Border Clash in Eastern Congo (Dispatch)
Video Transcript:
Video Transcript
The Congolese rebel group M23 was reported to have withdrawn from a handful of small towns in the country’s North Kivu province, bordering Rwanda and Uganda. The withdrawal is likely for tactical reasons to lower unwanted political attention on the group. The move does not alter M23’s objective to be the dominant armed group in North Kivu, a position that also permits it to dominate lucrative natural resource smuggling routes in the area.
M23 is an armed group whose area of operations is North Kivu, a Congolese border province next to Rwanda. Comprised of ethnic Tutsi fighters who have mutinied from the Congolese armed forces, M23 is a successor band of fighters to the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP armed group, which was similarly active in North Kivu from 2006 to 2009.
M23 (and its predecessor, CNDP) is essentially an armed proxy for Rwanda. Rwanda’s interests in the Congo have primarily been to ensure that armed groups hostile to Kigali cannot use Congolese territory as a base of support. This interest goes back to the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when Hutu fighters -- who largely conducted the genocide -- fled to eastern Congo to avoid being captured and killed or held for prosecution. The Tutsi-led Rwandan government that came to power in 1994 has never held confidence in the capability of Congolese governments to combat the Hutu fighters. Not waiting for someone else to secure their interests, Kigali has both directly and indirectly intervened with military forces in the Congo ever since.
Rwanda has developed a secondary interest as a result of their interventions in the Congo. Lacking a significant natural resource base of its own, Kigali has realized that the mineral resources of eastern Congo -- including minerals such as gold, tin and coltan -- can enhance its meager economy. Because of the limited capability of the Congolese government to enforce its sovereignty in North Kivu, an area across a thousand miles of thick jungle from the seat of government at Kinshasa, Rwanda and its proxies can act with relative impunity.
Occupying urban centers in eastern Congo raises political attention that Rwanda does not want, however. Rwanda prefers its proxies to be located out of sight, out of mind. Unable to forcibly eject M23 themselves, the Congo government has called for foreign pressure to be applied on Rwanda to withdraw its support of the Tutsi armed group. By withdrawing from urban positions but remaining in mountainous rural strongholds, M23 is positioned to destabilize the North Kivu area. Yet its presence is not brought to prominent international attention, such as if they were on display in the provincial capital of Goma, flaunting the weakness of the Congo government and the United Nations peacekeepers there.
M23, in one form or another, will be a capable armed group active so long as Rwanda lacks confidence in the ability of the Congo government to stamp out insecurity in eastern Congo.
