanda does not negotiate with ideologies built on extermination. The FDLR, FDU-Inkingi, MRND, CDR, DALFA-Umulinzi and related political families share a machetocratic worldview—one that treats violence as heritage and denial as strategy. They will never ever be granted political oxygen—not because Rwanda is intolerant of dissent, but because no society negotiates with those who deny its dead.

The real complaint, therefore, is not falsification; it is exposure. The frustration that the “neutralization of the FDLR” occupies a central place in the Washington framework is logical—for those who relied on vagueness as shelter. Once neutralization becomes an unambiguous policy, the linguistic hiding places vanish. The language of “refugees,” “social roots,” and “political interlocutors” no longer protects what is, at its core, a criminal organization animated by an unreconstructed ideology.

This is where the argument shelters its analytical dress and reveals its emotional core. There is agony in the insistence that the FDLR be acknowledged, legitimized, raised up. Not the pain of marginalization, but the pain of losing cover. When the FDLR is named as a threat, those who speak for it like Jambo Asbl feel suddenly exposed—ideologically naked, stripped of euphemism.

FDLR leaders have never renounced genocidal ideology. Yet Ishimwe wants the reader to see them not as perpetrators or ideological heirs, but as wronged civilians unfairly criminalized by history. His article carries a barely concealed grief that the FDLR is treated as a threat rather than what he wishes it to be seen as: a legitimate political actor awaiting recognition.

Here, Jambo Asbl functions not as a watchdog but as a communications bureau for a genocidal militia, polishing language, reframing crimes, and lobbying for political rehabilitation.

To maintain that Rwanda’s security concerns are merely “discursive constructions” is to ask survivors to believe in the same ideology that once told them extermination was a political necessity. It is to insist that memory surrender to convenience—and that history apologize for being inconvenient.

The FDLR is not dangerous because of what it has failed to do recently. It is dangerous because of what it refuses to renounce, what it continues to teach, and what it still dreams of becoming. Pretending otherwise is not scholarship. It is advocacy—thinly veiled, emotionally invested, and increasingly transparent.

Some opinions age badly. Others are born expired. This one belongs to the latter category.

{{Genocide warning as “manipulation”}}

Norman Ishimwe’s attack on what he dismissively calls the “Saving Narrative”—the claim that Congolese Tutsi, Banyamulenge, and other Rwandophone communities face an existential threat in the DRC—reveals more about the psychology of his political camp than about Rwanda’s diplomacy. What he presents as narrative deconstruction is, in fact, a textbook exercise in genocide trivialization, dressed up as media criticism.

At the core of Ishimwe’s argument lies a breathtaking proposition: that alerts about a possible genocide against Congolese Tutsi are not grounded in reality but are a strategic invention by Kigali, manufactured after 2022 for geopolitical convenience. According to this logic, history itself works on a timetable synchronized with presidential handshakes. When Kagame and Tshisekedi were cordial, no danger existed; when relations soured, genocide abruptly appeared—conveniently. It is more of magical thinking than analysis.

Genocide does not declare itself politely, nor does it wait for diplomatic frost. It grows in permissive environments—where hate speech circulates freely. It comes to the open when armed groups target civilians based on identity, and the state tolerates or cooperates with forces animated by exterminatory ideologies. Eastern Congo has offered precisely this environment for decades. To claim that warnings only emerged because Rwanda “needed” them is to argue that smoke is invented by fire alarms.

Ishimwe is principally upset that Rwanda, UN bodies, and others speak openly of hate speech targeting Banyamulenge and Tutsi communities. But hate speech does not become imaginary because it is problematic to admit. When leaflets circulate calling Banyamulenge “foreign invaders,” when armed groups chant slogans inherited from genocidal vocabularies, when massacres are selectively directed at civilians because of who they are— and not what they did—then warning language is not manipulation. It is our responsibility.

The effort to discredit evidence by calling videos “unverifiable” or accounts “fake” is equally revealing. In regions where whistleblowers are killed, access is restricted, and government sponsored militia control territory, evidence rarely arrives with the aesthetic neatness preferred by deniers. Yet Ishimwe’s standard is clear: unless suffering is documented in ways that absolve his ideological allies, it must be fabricated. This is not skepticism but curated disbelief.

