The controversial law is expected to come into force within days with the first deportation flights in weeks.
A controversial United Kingdom government bill to send asylum seekers to Rwanda has finally secured the approval of the upper house of parliament, which had demanded numerous amendments, as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised to start the first flights to Kigali within weeks.
Sunak hopes the legislation will boost the dismal fortunes of his Conservative Party in an election widely expected to take place later this year.
The House of Lords, an unelected chamber, had long refused to back the divisive plan without additional safeguards, but relented after Sunak said the government would force parliament to sit as late into Monday night as necessary to get the bill passed.
“No ifs, no buts. These flights are going to Rwanda,” Sunak told a news conference earlier in the day.
The Rwanda scheme, criticised by United Nations human rights experts and groups supporting asylum seekers, has been beset by legal challenges ever since it was first proposed as a way to curb the number of asylum seekers crossing the English Channel in small boats.
In June 2022, the first deportees were taken off a flight at the last minute after an injunction from the European Court of Human Rights. The following year, the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that sending asylum seekers on a one-way ticket to Kigali was illegal and would put them at risk.
The National Audit Office, a public spending watchdog, has estimated it will cost the UK some 540 million pounds ($665m) to deport the first 300 asylum seekers.
The House of Lords criticised the latest bill as inadequate and demanded amendments, including a requirement that Rwanda could not be treated as safe until an independent monitoring body found it to be true.
They also wanted an exemption for agents, allies and employees of the UK overseas, including Afghans who fought alongside the British Armed Forces, from being removed.
In the end, the Lords gave way and let the bill pass without any formal changes. The legislation is expected to receive Royal Assent from King Charles later this week and will then become law.
#UK: Airlines should not facilitate unlawful removals of asylum-seekers to Rwanda 🇷🇼, UN experts say. Such actions might make these companies complicit in violating internationally protected #HumanRights and court orders.https://t.co/EZfERVb1kzpic.twitter.com/1JVhs49Ywt
More than 120,000 people – many fleeing wars and poverty in Africa, the Middle East and Asia – have reached the UK since 2018 by crossing the English Channel in small boats, usually inflatable dinghies, on journeys organised by people-smuggling gangs.
Last year, 29,437 asylum seekers made the crossing with one in five of them from Afghanistan, according to the Refugee Council.
Critics say the plan to deport people to Rwanda rather than handle asylum seekers at home is inhumane, citing concerns about the East African country’s own human rights record and the risk that asylum seekers may be sent back to countries where they would be in danger.
The so-called “Safety of Rwanda” bill states some existing UK human rights statutes will not apply to the scheme and Rwanda must be treated by UK judges as a safe destination, despite the Supreme Court declaring the scheme unlawful. It also limits individuals’ options for an appeal to only exceptional cases.
Sunak’s plans could still be held up by legal challenges, and UN rights experts have suggested that airlines and aviation regulators could fall foul of internationally protected human rights laws if they participate in the deportations.
About 150 people have already been identified for the first two flights.
Polls suggest the Conservatives, who claimed that the UK’s departure from the European Union would give the country “control” over its borders and the ability to reduce immigration, will be badly beaten in the coming election by the opposition Labour Party.
Labour has said it will scrap the scheme if it wins power and work on a deal with the EU to return some arrivals to mainland Europe.
Mbyo/Kigali, Rwanda – Mukaremera Laurence gazed at the ground as Nkundiye Thacien spoke about how he used a machete to kill her husband 30 years ago.
The three of them had been neighbours and lifelong friends, living together in the Rwandan village of Mbyo. But then, in 1994, Thacien received orders to kill.
“It was an order and if you didn’t obey they threatened to kill your family,” Thacien told Al Jazeera, “so I felt like I had to do it.”
He speaks about one of the 20th century’s most macabre events, when the majority Hutu group he belonged to, which ruled Rwanda at the time, began a campaign of mass killing against the Tutsis – the minority ethnic group to which Laurence’s husband belonged.
More than 800,000 people – by some estimates, a million – died during 100 days at the hands of machete-wielding Hutus. More than 250,000 women were targeted with sexual violence, according to the United Nations.
Now, Laurence and Thacien live as neighbours in Mbyo, a village that has turned from a killing site to a place practicing resilience and unity. It is one of six reconciliation villages in Rwanda where perpetrators and survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis live together and attempt to reconcile their past.
“We can’t forget; it’s impossible to forget,” said Laurence. “We live in peace now, but we remember it and always will.”
While their reconciliation story is seemingly one of success, despite criticism of it being artificial, Rwandans continue to struggle with the legacy of the genocide. Many survivors have found solace in learning the truth about how their loved ones were murdered and from apologies from their killers. Others have not found such closure, as new mass graves continue to be discovered and killers’ identities continue to be exposed.
