Banyamulenge
[citation needed] The Banyamulenge played a role in Mobutu's war against and victory over the Simba Rebellion, which was not supported by the majority of other tribes in South Kivu.
[2] Mulenge is a term historically referring to mountains concentrated on the High Plateau of South Kivu, in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, close to the Burundi-Congo-Rwanda border.
From the 1930s, Congolese Banyarwanda immigrants continued coming in search of work, with a major influx of Tutsi refugees in 1959–1960, afterthe "Social Revolution", led by the Hutu Grégoire Kayibanda.
[3] The government rewarded the Banyamulenge's efforts by appointing individuals to high positions in the capital Bukavu, and their children were increasingly sent to missionary schools.
The urban dwellers could make a fair living selling meat and milk from their herds to the gold diggers though the group lacked the political connections to Kinshasa or a large educated class, which was possessed by the North Kivu Banyarwanda.
In response, the Tutsi appear to have attempted to distance themselves from their ethnicity as Rwandans and lay claim to a territorial identity as residents of Mulenge.
However, some leaders, such as Chief of Staff Barthélémy Bisengimana, were concerned that the change was an alarming sign of the growing influence of the Banyarwanda in the administration.
[13] In reaction to the apparently growing influence of the Banyamulenge, the majority ethnicities, particularly the Nande and Hunde of North Kivu, focused on dominating the 1977 legislative elections.
[13] The 1991 Sovereign National Conference [fr] (CNS) was a sign of the increasing coherence of the anti-Mobutu forces,[15] and came as the Congolese Banyarwanda were in a state of heightened tension.
In response, the Mobutu government implemented Mission d'Identification de Zaïrois au Kivu to identify non-Zairean Banyarwanda by using the 1885 end of the Berlin Conference as the cutoff.
Their peril was underlined by a commission led by Gustave Vangu Mambweni [nl], who declared that all Banyarwanda were refugees and must return to Rwanda.
Finally, in November 1996, the RPF-backed Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL), which the Banyamulenge militias joined, crossed the border and dismantled the camps, before it continued to Kinshasa and overthrew Mobutu.
[19] The ranks of the AFDL were composed in large part by the Banyamulenge, who filled most of the administrative positions in South Kivu after the fall of Bukavu.
[20] As documented in the DRC Mapping Exercise Report by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the success of the invasion led to revenge killings by the Tutsi Banyarwanda against their opponents.
[19] It was worse in South Kivu, as Banyamulenge settled local scores and RPF soldiers appeared to conflate the génocidaires with the Hutu with the "indigenous" Congolese.
[citation needed] The various Banyamulenge militias and the Rwandan government forces separated because of disagreements over motives of the uprising after the creation of RCD-Goma.
[23] By 2000, the Banyamulenge were hemmed into the high plateau by Congolese Mai-Mai, the Burundian Forces for the Defense of Democracy and the Rwandan Hutu Armée de Libération du Rwanda (ALiR).
Nevertheless, the Banyamulenge made up much of the RCD military wing, the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC), and controlled the towns of Fizi, Uvira and Minembwe, which had been recently declared a "commune" among many others in 2018.
[24] Vice-President Azarias Ruberwa, a Munyamulenge, suspended his participation in the transitional government for one week in protest before he was persuaded to return to Kinshasa by pressure from South Africa.
[citation needed] In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Banyamulenge have been part of the elite community in politics and the military and benefit from Kabila himself even though they were hated by some members of his inner circle.
[citation needed] That has led to increased tensions with local communities all over the country, which argue that the groups receives undeserved preferential treatment from the government.
[citation needed] For example, the Bembe and the Lega tribes identify themselves based on the following territories including Itombwe, Lulenge, Ngandja, Tanganyika and M'tambala.
In recent years, tensions over the identity of the Banyamulenge and their claims to a newly established district/"commune" (Minembwe) have created a new cycle of regional political and military disagreements, which have led to new ethnic clashes and have involved foreign armed groups.
[citation needed] On 6 January, the community endorsed a judicial inquiry/mission to investigate and bring to justice those responsible for crimes committed against the Banyamulenge in Minembwe.
[citation needed] In 2020, the World Youth Alliance warned that the Banyamulenge people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo "are facing another wave of inhumane emotional and psychological terror and being subjected to genocidal acts of violence.
A coalition of local militias has been carrying out killings of Banyamulenge people who have been in a dire humanitarian situation in the central African region for years.
In addition, popular politicians, both in the provinces and the capital city Kinshasa have started campaigns whose main goal is to demonize Tutsis, the Banyamulenge community in particular, by denying their inalienable right to Congolese autochthony and scapegoating them for the woes that the country has been through since the 1990s.
