M23 accepts ceasefire in DRC in principle but recalls that it has not participated in the talks

The militia is adhering to the unilateral ceasefire it declared in March, which the Congolese army, it claims, has used to rearm.

Aug. 2 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The March 23 Movement militias have welcomed the agreement for a ceasefire announced by the United States in the conflict between them and the Congolese army in the northeast of the country, but have warned that they have never participated in these talks and therefore do not have to abide by their terms, so they have chosen instead to accept the unilateral cessation of hostilities that the guerrillas declared in March of this year.

The Alliance Riverine du Congo and M23 (AFC/M23) — a group that brings together representatives of the militias and opponents of the Congolese government and which Kinshasa does not recognise as an interlocutor — has conveyed in a statement its “congratulations to the actors who have worked for a peaceful resolution of the multifaceted crisis shaking the east of the country”, but also “emphasizes that it is not automatically bound by the conclusions of meetings in which it has not participated”.

The M23 is a rebel group formed largely by Congolese Tutsis to protect, its members say, the population that ended up fleeing to the east of the DRC from neighbouring Rwanda because of the genocide of the Tutsi people. The guerrillas denounce a climate of constant persecution and accuse militias allied to the Congolese authorities, such as the Wazalendo armed youth organisations, of attacking the population in the area. The Congolese government, on the other hand, accuses them of being a destabilising agent financed by the Rwandan authorities, something that Kigali vehemently denies.

The conflict, confined to North Kivu province, has created the largest displacement crisis in the country’s recent history, with hundreds of thousands of people crammed into displacement camps in the provincial capital, Goma, in inhumane conditions.

The M23 recalls that the group is in force under a ceasefire that it unilaterally declared on 7 March with the intention of “granting a chance for a peaceful resolution” and that, since then, it “has limited itself to responding to the constant violations of the coalition forces led by the Kinshasa government” whose military and allied guerrillas “are accustomed to using various truces to reorganise and continue their campaign of ethnic cleansing” against the Tutsi population of the region.

“In any case, the AFC/M23 is prepared to respond positively to a change of stance by the coalition forces in Kinshasa, although it insists that a peaceful resolution to the conflict can only be achieved through direct dialogue and that this regional process could be the ideal framework for achieving this,” the group concluded in a statement published on the social network X.