Nkundiye Thacien, a Hutu, lives alongside Mukaremera Laurence, whose husband he killed 30 years ago when the genocide against the Tutsis started [Andrei Popoviciu/Al Jazeera]
Orders to kill
Ethnic violence had been bubbling in Rwanda for decades before April 6, 1994, but it was on that day that a plane carrying then-President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, bot was shot down over Kigali. The death of the two presidents, who were both Hutu, led Hutu extremists to blame the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group helmed by current president Paul Kagame, who had been fighting against the ruling Hutus since they took power in 1979. The RPF’s position was that the plane had been shot down by Hutus to provide an excuse to begin killing Tutsis. The Hutus used the flight to revive a long-held belief that all Tutsis needed to be exterminated, convincing the Hutu population in Rwanda to immediately start a campaign of slaughter.
Thacien says that soon after the plane crashed, he heard orders on the newly created Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines station for Hutus to kill all Tutsis – and anyone who protects them – or be killed themselves. The radio messages spewing hate and identifying names of high-profile Tutsis to be targeted were responsible for inciting more than 45,000 killings. The Hutu-run military also spread word on the ground, encouraging violence and organising killing sprees. Thacien joined his fellow Hutus in the killings.
Government forces and Hutu militia groups – together known as Interahamwe, a name that means “those who attack together” – began killing Tutsis in Kigali while also distributing weapons to ordinary Hutus.
Hutus had been preparing to eradicate the Tutsi people for years, explained Thacien, who participated in several Hutu meetings some years before, but “1994 was the official genocide”, he said.
He was 47 when it began. He recalls how people discussed killing tactics and ways to spread genocidal ideologies, while dehumanising the Tutsis by calling them “cockroaches” and “snakes” that needed to be exterminated.
On April 7, Thacien was stationed at main junctions checking identification, which at the time mentioned an individual’s ethnicity, to single out Tutsis to be killed. He also participated in killing parties; one of his targets was Laurence’s husband.
More than a million Hutus joined the movement and used machetes, grenades, guns and other blunt weapons to kill their neighbours, regardless of gender or age, if they belonged to the Tutsi group. Hutus who tried to protect their fellow Tutsis were also targeted.
Places of worship, where people usually found safety, became massacre sites. In the second week of the genocide, thousands – mostly women and children – sought out safety at the Nyamata Church, about 30 minutes from Mbyo.
Hutu militias killed the armed men protecting the church and threw grenades inside and outside its doors. Then the Interahamwe slaughtered the survivors inside with machetes.
Today, evidence of the carnage is still evident throughout the church. There are bullet holes in the roof and the walls. Clothing, coffins and skeletal remains litter the floor. A blood-stained cloth covers the pulpit. In the basement, one floor holds multiple skulls marked by machetes or bullet holes. More than 10,000 people from the church massacre and surrounding areas were buried in mass graves next to the church.
The Nyamata Church Memorial was a massacre site where thousands of women and children were killed and a total of more than 10,000 people from the area were buried in mass graves [Andrei Popoviciu/Al Jazeera]
Similar events happened across the country. The massacre ended in July when the RPF, the Tutsi rebel group from Uganda, captured Kigali and overthrew the Hutu government. Its leader, Paul Kagame, became president and continues to rule in Rwanda.
Shocking apology
Many still don’t know who killed their loved ones. Laurence found out in 2003, when Thacien wrote to her from prison and apologised for killing her husband.
The government had adopted a law that reduced prison sentences in exchange for confessions to the killings. To speed up the sentencing of more than one million participants in the genocide, local “gacaca” courts (gacaca means “grass” in the local Kinyarwanda language) were installed as community-led justice systems.
“I felt so bad about it even when I did it, but in prison I knew I had to face my actions,” said Thacien.
When Laurence received the letter and learned that the person who killed her husband was her friend and neighbour, she was shocked.
“It was so hard for me to read the letter,” Laurence told Al Jazeera, “I couldn’t imagine or understand what happened and why.” She worried that the release of prisoners back into the community would put her in danger of again being targeted by Hutu militias.
A memorial to those who lost their lives during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda stands in the valley that separates two villages on adjacent hills, at the border between the Musambira and Nyarubaka sectors of Kamonyi District [Jacques Nkinzingabo/AFP] (AFP)
Killers and survivors, side by side
After Thacien was released from prison, a local priest organised a meeting so the perpetrators could apologise to the survivors in person. During the first event, people were shy and scared – they didn’t know what to say to each other. At the second meeting, Thacien says he built up the courage and approached Laurence, telling himself, “If she doesn’t forgive me I can’t control that, but what I can do is own up to what I did and ask for forgiveness.”
It took three years, but Laurence did forgive Thacien.
In 2005, they both moved to the Mbyo village, one of six reconciliation villages around the country that were built by a partnership formed between the government and Prison Fellowship Rwanda, an NGO dedicated to helping perpetrators of the genocide reintegrate into society.
The purpose of the villages was to have killers and survivors live alongside each other, while rebuilding their lives and reconciling the past. They also looked to create equality between the two ethnic groups and prevent people from taking revenge for the 1994 genocide.
