DRC: Die Without Hate Speech

To the People of the Democratic Republic of Congo

Die Without Hate Speech

Introduction

In the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo,
war has learned how to stay.
It has memorised the roads,
the seasons,
the names of children.
It changes uniforms,
but its shadow always points east,
where borders bleed
and denial runs faster than truth.

Villages fall.
Camps rise.
Graves multiply.
And while the world debates language,
the gun keeps speaking.

From this long night—
fuelled by aggression, plunder,
and a neighbour's ambition—
a voice steps forward,
cold, measured, certain of impunity.
It is Paul Kagame speaking
to the Congolese people.

"I am your lesson," he says.
"Learn it well. I control the armed groups."

We hear him.
We hear him in the crack of gunfire,
in the silence after screams.

"I kill you," he says.
Not once,
but again and again,
until death becomes routine,
until mourning is exhausted
and grief has no tears left.

He takes what sleeps beneath our feet—
coltan, gold, cobalt—
the wealth meant for our schools,
our hospitals,
our roads.
He sells it,
and with the money
buys more weapons
to kill us again.

We speak now, as Congolese voices:

You raped our wives.
You raped our daughters.
You turned their bodies into battlegrounds,
and called it strategy.
You denied responsibility,
hid behind lies,
and left us to bury shame
alongside the dead.

You starved us.
You cut the roads,
burned the fields,
closed the sky—
and aid never arrived.
Our children learned the sound of hunger
before they learned how to read.

You destroyed our homes.
Walls collapsed.
Memories scattered.
Names disappeared from doors.
We became strangers on our own land,
exiles without permission to return.

Our children stopped going to school.
Their future was postponed,
held hostage
by your decisions.

Then you commanded us:

"Be quiet."

You told us our pain must be disciplined,
our tears regulated,
our suffering polite.
You ordered us to obey,
to applaud you
as you stepped over our dead.

"Silence is not enough," you said.
"I need gratitude."

You warned us not to speak of hatred,
not to name what you do.
You told us to speak nicely
about your community,
while forgetting others
who have no one to defend them.

You boasted that you are stronger than our country,
stronger than our army,
stronger than our screams.
And you demanded that we die
correctly—
in silence.

"Die without hate speech," you said.
"Die politely.
Die so the world is comfortable."

But listen—
the Congolese people are not only victims.

Beneath your orders,
beneath the forced applause,
our land remembers.
It remembers laughter,
harvests,
classrooms filled with noise.
It remembers life before terror
was normalised.

Though our mouths are threatened shut,
truth still breathes—
quietly,
patiently,
waiting.

You continued, without shame.

You used the name of FDLR
not as truth,
but as excuse.
You held it up like a mirror
so the world would look there
instead of at your hands.

You pointed to them
while your soldiers crossed our borders.
You whispered their name
as villages burned.
You said "protection"
but meant expansion.

You claimed to protect your people,
as if blood alone were a passport,
as if fear were a title deed.
You said they were threatened,
so you threatened first.

You killed others
so yours could stay.
You emptied villages
to manufacture exclusivity.
You redrew maps with corpses
and called it security.

You told the world not to ask
who lived here before,
who farmed this soil,
who buried ancestors under these trees.
Because history is inconvenient
when land is the prize.

You repeated "FDLR"
until the word became a curtain
behind which everything disappeared:
rape,
displacement,
mass graves taught to keep quiet.

And you told us our role:
Do not resist.
Do not speak.
Accept that some lives are negotiable
and others permanent.

But the land does not agree.
It remembers footsteps in many languages,
shared markets,
shared rivers,
shared grief.
Even as you claim exclusivity,
the soil resists possession.
Even as you demand silence,
memory refuses orders.

Then you closed the sky.

"I will not open the airport," you said.
Not Goma.
Not mercy.
Not the narrow corridor
where help might land.

Planes circled like unanswered prayers,
full of food and medicine,
while you sealed the runway.
Because starvation is quieter than bombs,
and death by delay leaves fewer witnesses.

You let children fade into statistics.
You let mothers measure life
by the last spoon of water.
You called it security,
procedure,
necessary restraint.

And still you warned us:
Do not scream.
Do not curse.
Do not say my name
next to your dead.

Conclusion: A Call from the Congolese People

We speak now—not in hate,
but in pain,
in love for our children,
in fear for tomorrow,
and in hope that the world will finally listen.

We call for help.
Not sympathy,
but action.
Not silence,
but accountability.

Paul Kagame is not a protector.
He is a man who chose power over humanity,
lies over life,
and domination over peace.

Closing airports, starving civilians,
arming proxies,
and hiding behind narratives
are not acts of leadership—
they are crimes against human beings.

The Congolese people refuse to die politely.
We refuse to disappear quietly.
We refuse to be erased
for the comfort of others.

No weapon is eternal.
No lie rules forever.
And no people—
no matter how silenced—
forgets how to stand,
how to speak,
and how to demand
that life, dignity,
and justice be returned.