Spectacular turn of events as DRC forces crush foreign-backed M23 rebels

Antoine Roger Lokongo, Pambazuka

The Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC), as the Congolese armed forces are known in French, and the Rwanda- and Uganda-backed M23 rebel movement made up of Rwandan and Ugandan demobilized soldiers, other Tutsi and Hutu insurgents and some Congolese, had not clashed since August 2013. The two sides were awaiting the outcome of the peace talks paid for by the Congolese government in Kampala and overseen by President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni (who also backs the M23). Uganda had assumed the rotating presidency of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region.

However, during the talks, apart from acts of terrorism, rapes, massacres and mineral looting (they have made $500 million since the launch of the insurgency last year, according to a report by Enough Project NGO), the M23 who occupied a huge portion of eastern Congo since May 2012 kept on militarily harassing the FARDC, applying Museveni’s and Kagame’s well-known tactic: “talk and fight”. Kinshasa could not tolerate it anymore, and the Congolese government suspended participation in the talks and the Military High Command ordered an all-out offensive against M23 launched on 25 October 2013.

Just within a week, the FARDC, supported by the intervention brigade made up of Tanzanian and South African troops within the UN Mission for Stabilisation of Congo (MONUSCO) recaptured all the key strongholds occupied by the M23, drove them out of eastern Congo, inflicted heavy losses on them (including the seizure of many weapons) and had many of them surrender, 27 in Rutsuru alone. This spectacular string of victories by the Congolese armed forces and defeats for the M23 started with the recapturing of the town of Kibumba, 30 kilometers from Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, on 25 October 2013 where three mass graves were discovered.

On 27 October 2013 the FARDC recaptured the town of Kiwanja, 70 kilometers north of Goma after heavy fighting. Local people welcomed the Congolese armed forces with shouts of joy. Unfortunately, a Tanzanian peacekeeper was killed during the fighting, as the Congo-based UN-sponsored Radio Okapi reported. Just a few hours later the army took control of the city of Rutshuru. The M23 rebels were just fleeing the advance of the FARDC. The people of this city greeted the arrival of the FARDC and encouraged them to pursue the rebels into their last strongholds. On Monday 28 October 2013, the army continued its advance. After Kibumba Kiwanja and Rutshuru, it was the turn of Rumangabo, one of Congo’s biggest military base located 50 kilometers from Goma, to pass under the control of the FARDC. Another mass grave was discovered there. On Wednesday, 30 October 2013, the Congolese military took control of Bunagana, a Congolese town near the border with Uganda which the M23 turned into its political headquarters.

DRC: The war might be won, but who’s going to win the peace?

Simon Allison, Daily Maverick

There’s lots to celebrate as rebels in the eastern DRC lay down their arms and surrender, concluding the latest chapter of a long-simmering rebellion. But no one should be celebrating too hard: winning the war was the easy part. Winning the peace will be a lot harder. By SIMON ALLISON.

“It is more difficult to organise a peace than to win a war,” said Aristotle, a long, long time ago. Good philosophy never dates, however, and at moments like these his words are all too relevant.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the rebels have surrendered and white-clothed women are victory-parading through the streets of Kinshasa; the usually sober BBC asks if this means peace in the DRC, finally; and seasoned UN diplomats are dancing in conquered rebel strongholds and crowing about the military success of their new, amped-up peacekeeping force, for which South Africa put the lives of 1 345 soldiers on the line.

Before we get into the headaches of post-conflict resolution - and there are plenty - it’s worth acknowledging that all this congratulatory back-slapping is not entirely misplaced. In the space of a few days, the Congolese Army, with the intimidating support of those heavily-armed UN peacekeepers, was able to deal a decisive blow to the M23 movement’s military capacity. In military terms, it was a stunning success, and achieved the goal of bringing the rebels, tails firmly between their legs, back to the negotiating table.

“The chief of general staff and the commanders of all major units are requested to prepare troops for disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration on terms to be agreed with the government of Congo,” said M23 chief Bertrand Bisimwa, refraining for once from his usual bombast to simply acknowledge the new status quo. As a fighting force, M23 are finished. For now.

South Africa has plenty of reason to be pleased. Our soldiers acquitted themselves well (and, more importantly, escaped unscathed), our Rooivalk helicopters saw combat action for the first time in their 23-year history, and our president went ahead and signed a staggeringly large energy contract with the Congolese government, who were no doubt inclined towards generosity thanks to South Africa’s efforts against M23. Such are the spoils of war.