Government policies also helped to encourage reconciliations, explained Felix Mukwiza Ndahinda, an assistant professor of transitional justice at the Netherlands-based Tilburg Law School and an expert on the Rwandan genocide.
Some of these policies included creating institutions focused on unity and reconciliation and removing ethnicity from personal identification.
Also, it was essentially made illegal to challenge the state’s narrative of the genocide. The government has faced criticism for exploiting history for political gain and has been accused of censorship. Opposition leaders or critics of the government have been imprisoned under the genocide ideology laws, which have been criticised as vague and seen by critics as political tools.
Ndahinda explained that political freedoms in Rwanda need to be examined against the country’s difficult history, genocide legacy and the resulting fracture that made it difficult to imagine how Rwanda could emerge from it. Reconciliation processes are more complex than this narrow frame, he added.
“How individuals engage with one another on the hills, live together in villages, negotiate their daily relations and sometimes choose to marry within families across the survivor-perpetrator divide is beyond governmental doing,” Ndahinda said.
Two villages, Giheta and Ruseke, are relearning to share all they have, including a wellspring at the bottom of the valley, after the 1994 genocide. More than a thousand area residents were massacred between April and July of that year, according to the UN [Jacques Nkinzingabo/AFP]
Finding forgiveness
Thacien and Laurence have been living in the reconciliation village for 19 years and remain close. When Thacien’s son got married recently, Laurence attended the wedding.
But not everyone has found peace.
Naphtal Ahishakiye, executive secretary of Ibuka, a genocide survivors’ group, spoke to Al Jazeera from the Nyanza Genocide Memorial site in Kigali’s suburb of Kicukiro, where workers were repainting and trimming grass in preparation for the following week’s commemoration events. He told Al Jazeera that “people are still suffering and many don’t have closure” because many remains haven’t been found and not all perpetrators have been sentenced.
More mass graves are still being discovered. Last October in the region of Hueye, bones were found during a home renovation. This prompted search-and-excavation efforts in the area, which led to the discovery of the remains of more than 1,000 people.
“For 30 years, villagers asked their neighbours to tell them the truth about what happened in the past and no one admitted to anything. Then they found the remains,” said Ahishakiye. “This undermines trust and the reconciliation process.”
A quarter of the genocide’s survivors still struggle with mental health, according to Ahishakiye, who stressed the need for continued support as new generations born after the genocide reach adulthood.
The state can’t control how parents of both perpetrators and survivors communicate with their children in private about the past, Ndahinda pointed out. The Rwandan diaspora, made up mostly of people critical of President Kagame’s approach to governance, also has starkly contrasting views to Rwandans at home – differences that might not be as easy to handle, he added.
Josepha Mukaruzima, 70 (centre), a Tutsi woman whose entire family was killed, stands with Jean-Claude Mutarindwa, 42 (left), a Hutu from neighbouring Giheta village. Unlike his brothers, Mutarindwa did not pick up a machete to kill, and that helped him be one of the first to lay the foundation stones for reconciliation [Jacques Nkinzingabo/AFP]
“The uncertainty about the future in an environment with pockets of instability remains on many people’s minds,” said Ndahinda.
But while issues still persist for many, often hidden behind closed doors, people like Laurence and Thacien have found a way to accept the past and move on together. Back in the Mbyo village, the two neighbours attend church together, share food and take care of each other’s children.
With tears in his eyes and while holding Laurence’s hand, Thacien said how grateful he is for Laurence’s forgiveness.
“I did something extremely bad and hurt her and her family,” he said, “Now, during the week of commemoration events my only wish is to be by her side. I want to show that I care for her and that I will protect her. I want her to feel safe with me.”
Warning: Some of the images below are graphic and show victims of massacres.
On April 7, 1994, one of the most harrowing events in modern history began: the Rwandan genocide.
One hundred days of unfathomable slaughter in which an estimated 800,000-1,000,000 people were killed.
Rwandans were pitted against Rwandans, Hutu against Tutsi, neighbour against neighbour, and in some cases, family member against family member.
From grandmothers to infants, no one was spared – all dispatched to the next world by machete, machinegun or hand grenade.
Thirty years ago, Jack Picone was among the first international photographers to document the carnage.
He reflects on the journey he took in the grips of genocide, how ordinary Rwandans are finding healing and forgiveness, and the memories that still haunt him to this day.
It has been 30 years since the Rwandan genocide – the campaign of extermination where the Hutu-led state killed an estimated 800,000, mostly Tutsi civilians, in just 100 days.
War is on the doorstep of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Goma city and the region is at breaking point, activists and aid workers have said, as the United Nations sounds an alarm over the situation in the Central African country.
“One Congolese person out of four faces hunger and malnutrition,” Bintou Keita, the head of the UN’s DRC peacekeeping mission MONUSCO, told the UN Security Council this week, warning of a rapidly deteriorating security situation and a humanitarian crisis reaching near catastrophic levels.
