If we don’t write our story, someone else will. And they will not write it with love. We, Gen Z, are the renaissance Africa has been waiting for. #PanAfrican
@TheGreatLakesE1 Burundi’s expanding reserve-force network raises concerns about the growing link between politics and security. As deployments in eastern DRC continue, accountability and civilian protection remain vital for regional stability.
Inside Ndayishimiye’s drive to militarize the population
🔴Burundi is moving to expand its reserve-force network, opening the way for a broader militarization drive as President Evariste Ndayishimiye’s regime looks for new manpower for its military operations in eastern DRC.
🔴Sources within the ruling CNDD-FDD say the regime plans to establish three additional training centers for the Reserve and Development Support Forces—in Rukoko, Bubanza Commune; Cankuzo, Cankuzo Commune; and Makamba, Makamba Commune.
🔴The facilities would reinforce two centers already opened this year: Kigarika Training Center in Ruyigi Commune, established in March 2026, and Nyaruhengeri Training Center in Muyinga Commune, established in September. Both are in Buhumuza Province, an area increasingly central to Burundi’s security planning.
🔴According to sources familiar with discussions inside the ruling party, CNDD-FDD, and the Burundi National Defence Force (FDNB), Ndayishimye wants to strengthen the reserve force to support future mass deployments in eastern DRC, where thousands of Burundian troops remain deployed as mercenaries to support the Congolese army coalition in fighting AFC/M23 rebels.
🔴The calculation, the sources say, is political as much as military: reservists are more loyal to the ruling party, more ideologically dependable, and potentially easier to control than sections of the regular army.
🔴For observers, the new training centers are not simply military infrastructure. They are part of an effort to build a parallel pool of fighters that can be mobilized quickly, deployed cheaply, and kept politically close to Ndayishimiye.
🔴Regional political analysts warn that the program pushes Burundi further toward the militarization of civilian life, in a country where the ruling party and the security apparatus are already deeply intertwined.
🔴Ndayishimiye himself made the direction explicit on August 29. Closing the 10th Imbonerakure Day at Ingoma Stadium in Gitega, he said members of the ruling party’s youth league were being turned into “commandos.”
🔗Read more: https://t.co/29EnDqCIF8
VIDEO ARCHIVE:
H.E. Maj. Gen. Paul Kagame, then Rwanda’s Vice President and Minister of Defence, speaking at the July 17, 1999 wedding reception of Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba and Charlotte Nankunda Kutesa.
The history runs deep: many Rwandan refugees joined and fought in Museveni’s NRA during the Ugandan Bush War. After its victory, some remained in the Ugandan army, before leaving its ranks in 1990 to join the RPF/RPA’s armed struggle against the Habyarimana government.
From shared history to today, the bonds between Rwandans and our Ugandan cousins remain.
@mkainerugaba@MwesigyeFranks@BalaamBarugahar@DaudiKabanda
Tshisekedi disait "Jamais de négociations avec le M23" : aujourd’hui, Doha. Il défendait la Constitution : aujourd’hui, il veut la réviser. Le M23 pose les questions de justice, sécurité et gouvernance. Les Congolais veulent des actes, pas des contradictions. #RDC
How 3 Great Lakes Presidents Armed Civilians as “Patriots”.
1990s Interahamwe (Rwanda), 2000s imbonerakure🇧🇮 & Wazalendo🇨🇩
🪤From Rwanda in the early 1990s to eastern Congo & Burundi today, governments facing rebellion have reached for the same instrument: a party youth league force that turns civilians into cheap, politically loyal fighters.
🪤The names change; Interahamwe, Wazalendo, Imbonerakure, but the method is recognizable.
A president frames an external or rebel threat, the ruling party organizes young men, the army trains and arms a big number of them, and the state outsources violence it cannot fully control.
🪤Rwanda: the prototype
Under Juvénal Habyarimana, the MRND youth wing was converted into the Interahamwe in 1990 to execute the Genocide against the tutsi. By 1992 the presidency and FAR officers were sending selected youths to camps at Gabiro, Gishwati, Bigogwe and Mukamira.
A parallel paramilitary plan recruited by administrative unit, one man per ten households, trained by former soldiers, and armed mostly with traditional weapons especially machetes and a few guns because guns were expensive.