More troubling is his portrayal of Rwanda’s diplomatic interventions—particularly Ambassador Martin Ngoga’s reference to his experience as a survivor of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi—as cynical emotional blackmail. In his machetocratic worldview, survivors are expected to forget their history precisely when they recognize its warning signs. For Jambo members, memory is tolerable only when it remains silent.

Ishimwe accuses Rwanda of “instrumentalizing” the genocide. What he cannot say—but clearly feels—is something far more painful: that the genocide failed. The legitimacy acquired by the RPF in stopping it, saving lives, and ripping apart genocidal power structures remains an unendurable fact for political families whose worldview depended on the success of extermination. That legitimacy is not a myth. It is the residue of survival.

When Ishimwe claims that Rwanda is “transposing” its 1994 legitimacy onto Congo, he reveals the true grievance. The problem is not that Rwanda warns against genocide; it is that Rwanda knows what genocide looks like before the world decides to notice. No country on this continent understands the cost of genocide like Rwanda does: over a million lives lost in less than one hundred days. That experience does not expire. It instructs.

The irony deepens when Ishimwe insists that genocide prevention discourse is merely a cover for aggression, while simultaneously defending or minimizing groups whose ideological ancestors carried machetes, not placards. This is the paradox of machetocratic psychology: violence is denied until it succeeds; warnings are ridiculed until it is too late.

Calling the fear of genocide a “narrative” is an old trick. Holocaust deniers used it. Bosnia’s genocide was once dismissed the same way—until mass graves made the narrative indecent. The dead are always accused, posthumously, of exaggeration.

The real problem is not why Rwanda speaks of genocide prevention, but why others are so endowed in silencing that speech. Why does the mere invocation of Tutsi vulnerability provoke such hostility? Why must Banyamulenge or Hema suffering be downgraded to propaganda before it is even fully documented?

This is where organized amnesia becomes deadly. Organizations and individuals who promote forgetting do not merely misread history—they aggressively disarm societies against its repetition.

Imagine a world asked to forget cannibalism filmed on camera, women stripped naked and paraded publicly to humiliate their bodies into submission. Imagine too— villages burned to ash while perpetrators chant ethnic slurs, and survivors hunted not for what they did but for what they are.

Imagine all this dismissed as “fake,” “unverified,” or strategically inconvenient, not because it did not happen, but because acknowledging it would implicate the wrong people. This is how atrocity is laundered. When memory is framed as propaganda and evidence as manipulation, perpetrators are cleared and vindicated in advance, victims are rendered suspect, and violence is granted a second life—this time with intellectual respectability.

History teaches humanity, with brutal consistency, that genocide is never preceded by silence alone, but by campaigns demanding forgetfulness. And when amnesia is organized, coordinated, and rewarded, it becomes not an error of judgment, but an accomplice to future crimes.

{{Jambo’s ideological triage}}

What Ishimwe omits—systematically and deliberately—is that the FDLR’s political doctrine, command structures, symbols, and public communications remain explicitly anchored in genocide ideology. He ignores the group’s own statements glorifying the 1994 genocide, its continued use of genocidal rhetoric, and its persistent collaboration with Congolese armed groups engaged in anti-Tutsi violence.

More revealing still is what he does not demand. Nowhere does Ishimwe call on the FDLR to disarm, repatriate, or renounce its ideology. Instead, he reframes the group as a misunderstood “residual” actor whose roots are “social” rather than criminal. This rhetorical maneuver performs a precise function: transforming génocidaires from perpetrators into victims of narrative exaggeration.

This is classic Jambo Asbl doctrine. Genocide becomes an unfortunate historical footnote; génocidaire movements become political stakeholders; and accountability is recast as persecution.

At this point, clarity is required: any organization that defends, minimizes, or sanitizes the FDLR is categorically disqualified from the human rights ecosystem.