“More than 7.1 million people have been displaced in the country. That is 800,000 people more since my last briefing three months ago,” she said.
Heavy fighting between the Congolese army and armed group M23 has intensified in the eastern part of the country since February, forcing hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee their homes as the rebels make territorial gains.
The armed group “is making significant advances and expanding its territory to unprecedented levels”, Keita said at the UN on Wednesday.
This comes as fierce battles between the army and rebels have reached the outskirts of Sake, a village about 25km (15.5 miles) from regional economic hub Goma – marking a major advancement for M23.
‘War is at the door’
About 250,000 people fled their homes between mid-February and mid-March, according to UN figures, with the vast majority seeking shelter in and around Goma. Pockets of makeshift tents have popped up along roads or desolated areas with no access to basic aid.
“Things are at a breaking point,” said Shelley Thakral, a World Food Programme spokesperson, after returning to Kinshasa from a trip to Goma. “It’s quite overwhelming – people are living in desperate conditions,” she told Al Jazeera. Many people have fled in a hurry with no belongings and now find themselves in cramped camps with little prospect of returning, she added.
The effects are also being felt inside Goma, where civilians have seen the price of basic commodities skyrocketing and health services being disrupted by a steady stream of refugees coming in. “The situation is at its worst and war is at the door,” said John Anibal, an activist with civil society group LUCHA based in Goma.
As the fighting spreads, it is also intensifying. According to ACLED, an independent data-collecting group, the use of explosives, shelling and air raids since the start of this year has quadrupled compared with the average in 2023.
Rwanda links
The eastern region of the DRC has been plagued by violence for 30 years.
More than 200 armed groups roam the area, vying for control of its minerals, including cobalt and coltan – two key elements needed to produce batteries for electric vehicles and gadgets, such as PlayStations and smartphones.
Among the groups, M23 has posed the biggest threat to the government since 2022 when it picked up arms again after being dormant for more than a decade. Back then, it had conquered large swaths of territory, including Goma, before being pushed back by government forces.
The conflict in eastern DRC is also deeply intertwined with the Rwandan genocide. In 1994, more than 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus were killed by violent Hutu armed groups. In the wake of the fighting, Hutu genocidaires and former regime leaders fled to the DRC.
Today, Kigali accuses Kinshasa of supporting one of the Hutu armed groups present in eastern DRC, the FDLR, which it sees as a threat to its government. And the DRC, alongside the UN and the US, have accused Rwanda of backing the M23. Kigali has denied this.
At the UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday, the DRC’s ambassador to the UN Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja called on the intergovernmental body to take a stronger stance against Rwanda.
“The council must cross the Rubicon of impunity and impose on Rwanda sanctions commensurate with its crimes,” said Nzongola-Ntalaja.
Rwanda responded heatedly. The country’s UN representative, Ernest Rwamucyo, said that “ethnic cleansing targeting Congolese Tutsi communities reached unprecedented levels”.
‘Addressing partial symptoms’
The renewed fighting has come at a delicate moment for the country as the MONUSCO mission is pulling out of the country after 25 years at the request of the Congolese government. The first phase of the withdrawal is expected to be complete by the end of April, and all peacekeepers will leave by the end of the year.
The government of President Felix Tshisekedi accused the UN mission of failing to protect civilians. Instead, it gave soldiers of an East African regional bloc the mandate to fight back against the rebels.
But that ended last December after the president accused the regional force of colluding with the rebels instead of fighting them. So he turned to another force, SADECO, composed of southern African nations to do the job.
Observers are sceptical that this new mission will succeed where its predecessors failed.
“I don’t see this as a stabilising intervention, at most, it will postpone the issue because there is no one military solution,” said Felix Ndahinda, a researcher on conflict in the Great Lakes Region.
Structural weaknesses in governance, lack of state presence in remote regions and interethnic rivalries, are among causes that the state is failing to address, Ndahinda told Al Jazeera.
“In the last 30 years, different interventions have been addressing partial symptoms of the problem rather than looking at the full picture – till that is not done, you can only postpone, but not resolve, the issue,” Ndahinda said.
Plans are separate from the ‘Rwanda bill’, a stalled plan to forcibly deport most asylum seekers to the African country.
The United Kingdom’s government is considering plans to pay asylum seekers whose applications have failed up to 3,000 British pounds ($3,840) to move to Rwanda.
The proposed scheme, part of a deal struck with Rwanda, was drawn up by ministers with the aim of clearing a backlog of tens of thousands of asylum seekers who have been refused the right to stay, but cannot be returned to countries deemed unsafe.
The plan is separate from the controversial “Rwanda bill“, an earlier plan to forcibly deport most asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Instead, it extends an existing policy in which people are offered financial assistance to return to their home countries.
According to the Home Office, 19,000 people were removed voluntarily from the UK in the past year. Under the new extension, people will receive the money if they agree to live in Rwanda, which the UK government considers to be a safe third country despite reports from rights groups on political oppression.