M23 rebels end uprising in Democratic Republic of Congo

By William Wallis and Katrina Manson, FT

M23 rebels called an end to a 20-month insurgency in the mineral-rich east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday after being driven from their strongholds by one of the most successful ever offensives carried out by the national army.

Congolese officials announced they had scattered the rebels from remaining hilltop redoubts after a night of intense fighting. The M23’s leader, Bertrand Bisimwa, then called on rebel units to prepare for “disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration on terms to be agreed with the government of Congo”. He said the movement would now pursue its fight through political channels.

The psychological significance of the moment was apparent in the capital, Kinshasa, where witnesses said onlookers were breaking into impromptu celebrations at the sight of passing soldiers, more often feared for their predatory behaviour. A huge billboard was erected near the city centre featuring a government soldier and the words ekolo ya makasi, or “something strong”.

Congo’s army has rarely been known for its strength: it has not claimed a significant victory on the nation’s many battlefields for as long as most Congolese can remember.

In the 17 years since the first of many rebel groups marshalled by neighbouring Rwanda began a campaign to overthrow the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko on the same eastern terrain, soldiers in the ragtag national army have suffered defeat after defeat, most recently when M23 rebels over-ran the regional capital, Goma.

Rebel retreat: Can the Congolese army build on a rare victory?

The Economist

THE army of the Democratic Republic of Congo is not used to being feted with palm leaves. It is also unaccustomed to winning. Its men are better known for rape and pillage. But a snap offensive against rebels in the eastern province of North Kivu which began on October 25th brought a rare military victory.

“They fought well and they behaved well,” said a surprised observer of the troops, who were welcomed by cheering crowds in Rutshuru, the northernmost town they have reached. The government forces did not do it alone. They were helped by a strengthened UN “intervention brigade” and faced a demoralised foe. The M23 mutineers, named after the date of a failed past peace accord in March 2009, were crippled by in-fighting and in the past year by Rwanda’s reduction of the support it once gave.

The rebels, whom Rwanda still denies it backs, suffered heavy casualties on October 26th-27th, trying to defend their frontline positions north of the regional capital, Goma. Their leader, Sultani Makenga, with several wounded men in tow, headed first for Bunagana, an outpost that soon fell as well, and then possibly onwards to the nearby border with Uganda. Hundreds more are reported to have defected.

The UN’s bullish new special envoy, Martin Kobler, said the M23, which briefly occupied Goma last year, was finished as a military force. “The era of cohabitation between armed groups and the UN is over,” he told a local radio station.

Emergency UN talks planned as DRC 'push back' M23 rebels

Mail & Guardian

The UN Security Council will hold emergency talks on Monday on a new surge in fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in which a UN peacekeeper was killed, diplomats said, as government troops cleared rebels from strategic positions in the country's restive east.

The FARDC regular army took back control of both the city of Rutshuru and the rebel-held town of Kiwanja, home to a base used by the UN mission Monusco that had been repeatedly looted by rebels, said the governor of North-Kivu province, Julien Paluku.

Monusco said a Tanzanian officer was killed in Kiwanja, where United Nations forces joined the army to drive out rebels on the third day of clashes since a fresh flare-up in violence on Friday. The circumstances of his death were unclear, said the UN force.

The soldier was the third Tanzanian with the UN brigade to have been killed in recent months.

"The soldier died while protecting the people of Kiwanja," said Monusco head Martin Kobler in a statement.

The spokesperson for UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said in a statement the UN chief "condemns in the strongest terms the killing of a Tanzanian peacekeeper who came under fire from the M23 movement in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

"The secretary general offers his sincere condolences and sympathy to the family of the victim, and to the government of the United Republic of Tanzania."

UN 'remains committed'
The statement added that the United Nations "remains committed to taking all necessary actions ... to protect civilians in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo".

France later called for an emergency meeting of the 15-member Security Council to discuss the latest crisis in the troubled region.

M23 peace talks with DR Congo hit snag

Al Jazeera

M23 rebels and the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo have suspended peace talks only days after the rebels spoke of "major breakthroughs".

The two sides have been meeting in Kampala, the capital of neighbouring Uganda, which is brokering the peace talks.