Human rights advocacy rests on three non-negotiable principles: recognition of victims, accountability for perpetrators, and rejection of genocidal ideology in all its forms. Jambo Asbl violates all three.

By systematically reframing the FDLR as “misunderstood refugees,” by attacking efforts to neutralize a group rooted in genocide ideology, and by dismissing the fears and exterminatory experiences of Tutsi communities, Jambo abandons the universality of human rights and replaces it with ethnic selectivity and ideological loyalty.

Human rights organizations do not lobby for genocidal militias to be recognized as political interlocutors. They do not relativize genocide. They do not mock survivors’ fears as “fake narratives.” When an organization crosses that line, it ceases to be a human rights actor and becomes what Jambo Asbl plainly is: an advocacy platform for denial, revisionism, and impunity.

{{AFC/M23 in reverse}}

Ishimwe accuses Rwanda of fabricating the Congolese identity of the AFC/M23. Yet he performs the mirror image of the same distortion: denying that Congolese Tutsi can ever be bona fide Congolese political actors unless sanctioned by Kinshasa’s ethno-nationalist orthodoxy.

By insisting that the AFC is merely a “camouflage device” and that its fighters are essentially foreign or Rwandan-directed, Ishimwe reproduces the same exclusionary logic that has fueled decades of violence: Tutsi political agency is illegitimate by definition.

No Congolese community is subjected to this standard. Mai-Mai groups are Congolese despite external backing. Wazalendo militias remain Congolese despite ethnic targeting. Only Tutsi armed actors are eternally foreign—unless they are being killed, in which case their foreignness is conveniently forgotten.

His essay is a masterclass in narrative engineering—one in which génocidaires are softened, victims are erased, and ideology is re-baptized as critique.

Ishimwe’s article does not simply criticize Rwanda. He rehabilitates the FDLR as a political subject, minimizes genocidal violence against Congolese Tutsi, and advances a worldview in which Tutsi vulnerability is always suspect and never intrinsic.

This is not journalism or human rights activism. It is ideological continuity with the very forces that made genocide possible in the first place. Calling this “truth” does not make it so. It makes it dangerous. And the world has seen—too many times—where such selective truths lead.

Ishimwe’s attempt to morally equate the FDLR with AFC/M23 is perhaps the most revealing maneuver in the article. His resentment that the FDLR is prioritized for eradication while AFC/M23 negotiates betrays his underlying goal: elevation of the FDLR into a negotiating partner with the Rwandan state.

This equivalence collapses instantly. Whatever one thinks of AFC/M23, it is recognized as a Congolese politico-military movement engaged in a political conflict. The FDLR, by contrast, is an organization born of genocide, sustained by genocide ideology, with Rwanda as its horizon.

To demand parity between the two is not peace-building. It is genocide normalization.

{{The center of moral illogicality}}

For Ishimwe to write that the discourse and acts of extermination “did not exist” before 2022 and arose purely from Rwanda’s diplomatic needs is simply absurd. If that is the case—hundreds of thousands of Congolese refugees in Rwanda, Uganda and elsewhere, are people who left their country for greener pastures.

There is no engagement with documented massacres of Banyamulenge, no acknowledgment of ethnic cleansing in Minembwe, no reckoning with hate speech by Congolese officials, militia leaders, or media outlets calling Tutsi “foreigners” to be eliminated. The suffering of Congolese Tutsi is treated not as human tragedy but as raw material for Rwandan propaganda.

The implication is unmistakable: Congolese Tutsi lives only matter insofar as they are useful to Kigali’s narrative. When they are butchered, displaced, or hunted, Ishimwe’s prose goes curiously silent. Their deaths are not tragedies to be confronted, but inconveniences to be rhetorically managed.

One searches in vain for even a single sentence expressing moral concern for these communities. Their extermination anxiety is dismissed as invention; their fear is pathologized as strategy.

Ishimwe repeatedly invokes “empirical scrutiny,” “evidence,” and “reality,” yet his relationship with truth is profoundly instrumental. What aligns with his ideological posture is elevated to fact; what disrupts it is dismissed as fiction.