“We are exploring voluntary relocations for those who have no right to be here to Rwanda,” a Home Office statement said.
Rejected asylum seekers could not work legally in the UK but would apparently be allowed to do so in Rwanda and be eligible for five years of additional support agreed in the 2022 deportation plan.
Kevin Hollinrake, a junior business minister, said on Wednesday that the new policy was a good use of public money. “So, 3,000 pounds, of course that’s a lot of money, but nevertheless, it costs a lot of money to keep people in the UK who are failed asylum seekers,” he told LBC Radio.
Unlawful plans
The scheme was formulated as the government grapples with legal challenges to the “Rwanda bill”, which was last year ruled unlawful by the UK’s Supreme Court as it would violate British and international human rights laws.
A protester holds a placard outside of the Supreme Court, on the day the court delivered its ruling on whether the government could go ahead with its plan to deport migrants to Rwanda, in London, the United Kingdom, on November 15, 2023 [Peter Nicholls/Reuters]
In an effort to overcome resistance from the courts, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government is passing legislation through Parliament that would block further legal challenges by declaring Rwanda a so-called safe country for asylum seekers.
Rwanda currently has the capacity to accept a few hundred asylum seekers a year from the UK, the British government has said, adding the capacity could be increased.
Sunak has said he wants the first deportation flights to leave in the next few months – ahead of a national election expected in the second half of this year.
“Our daily lives are powered by a human and environmental catastrophe in the Congo.” – Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
In mid-December, I joined hundreds of thousands of people in central London calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. “We are united”, I told the crowd, “in our demand for peace and justice for the Palestinian people.”
Looking out to a sea of Palestinian flags, I was buoyed by the determination of ordinary people to show solidarity with those living under systems of violence and occupation. And I was moved by their willingness to prove how these systems were global in scope and scale. “I want us all to be active as well,” I concluded, “for peace and justice in the other wars that are fuelled by the arms trade – in Sudan, in Yemen, in West Papua, and in the Congo.”
Against the global backdrop of deafening silence, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is currently experiencing a harrowing humanitarian crisis. Nearly seven million people have been internally displaced in the DRC and 26 million need humanitarian aid. One in three children are out of school. Tens of thousands of civilians experience physical, sexual and gender-based violence, used as a tool of control and degradation. Meanwhile, the DRC remains one of the UNHCR’s most underfunded operations worldwide.
Today’s humanitarian crisis in the DRC did not emerge out of nowhere. It is an enduring legacy of colonial theft, violence and exploitation. During the Atlantic slave trade, more than five million Congolese people were captured, transported to the Americas and enslaved.
Descendants of those who evaded abduction and enslavement would endure the brutality of Belgian King Leopold II. Amassing enormous riches from slave labour, Leopold was responsible for the deaths of more than 10 million Congolese men, women, and children.
Independence in the 1960s was supposed to be a turning point; Patrice Lumumba was democratically elected on the promise of a free Congo. Threatening the interests of Western nations who sought to exploit his country, Lumumba was assassinated on January 17, 1961, with the support of the United States and Belgium.
For the Congolese people, colonial exploitation never ended. Today, the world relies on the DRC for natural resources, including diamonds, gold, timber, copper, oil, and gas. It produces 70 percent of the world’s cobalt, an essential element in almost every lithium-ion rechargeable battery present in mobile phones and laptops many of us use every day.
These resources are largely controlled by foreign companies, which profit from resources that should otherwise be owned by the Congolese people. There is a reason why the DRC ranks 179 out of 191 in the Human Development Index – and it is not because the country lacks sufficient resources. It is because these resources are extracted to satisfy foreign corporate greed.
Bloated private corporations do not lose little sleep over the resultant poverty, environmental degradation, or displacement, as communities are forced from their land to make way for mining operations. The continued exploitation of resources has also created a playground for various armed groups, which have used violence to maintain control over mines in the DRC.
For decades, civilians have paid a particularly heavy price, most notably in the eastern regions of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu. Most recently, on June 11, 2023, an attack on the Lala refugee camp in Ituri province killed 46 people and displaced 7,800.
One of the most notable militia groups is the March 23 Movement (M23). Several human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as the United Nations, have reported that M23 has recruited child soldiers and committed unlawful killings, rape and other war crimes. The same human rights organisations have published evidence that M23 relies on financial and military support from DRC’s neighbour, Rwanda.
Congolese officials have repeatedly accused Rwanda of plundering their country’s natural resources. In an interview for the Financial Times, DRC’s finance minister, Nicolas Kazadi, said Kigali exported almost $1bn in gold, tin, tantalum and tungsten in 2022, despite having few of these mineral deposits of its own. The UN has previously documented how minerals mined in the DRC are smuggled into Rwanda where they are tagged as locally produced.
