US foreign policy in the Congo: a 30 year long criminal deception
Nicoletta Fagiolo
Apr 19
12 min read
Congo Research Group's treacherous reporting
Reading a recent April 2026 policy brief by Congo Research Group (CRG) The M23: A Fractious, Entrenched Rebellion (published only in Englishalthough it concerns a French speaking country) one cannot but remain baffled by this propaganda think tank’s research, which disinforms more than informs, and tends to still whitewash the M23 terrorist group, although in the same report it underlines that many of its members face UN, US and /or EU sanctions for crimes against humanity.
Despite the fact that the M23 has been proven to be a Rwandan proxy militia by countless UN reports since 2012, CRG calls it a “ rebellion” and pretends it has valid grievances, stating falsely that their demands are separate from those of Rwanda. The report underlines that today the M23 calls for the overthrow of the Congolese government. Is regime change a legitimate policy proposal? Instead, Rwanda, according to CRG, is content with just occupying the eastern region. Such misleading statements overlook the high level of infiltration of Rwanda in Congo’s government and military since 1996, and conceal the international war of aggression Congo has been facing for 30 years. Former President Joseph Kabila indirectly confirmed his endorsement of the M23 by showing up in the M23 controlled city of Goma in North Kivu in May 2025.[I]
Despite the fact that the report underscores that in 2021 the M23 had 200 men and no weapons, it does not supply any explanations of how suddenly, a few years later, it morphed into a strong, well-funded military force that has occupied large parts of eastern Congo. Ludicrous sentences such as the following point to the CRG disingenuous reporting: “ The M23’s dramatic expansion of territory from a few square kilometers in 2021 to over ten thousand in 2025 created a sudden need for recruits.” Arms do to not grow on trees in Congo, nor do mercenaries.
The brief says that the M23 has recently rebranded itself to give itself a Congolese appearance, yet it also states that the militia has a concrete Congolese constituency. Countess videos on social media reveal the contrary: the local population cheering on the liberation of cities, towns and villages, when they are recaptured by the Congolese national army, the FARDC. Other photos and videos posted show hideous massacres committed by the M23 in cities, villages and towns across the region. Yet CRG in its cover-up wants readers to believe that the local Congolese population wish to live under a military occupation of a foreign country whose heinous human rights crimes have been documented since 1996. Where the M23 passed mass graves have been found.
The CRG brief also downplays the difficult role of the Wazalendo, patriots in Swahili ,who are self-defense groups protecting their land and fighting against a foreign aggression and occupation. Instead CRG calls these patriots a “militia.”!
Canadian journalist Judi Rever in her latest book Rwanda’s 30-year assault on Congo, The Crimes, The Criminals and the Cover-up, has revealed that the Congolese genocide is a US war since 1996, so have American journalists Helen Epstein or Edward S. Herman among others before her. Countless African scholars from Patrick Mbeko, to Boniface Musavuli, Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, or Charles Onana, to name just a few, have also analyzed this US-backed genocide.
Yet Jason Streans, who heads the Congo Research Group, spends time smearing historian Charles Onana’s work on the Congo, all while avoiding any debate on the archival evidence Onana has dug up. More recently a French NGO, the Movement against racism and for friendship between peoples(MRAP), allegedly on behalf of Rwanda, is suing Charles Onana for his book, Holocaust in Congo, revealing that French vested economic interests prevail over freedom of speech and historical research. France, with the rest of the EU, signed a shameful Memorandum of Understanding on Sustainable Raw Materials Value Chains with Rwanda, basically guaranteeing access to minerals stolen by Rwanda in eastern Congo. The EU has still not rescinded the agreement despite the large amount of evidence on this illegal exploitation.
Actions by the M23 such as forcefully removing, abducting and even killing local traditional leaders (the CRG report writes that they were simply “replaced”) in areas under their control, unlawful deportations, to creating a parallel administration and tax system (those familiar with Congolese history remember the Rwandan Congo desk during the first and second Congolese wars from 1996 to 2003) to forced recruitment of the local population including children and the use of rape as a weapon of war (we learn from Judi Rever’s recent book on the Congo that 2 million women were victims of rape in 2010, what is the staggering number today 16 years of war later?) all point to what are considered acts of genocide by international law. Yet the report urges the Congolese government to find a political solution with sanctioned genocidal thugs!
