Just over three years after the resurgence of the M23 in eastern DR Congo, the rebel group’s war with a government coalition saw its biggest escalation on Sunday, January 26, when the rebels entered Goma, the capital of North Kivu province and claimed its control from government forces. On Monday evening, M23 claimed total control of the airport in Goma, a city that is home to two million people and the hub for international military and humanitarian interventions in the conflict-ridden eastern DR Congo. ALSO READ: Timeline of events before and after M23 entered Goma By Wednesday afternoon, fighting had stopped in Goma and the rebels had cemented their seizure of the city, controlling key strategic points, including the airport, the border with Rwanda, maritime port on Lake Kivu, national radio and television offices in the region. One analyst said the new gains by the group could offer an opportunity to resolve the grievances of the M23 and security concerns expressed by Rwanda, which faces an existential threat posed by the presence in eastern DR Congo of the FDLR, a UN-sanctioned terrorist group founded by perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. FDLR, which was formed and is composed of perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, has been a constant protagonist in the conflict that has blighted the eastern DR Congo for the past 30 years. It is fighting alongside the Congolese armed forces. ALSO READ: Rwanda calls for neutralisation of FDLR, withdrawal of foreign troops in DR Congo However, the latest escalation was not the first time the rebels captured the city. In 2012, the M23 movement – which takes its name from a botched March 23, 2009 agreement with the Congolese government – held Goma for some time before they retreated to give peace a chance. The group is fighting against a systematic persecution that has been meted out on Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese, mostly in eastern DR Congo, hundreds of thousands of whom have committed to the life of refuge for over 30 years. Rwanda is home to close to 100,000 of these refugees. ALSO READ: Explainer: Who are the M23 rebels in DR Congo? In the current conflict, the M23 is pitted against a coalition of government forces (FARDC), the FDLR, thousands of Burundian soldiers, European mercenaries, a Southern Africa-led SADC mission and local militias called Wazalendo. Do new M23 gains offer opportunity to end conflict? To end the conflict in eastern DR Congo, particularly the M23 rebellion, its root causes need to be addressed permanently, says Frederick Golooba-Mutebi, a political scientist and analyst of security dynamics in the Great Lakes Region. He noted that these root causes are the existence of the FDLR and local allied militias such as Mai Mai-Nyatura, which have persecuted Congolese Tutsi communities for nearly 30 years, producing hundreds of thousands of refugees in neighbouring countries. “Unless you tackle FDLR and Nyatura and they stop causing insecurity in Congo and they stop threatening Rwanda's security, you cannot address that problem,” he said. ALSO READ: European mercenaries surrender to M23, get safe passage through Rwanda With the outcry that followed the fall of Goma into the hands of the M23, Golooba-Mutebi noted that the international community should avoid making the same mistakes made over a decade ago. “In 2012, that is what we were telling those Westerners, that fighting M23 with the Force Intervention Brigade was not going to be a solution,” he said. “They brought the Force Intervention Brigade, they sent M23 elements into Uganda and Rwanda and kept them there. Ten years later, what are we seeing? The war is still on. If they don't address the root causes of the crisis, or if they don't identify the root causes correctly and address them, that crisis will continue.” He said that the international community “must press government of Congo to those people’s problems.” He said neighbours DR Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi should be facilitated to eliminate Congo-based militias that threaten the region’s security. Home to a cocktail more than 200 armed groups from different countries, eastern DR Congo has been volatile for three decades now. The capture of Goma and management by the M23 rebels, Golooba-Mutebi said, “means that the people who have been displaced, who have been living in refugee camps or internally displaced people's camps in Goma can now go home.” “It means that M23 can re-establish order in all the areas that it occupies, provide security for those families that have been displaced, and prove to the international community that they can actually run those areas responsibly.” Chaos and rumours of reshuffle in Kinshasa Following the capture of Goma, protests – which seemed to be state-sponsored – erupted in the capital Kinshasa on Tuesday, with embassies of USA, Belgium, South African, Rwanda, France, Kenya and Uganda vandalized and set on fire. According to sources, MONUSCO, the UN mission in DR Congo, also reported the brutal lynching of at least one Congolese Tutsi individual who was in a MONUSCO-controlled IDP camp. Meanwhile, President Felix Tshisekedi appointed Maj Gen Somo Kakule Evariste as the new military governor of North Kivu province, replacing Maj Gen Peter Cirimwami, who was killed by the rebels on January 23. Unconfirmed reports indicated that Tshisekedi called off last minute a scheduled address to the nation on Tuesday amid internal discontent over his handling of the crisis. Other reports also pointed to a possible reshuffle of the government, with a number of ministers potentially being dismissed. Speaking about the vandalism in Kinshasa, a veteran diplomat who spoke to journalist and political commentator Charles Onyango-Obbo described Tshisekedi’s UDPS party as “a mob-led organisation which likes to bully adversaries as much as partners.” “So, everything that is happening in Kinshasa is well-coordinated by UDPS,” the unnamed diplomat was quoted as saying. “This is a way of hiding the huge humiliation the AFC/M23 inflicted on Kinshasa by taking over Goma, something Tshisekedi had publicly said they would never do.” The diplomat contrasted Tshisekedi and his predecessor Joseph Kabila, who was in office when M23 took control of Goma in 2012. “I remember when the M23 first took over Goma in 2012, Kabila immediately ordered the withdrawal of the FARDC from the city and its surroundings. That decision saved many lives, unlike Tshisekedi, who didn't give any such order,” said the diplomat. The lesson from European mercenaries In the war with the M23 rebels, DR Congo employed about 2,000 European mercenaries. ALSO READ: Mercenaries in the DRC crisis: What it means legally and ethically Reports indicate that the mercenaries, most of them from Eastern Europe, were paid salaries ranging from $4,000 to 8,000 a month. Close to 300 of these mercenaries were handed over to Rwanda on Wednesday after they surrendered to M23 in the recent escalation. They were transferred to Kigali International Airport before they took flights to their countries. Golooba-Mutebi said the use of mercenaries in DR Congo – a practice prohibited by UN and African Union conventions – should serve a lesion for any country that seeks to externalize solutions to internal problems. “It's not just eastern DRC. There is no country in the world that should outsource its security to foreign actors,” he said. Golooba-Mutebi said the Congolese government, “must take charge of its own” security. “They have a very large army. Their army is mismanaged. You can't have soldiers whose salaries you don't pay, or who you pay the bigger salaries, don't dress them properly, you don't equip them properly. “And then when they fail to fight, you bring in your mercenaries whom you pay probably a thousand times better than your own soldiers. Those mercenaries are in Congo to make money,” he said. “Whether it's Congo or any other country, it's foolish to try and outsource responsibility for your security to foreign mercenaries or foreign governments. Every responsible government of any country must make sure they are capable of safeguarding the security of their own country by themselves,” Golooba-Mutebi said.