Thus, all reports documenting anti-Tutsi violence are treated as narrative products. Genocidal threats become “unverifiable videos.” Meanwhile, his own assertions—unsupported by comparable scrutiny—are presented as self-evident. This is not unintentional. It reflects a deeper epistemology common to genocide denial circles: truth is not what is demonstrable, but what is politically useful.

In this framework, Rwanda lies by definition—while Jambo’s affiliates tell the truth by conviction. Evidence is judged not by verifiability but by alignment.

Let us now speak plainly without restraint. Jambo Asbl is not a misunderstood organization unfairly maligned by its critics. It is a theater of moral absurdity, where genocidal ideology is dressed in the language of victimhood, and where the denial of Tutsi suffering is marketed as critical thinking.

Its members speak of “truth” while rejecting evidence, invoke “human rights” while defending those who annihilated them, and posture as civil society while acting as a public relations annex for the FDLR.

To watch Jambo Asbl claim a seat at the human rights table is to witness the arsonist applying for a job as fire inspector—armed with a lecture on how flames are merely a narrative construct. Its representatives denounce “instrumentalization of genocide” while instrumentalizing genocide denial; they accuse others of propaganda while recycling the talking points of convicted génocidaires; they demand moral seriousness while sneering at the graves of victims.

Even more astonishing are the diplomats, NGOs, and self-styled defenders of universal values who entertain Jambo Asbl as a legitimate interlocutor. One must ask: what ethical contortions are required to treat an organization that defends a genocidal militia as a human rights partner? What intellectual bankruptcy allows genocide denial to masquerade as dissent, and impunity to be confused with reconciliation?

There is something horrifically revealing in Jambo’s anguish that the FDLR is still considered a threat. These are not tears for peace; they are tears for lost political opportunity. The pain expressed is not humanitarian—it is strategic. It is the regret of those who believe history could be rewritten, crimes legalized, and the lethal ideology reborn under a new logo.

The world has seen this script before. In every genocide, there are killers, victims, and—eventually—apologists who insist that time has softened everything except the demand for accountability. Jambo Asbl has chosen its role with chilling clarity.

Universities Promoting Linkages for Impactful Training, Innovation and Technology Transfer in Agriculture (UPLIFT-AG) is a project involving 12 universities from countries including Rwanda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Denmark, Germany, and Italy.

The project seeks to educate, promote research, disseminate findings to the public, and foster innovation.

The project was officially launched on December 4, 2025, at the University of Rwanda, Musanze campus, in Busogo sector, where representatives from around 70 organizations were invited to discuss potential collaborations with the university to enhance agricultural research.

Dr. Guillaume Nyagatare, the Principal of UR-CAFF, explained that although the university has conducted significant research in agriculture, it was essential to collaborate with professionals from the field to understand the broader issues at play.

“Our university aims to be a leader in agriculture, providing research that benefits Rwandans and neighboring countries. However, for our research to be impactful, we need experts who work in the field every day, to help us better understand the challenges and inform our studies,” he stated.

Rev. Dr. Nathan Kanuma Taremwa, the Director of Research and Innovation and the project lead at UR-CAFF, explained that the project will work with various organizations in areas such as information sharing, research collaboration, teaching, providing internships to students, and more.

“We aim to work with numerous organizations in a structured manner, enhancing all parties involved through collaboration on essential research, supporting student education, and providing practical training, so that students can later apply their knowledge in the field,” he said.

Dr. Jean D’Amour Manirere, a lecturer at UR-CAFF, added that this collaboration will not only increase research at the university but also improve how research findings are shared with the intended beneficiaries.

Professor Thomas Bayer from the HNU University in Germany emphasized that collaboration between universities and agricultural institutions not only promotes research but also advances the development of agriculture itself.

“Partnerships between private sector organizations and universities are the key to development, especially in the agriculture sector. The fact that this initiative is launched in Rwanda is a significant step, and it will benefit students and institutions alike, as they will gain access to valuable project information and research,” he noted.

This project, launched in partnership with other African and European universities, is supported by the European Union (EU) from 2023 to 2026.