In March 2024, the senior political and military leadership of M23 approached Andrew Mwenda, a veteran Ugandan journalist and seasoned observer of regional affairs in a bid to initiate talks between some Western embassies like the French, United States, European Union and Belgium to open an informal channel for peace talks with the Kinshasa government. According to Mwenda, this development followed several failed agreements between the M23 and the DR Congo government, including a 2020 deal involving the reintegration of 3000 M23 fighters. ALSO READ: M23 declare unilateral ceasefire “They told me that in October 2020, at the invitation of (Felix) Tshisekedi, they had sent a delegation to Kinshasa for negotiations. They spent 14 months in Kinshasa in peace negotiations,” said Mwenda on The Hard Questions Show. Under the agreement, the Kinshasa government was expected to organise logistics to transport the M23 military base to Bas-Congo—after the soldiers surrendered their weapons and assembled at an agreed-upon location to be evacuated. However, Kinshasa was unable to provide any sustenance to the assembled fighters. “Instead, in November 2021, after months of waiting and frustration, the M23 were surprised when they were attacked by FARDC. Unarmed, they were massacred like grasshoppers,” according to Mwenda. In the wake of the atrocities, the M23 tried to reach President Tshisekedi, convinced that either someone was acting without his authority, or he was being misinformed, but all in vain. “We believe the Americans, the French, the Belgians, and to a small extent the EU have a lot of influence in Kinshasa,” an M23 political spokesperson told Mwenda at the time. Diplomatic intrigues According to Mwenda, the M23 leadership asked if he “could help” connect them to the embassies of these countries in Kampala, Uganda, as part of the efforts to establish an informal channel of communication with Kinshasa. “I was excited and went to work. I called the French who refused any communication with M23. I called the EU and one of the officials met the M23 delegation and took voluminous notes.” Mwenda maintained that he went further to contact officials at the US embassy in Uganda who “feigned” interest, yet they only sought to exploit this golden chance to gather intelligence, distort the facts, manipulate the situation, and thwart this effort.” “The lesson I learned is that governments in this region, which are most affected by instability in DR Congo should take the outstretched hand of the M23 for peace seriously. The big powers have interests that are not difficult to see,” added Mwenda, who pointed out that Kinshasa kept a belligerent stand against talks. The Phantom talks For many years, there have been promising regional efforts to pacify the eastern DR Congo and resolve the M23 conflict peacefully, but according to Mwenda, just because there is talk about peace negotiations that doesn't mean that there is a peace deal. He said that one such effort was under the leadership of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) in 2013-15, during former DR Congo President Joseph Kabila’s reign in power. At the time, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda was chair of the ICGLR. “A combined force of South African and Tanzanian troops invited by Kinshasa had beaten M23 rebels, forcing them to run to Uganda. Yet the ICGLR agreed that M23 has legitimate grievances and legitimate demands.” “To settle the conflict, regional powers agreed to finance the reintegration of M23 forces in the FARDC and a resettlement of others into civilian life. Each country, including DRC, was supposed to contribute $20m.” While Kabila immediately deposited his $20m, he was accused of quickly pulling out the money when the UN came on the scene and offered to finance the reintegration and resettlement program. “The UN, that very institution in which the Congolese have always kept their faith but which has been responsible for the many tragedies of that country, never kept its promise.” After succeeding Kabila, DR Congo President Tshisekedi is said to have done nothing in his capacity to avert the situation, forcing the M23 to launch an offensive that captured more territory and eventually led to the fall of the North Kivu provincial capital, Goma in January 2025. According to Mwenda, the continued crisis in DR Congo stems from the refusal of Kinshasa and her “allies and proxies” in the Western world to accept that M23 is primarily a local Congolese problem. “Kinshasa often claims that M23 rebels are Rwandans, and her Western allies and proxies repeat this chorus.” The grievances Rwanda has serious security concerns in the eastern DR Congo, according to Mwenda. “The first is the presence of FDLR, remnants of the genocidal Rwandan army seeking to overthrow the government in Kigali and commit yet another genocide against the Tutsi. FDLR may be militarily weak. But it bears an ideology of Hutu power that is toxic in Rwanda. Kigali will never rest as long as FDLR is right across the border.” He added; “Secondly, the FDLR, in alliance with the Congolese army (FARDC), threaten to exterminate Tutsi Congolese. They steal their cows, grab their land, rape their wives and daughters, and kill their children.” Equally important, Mwenda maintained, “Tutsi Congolese must be recognised as citizens of that country and then afforded all the protections due to citizens.” The Genesis The current turmoil in the eastern DR Congo is largely hinged on the failure of the Kinshasa government to administer previous peace agreements, according to experts. The crisis also has deep historical roots dating back to colonial-era border divisions when European powers arbitrarily split African territories at the 1884 Berlin Conference. Rwanda, a much larger kingdom at the time, saw parts of its territory incorporated into modern-day DR Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania. This artificial partition, experts argue, left Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese communities faced with persistent discrimination and exclusion from their Congolese nationality. Proposed solutions include direct negotiations, regional cooperation, and shifting away from external interventions. The M23 rebellion, named after the March 23, 2009, peace agreement that was never fully implemented, says it is fighting for the rights of those communities, particularly in eastern DR Congo. While attempting to defeat M23 militarily has proven ineffective experts argue that the Congolese government must commit to dismantling the FDLR, for long-term peace.