When Qatar helped secure a peace deal to end ongoing conflict between the M23 rebel group and Democratic Republic of the Congo\u2019s (DRC) government last month, there was hope among many Congolese that a permanent ceasefire would soon emerge to end the fighting that has uprooted close to a million people in the country\u2019s troubled east, and give war-racked communities some respite as the new year rolls in.<\/p>\n
Since late 2021, the group, which the United States and the United Nations say is backed by Rwanda, has clashed with the Congolese army in heavy offensives that have killed at least 7,000 people\u00a0this year alone. Several regional attempts at resolution have failed. Still, when M23 representatives and Congolese government officials met for negotiations in Doha and proceeded to sign a peace deal in November, exhausted Congolese dared to hope. This deal, some reckoned, could be different.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n So when the rebels launched yet another offensive and temporarily seized the strategic city Uvira this month, hopes for lasting peace were painfully crushed, as some concluded that those at the helm of the talks were playing politics.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s clear that they don\u2019t have any will to end this conflict,\u201d Congolese lawyer and political analyst Hubert Masomera told Al Jazeera from the M23-held eastern city of Goma, blaming both sides. \u201cDespite the number of deaths and the extent of the destruction, there is still procrastination over the implementation of the peace agreements and compliance with the ceasefire. People here feel abandoned to their sad fate.\u201d<\/p>\n Fears that the conflict will not only continue, but that it could soon take on a regional dimension, are deepening, too \u2013 a sensitive prospect in a DRC where two civil wars in the past were prompted by its neighbours.<\/p>\n Uvira, the newly captured city the rebels then withdrew from as a \u201ctrust-building measure\u201d following US pressure last week, is a major transport and economic hub in the huge South Kivu province. It\u2019s strategically located on the border with Rwanda and is just 30 kilometres from the Burundian capital, Bujumbura. The city was the last eastern stronghold of the Congolese army and its allies \u2013 local \u201cWazalendo\u201d militias and about 3,000 Burundian soldiers. Early this year, M23 also seized control of South Kivu\u2019s capital city, Bukavu, as well as Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.<\/p>\n Experts say M23\u2019s advance on Uvira widens the group\u2019s area of control significantly, puts it at the mouth of the mineral-rich Katanga region, and positions Rwandan proxies right at Burundi\u2019s doorstep at a time when both governments are ramping up a war of words and accusing each other of backing rebels.<\/p>\n Rwanda, for its part, continues to distance itself from accusations that it backs M23.<\/p>\n The recent scenes in eastern DRC appear like an eerie playback of a tragic tale, conflict monitors say.<\/p>\n Similar peace negotiations in late 2024, led by the African Union and Angola, seemed ready to deliver peace ahead of a new year. But they collapsed after a highly anticipated meeting between the presidents of Rwanda and DRC was called off. Both sides\u00a0accused each other of foiling the talks.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a sense of deja vu,\u201d Nicodemus Minde, East Africa analyst at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), said. \u201cIt\u2019s symbolic because we were exactly here last year \u2026 the prospects for peace are dire.\u201d<\/p>\n Conflict in the DRC has long been mired in a complex mix of ethnic grievances, poor governance and interference from its much smaller neighbours. It goes back to the 1994 genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda, which displaced millions into neighbouring eastern DRC, making them a minority there. Rwanda has since viewed the DRC as a hiding place for Hutu genocidaires, however, and its hot pursuit of them toppled a government in Kinshasa and led to the first and second Congo wars (1996-2003). The UN also accused the Rwandan and allied Ugandan forces of looting the DRC\u2019s vast mineral wealth, including gold, coltan and tin, during the conflict.<\/p>\n Scores of militias emerged as governments armed and counter-armed civilians in the wars, many of which are still active in the DRC. The M23 itself is only the latest iteration of a Tutsi militia that fought in the Congo wars, and whose fighters integrated into the DRC army. In 2012, these fighters revolted, complaining of poor treatment by the Congolese forces. Now, the M23 claims to be fighting the marginalisation of ethnic Tutsis, some of whom say they are systematically denied citizenship, among other complaints. The M23 and its allied Congo River Alliance (AFC) have not stated goals of taking Kinshasa, even though members of the group have at times threatened to advance on the capital. Officially, the rebels claim to be \u201cliberating\u201d eastern DRC communities.<\/p>\n In 2012, M23 initially emerged with enough force to take the strategic city of Goma, but was forced back within a year by Congolese forces and a special UN intervention force of troops from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi. When the M23 resurfaced in late 2021, though, it was with much more ferocity, boosted by about 4,000 Rwandan troops in addition to its own 6,000 fighters, according to the UN. Lightning and intensely bloody offensives have since seen it control vast swaths of territory, including the major cities of Goma, Bukavu \u2013 and now, Uvira.<\/p>\n On the map, M23 appears to be eking out a slice of Congolese territory wedged between the DRC and neighbouring Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. If it gains control of the two Kivus in their entirety, it would lord over a resource-rich area five times Rwanda\u2019s size with easy access to Kigali and Kampala.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are trying to create some sort of buffer zone which the neighbouring countries, particularly Rwanda but also Uganda, have an interest in controlling,\u201d analyst Paul-Simon Handy, also of the ISS, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n Kigali officially denies backing M23, but justifies its actions based on accusations that the DRC supports a Hutu rebel group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The FDLR did exist for many years in the DRC, but it simply no longer poses a significant threat to Kigali, analyst Minde said.