While Belgium, France, and Germany have condemned Rwanda’s support for M23, the United Kingdom government refuses to do so. How can they, when an honest recognition of these human rights abuses would expose the illegality of its flagship policy: to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda?
Continuing to double down on this policy in the face of court rulings, the government does not just show contempt for people risking their lives to reach a place of safety. It is actively putting them back at risk of persecution.
Our country has played an enormous role in generating the conditions for violence, discrimination and human rights abuses in the DRC, and indeed the Global South. Our government should recognise its responsibility to redress – not aggravate – this colonial trauma. That means, at the very least, fulfilling its international obligations towards the refugees, and their right to live in safety and peace.
Indeed, we all have a responsibility to put pressure on our government to do so in the name of decolonisation. Many of the resources that we enjoy on a daily basis – including the technology you might be using to read this very article – rely on the DRC’s exploitation. The least we can do is use this technology to effect change. That means writing to your local member of Parliament to ask them to demand that our government unequivocally condemns Rwanda for their support of M23, takes appropriate sanctions, and increases aid to the DRC.
Many of those in positions of power and influence pretend as if the plight of people in the Global South simply does not matter. Whenever there is a crisis, if it is in Africa, then it may as well not have happened.
How much more violence, death and displacement should the people of the DRC endure before the international community wakes up and takes action? The people of the DRC – just like the people of Palestine, West Papua, Yemen, Sudan and beyond – deserve to live in peace, justice and freedom. Their voices cannot be ignored any longer.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Polls closed late on Wednesday in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as millions of voters turned out to vote in general elections held after tense and sometimes violent campaigns, amid a continuing war against the deadly M23 rebel group.
Some areas are due to vote on Thursday in elections seen as a test for DRC, which has only had one peaceful transfer of power due to years of instability.
One of those tense moments came on Tuesday as incumbent President Felix Tshisekedi, who is seeking a second five-year term, was speaking to his supporters on a final campaign stop in Kinshasa.
“I’ve had enough of invasions and M23 rebels backed by Kigali,” Tshisekedi screamed. “If you re-elect me and Rwanda persists … I will request parliament and Congress to authorise a declaration of war. We will march on Kigali. Tell Kagame those days of playing games with Congolese leaders are over.”
It was evidence of a further breakdown in the fractious relationship between the DRC and its tiny neighbour Rwanda.
Since the resurgence of M23 in November 2021, the scale of violence in the DRC’s volatile east has increased. The mineral-rich region is home to more than 100 armed groups including M23 and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), fighting for dominance and brutally attacking civilians. Some seven million people have been displaced by the violence. Dozens have died.
Like the string of opposition candidates vying for the presidency including former Katanga governor and wealthy businessman Moise Katumbi, oil executive Martin Fayulu, and Nobel Peace Prize-winning gynaecologist Dennis Mukwege, Tshisekedi has promised to end the insecurity.
For the president, the deteriorating security situation is largely spurred by Rwanda, who Kinshasa believes is backing M23, created in 2012 from a group of mutinous soldiers. Sour relations with his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame characterised Tshisekedi’s presidency.
On the campaign trail, the president constantly attacked Kagame, saying he had “expansionist aims” and comparing him with Hitler.
A regional rift
Tuesday’s comments escalated the situation to new heights as the president floated the possibility of all-out combat with Rwanda if re-elected, raising fears of a conflict that could destabilise East Africa.
While alarming, some analysts say Tshisekedi’s rhetoric is less geared at war but calculated to spur nationalistic fervour and gain more votes in the DRC where anti-Rwandan sentiment has become increasingly strong. But the consequences of such strong language, experts warn, could be severe.
“It plays well with the Congolese public to take a hardline stance against Rwanda … however, it’s going to pose a severe problem after elections,” Richard Moncrieff of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said. “Whether it’s Tshisekedi or another candidate who wins, the rhetoric around the elections is going to cause problems when it comes to regional diplomacy because they’ve taken the anti-Rwanda rhetoric too far.”
Tensions between Kinshasa and Kigali go back to the second Congolese war in the 1990s, when rivals Rwanda and Uganda fought proxy wars in eastern DRC, backing armed groups and seeking influence in the mineral-rich region. The DRC is one of the world’s largest producers of copper and cobalt and is endowed with precious elements like gold and diamonds. Due to instability and corruption, however, Congolese people benefit little from the wealth, and the country remains one of the poorest in the world. Those earlier wars, although officially over, are linked to the current conflict.
While Tshisekedi has said in interviews that he tried to keep relations cordial with Kagame, there has been bad blood between the two since the M23’s resurgence in 2021, 10 years after its fighters had gone underground. Kinshasa insists that the rebels – who claim to be fighting for the rights of ethnic Congolese Tutsis and who control swaths of territory in North Kivu, are being sponsored by Kigali. A United Nations Security Council committee of experts, citing “solid evidence”, said last year that Rwandan troops aided M23 fighters.
