A sober review of the facts reveals a starkly different reality: for the past few years, Burundi has consistently chosen subversion, proxy warfare, and regional destabilization over peace with Rwanda.

The irony of Ndayishimiye’s accusations is hard to miss. In January 2024, from Kinshasa, in his capacity as African Union Champion for Youth, Peace and Security he openly promised on camera to help "liberate" Rwandan youth, whom, from the vantage point of his fuel- and foreign currency-starved country, the poorest nation in the world, he saw as oppressed by the Rwandan government.

However farcical his judgment of Kigali was given his own record as a leader, the statement he made was not politics as usual, as some would have us believe; it was a coded endorsement of a regime-change project led by the genocidal group FDLR.

It is worth noting that Ndayishimiye’s decisions and bellicose speeches were made despite Rwanda having, in 2023, facilitated Burundian troop movements through its territory under the EAC mandate, trusting that they would help enforce a ceasefire between Kinshasa and the M23 and neutralise the FDLR. That trust was quickly betrayed.

That same year, Burundi spent months secretly deploying other troops to North Kivu in a bilateral arrangement with Kinshasa. Unlike their colleagues deployed as EAC peacekeepers, these troops were disguised in FARDC uniforms, only to be exposed after being captured and paraded by the AFC/M23 movement forces.

Evidently, Ndayishimiye is conveniently omitting that his own covert deployments, in support of Kinshasa and the FDLR's regime-change agenda, are precisely what sparked the tensions he now laments.

In parallel, Ndayishimiye was making an enemy of the M23 rebels.

In 2023, the M23 leadership trusted Burundian troops under the EAC mandate to secure areas it had vacated as requested by the regional bloc. A few months into the arrangement, those same troops switched sides and openly assisted Nyatura militias and their FDLR allies in burning 300 Tutsi homes in Nturo, North Kivu.

Today, through genocidal rhetoric, Ndayishimiye brands the AFC/M23 as an extension of Rwanda’s army, repeating as much during his recent interview, stripping its fighters of their Congolese citizenship. He remains openly hostile to the movement even though it has repeatedly declared it has no political or territorial ambitions in Burundi.

Before the fall of Uvira in December 2025, AFC/M23 leaders actually traveled to Burundi to warn against meddling in an internal Congolese conflict. They urged a troop withdrawal to avoid regional escalation. Burundi ignored the warning. After Uvira’s fall, the movement again pledged not to strike Burundi. Ndayishimiye’s response was to send more troops to Fizi and Kalemie in a bid to retake the city.

The M23 has also shown remarkable restraint toward Burundi, despite multiple drone attacks against the Banyamulenge originating from Bujumbura. The movement had the means to strike back, for instance, against Bujumbura airport, further isolating a country that has effectively closed its borders with two of its neighbors. It chose not to.

Burundian troops have also been heavily implicated in drone attacks on Banyamulenge villages and in efforts to impose a blockade on Banyamulenge communities in Minembwe, attempting to starve them into submission. This has led to violent clashes with Twirwaneho, the Banyamulenge community's self-defense group.

To recap: Rwanda has shown no appetite for war with a neighbor whose provocations it has deliberately absorbed for years rather than escalate. In 2019, when the FLN terrorist group, founded by convicted terrorist Paul Rusesabagina, launched deadly attacks on southern Rwanda from bases in Burundi, killing innocent civilians, and destroying properties, Kigali chose not to retaliate. Note that this terror outfit remains deployed in Burundi’s Kibira forest, dangerously close to Rwanda’s borders. In other words, Kigali has had legitimate grounds for retaliation but consistently insists on de-escalation and dialogue.

Granted, Burundi’s leaders continue to demand that the 2015 coup plotters who fled to Rwanda be handed over to face justice. What they don’t tell their people is that Rwanda has proposed a legal framework to exchange suspects, which would also include FDLR members established in Bujumbura, as well as Burundian genocide suspects, some of whom are high-ranking officials in the CNDD-FDD. Gitega has left that negotiating table since Rwanda’s counter-proposal.

Instead, Burundi continues to engage in subversion, proxy warfare, and border closures.

Ndayishimiye’s victim narrative collapses under the weight of his own actions. History has shown that alliances with the FDLR end badly. The president of Burundi should know that his victim card will not hold for long.

Rwanda is not the aggressor; it is the patient party. But patience is not infinite.