The suspension of talks on Monday comes just hours after UN envoys warned of the dangers if a deal was not agreed soon to end the year-and-a-half-old rebellion ravaging the Democratic Republic of Congo's volatile east.

Lambert Mende, the Congolese government spokesman, said the talks had been suspended because of disagreement over the extent of an amnesty for the M23 army mutineers and their reintegration into the national army.

Last Saturday M23 released a statement saying there had been "major breakthroughs" as a result of "the heavy involvement of the international community in the dialogue".

The rebels take their name from a peace agreement they signed with the DRC government on March 22 2009, paving the way for their integration into the national army, but they mutinied in April 2012 over poor salaries and living conditions, renewing an armed rebellion in the country's mineral-rich east.

Mende said Congolese Foreign Minister Raymond Tshibanda had returned home to Kinshasa, the capital, but added that his departure was "not definitive".

The Democratic Republic of the Congo: Where hell is just a local call away

Dan Snow, The Independent

African nation is rich in resources – yet its people know only famine, war and disease. Dan Snow examines why

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the size of Western Europe, blessed with resources that ought to make its 70 million inhabitants very wealthy.

Yet it sits at the very bottom of the UN Human Development Index and for a generation has reliably been the worst country on earth in which to be born.

We are headed north to try and find out why. We can’t travel by night because the countryside swarms with the lawless; refugees from the sudden implosion in the neighbouring Central African Republic have fled here with machetes and empty bellies. We stay in a guest house which has not had running water or electricity for two years. It’s plantain and scrawny chicken for dinner, a feast by local standards.

The Land Cruiser rumbles off at 4am, its tyres bald, the windscreen wipers non-existent. The 300km journey will take eight hours if we are  lucky. This vast country has fewer than 2,000 miles of paved roads, and the World Bank estimates that 90 per cent of the entire network is impassable. It is so bumpy that I get seasick.
Hordes of kids roar as we pass but we see only children and pregnant women, no old people. The average life expectancy here has collapsed from 60 in 1960 to 48 today. It is late when we reach Gbadolite, the jungle folly of one of Africa’s most infamous leaders, President Mobutu. The town centre is quiet: modern street signs and traffic lights hang limp and corroding above carless streets.

We are here to film Mobutu’s jungle Versailles. We pass an airport with a runway built for Concorde, which Mobutu would hire for his shopping trips. The marble-clad terminal building is derelict; where the French President François Mitterrand once sipped champagne, families live in lean-tos. We eventually reach the palace to which Mobutu retreated as the Congo collapsed and undiagnosed cancer tore at his insides. Its swimming pool is empty but for a puddle of green sludge, his sunken bed a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Fragments of Chinese porcelain vases lie scattered across the cracked floor.

Democratic Republic of Congo: UPR Submission September 2013

Human Rights Watch

1. Summary
Violent conflict has continued in the Democratic Republic of Congo, mostly in the east, with the Congolese army and non-state armed groups responsible for horrific attacks on civilians, including killings, rapes, and forced recruitment of children. Presidential and parliamentary elections in 2011 were characterized by a violent crackdown on the opposition. Government authorities have sought to silence dissent by targeting human rights activists, journalists, political leaders, and political party supporters who criticized government authorities or participated in peaceful demonstrations.

While the challenges for the Congolese justice system remain enormous and most perpetrators of serious abuses in Congo go unpunished, there are signs of a greater government commitment to fighting impunity for grave human rights abuses. Since 2012, government officials have repeatedly called for leaders of the M23 – a Rwandan-backed armed group responsible for widespread human rights abuses – to face justice, and have stated clearly that the government will neither provide an amnesty to those allegedly responsible for war crimes or crimes against humanity nor reintegrate them into the army. The government’s insistence on accountability may have contributed to the surrender of M23 leader Bosco Ntaganda to the US embassy in Rwanda in March 2013. He is now awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court for charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in north eastern Congo in 2002 and 2003.

This submission focuses on the human rights record of the Congolese government and security forces since 2009, when the last UPR on Congo was held.^[1]

2. Killings, Rapes, Recruitment of Children, and other Abuses by the Congolese Army

Eastern Congo's Recent Troubles - Who Pulls the Strings, What Is At Stake, and Why Do Things Happen?

