War in Congo Looms While South Africa & Rwanda Spar
M23 Rebels advance in Congo Image credit X.com
M23 Rebels Open New War Fronts in Congo After Goma Takeover
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, January 30: The Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have advanced to the South Kivu province of Congo after wresting control of Goma, the capital of North Kivu. Amid M23 rebels waging war within Congo, Rwandan President Paul Kagame told his readiness for “confrontation” with South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa.
Kagame accused the South African President of “lying” on situations of the M23 rebels fighting inside the eastern region of Congo. He also accused Ramaphosa of “misquoting” his conversation. M23 stands for ‘March 23 Movement’, which is a group waging war against Congo.
“I held two conversations this week with President Ramaphosa on the situation in Eastern DRC, including earlier today. What has been said about these conversations in the media by South African officials and President Ramaphosa himself contains a lot of distortion, deliberate attacks, and even lies,” said Kagame in a log post on X.
The South African President had yesterday given a detailed note on the situations in Congo. He asserted that the territorial integrity of Congo must be protected.
The eastern mineral-rich region of Congo has seen decades of wars. Experts trace seeds of military conflict between Rwanda and Congo to the Berlin Conference of 1885 when Africa was partitioned among the European powers.
“The fighting is the result of an escalation by the rebel group M23 and Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) militia engaging the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC) and attacking peacekeepers from the SADC Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SAMIDRC),” said Ramaphosa.
Rwanda President countered the claims of Ramaphosa sharky. The advance of M23 rebels to the city of Goma had left 13 peacekeepers killed, which included nine from South Africa.
“The Rwanda Defence Force is an army, not a militia. SAMIDRC is not a peacekeeping force, and it has no place in this situation,” Kagame stated in his long rebuttal of the South African President’s statement.
The Rwandan President also stated that “the SADC was authorised as a belligerent force engaging in offensive combat operations to help the DRC (Congo) Government fight against its own people, working alongside genocidal armed groups like FDLR which target Rwanda, while also threatening to take the war to Rwanda itself”.
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The Rwanda President apparently referred to the 1994 Tutsi genocide perpetrated by Hutus. After killing almost 800,000 Tutsi in Rwanda, the Hutus had fled to Congo and their militia was afterwards absorbed in the Congolese army.
“The situation in Goma and Sake, where our troops and their counterparts are stationed, remains very tense, volatile and unpredictable,” said Ramaphosa, while adding that military chiefs are collaborating “to ensure that the SAMIDRC forces remain well equipped and sufficiently supported during this critical mission”.
The SAMIRC is a group of regional force with troops contributed by South Africa, Malawi, and Tanzania. “SAMIDRC displaced a true peacekeeping force, the East African Community Regional Force, and this contributed to the failure of the negotiation processes. President Ramaphosa has never given a warning of any kind, unless it was delivered in his local language which I do not understand,” Kagame further said.
The Rwandan President warned that “if South Africa prefers confrontation, Rwanda will deal with the matter in that context any day”.
Ramaphosa in his statement had said that the “territorial integrity of the DRC must be respected in accordance with the United Nations Charter”. “We call on all parties to this conflict to fully embrace the current diplomatic efforts that are aimed at finding a peaceful resolution, including honoring the Luanda Process agreements. We must silence the guns on our continent for the attainment of inclusive development and prosperity,” added Ramaphosa.
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