Kigali denies the claims but has also counter-blamed Kinshasa for allegedly backing the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a brutal armed group that has carried out raids in Rwanda in the past. The group is active in the DRC and has also attacked civilians there.
In February, Congolese troops exchanged fire with members of the Rwandan army in a border area as fears of a regional war rose.
‘The future is unpredictable’
There have been multiple efforts to end the war but none has succeeded yet.
The 14,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, MONUSCO, deployed there since 1999, has been denounced by many Congolese as toothless and is now pulling out of the country. Similarly, regional soldiers from the East African Community (EAC) bloc which President Tshisekedi pushed to gain entry to last year, are also withdrawing in phases, having been deemed ineffective. Currently, President Tshisekedi is banking on the planned deployment of forces of the Southern Africa Development Community bloc – SADC.
Many Congolese in the affected provinces of North and South Kivu, as well as Ituri, say they are tired of the multifaceted war that has continued for about 30 years, and want lasting peace. Some say Tshisekedi has failed to secure the provinces and should be booted out of office, while others say he needs more time to fix things.
Analysts say Tshisekedi faces a strong, if fractured, opposition and is struggling to win back the popular support he once had. His fiery approach to Rwanda is being seen as an attempt to put him at the forefront of the minds of most of the 44 million voters.
But it could also point to the fact that the president might keep pursuing a combat-first approach if re-elected, despite setbacks reflected in the departure of the UN and EAC troops. Presently, the Congolese military is fighting the M23 alongside state-recognised rebels called the Wazalendo.
Albert Malukisa, dean of political science at the Catholic University of Congo, told Al Jazeera that a Tshisekedi win could spell trouble for the region without external mediation.
“Tensions with Rwanda could increase if there is no Western pressure, particularly from the USA, for a peaceful settlement of the conflict,” Malukisa said. “If the FARDC [Congolese army] does not succeed in protecting the national territory, the future is unpredictable.”
Although the DRC has tried to secure short-lived ceasefires with M23, continued combat with M23 alone cannot solve the issue in the DRC, Moncrieff of Crisis Group argues. Another approach is needed, he says.
“The more (DRC) throws their army and Wazalendo, the more pushback and costs borne by civilians and ordinary people,” he said. Even with SADC, it would be difficult to win against the M23 group, he added. “Kinshasa needs to work out another more realistic strategy.”
Sunak faces down Conservative Party rebels by winning a knife-edge vote on his latest plans to send refugees and migrants to Rwanda.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s emergency bill to revive his plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda has avoided defeat in parliament, surviving a rebellion by dozens of his own MPs that laid bare his party’s deep divisions.
Sunak, who has pinned his reputation on the strategy despite warnings at every stage that it would not work, won the first vote on the plan in the House of Commons 313 to 269 on Tuesday after last ditch negotiations and drama in parliament.
Despite the victory, the result showed the prime minister is struggling to maintain control over his party.
Moderate Conservatives said they will not support the draft law if it means Britain will breach its human rights obligations, and right-wing politicians said it does not go far enough.
Sunak’s fractured Conservatives have lost much of their discipline and, after being in power for 13 years, are trailing the opposition Labour Party by about 20 points with an election expected next year.
“We have decided collectively that we cannot support the bill tonight because of its many omissions,” Mark Francois said, speaking on behalf of some right-wing Conservative lawmakers. They said they would abstain rather than support Sunak.
All Conservative lawmakers had been ordered by those in charge of party management to back the bill, and the abstentions were a foretaste of likely further rebellions at the next stages of the parliamentary process.
“Let’s pick this up again in January. We will table amendments, and we will take it from there,” Francois said, saying the grouping of about 40 right-wing lawmakers reserved the right to vote against the legislation at a later date.
In a sign of how uncertain Sunak was about the result, Britain’s climate change minister, Graham Stuart, left the COP28 climate talks in Dubai to return to vote in parliament despite critical negotiations still going on.
The prime minister was forced to indicate to would-be rebels during a breakfast meeting in Downing Street that they could amend the legislation later to encourage them to back down from a revolt that would have killed the bill.
Glasgow, United Kingdom – British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spent the weekend trying to persuade rebel MPs from his own party to back his latest plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda ahead of a crucial House of Commons vote on the policy.
The embattled Conservative Party leader wants to hand over refugees and migrants to the African nation for potential resettlement in a bid to discourage people from crossing the English Channel to Britain in small boats.
But following the UK Supreme Court’s decision last month to strike down the original legislation on the grounds that Rwanda is not a safe country for asylum seekers, Sunak introduced the so-called Safety of Rwanda Bill, which would make it harder for courts to challenge British deportations to the landlocked republic.
The 43-year-old, who faces a potential rebellion from the centre of his party over concerns his policy contradicts international law, has denied that Tuesday’s Commons session is essentially a vote of confidence in his premiership.
Meanwhile. as well as concerns that the policy is illegal by international law, Conservative politicians further on the right declared on Sunday that it was not “sufficiently watertight”.
