Four stories you may have missed in 2013

Peace in Eastern Congo

Though the guns officially went silent in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s civil war back in 2003, the uneasy peace administered by several African nations left dozens of rebel groups and violent separatists vying for control of the country’s territory and bountiful resources. Since then, the DRC has been plagued by a variety of regional conflicts and uprisings. Among the region’s more organized – and violent – militias was the March 23 Movement (M23), the armed offshoot of a separatist political party based in the Kivu region of eastern Congo. For over a year, the rebel group terrorized eastern Congo, with its crowning achievement being the 11-day seizure and occupation of the provincial capital of Goma during the fall of 2012.

Yet rather than sink back into a violent abyss, Congo took a hopeful turn in 2013 when several African leaders met alongside U.N. officials in Nairobi to hammer out a framework for addressing the chaos. The plan promised a revamped and more aggressive U.N. peacekeeping force to work alongside the Congolese army in its efforts to root out and rein in separatist groups.

The plan appears to have worked, as a campaign spearheaded in late August by the combined forces repelled and ultimately pushed M23 rebels to the negotiating table. The peace, should it hold, is not only a big victory for the Congolese military, but for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who took a special interest in quelling the carnage in eastern Congo.

Though the defeat of the M23 is an undeniable accomplishment for Kinshasa, many obstacles remain. Among them, says Christoph Vogel, a researcher who monitors DRC militias, are the many other militias operating around the country. To subdue these groups, a more holistic approach – one that addresses longstanding land disputes and distribution – may be necessary. Otherwise, lingering grievances will only lead to later clashes between militants fighting under new flags and acronyms.
“M23 was a very conventional opponent,” explains Vogel. “Other groups will be harder to tackle; their guerilla-like outfit will lead them to tactically disperse instead of facing proper battlefield confrontation.”
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Congo: Soldiers Retake Town Seized by Rebel Group

Soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, backed by United Nations peacekeepers, have taken back a town in eastern Congo occupied by a Ugandan rebel group, a government spokesman said Thursday. The spokesman, Lambert Mende, said that the army took back the town of Kamango on Wednesday, hours after it was seized by a rebel group from Uganda that is now operating in Congo. At least 22 people were killed in the operation, mostly civilians, Mr. Mende said.
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U.N. scrambles to send more troops to South Sudan

More than 7,000 peacekeepers are already in South Sudan. The Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to increase the number by more than 5,000, redeploying them from missions in other African countries such as Liberia, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of Congo as soon as possible. The council also increased the size of an 800-member U.N. police force in South Sudan by more than 400.
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At least 21, including women and baby, killed in Congo's east

Comment:  An example of how not all of Eastern Congo's problems are home grown.


The killings highlighted the challenges still facing Congo's army and U.N. forces attempting to pacify Congo's mineral-rich east, which has remained a lawless patchwork of rebel strongholds and militia fiefdoms for nearly two decades.

U.N.-backed government forces won a rare victory last month against the Tutsi-dominated M23 rebels, the region's most serious uprising in years.

But dozens of armed groups still hold ground in the rugged mountains along Congo's eastern border with Rwanda and Uganda.

Jaribu Muliwavyo, a member of North Kivu's provincial assembly from Beni, told Reuters he believed the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebel group that emerged in the 1990s in opposition to the Ugandan government, were behind the attack.

The Ugandan government says the group, also known by the acronym ADF-NALU, is allied to elements of Somalia's al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab movement.

"ADF-NALU has been moving for the last two or three weeks and this locality was in their route. ADF-NALU controls this area," Muliwavyo told Reuters by telephone. "It is terrorism, pure and simple."
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Let Slip the Drones of Peace

The United Nations proudly announced on Tuesday the deployment of its first peacekeeping drone, an unmanned aerial vehicle that will be used to monitor the forested border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, looking for fighters from the defeated M23 rebel group and other militias.

Hervé Ladsous, the United Nations under secretary general for peacekeeping, was present as the craft took off for the first time from an airport in Goma, the Congolese city that was recaptured from the rebels with the help of United Nations troops in recent months. As my colleagues Nicholas Kulish and Somini Sengupta reported, that more robust use of force around Goma has earned the international organization rare praise.
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Rebel group to disarm in Democratic Republic of Congo

A rebel group that fought the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo for nearly two years announced Tuesday it would disarm.
In a statement on the Facebook page for M23, leader Bertrand Bisimwa said the group would immediately end its rebellion and "pursue, by purely political means, a search for solutions to the profound issues that led to its creation."
The move came a day after the group and the Congolese government agreed to a ceasefire, during talks in South Africa. Previous talks took place in Uganda.
"To this effect, the major general and all unit commanders of the of the Congolese Revolutionary Army are asked to prepare the troops for the disarmament process," Bisimwa's statement added.
"This is a hopeful first step toward peace and prosperity in this region," said Russ Feingold, the U.S. special envoy to the Congo and the Great Lakes region. He predicted that the agreements could be signed "in the next few days."
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Rwanda the key to Congo's peace

The escalation in recent days of eastern Congo's brutal war demonstrates that unless its root causes are addressed in a broader peace process, violence could intensify and Rwanda could be drawn more directly into the fray, regionalizing the war.

Over the past week, Congo's army has nearly militarily defeated the most powerful rebel group, the M23. Rwanda has threatened to strike Congo in retaliation for what it claims was shelling on its territory by Congo's army.

M23 may soon be a spent force militarily, but many other armed groups are still active and could replace it as major destabilizers of eastern Congo unless the root causes of the war are addressed.

Recently suspended talks in Uganda only involve the Congolese government and M23, and address none of the underlying political, economic, or security drivers of violence that have created the deadliest conflict globally since World War II.

Corrupt governance, intercommunal divisions and illegal exploitation of lucrative natural resources allow the Congolese army and a host of predatory militias to operate with impunity. But the most important factor in ending mass violence is the Congo-Rwanda relationship and the economic and security interests that underlie it.

The fates of Rwanda and Congo are deeply intertwined.

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