The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has given Rwandan ambassador Vincent Karenga 48 hours to leave the country on the grounds that Rwanda supports the violent advance of M23 rebels in Congo’s eastern provinces. Patrick Muyaya, spokesman for the Congolese parliament, announced on Saturday.
Congo has accused Rwanda of supporting the rebel group for years, but Rwanda has always denied this. In August this year declared the UN to have “concrete evidence” in a report that Rwandan armed forces were conducting operations in support of M23. Rwanda claims the DRC is collaborating with the militia group FDLR, a notorious Hutu rebel group involved in the 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda. The FDLR has been engaged in a battle with the Congolese government since 2000.
monusco
Eastern Congo is rich in raw materials such as copper, gold and diamonds. As a result, the region has been ravaged for decades by armed militias and local troops, who steal resources and rape and murder civilians. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled the region. In 2010, the UN peacekeeping mission monusco established to bring peace and stability to eastern Congo. The situation has not gotten any better since then.
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The M23 claims to want to protect the interests of the Congolese Tutsis against the Hutu groups. A peace agreement was signed in 2013, but after years of rest, the group resumed fighting in 2021. According to the rebel group, the government has not complied with an agreement on the demobilization of its fighters. Since then, M23 has recaptured large parts of North Kivu territory. In the past year, nearly 200,000 people have been displaced by the violent actions of the rebels. In June, Bintou Keita, head of the UN’s operation in Congo, warned that rebel group M23 would increasingly operate as a professional army — possibly thanks to foreign support.
Deadly protests
The resurrection of the M23 rebels has also sparked deadly protests against the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as civilians do not feel they are protected by it. The protests killed 36 people in one week, including four UN officials. About 170 people were injured.
The Monusco mission, one of the largest and most expensive United Nations peacekeeping missions, is soon to come to an end. The number of UN personnel in eastern Congo has been phased out for years and the mission’s mandate ends in December, but there is a possibility Congo wants the UN to leave the area more quickly. In September this year, 250 Ukrainian soldiers from the Monusco mission returned home to fight the Russians.