In Congo, Rebelmovel M23 has announced a one-sided humanitarian “cease-fire”, which must be in force in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo from Tuesday. The AFC/M23 rebel coalition, which is supported by the authorities in neighboring Rwanda, announced this on Monday.
You can view how sustainable the Monday file is. In Eastern Congo, where de facto has been fighting since the genocide in Rwanda in the mid-1990s, files were more often violated.
The announcement comes a few days before a planned meeting between Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame, next weekend in Tanzania. An earlier virtual crisis meeting was canceled by Tshisekedi last week. The question is how the Congolese government forces deal with the ceasefires.
Last Monday, M23 took the city of millions of Goma, the capital of the raw material-rich province of North Kivu. According to the United Nations, at least 900 people were killed and thousands of people, according to the United Nations,. In the meantime, the fighting in the city itself has stopped, but the violence escalates to the neighboring province of South Kivu.
There is a fear that the rise of the rebels to the capital of that province, Bukavu, started, although M23 says in the statement on Monday the capital of the DRC nor “other places”. However, the credibility of this ruling is disputed. Last week the rebels announced that they wanted to continue the advance to the capital Kinshasa.
The need for setting a humanitarian corridor to let people escape from the fighting increases. The government in Kinshasa has not yet responded to this.
Gold and raw materials for electricity
In the east of Congo, in addition to gold, there is also a multitude of raw materials used in batteries and electronic equipment. The Congolese government accuses Rwanda of supporting the rebels so that they can plunder these resources. Rwanda denies this and says that the armed groups from the region want to eradicate, in particular founded by former Hutu leaders of the genocide on the Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda in 1994.
Congolese President Tshisekedi lashed out to the international community last week. He believes that more should be done about the escalations in the east. Among other things, he appealed to the mission of regional organization SADC, which has a military mission in the area.
For fear of a regional conflict, the sixteen Member States of the SADC called on Friday as a joint top in Dar Es Salaam with the eight countries of the East African community, of which Rwanda is a member. Tshisekedi and Kagame will come together there.
Kagame demands withdrawal of the SADC mission and believes that it is not a peace mission. The spokesperson for the Rwandan government, Yolande Makolo, also criticizes the intentions of the South African government, which supplies the greatest contingent of soldiers to the mission: “Please tell your people the truth about the personal interests you have in the mines in the DRC ”, she said On X.
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