On the Congo desk Judi Rever writes: “ Big figures behind the Congo desk were Jack Nziza from Rwanda’s Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), along with Patrick Karegeya, who headed External Intelligence. These men organized and controlled the exploitation of Congo’s natural resources.(…) They also got help from British national David Bensusan who facilitated Rwanda’s plunder in Congo for nearly two and a half decades.” [ii] David Bensusan, who died in 2021, was the managing director of Minerals Supply Africa. UN experts reported in July 2025 that a “major Rwandan coltan exporter”—identified in reports as MSA—had purchased minerals smuggled from the DRC. [iii] Why is this minerals company not facing sanctions today?
Nowhere in the Congo Research Group report is the word genocide mentioned, although anyone familiar with recent Congolese history knows that well over 12 million Congolese have perished in eastern Congo since 1996 due to the ongoing war of international aggression. The report also avoids mentioning the term international aggression.
The US who has backed current Rwandan President Paul Kagame since the mid 1980s and fueled his illegal regime change in Rwanda (1990-94), as well as his invasion of Zaire in 1996 now hopes to broker a peace deal. It should maybe begin by recognizing the US role in this tragedy and holding the Clinton administration liable for its actions and their 30-year consequences. Rever’s book mentions countless US politicians and diplomats who used their positions to cover-up the US and Rwandan role in this genocide: Richard Clarke, Susan Rice, Robert Houdek, Daniel Simpson, Robert Gribben, Peter Whaley, Michael Southwick, Richard Orth, David Scheffer, Herman Cohen among others. They are true masters of necropolitics.[iv] “The US and the corporate interests it represents had essentially anointed Kagame and his Tutsi elite to manage the exploitation of Congo’s vast resources for maximum profit”, writes Black Agenda report journalist Ann Garrison in a review of Judi Rever’s recent book.
“ The decision by the United States to conduct regime change in Congo—coupled with the impunity that Paul Kagame and his forces enjoyed after butchering Congolese and Rwandan Hutus in 1996–97—forever changed the course of history in central Africa. The planning and execution of this regime change destroyed Congo’s fragile sovereignty and paved the way for an endless cycle of bloodshed. Regime change was therefore a gateway for other war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide against the Congolese people, and the perennial plunder of the country’s resources. It also solidified Kagame’s tyranny in Rwanda”, writes Judi Rever. [v] Has this US policy substantially changed today?
The US only in March 2026, when the M23 had consolidated its hold on large parts of eastern Congolese territory, as well as occupying 45 mining sites according to United Nations Security Council investigations and the International Peace Information Service, sanctioned the Rwandan national army (the Rwandan Defense Force). Only four senior RDF officers have been sanctioned for their direct operational support to the March 23 Movement (M23)[vi] and its affiliates in eastern Congo. Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni remain unscathed. This is too little, too late.
The report mentions Congolese officers that have aligned themselves with the M23, yet fails to mention that these officers have either been arrested for high treason or accused of grave human rights abuses: such as Lieutenant General Pacifique Masunzu and his deputy, Brigadier General Bwange Safari (they face accusations of treason and failing to prevent the M23 from capturing strategic locations like Nzibira); or Michel Rukunda (known as Makanika) who before his death in February 2025, was sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council and other international bodies for human rights abuses, including the recruitment of child soldiers; or Richard Tawimbi who frequently resisted integration into the official Congolese army.
The CRG also writes that Rwanda today appoints some of the new governors in the M23 occupied regions, depicting this as a normal government policy, rather than pointing out that it is a war crime.
The CRG brief speaks of 82,000 Congolese Tutsis in Rwandan refugee camps since 1994, citing as its source the Rwandan Ministry in Charge of Emergency Management. Anyone familiar with Rwandan reporting is aware of the totalitarian dictatorship the country lives under and the impossibility of any form of transparent analyses.