<\/p>\n Rwanda\u2019s tensions with Burundi have similar historic correlations, as Hutus who perpetrated the 1994 genocide similarly fled there, and Kigali alleges the government continues to back rebels. In 2015, Burundi accused Rwanda of sponsoring an abortive coup in Bujumbura. Kigali denies this.<\/p>\n Several African countries have attempted to help solve the crisis, militarily and diplomatically, but all have failed. The regional bloc, the East African Community, of which the DRC is a part, deployed about 6,500 Kenyan-led peacekeepers to stabilise eastern DRC, as Kenyan diplomats developed a Nairobi Peace Process in 2022 that was meant to see several rebel groups agree to a truce. The agreement collapsed only a year later, however, after Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi grew frustrated over the force\u2019s refusal to launch offensives against M23.<\/p>\n Then, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), of which the massive DRC is also a part, deployed troops from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi in May 2023. There was hope that the trio, which proved crucial in driving back the first M23 insurrection, would again record success. They appeared no match for the new M23, though, and withdrew this June.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Angola-led Luanda Peace Process collapsed after President Joao Lourenco stepped back in March, citing frustration with both sides amid constant finger-pointing.<\/p>\n Qatar and the US stepped in to broker peace in June this year, using a unique two-pronged approach. The Doha peace talks, on the one hand, have focused on negotiations between the DRC and M23, while the Washington talks focus on the DRC and the Rwanda governments. Some experts warned that Washington\u2019s motivation \u2013 aside from President Donald Trump\u2019s fixation on being a global peacemaker figure \u2013 was a clause in the deal that guarantees US extraction of rare earth minerals from both countries. The agreement was unlikely to hold on that basis, rights groups said.<\/p>\n After a few no-shows and wobbles, the M23 finally agreed to the Doha framework\u00a0on November 15. The agreement includes eight implementation protocols, including one on ceasefire monitoring and another on prisoner exchange. On December 4, President Trump sat next to a smiling Paul Kagame and Tshisekedi as all three signed the US-peace deal in Washington, which mandated both Rwanda and DRC to stop supporting armed groups. There were pockets of fighting as the signatures were penned, but all was supposed to be largely peaceful from then on.<\/p>\n What happened in Uvira barely a week after was the opposite. The Congolese government said at least 400 people were killed and 200,000 others displaced as M23 fighters pressed on the city. Thousands more were displaced into Burundi, which already homes some 200,000 Congolese refugees. Fleeing Uvira residents shared accounts of bombed villages, summary killings and widespread sexual violence by both sides, according to medical group Doctors Without Borders (MSF).<\/p>\n Even though M23 began withdrawing from Uvira on Thursday, analysts are still scrambling to understand what the group was hoping to achieve by taking the city, shattering the peace agreements and angering Washington.<\/p>\n US Secretary of State Marco Rubio directly scolded Rwanda after Uvira\u2019s capture, saying Kigali had violated the deal. Last week, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau met with DRC Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner in Washington and promised that the US \u201cis prepared to take action to enforce adherence\u201d from Rwanda.<\/p>\n What that action looks like is unclear, but what\u2019s certain, Minde said, was that the agreement seemed to favour Kigali more than Kinshasa.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at the agreement, the consequences [of either party breaching] were not forthright, and this points to the weakness of the deal,\u201d he said, adding that there is much more at stake for DRC if there is a breach, including escalating conflict and mass displacement within the country. But that was not taken into account, the analyst explained.<\/p>\n Uvira\u2019s fall, albeit on hold, is not only a blow to Trump\u2019s peacemaker reputation but also sharpens tensions between Burundi and Rwanda, with analysts saying it could lead to direct clashes.<\/p>\n Bujumbura accuses Kigali of supporting the antigovernment Red Tabara rebels \u2013 a charge Rwanda and the rebels deny \u2013 and tensions between the two governments have led to border closures since last year. Last week, M23 announced that it captured hundreds of Burundian soldiers during the Uvira offensive.<\/p>\n Fears of a regional spillover also prompted the UN Security Council to extend the mandate of the MONUSCO peacekeeping mission for a year, ahead of its December 20 expiration. The 11,000 troop force has been in place since 1999, but has a complicated relationship with the DRC government, which says it has not done enough to protect civilians. MONUSCO forces initially began withdrawing in 2024, but then paused that move in July amid the escalating M23 offensive. Ituri, the force\u2019s headquarters, is held by M23, meaning the troops are unable to do much.<\/p>\n Amid the chaos, the finger pointing, and the political games, it\u2019s the Congolese people who are feeling the most despair at the turn of events so close to the new year, analysts say. After more than three decades of war that has turned the green, undulating hills of eastern DRC into a perpetual battlefield, Masameko in Goma said it\u2019s locals, more than anyone else, with the most at stake.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople have suffered enough and need to breathe, to sleep with the certainty that they will wake up tomorrow,\u201d he said. \u201c[They need] to live in their homes without fear of a bomb falling on them. That is all the people in this part of the republic need.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When Qatar helped secure a peace deal to end ongoing conflict between the M23 rebel group and Democratic Republic of the Congo\u2019s (DRC) government last month, there was hope among many Congolese that a permanent ceasefire would soon emerge to end the fighting that has uprooted close to a million people in the country\u2019s troubled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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