Yolande Makolo, Director General of OGS
On 10 June 2026, Human Rights Watch published a 78-page report titled “Death Was Everywhere”: Arbitrary Detention, Killings, and Forced Recruitment by the M23 and the Rwanda Defence Force, according to a reaction by OGS (Office of the Government Spokesperson). Rwanda rejects HRW’s allegations of RDF involvement in forced recruitment, detention, torture, executions, forced labor, or child recruitment.
Rwanda also rejects HRW’s attempt to collapse M23 and RDF into one actor. Alleged M23 conduct cannot be treated as RDF conduct.
In this report, HRW confirms that:
1.The Congolese army has supported armed groups opposed to the M23, including the DRC-sponsored FDLR, a militia formed by perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. HRW report, p. 1.
2.Congolese authorities armed, financed, and coordinated operations with Wazalendo factions and other militias, including the FDLR. HRW report, p. 10.
3.Government backing of these militias contributed to significant new violations and further eroded already fragile accountability efforts. HRW report, p. 10.
4.Congolese forces and their allies carried out grave abuses, including killing, rape, arbitrary detention, and extortion against displaced people around Goma. HRW report, p. 11.
Despite these acknowledgments:
•HRW provides no substantial findings on FARDC, FDLR, Wazalendo, or their chain of command.
•HRW names no Congolese or Wazalendo commander for sanctions.
•HRW gives maximum scrutiny to Rwanda and M23, while Kinshasa’s support for abusive armed groups is relegated to background material.
Selective accountability applied with selective investigative depth is not accountability.
On the Report’s Methodology and Language
In typical HRW pattern of recklessness, the report declares Rwanda guilty in its headline and admits uncertainty in its annex. The cover declares killings “by the M23 and the Rwanda Defence Force.” The legal section states that abuses “might constitute” crimes “if demonstrated,” and that occupation “would appear to meet” the legal threshold. The satellite captions state that soil disturbances “may be consistent” with graves and that HRW “was unable to determine with certainty” whether they are graves or unrelated ground features. This is not the first time that HRW tries to manipulate audiences by promoting accusations in their press release, while burying doubts in the annexes.
No investigator set foot in the places this report describes. There was no site visit, no exhumation, and no forensic examination. The report itself concedes that the death toll “could best be determined if all mass graves were found and excavated.” None were.
The report’s forensic vocabulary does not close this gap: geolocation establishes where a video was filmed; photogrammetry estimates how many people fit on a truck. Neither establishes coercion, killing, or command. Every criminal allegation rests on anonymized testimony, part of it gathered from surrendered combatants interviewed in Congolese army custody, witnesses with an evident incentive to characterize their service as forced.
The report’s most carefully drafted language is reserved for its commercial partners who are insulated from the report’s conclusions, and HRW is careful not to overstate anything based on the companies’ imagery. By contrast, where a Rwandan officer is named, HRW is categorical and the demand is sanctions. It is obvious that HRW’s caution is not based on the strength of evidence but to legal exposure vis-à-vis the corporations. The Rwandan individuals the report is so quick to name do not have the same recourse.
On the Standard Applied to Named Individuals
The report designates named individuals for international sanction on the basis of anonymized testimony they cannot confront, concerning sites no independent investigator has entered, without forensic corroboration of any kind. No judicial body would act on that standard but governments are called upon by HRW to act on this flimsy basis. Even more irrational, HRW then demands an investigation into findings it has already announced as fact.
Rwanda supports genuine, independent investigation, conducted with access, forensic rigor, and due process for the accused. An investigation whose conclusions are announced in advance is not an investigation.
On What the Report Minimizes
Foreign mercenaries, presented as private military contractors, are mentioned only in passing, with no substantive findings section, legal analysis, or accountability recommendation.
The wider Kinshasa aligned coalition is also minimized. FARDC, DRC-sponsored FDLR, Wazalendo, foreign mercenaries, and other Kinshasa aligned forces operated in the same conflict environment, with direct consequences for civilians. HRW minimizes this coalition as mere context, while making Rwanda and M23 the center of its legal and investigative analysis.
DRC violations of the Washington Accords are also left unexamined. HRW frames the December 2025 Uvira offensive as Rwanda and M23 undermining the peace process, but does not address Kinshasa’s repeated ceasefire violations, failure to fulfill CONOPS benchmarks, including FDLR neutralization, repatriation, and dismantling of FDLR command structures embedded within FARDC.
On the DRC-sponsored FDLR as the Root Cause
HRW’s own report states that Rwanda’s security concerns are linked particularly to the FDLR genocidal militia. The word “allegedly” does not change the documented reality. The FDLR was founded by perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The armed militia has been supported by successive DRC governments and threatened Rwanda for 30 years, killed Rwandan and Congolese civilians, and was placed on the US State Department Terrorist Exclusion List in 2001 (while it was known as ALIR) following the murder of eight foreign tourists, including two Americans, in Bwindi Forest in 1999.
HRW also confirms that the Congolese army has supported armed groups opposed to M23, including the FDLR and Wazalendo, and that Congolese authorities armed, financed, and coordinated operations with Wazalendo factions and other militias, including the FDLR. HRW report, pp. 1 and 10.
A report that examines Rwanda’s response to a genocidal militia operating on its border, without examining that militia’s conduct or Kinshasa’s unprecedented support for the militia, seeks to deliberately misrepresent the conflict in eastern DRC.
On the Pattern of Asymmetric Reporting
This report follows HRW’s previous release on Uvira, where HRW acknowledged that Banyamulenge civilians fled Uvira with the M23 because they feared Wazalendo reprisals, warned that M23’s withdrawal put civilians at grave risk from abusive Wazalendo militias, documented Wazalendo killings of Banyamulenge civilians, and warned that the Congolese army risked complicity through its support to Wazalendo militias.
Yet HRW has now produced a 78-page report on M23 and alleged RDF conduct, while giving a pass to FARDC, DRC-sponsored FDLR, Wazalendo, foreign mercenaries, and the wider Kinshasa aligned coalition. The documented violations are there. HRW’s access is there. Where is the detailed report?
On the Path Forward
The Washington Accords are the most credible path forward: security assurances, accountability, regional cooperation, economic integration, and peace that serves the people of both Rwanda and DRC, as well as our region. Rwanda will continue to defend its security, engage in good faith, and support a regional solution rooted in dialogue, fairness, and partnership. (End)