Even a Paul Kagame apologist such as Belgian journalist Colette Braeckman reported during the second Congolese war that Rwandan forces were “injecting fake Interahamwe” militias into the Democratic Republic of Congo to create pretexts for a Rwandan military intervention. Furthermore citing a Human Rights Watch report Judi Rever reveals: “In 2002, Rwandan troops and their DRC proxy attacked the Banyamulenge in their homelands, killing scores of civilians, shooting them from Rwandan helicopters. They forced thousands of Banyamulenge to leave their homes for RCD-Goma controlled areas and Rwandan military camps.”[vii]
The CRG brief while mentioning 82,000 refugees in Rwanda however omits the between 5 and 8 million internally displaced Congolese living in makeshift tents due to the M23 war of aggression! Total displacement (including refugees) reached 8.2 million by September 2025 and is projected to climb toward 9 million by the end of 2026,according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR. This staggering number equals nearly 8% of the overall Congolese population.
CRG also writes that the Banyamulenge are a Congolese ethnic group which is historically false: they are a Rwandan community which has moved to Congo in successive immigration waves since the 1930s. CRG however forgets to mention that many Banyamulenge (which literally translates as Rwandan refugees living near the Mulenge hill, UNHCR can and should explain this succinctly) wish to distance themselves from Rwanda’s manipulation of their identity. Some Banyamulenge have recently criticized the manipulation of protests instigated by Rwanda in Washington which profess to speak in their name. The report falsely states that this community is persecuted in Congo, thus indirectly justifying their joining the Rwandan proxies. The CRG report thus touts Kigali propaganda which has used this pretext to justify its international aggression since 1996. This same fallacious argument was branded by the US and Canada in 1996 when its proxies invaded Zaire to topple then Congolese President Mobutu Sese Seko. The report also omits to mention examples from the Banyamulenge community who today refuse to associate themselves with Rwanda’s occupation. [viii]
Congo Research Group also writes in its conclusions that the Congo needs to address the Banyamulenge community citizenship status. This is simply absurd! Mobutu Sese Seko had established back in 1983 that their citizenship status would be established on a case by case basis, a migration policy applied by national governments world-wide. Yet CRG points to non-existing ethnic grievances to shield analyses of the genocidal US and more recently also European Union funded proxies in the region and their mineral plundering.
The plight of the Rwandan refugees, known as Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), in Congo who have been stranded there and hunted down since 1996 is also omitted. A Pentagon memo dating 1994 revealed by Onana in his book Holocauste in Congo states that the FDLR posed no threat to Rwanda. Wikileaks cables corroborate further that there was no threat to Rwanda from this refugee community. Judi Rever’s ground breaking book reveals evidence on how Kagame even carried out false flag operations to criminalise Hutus. The Washington accords underscore this false pretext for Rwandan aggression by mentioning the FDLR 42 times, while briefly touching upon the Rwandan and Ugandan aggression of Congolese sovereign territory.
Congo Research Group is concerned with the plight of the alleged 82,000 Rwandan Tutsi refugees (they are not necessarily Congolese, as historically speaking there is no ethnic Tutsi tribe in Congo) yet fail to mention the 800,000 Hutu refugees assassinated by the Rwandan national army under Kagame in Zaire (as Congo was called at the time) in 1996-97. The invasion of Zaire in 1996 was carried forth with US logistical and military support as Judi Rever’s recent book brilliantly exposes.
Omitting the FDLR from the curent peace negotiating table is disingenuous, and reflects the false policy positions of the US brokered peace plan. Misleading pundits have called these Hutu refugees “negative forces” for 30 years. The only solution proposed was, and still is, to exterminate all Hutus living in Zaire. Most probably because this population can reveal the double genocide the US has aided and abetted in the region since 1990.
The Obama administration first proposed this official policy of exterminating the Hutus who had fled Rwanda in 1994 for Congo , by pushing for a joint Rwandan and Congolese military operation in 2009 known as Umoja Wetu. Subsequent similar military operations followed as revealed by Boniface Musavuli.[ix] Branding these refugees as genocidaires has falsified Rwandan history hindering reconciliation in Rwanda and called for the elimination of a refugee population. Will the Obama administration ever be held accountable?