Christoph Vogel, AllAfrica

Considered an overview, this piece combines a wide range of events, observations, and consequent thoughts on the current situation in the eastern DRC. Focusing on M23 rebels, DRC government, and the UN mission it will also take into account main other dynamics and actors.

An accumulation of events
In the last few weeks, the often low-intensity conflict in eastern Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) became not so low in intensity with newsworthy events unfolding on an almost daily basis. North of Goma fresh clashes broke out between the Congolese armed forces (FARDC) and the notorious M23 rebel movement.

During the ensuing bombing, various neighbourhoods in Goma were hit, as well as Rwandan territory in Rubavu district, bordering the DRC. The UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo, MONUSCO, for the first time engaged in offensive operations through its newly created Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) and faced fierce protests from residents of Goma resulting in tumultuous scenes in the bustling border town. One peacekeeper was killed andthe shelling of Rubavu provoked a military build-up by the Rwandan army on the border. After several days of joint FARDC-MONUSCO offensives (with losses suffered), M23 retreated from Kibati and announced a unilateral ceasefire, asking for the Kampala peace talks to resume.

Relations between the DRC government and its Rwandan counterparts have hit rock bottom and both regional and international mediation efforts have ground to a temporary halt. With opinions varying between anticipation of a window of opportunity and imminent regional war it is time to ask: Who pulls the strings, what is at stake, and why do things happen?

Rwanda defends military deployment along Congo border

Nicholas Kotch, BDlive

RWANDA has responded to regional criticism about its military deployment along the frontier with the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo saying its territory had been repeatedly hit by cross-border shelling.

"Rwanda did not deploy along the border for the sake of it. During a 10-day period our country was shelled 34 times," Rwanda’s ambassador to South Africa, Vincent Karega, told BDlive on Monday.

"That was an invitation for Rwanda to intervene," he said, suggesting that the stray shelling was not accidental but a ploy to try to suck Rwanda into the continuing conflict. It pits Congolese troops, supported by United Nations (UN) "peace enforcers", against the Rwandan-backed Congolese rebels called M23.

Rwanda first complained about the shelling during August’s intense fighting in areas north of the eastern Congo city of Goma. The M23 rebels were forced to retreat and there have been no reports of cross-border incursions by Rwanda’s army, one of Africa’s best.

But Rwanda was criticised at a special summit of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) in Windhoek last Wednesday. Rwanda is not a Sadc member.

Rwandans now weary of picking up the pieces of Kagame leadership

Antoine Roger Lokongo, pambazuka

The above headline of mine is surprisingly very civilized compared to ‘Umurabyo’ newspaper’s independent journalist Saidati Mukakibibi’s. She is now languishing in jail in Rwanda for having quite rightly compared President Paul Kagame with the Nazi German leader Adolf Hitler. She was arrested for defamation, inciting public disorder and ethnic ‘divisionism’ (Reuters, 13 July 2010) following the 1994 genocide, a trump card Kagame uses well both at home and abroad as a milking cow to keep and win new friends and to silence his critics. But for how long?

Mukakibibi is not the only one. Pascal Manirakiza, a Rwandan refugee who went missing in Uganda has been found tortured and unconscious and ‘dumped’ at a cemetery near the capital, Kampala, according to the Ugandan government which is supposed to provide him protection on the basis of the Geneva Convention. On the contrary, Manirakiza had earlier been arrested by Ugandan police on a warrant issued by Rwanda (the UN hypocritically protested the arrest). Manirakiza’s crime? He was one of four Rwandans who told the BBC last month that they were seeking asylum in Uganda. They accused the Rwandan army of forcibly recruiting them to fight in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (BBC News Africa, 27 August 2013). The BBC reminded us that in 2010, Rwanda’s ex-army chief Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa fled to South Africa. He accused Rwanda of a failed attempt to assassinate him later that year, after he was shot and wounded in Johannesburg. Rwanda denied any involvement. The shooting strained diplomatic relations between South Africa and Rwanda.

COVERING UP CRIMES

The question we ask now is: For how long the UN system, Britain and America are going to provide Museveni and Kagame cover or help cover-up crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide they are committing in the DRC? Not for too long! Belgian journalist Colette Braeckman, reporting for ‘Le Soir’ from Rwanda confirmed that ‘it is clear that there is a growing concern among the Rwandan people’ (Le Carnet de Colette Braeckman, 26 August 2013). Kagame’s leadership is now widely put into question despite recent visits by his die-hard friends such as former US president Bill Clinton who questioned the line of thinking of ‘some people in the human rights community who believe that every good thing that has happened in Rwanda should be negated by what they allege that they have done in the eastern Congo’ (BBC News Africa, 12 August 2013).

