Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, on the brink of war in eastern Congo

Despite the mediation of Angola, tension remains between the presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, Félix Tshisekedi and Paul Kagame, respectively, due to the military resurgence of the M23, one of the main armed groups that They operate in eastern Congo. Tshisekedi accuses Kagame of supporting M23, something he denies. After ten years of inactivity, the M23, mostly made up of Congolese Tutsis, launched an offensive in November 2021 in North Kivu province, in which, faced with undisciplined Congolese armed forces, they managed to occupy the town of Bunagana, border with Uganda.

At the meeting in Luanda, in early July, the Angolan president, João Lourenço, got both Tshisekedi and Kagame to commit to de-escalate a conflict that seemed doomed to war between the two countries. In the days prior to the meeting, Tshisekedi had not ruled out a military confrontation with Rwanda, whose president continued to deny support for the M23 and accused his Congolese counterpart of supporting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), another armed group that moves through eastern Congo. Weakened after the 2009 military operation, the FDLR is largely made up of Rwandan Hutus. It was created in 2000 by Hutus who had taken refuge in eastern Congo after the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by Kagame, came to power in 1994. Many refugees had participated in the genocide perpetrated in Rwanda against the Tutsis. , which caused the death of 850,000 people, according to the United Nations.

In June, on the common border, serious incidents had also been recorded, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG). In Goma, the capital of North Kivu bordering Rwanda, thousands of people marched, chanting slogans against Kagame, until they reached the Rwandan border. Two days later, a Congolese soldier fired on the Rwandan military. He was shot down.

The M23 offensive was unleashed at the same time that the Congolese and Ugandan armed forces launched a joint operation, called Shujaa (heroes in Swahili), against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a group of Ugandan origin but implanted in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri. The operation was a response to the suicide attacks in front of the Ugandan Parliament and the central police station, in Kampala, attributed to the ADF, affiliated with the Islamic State (IS). In South Kivu province, with the approval of Tshisekedi, the Burundian armed forces and members of the Hutu Imbonerakure militia attacked the bases of RED Tabara, a group made up of Burundian Tutsis opposed to the president, Évariste Ndayishimiye. Red Tabara, which questions Hutu hegemony in Burundi, had attacked Bujumbura airport in September 2021.

«Without ideology, beyond their defense of a certain territory or loyalty to a leader, the dozens of militias nourish their war effort from extractive industries, in an area rich in minerals, and from the looting of local populations»

The M23, the Allied Democratic Forces and the FDRL are just three groups, the most important due to their military capacity, of the many that operate in eastern Congo. The Suhulu website, based on data provided by scholars, counts dozens, often formed as militias of an ethnic or personal nature, known as mai mai. Without ideology, beyond their defense of a given territory or loyalty to a leader, they feed their war effort on extractive industries, in an area rich in minerals, and on the looting of local populations. Sometimes they reappear after a period of inactivity, as happened with the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo (Codeco), a Lendu community defense militia, which took up its arms again in Ituri, a year and a half after signing a agreement with the government in August 2020. In June this year, he again agreed to a ceasefire.

In addition to the FDRL and the ADF, two other “foreign illegal armed groups” are established in eastern Congo, according to the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO): the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the Burundian National Liberation Forces (FLN). The first, originally made up of Acholis, has been greatly decimated by the campaigns of the Ugandan army. It moves through eastern Congo and the Central African Republic. The second, formed by Hutus opposed to the Burundian government, with a Hutu majority, is based in the province of South Kivu, with occasional alliances with the FDRL and Mai Mai Yakutumba. As for Monusco, whose Intervention Force Brigade (FIB) faces the ADF, it is made up of some 18,000 people. The three countries that contribute the most soldiers are Pakistan (1,974), India (1,888) and Bangladesh (1,634), according to UN data from November 2021.

Eastern Congo has been ungovernable both during the time of the Congo Free State, a property of Belgian Emperor Leopold II (1885-1908), and during the colonial period and from 1960 as an independent state. President Mobutu Sese Seko, a staunch ally of the West during the Cold War, was deposed by a guerrilla based in the East, whose leader Laurent Désire Kabila had been Che Guevara’s comrade-in-arms during his African adventure. With the support of the Ugandan and Rwandan military, Kabila ended the Mobutu regime in May 1997, a few months after starting the revolt in the far east. Broken relations with Kabila, Uganda and Rwanda would re-enter the Congo in 1998, this time to try to overthrow the Congolese president. They would not succeed, since Kabila would stop the offensive with the help of Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe. In the two wars, external actors looted large natural resources, as social organizations denounced.

“Although Tshisekedi defends them as necessary to put an end to the armed groups, foreign interventions threaten to revive the Congo from civil war”

An actor that had remained outside the conflict has been implicated in the current crisis: Kenya. Once the DRC joined the East African Community (EAC), a regional organization, last March, the president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta, promoted an agreement to deploy a military force in eastern Congo. A proposal accepted by Tshisekedi on the condition that the Rwandan military did not participate in said mission. According to Africa ConfidentialKenyatta had been warned by his intelligence services of the presence of Kenyans in the ranks of the ADF, with ties to Tanzanian jihadist groups fighting in northern Mozambique.

Although Tshisekedi defends them as necessary to put an end to the armed groups, the foreign interventions threaten to revive the Congo before the 2003 agreement, the end of the civil war, with the presence of armies from neighboring countries. Twenty years later, Congo is still a weak state, with a capital, Kinshasa, located almost 3,000 kilometers from the powder keg to the east, and an unmodernized, unmotivated, and partly dedicated to looting armed forces. Rwanda, whose President Kagame does not hide his desire for regional leadership, has consolidated in this time as a strong state, as undemocratic as Uganda and DRC, but reliable for Western capitals, as was made clear at the Commonwealth summit , held in Kigali in June, and with the praise of Prime Minister Boris Johnson after the agreement to welcome migrant candidates rejected by the British authorities.