The report briefly touches upon the mineral smuggling, mentioning gold and coltan fleetingly, omitting the countless other minerals smuggled, and also omitting a treacherous recent US proposal: a consortium led by Trump associate Gentry Beach and his firm, America First Global, is negotiating a potential deal involving the DRC’s Rubaya coltan mine and a proposed smelter in Rwanda. The project, reported by the Financial Times as a $500 million+ initiative backed by trader Mercuria, aims to refine Congolese minerals through Rwanda. This proposed plan normalizes war crimes and an illegal occupation, rewarding Rwanda for the genocide it is committing. The CRG report mentions the Gasabo gold refinery in Rwanda, yet omits the long list of pillaged minerals in Rwanda and the countless companies which profit from this illegal exploitation.
Rwanda’s proxy war of aggression in Congo is presented by CRG as a security “ strategic depth” policy, not a war of aggression fueled by mineral greed. CRG even speaks of a “professionalization” of the M23: what that means is hard to fathom unless one looks at how the US recently rebranded Al-Qaeda leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani to head Syria. CRG is after all a US funded think tank.
It also omits the decades long failure and actual reason for the destabilization of Congo: the integration of terrorist proxy militias into the Congolese national army via internationally brokered peace processes since Sun City in 2003, thus creating “an army within an army” and subsequent non-ending defections of these militias on Rwanda’s payroll. CRG instead proposes this recipe for disaster once again: amnesty for these criminal and their integration into the national army!
CRG also falsely claims that the second Congolese war was spurred by what they call “Congolese Tutsis “ which had helped Laurent-Désiré Kabila initially come to power. This statement is historically flawed in light of the hundreds of historical accounts on the proxy Rwandan militia known as RCD-Goma which undertook the second invasion of Congo in august 1998. Historian and professor of African and Afro-American Studies Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja recounts in The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History how back then Kigali tried to recruit him for this invasion, and how he decided to distance himself from this foreign backed initiative.
Congo should turn to the BRICS countries as major allies and drop its alliance with western countries, their bogus mediators and pro-Kigali propagandist think tanks, who have strangled the country for too long. The western neocolonial mind-set that propagates distorted fiction, far from the reality on the ground, is of no use in a growing multipolar world.
Endless three decades long declarations condemning Rwanda’s occupation of eastern Congo by western politicians have not been followed by effective policies to stop the genocide. Can the Trump administration change course?
Instead, readers interested in Congo’s war should avoid reading Congo Research Group reports if they want to gain an informed and truthful understanding of the on-going genocide. CRG write in a historical void, avoiding most archival historical accounts on the region. Disinforming on such a tragic topic renders this think tank complicit in the cover-up of what is a western backed genocide.
Notes:
[i] A member of Kabila’s entourage clarified to AFP that while there is no “formal alliance,” both Kabila and M23 share the “same goal” of ending Tshisekedi’s rule.
[iii] Following the death of Bensusan in 2021, ownership of Minerals Supply Africa (MSA) is held through its parent company, Cronimet Central Africa AG.
[iv] Necropolitics is intended as the use of social and political power to dictate how some people may live and how others must die, representing a governance model centered on death. Coined by Achille Mbembe in 2003, it examines how states create “death worlds” and determine which populations are disposable.
[vi] It is important to note that the M23 group itself has been designated as a sanctioned entity by the U.S. since 2013, yet only six of its members are today directly sanctioned by the US.
[viii] The Banyamulenge Global Advocacy on twitter recently denounced what it defines a Rwandan proxy MPA (Mahoro Peace Association), “for mobilizing networks across the United States in an apparent effort to influence U.S. policymakers, reshape the narrative, and seek sanctions relief while the conflict in eastern DRC continues.”They write : “We urge vigilance against attempts to manipulate U.S. institutions and distort the reality on the ground.”
[ix] Boniface Musavuli, Congo-Rwanda, la guerre san fin et la justice impossible, 2024. p 153
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