However, the fact that Rwanda and Uganda are still stubbornly committing crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in the DRC is not helping their powerful mentors in the West save faces.

Kagame remains the real commander-in-chief of the M23 insurgents. On 15 July 2013, the Congolese army, the Forces Armées de la RDC (FARDC) repulsed an attack by M23 ‘rebels’ backed by Rwandan special units in Mutaho, North Kivu Province.

UN tests combat brigade in Democratic Republic of Congo

Courtney Brooks, Al Jazeera

First-ever offensive force aiming to quash rebels in the volatile Central African country has made military gains

While the world's attention has been fixed on Syria over the past few weeks, the landscape of diplomacy quietly but radically evolved amid the dense green hills of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

A flock of attack helicopters descended there on Aug. 28, in a town north of Goma, in the eastern region of the beleaguered Central African nation. The aircraft were filled with armed United Nations peacekeepers, along with Congolese military forces. The first-ever U.N. peacekeeping force with an offensive combat mandate – tasked with "neutralizing" and disarming rebel forces in one of the world's most intractable conflicts – was in action.

Within two days, the peacekeepers and army had forced rebel militias threatening Goma to withdraw from the front lines. On Thursday, a rebel group known as M23 agreed to resume peace talks with the Congolese government.

Despite the military and diplomatic gains, what impact the force will have on the ground in the eastern DRC remains to be seen – the country has suffered both internal and regional strife for decades. But the impact on peacekeeping is likely to be profound.

The Aug. 28 offensive has been brewing since March, when the U.N Security Council authorized what it calls an "intervention brigade" in the DRC. The 3,000-person unit is part of the more than 19,000 troops in DRC attempting to fulfill the U.N.'s "stabilization mission," but it has a significantly different purpose.

According to Al Jazeera correspondent Malcolm Webb, the intervention brigade is better equipped than either the local rebel groups or the Congolese military, with tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery and night vision goggles. The brigade is comprised of three infantry battalions, one artillery unit and one special forces and reconnaissance company, and is authorized to shoot first – unlike any peacekeeping mission before it.

DRC's M23: 'We didn't start the war'

Mmanaledi Mataboge, Mail&Guardian

The M23 rebels have written to the UN secretary general saying they are not responsible for the DRC war, adding the UN body Monusco is to blame.


The Movement of March 23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo has written to the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, seeking to clear themselves of any blame for the conflict that ravaged that country’s North Kivu province last week.

M23 chairperson Bertrand Bisimwa claimed in the letter that his movement did not start the war; they did not shoot into neighbouring Rwanda or Goma and other towns. Instead, Bisimwa said UN peacekeeping unit Monusco is "committed to pursue war against our movement".

"This war initiative of which the Republic of France has become the torchbearer is being directed against our movement on three dimensions: on the military front by attacks from the Intervention Brigade, through the media by unfounded and biased news reports and fabrications by Monusco," said Bisimwa.

He added that the war was also fought "on the diplomatic front through negative resolutions presented by France for adoption by the United Nations Security Council in order to reinforce the military option as the means of resolving the ongoing conflicts in the Great Lakes region in general and in the Democratic Republic of Congo in particular".

M23 has accused France of supporting the Congolese government's military.
Bisimwa said it wasn’t M23 that bombed Rwanda for the following reasons:

Congo: Why UN peacekeepers have a credibility problem

Christoph Vogel, The Guardian

After 14 years, with a budget of $1.5bn a year, and employing 20,000 uniformed staff, the UN peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the largest mission in the organisation's history. Yet the force, currently known as Monusco, is struggling for credibility. On Twitter, critics have given it the hashtag #MONUSELESS.

Peacekeepers have been blamed for standing by when rebels from the allegedly Rwanda-backed March 23 movement (M23) conquered the city of Goma for 10 days last November. It has also been accused of blurring the lines between military and humanitarian activity, and for having an appalling record in protecting the civilian population – one of its two major aims. The second is to help restoring state authority, which requires engaging with politicians and public servants with sometimes dubious motives and propping up an army notorious for human rights abuses.

