A new report by the United Nations experts describes the expansion and professionalization of the armed movement supported by Kigali.
by Christophe Châtelot
It will be increasingly difficult for Rwanda to camp on its denial of interference in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after the broadcast, Thursday, December 22, of the last report of Nations Experts United. Its conclusions are indeed unequivocal. The five investigators assure having “found substantial evidence of (…) the direct intervention of the Rwandan defense forces on the territory of the DRC, that is to strengthen the Movement of March 23 – Revolutionary Army of the Congo [the M23, a rebellious group At war with Kinshasa], either to carry out military operations against the Democratic Forces of Liberation of Rwanda “established in the DRC, of Rwandan origin and opposed to the Kigali regime.
In their previous report in June, UN experts were much less affirmative concerning the involvement of the neighboring country. They then just resumed “authorities” declarations of the DRC claiming that the rebels of the M23, whose attacks resumed in November 2021 after several years of inactivity, operated with the support of the Rwandan armed forces. What the Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, deny with force.
In 2013, the movement, militarily defeated by the Congolese army, had been dissolved, most of its fighters then fled to Rwanda or Uganda, before gradually reborn from its ashes, under the direction of its leaders Formerity: in particular the two veterans of the DRC rebellions carried out by Congolese Tutsi: Bertrand Bisimwa, current president of the political branch of the M23, and the “general” Emmanuel Sultani Makenga, commander -in -chief of the armed branch. >
The latter, submitted since 2012 to UN sanctions, is considered to be “responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law for murders, mutilations, sexual violence, kidnappings and trips that target women and children” . Refugee for several years in Kampala, the military leader of the M23 began to rebuild the movement in January 2017 from his base established on Mount Sabyinyo.
It is there, on the slopes of this extinguished volcano located at the crossroads of the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, that the M23 is supposed to fall back, according to one of the requirements prior to any discussion posed by Kinshasa and remained a dead letter to date. On the contrary, on the basis of “documentary and photographic evidence video, aerial images, field missions and interviews with more than 230 sources”, the group of experts observes that “the frequency, duration and Force of the “rebels have followed” an upward curve “in recent months.
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