The “March 23 Movement” (M23) has been talking again for several months in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has been plagued by violence for more than a quarter of a century. The rebellion has just been accused by the Congolese armed forces of having shot down the helicopter in which eight peacekeepers from the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Monusco) perished on March 29, 2022. The M23 denied, accusing, on the contrary, the army of being responsible for the crash.
A “resurgence” that worries the UN
Monusco, which found the debris of the Puma and brought back to its base in Goma the bodies of its peacekeepers (six Pakistanis, a Russian and a Serb), does not comment. At the United Nations headquarters in New York, the spokesperson for the Secretary-General Antonio GuterresStéphane Dujarric, indicated on March 30, 2022 that a “UN investigation was ongoing” with the dispatch of a team which “will work in cooperation with the Congolese government”. He also said the UN boss was “deeply concerned by the resurgence of M23 activities in the border area between the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda”. The Monusco helicopter crashed while carrying out a reconnaissance mission over an area in the east of the country, in North Kivu, where heavy fighting had opposed the Congolese army since the day before. to the M23 rebels.
Coming from a former Congolese Tutsi rebellion once supported by Rwanda and Uganda, the M23 has been fighting the Congolese army for a few days in the territory of Rutshuru, in North Kivu, near the Ugandan border. Also known as the “Congolese Revolutionary Army”, the M23 is considered the latest avatar of Tutsi-dominated rebellions in the troubled east of the DRC. He was born in May 2012 from a mutiny of former rebels of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) integrated into the Congolese army. The mutineers then accused Kinshasa of not respecting the clauses of the agreement signed on March 23, 2009 (hence the name of their “March 23 movement”) which had allowed their military integration.
Non-compliance with the Nairobi Accords
The M23, which occupied Goma for ten days in November-December 2012, was defeated the following year by the Congolese armed forces, after 18 months of guerrilla warfare. After its military defeat, the rebellion continued negotiations with Kinshasa, while several hundred of its fighters found refuge in Uganda, where they were quartered, and in Rwanda. At the end of 2013, in Nairobi, Kenya, the M23 and Kinshasa signed commitments, in particular to pave the way for the repatriation of most of the ex-rebellion combatants with a view to their reintegration into civilian life. This operation never saw any significant progress.
At the beginning of 2017, after a few years of respite, the Congolese government and many testimonies from residents reported the presence of ex-M23 combatants in the Rutshuru region. The UN mission in the DRC (Monusco) also said it had “multiple clues” of their presence on Congolese territory. The situation has calmed down again but, since November 2021, the M23 have been accused of attacking army positions in Rutshuru territory, on the edge of Virunga National Park. The rebel movement criticizes the authorities for not having respected the commitments signed in Nairobi on the demobilization of its combatants.
Kigali in Kinshasa’s sights
Since the massive arrival in the DRC of Rwandan Hutus accused of having massacred the Tutsis during the 1994 genocide, Rwanda has been regularly accused by Kinshasa of incursions into the Congo and of supporting armed groups. What Kigali systematically denies. On March 28, 2022, the Congolese army again accused Rwanda of supporting the M23, even claiming to have captured two Rwandan soldiers in the area of ​​the fighting. Kigali has denied these allegations, assuring that these two men, captured more than a month ago, were not part of its army and rejecting any support for the M23.
The DRC and Rwanda have maintained relations of mistrust for more than twenty-five years. They calmed down with the accession to power, in early 2019, of Félix Tshisekedi, who met his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame on several occasions. But the renewed activity of the M23 has revived suspicion on the Congolese side.