The trained militia became the spearhead; ordinary civilians were expected to follow.
After Habyarimana’s death in April 1994, that network was activated as genocide as the target was a civilian ethnic group.
🪤Congo: the coalition of convenience
Félix Tshisekedi faced a weaker army and a stronger M23. In November 2022 he called on youth to form “vigilance groups.”
Existing Mai-Mai, Nyatura and other militias rebranded as Wazalendo,“patriots.”
Kinshasa then passed a reserve-force law, created the Volontaires pour la Défense de la Patrie, shipped ammunition and cash (officials later cited millions of dollars a month), and fought alongside groups it did not fully command.
Recruits mixed old gunmen with unemployed youth and even some Burundian civilians.
The result was the same dual use: a front-line auxiliary against Rwanda-backed rebels, and a force that taxed, looted and abused civilians in the zones it held.
Army spokesmen still say they work with the Wazalendo but do not control them.
🪤Burundi: the party as reserve army
The Imbonerakure began as the CNDD-FDD youth league. After 2005, and especially after the 2015 third-term crisis, Pierre Nkurunziza’s circle armed and trained them for night patrols, opposition hunting and parallel local power.
Évariste Ndayishimiye has gone further. He has praised them as the reason “Burundi is protected,” sent members to eastern Congo with the regular army, and on 29 August 2026 told the 10th Imbonerakure Day in Gitega that they were becoming “commandos.” “We want every Burundian citizen to be a soldier,”he said.
That rhetoric now has infrastructure. According to sources inside the CNDD-FDD and the FDNB, Ndayishimiye’s government plans three more Reserve and Development Support Force (FRAD) training centers, in Rukoko (Bubanza), Cankuzo and Makamba, on top of Kigarika in Ruyigi (opened March 2026) and Nyaruhengeri in Muyinga (opened September).
🪤Both existing sites sit in Buhumuza Province, now central to Burundi’s security planning.
The stated purpose is manpower for continued deployments in eastern DRC, where Burundian troops fight with the Congolese coalition against AFC/M23.
The political calculation, those sources say, is as important as the military one: reservists drawn from the party youth are seen as more loyal and easier to control than parts of the regular army.
🪤The common genocide ideology machine. In each case the sequence is similar.
A public call to patriotism and self-defense.
Conversion of a party youth structure (or a coalition of existing militias) into an auxiliary force.
Training by soldiers or ex-rebels, often in camps or stadiums, sometimes across the Congo border.
All genocidal governments established these militias to support their genocide ideology implemention !
🚨𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀'𝐒 𝟒𝐓𝐇 𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐔𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐘 - 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔
📌RICA is holding its 4th Academic Graduation, bringing together distinguished guests, graduates, their families, and RICA staff to mark the occasion.
📌A total of 82 students have been awarded Bachelor of Science degrees in RICA's four specializations: Animal Production, Crop Production Systems, Food Processing Systems, and Irrigation and Mechanization Systems.
📌This brings the total number of graduates across RICA's four graduation ceremonies to 321.
#Rwanda🇷🇼
Having recently defected from the Mutayomba forces, he is urging his former comrades to abandon the reckless campaign orchestrated by Kinshasa.
Why should the youth of Kivu, separated from Kinshasa by over 2,000 kilometers, allow themselves to be used to destabilize their own homeland, all while a corrupt regime plunders the nation's wealth? Recognizing this betrayal, these fighters have turned their backs on Mutayomba to align with the movement actually driving real change on the ground.
🚨𝐕𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨:The visit of #Benin 🇧🇯 President Romuald Wadagni to the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA) in @BugeseraDistr , where he was briefed on its contributions to advancing agricultural practices in #Rwanda 🇷🇼
@Edbiziman The UN Security Council demands real action on the FDLR, not Twitter marketing. Calling sanctions an alibi while your troops collaborate with genocidal elements exposes a total failure of state responsibility.
In a very interesting discussion on @publicsenat,@normand95244005 touched a very important aspect:FDLR is just an alibi used to cover real motivations of the war imposed on Congolese people.Toute solution durable devrait tenir compte de cette réalité. https://t.co/YuokDPIa5u