Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi called on the parliament of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to adopt an official resolution recognising the genocide committed against Congolese people in the east of the country.
He launched the call on Saturday, during commemorations of the 'Genocost', which have been taking place every 2 August for three years.
A memorial dedicated to the Genocost was inaugurated near the National Museum in Kinshasa.
This mineral-rich region, which borders Rwanda, has been torn apart by conflict for the past 30 years, since the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda, and violence has intensified since early 2025.
The term 'Genocost' was first coined in London in 2013 by an activist from the Congolese Action Youth Platform (CAYP). It emerged in the wake of the publication of the UN’s Mapping Report, which documented the scale and horror of crimes committed in eastern Congo since 1996 and highlighted the responsibility of several neighbouring countries, including Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
For the NGO CAYP France, the creation of an official day of remembrance on 2 August and its endorsement by the authorities is a "victory", as Gloria Menayame, one of their legal experts and project officer told RFI. —but, she also said that it "feels unfinished".
"The adoption of the Genocost campaign is something we welcome," she said. "What we didn’t want was this partial appropriation that only takes what suits the authorities. There’s a lot of talk about international responsibility or the creation of an international tribunal. But they forget to put in place mechanisms to address crimes at the national level. We believe our government has the means, but lacks the will."
Long road to recognition
The idea of demanding the recognition of the 'Genocost' emerged after 2013, when Congolese people, victim to their neighbours’ hunger for the wealth of their subsoil — namely, its mineral resources, started demanding reparation, as well as addressing a logic of predation rooted in the colonial era.
Civil society in the DRC quickly took up the cause, and a square in Kinshasa was symbolically renamed Genocost Square. Gatherings have since been held there every 2 August, marking the start of the Second Congo War in 1998.
But the Congolese authorities adopted the term 'Genocost', only at the end of 2022, following the resurgence of the M23 rebel group in late 2021 and the conflict with Rwanda.
One of the main aims of this campaign is to establish an international criminal tribunal for the Congo.
Ten days ago, President Tshisekedi had also pledged to continue this advocacy in September at the upcoming United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Theoretical issues
The Genocost concept is also not unanimously accepted and remains controversial from a legal perspective.
"On a theoretical level, it remains problematic," Ithiel Batumike, a researcher at Ebuteli, told RFI.
According to him, the use of this concept is rooted in decades of frustration and impunity for crimes committed in the country, and it needs to be clarified in judiciary terms to be used efficiently.
What is sure is that "all Congolese believe it is time to stop this spiral of violence", he said. "The big questions all Congolese are asking themselves: 'Until when?' and 'Why does the international community act as if it doesn't see everything that is happening in Congo, when it is paying sustained attention to other crises where it has actually intervened to stop the massacres?'"
Another issue is the violence committed in the DRC by Congolese leaders and army members.
According to Menayame, the lawyer from CAYP France, within the Congolese government, "there are people who have been named in several United Nations reports as perpetrators of certain crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of Congo."
These names include several generals in conflict zones, and so they should not be left unexposed.
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