The Democratic Republic of Congo has been convulsed in civil conflict ever since rebels loyal to Laurent Kabila and supported fiercely by troops from Rwanda ousted dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. However, President Kabila’s new regime – even with interventions from the armies of Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe – could not bring lasting peace to the vast reaches of sub-Saharan Africa’s largest physical space. (The Congo is bigger than the U. S. east of the Mississippi River.)
Under the presidency of Joseph Kabila, Laurent’s son and successor, and the current national leadership of Felix Tshisekedi, the Congo has remained wildly corrupt and mostly dysfunctional. Rwanda has constantly meddled in the east, and is now accused of funding and arming M23, a Tutsi-led insurgency that yesterday seemed poised to invade Goma, the capital of the Congo’s North Kivu province. Goma sits on the upper shores of Lake Kivu, next to Rwanda.
Yesterday the Congolese army and M23 were fighting furiously in at least seven villages surrounding Goma. Nearly 1000 Kenyan troops are also engaged in protecting Goma and its people from M23.
About 250,000 distraught civilians, caught in the crossfire, have been internally displaced in North Kivu as a consequence of the internal war with M23 as well as clashes farther north in the province between the Congolese army, Ugandan troops from across that border, and the so-called Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which is allied to the Islamic State.
Tshisekedi’s government is convinced that M23 is a front for President Paul Kagame and Rwanda’s ambitions in Congo. Both are Tutsi-led, and President Kagame has for years been determined to humble the Hutu genocidaires who fled in the 1990s from Rwanda and still play a forceful role in both South and North Kivu provinces. M23 is one result. Its sophisticated weapons and drone surveillance capabilities point to Rwanda as a supplier.
But both M23 and the ADF also attempt to maximize their control over the artisanal mining profits of the Kivus. Gold is a major resource. So is coltan, essential in the manufacture of laptops, cell telephones, and dozens of other electronic devices. Tin, wolfram, tourmaline, and diamonds are also found in the Kivus.
Much of the illicit mining serves as fodder for extortion and profitmaking by warring syndicates in the Kivus, especially M23 and ADF. Nearly all of the offtake is exported through Rwanda, some though Uganda. So Kagame might well have an interest in gaining unquestioned control of eastern Congolese mining production through M23.
The Congolese army has only in recent weeks managed to engage M23 and the
Alliance seriously. Until now, the Kivus have largely been too distant from Kinshasa, the Congo’s capital, for the weak and poorly led national army to project force into the region.
What at one point was the globe’s largest UN peacemaking contingent (now consisting of about 14,000 troops and a total of 18,000 personnel) has also been based nearby in Bukavu, South Kivu’s capital at the south of Lake Kivu, for twelve years. But the UN force has always managed futilely to cope with M23, the ADF, and about 120 other local militant warring groups, each led by contending warlords.
The African Union, which successfully mediated the tentative ceasefire which appears at least temporarily to have slowed or even halted the bitter major war between Ethiopia and Tigray, its northernmost province, is attempting to intercede diplomatically between M23 and the Congo. (see #115, “Good News, Bad News,” November 7.) Former President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and Angolan President Joao Lourenço are talking to the Congo and Rwanda and trying to reach the M23. But Goma (overrun by the M23 in 2021) is still at risk and displaced civilians are hungry and endangered. About 60,000 are today in what the UN calls a “humanitarian crisis.” It will only worsen if mediators are unable to stanch the fighting. Conceivably, doing so will depend on Kagame, not the M23.
But that leaves the Allied Democratic Force (ADF), with its ties to the Islamic State. It is alleged to be connected to the rebel movement in northern Mozambique (see #90, “The Other Invasions, III: Mozambique,” August 24) and to the al-Shabaab insurgency in Somalia (see #110, “Desperate Days in the Horn of Africa,” October 27). But the extent to which the ADF gains more than inspiration from ISIS is unclear. The U. S. State Department designated ADF as an IS affiliate and a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2021.
The ADF has reportedly expanded its areas of operation, capacity, and lethality since 2021, despite Congolese and Ugandan military operations. DRC’s government declared martial law in ADF-affected areas in May 2021 and, in late 2021, Uganda deployed troops to counter the ADF inside the Congo after a string of attacks within Uganda, including a raid on Kampala.
What is evident is that the ADF - despite attacks by the Ugandan military – still holds sway in key parts of northern North Kivu. Whether it has an understanding with M23 to share the territory is not known. However, they both prey on artisanal miners and both profit from gold, coltan, and other minerals found in the Kivu provinces.
The wars of the eastern Congo are not that country’s only combat zones (there are insurgents in Kasai and Equateur provinces, closer to Kinshasa. And Ebola still surges in sections of the vast Congo. Moreover, these conflicts also prevent the Congo – with its vast natural resources – from focusing on economic and social development throughout its entire domain.
In turn, until the Congo, the African Union, the UN, and anxious partners like the United States and the European Union can help to end fighting in and around Bukavu and Goma, the Congo cannot emerge from chaos and begin to provide security and
schooling, plus medical attention, for millions who are at risk. Africa’s development future in large part hinges on what progress can begin to be made in the fractured Congo.
What is defendable territory? Not the present DRC borders. What if those borders were adjusted to give tiny, crowded Rwanda more space? Would that just exacerbate the Hutu/Tutsi conflict?.
Linda Agerbak
This is truly a tour de force and majorly useful for all who would understand the roots of central Africa’s afflictions. Bravo!