The Congolese Citizens Movement for Change (LUCHA) said it will hold its planned protests march on 04 September 2020, calling for the expulsion of Rwandan Ambassador Vincent Karega from the Democratic Republic of Congo; this despite President Felix Tshisekedi having already held talks with the Ambassador after his controversial tweet.
In late August 2020, Mr Karega had challenged a social media message from Congolese blogger Benjamin Babunga, which remembered the August 24 1998 massacre in the Congolese territory of Kasika South Kivu. Babunga attributed the massacre to Rwandan soldiers who according to him killed more than 1100 innocent civilians and burned villages, while on a 60km journey between Kilungutwe and Kasika.
The Rwandan Ambassador then disputed the narrative in his tweeter timeline, accusing the author of slander and mounting a propoganda, since he could not provide any evidence to back up his claims.
However the Ambassador's tweet did not go down well with the Congolese political class, who in return accused him of denying what they dubbed the Congolese genocide.
Given the public outcry, Mr Vincent Karega met with President Felix Tshisekedi and later commended the good bilateral relations enjoyed by both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mr Karega also ended up deleting his tweet.
But for some Congolese politicians and civil society movements, the outcome of the meeting between President Tshisekedi and Karega was simply not enough, LUCHA even went further and accused the Congolese government of treating the Rwandan Ambassador with kids gloves and being indifferent to Karega's revisionist attitude on Congolese atrocities.
It's a similar sentiment shared by opposition party leader Martin Fayulu who described the tweet by Vincent Karega as part of a systematic denial of the Congolese genocide. For Fayulu this was unacceptable and that any Congolese who is complicit to such denialism should be tried for treason
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