Sunak’s denial comes despite Robert Jenrick resigning his role as British immigration minister last week after accusing Sunak of presiding over legislation that was not fit for purpose.
Academic Tim Bale likened Sunak’s predicament to that of former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May’s ultimate failure to deliver on Britain’s 2016 vote to leave the European Union during her tenure.
Bale said May was forced to stand down in 2019 after being “unable to negotiate a withdrawal agreement with the EU that would simultaneously satisfy all sides of a parliamentary party that – just like it is now – was not only ideologically split but panicking about polling which suggested it was losing support big time”.
The professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London told Al Jazeera: “The only difference is there’s no Boris Johnson-type figure waiting in the wings to take over, meaning that they’re probably stuck with Sunak – an agonising position both for him and for his MPs.”
Opinion polls show Sunak is facing political annihilation at the next general election, which is scheduled for no later than January 28, 2025.
The first Briton of Asian descent to secure the UK premiership took office after the resignation of Liz Truss in October 2022 after she had served 44 days in the post. Sunak was Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer from 2020 to 2022 under former premier Johnson.
But the wealthy former hedge fund manager – whose combined wealth with his wife, Akshata Murty, is estimated to be 529 million pounds ($664m), according to the Sunday Times Rich List 2023 – has so far failed to turn around the fortunes of the Conservatives, who remain about 20 points behind the opposition Labour Party in opinion polls.
Sunak has made his anti-immigration “stop the boats” campaign a central plank of his government’s agenda. He has also made it part of his campaign to win back right-wing voters, who have abandoned the Conservatives for the Labour Party, led by former lawyer Keir Starmer.
While “there are clearly some right-wing voters who are … obsessed with the small boats issue, … there’s nowhere near enough of them to win Sunak’s Conservatives re-election”, Bale said.
Moreover, the prime minister’s determination to deport asylum seekers to a deprived country 6,400km (4,000 miles) away is unlikely to play well with Britain’s more immigration-friendly voters.
“I think sending migrants to Rwanda is cruel and impractical in equal measure and was dreamed up to appease the Conservative right,” Elizabeth Moore, a designer from Bristol in southwest England, told Al Jazeera.
Central Africa expert Phil Clark said the UK “should be seen as a human rights pariah for its refusal to deal with refugee and asylum claims on its own shores”.
Clark, a professor of international politics at SOAS University of London, added: “However, there has been limited global outcry because many Western states want to emulate the UK’s offshoring approach. Already Denmark and Austria are negotiating similar migration deals with Rwanda. … What the UK is attempting to do with Rwanda, tragically, will soon be the norm for how wealthy countries outsource their refugee responsibilities to poorer states.”
Should Sunak emerge from Tuesday’s vote with his authority intact, he will likely press ahead with trying to turn his Rwanda policy into law in the hope of justifying the 240 million pounds ($300m) already given to the African state as part of the deal.
But many analysts see few long-term benefits for Sunak of pursuing such a controversial piece of legislation so close to the next UK general election.
“Most voters are clearly far more preoccupied with the cost of living and the state of the National Health Service,” Bale said.
“To them this is just a distraction and another example of the Conservatives fighting each other like cats in a sack – never a good look because divided parties tend not to win elections.”
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![A memorial to those who lost their lives during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda stands in the valley that separates two villages on adjascent hills, at the border between Musambira and Nyarubaka sectors of Kamonyi District, on March 4, 2019. Two villages on adjascent hills are re-learning to share all they have, including a well-spring at the bottom of the valley, after 1994 genocide. More than a thousand residents of the town were massacred in the days following the outbreak of inter-ethnic violence, a genocide in which over 800,000 mostly Tutsi people were slaughtered between April to July 1994, according to the UN.[Jacques Nkinzingabo/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AFP__20190330__1F76DS__v1__HighRes__RwandaGenocideAnniversaryReconciliation-1712500209.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)
![Josepha Mukaruzima, 70 (C), a Tutsi woman from Ruseke village, whose entire family was killed, stands with Jean-Claude Mutarindwa, 42 (L), a Hutu from neighbouring Giheta village, at the border between Musambira and Nyarubaka sectors of Kamonyi District on March 4, 2019. In the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, majority Hutu's from Giheta turned on their long-time neighbours in Ruseke. Mutarindwa was a young man from the village of Giheta. Unlike his brothers, he did not pick up a machete to kill, and that helped him be one of the first to lay the foundation stones for reconciliation. The neighbours are now re-learning to share all they have, including a well-spring at the bottom of the valley. More than a thousand residents of the town were massacred in the days following the outbreak of inter-ethnic violence, a genocide in which over 800,000 mostly Tutsi people were slaughtered between April to July 1994, according to the UN. [Jacques Nkinzingabo/AFP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/AFP__20190330__1F75K8__v4__HighRes__TopshotJosephaMukaruzima70CATutsiWomanFromRuseke-1712498295.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)