Monusco and its predecessor, Monuc, never had an easy task. Started in 1999 as an observer mission, a relatively small team found itself watching the gloomy reality of a conflict known as Africa's "world war", pitting nine countries and even more rebel groups against each other. The UN security council enlarged the mission, expanded its mandate and tasked it with ensuring the success of Congo's first democratic elections in 2006. But Monuc often remained toothless, depending on additional backup: during elections an EU force was called on to secure Kinshasa. Monuc was not able to prevent the siege of Bukavu by rebel commanders in 2004 or to counter threats posed by the Rwandan FDLR militia or Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the Congolese People (CNDP) rebellion.

Ironically labelled a post-conflict country since the 2006 election, the DRC continued to suffer from ill-conceived international intervention, insecurity, and ongoing rebel attacks in the east. In 2010 this culminated in Monuc's transition to Monusco, following growing international criticism and threats of expulsion from the president, Joseph Kabila. During the country's second elections in 2011, Monusco witnessed a rise in armed group activity in eastern Congo and the subsequent creation of M23.

SANDF in Congo advance

Stephan Hofstatter & James Oatway, The Times

Congolese troops consolidated their positions 3km from the M23 rebel stronghold of Kibumba, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, last night in preparation for a fresh assault on the rebels.

A field commander yesterday told The Times at the front line, 20km north of Goma and 2km from the Rwandan border, that the rebels' forward position was on a low hill 600m away on the approach to Kibumba. Sporadic shelling could be heard.

"They have a company dug in there and the M23 still occupies Kibumba," said the commander, who cannot be named. "At the Rwandan border they have one tank and 82mm mortars but they are not firing on us. We're not sure why."

Another officer in the camp, whose soldiers were armed with rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and machine guns, said his men were poised for the next attack.

"Once we receive the order we will clear them from that hill and advance."

On a tour of the battlefield with Congolese army commander Colonel Mustafa Mamadou, The Times was shown the bodies of several M23 rebels near the Rwandan border.

Pointing to a rebel with a gaping wound in his forehead, Mamadou said: "Parts of his uniform are Rwandan. From this you can tell Rwanda is supporting the M23."

A UN military source told The Times that the Rwandan uniforms were "indicators but not conclusive proof" of Rwandan military involvement in this week's battle.

Congo-Kinshasa: Intervention Brigade - End Game in the Congo?

Lansana Gberie, AllAfrica


To the outsider at least, the immediate problem with the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)--a perennial vortex of instability, massive human rights violations and wars both petty and large--is that it defies comprehension. The armed militia factions, opportunistic and often wholly predatory, are many. There are at least 10 such groups in the eastern part of the country alone, which for several years now has been the epicenter of the bloodshed and chaos.

The recent approval by the UN Security Council of two extraordinary measures to deal with the situation in that country--the use of drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to provide reconnaissance of militia activity, and the deployment of an intervention brigade to take offensive measures against the militia groups--is being hailed by most observers as a potential turning point in the country's recent unhappy history. Though the UN has been careful to present the measures as purely temporary and confined to the DRC, they do indeed constitute a turning point in UN peace missions. Their success--if they do succeed--will undoubtedly lead to their being hailed as "best practice," and radically change the hopeless trajectory of the Congo.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has welcomed the measures as a "comprehensive approach aimed at addressing the root causes of instability in the eastern DRC and the Great Lakes region." But optimism has necessarily to be tempered, analysts believe.

The 24 February 2013 "Framework for Peace, Security and Cooperation for the DRC and the Region," which provides the basis for the intervention brigade, does indeed offer a comprehensive approach to the problem. The framework, which the African Union assisted to put together, was signed in Ethiopia by leaders from the DRC, Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, in the presence of Mr. Ban, who acted as one of the guarantors. The framework speaks of the suffering in the country engendered by "recurring cycles of conflict and persistent violence by armed groups, both Congolese and foreign."

DR Congo: M23 Rebels Kill, Rape Civilians

Human Rights Watch

(Goma) – M23 rebels have summarily executed at least 44 people and raped at least 61 women and girls since March 2013 in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Local residents and rebel deserters reported recent forced recruitment of men and boys by the M23 in both Rwanda and Congo.

After a nearly two-month-long ceasefire, fighting resumed on July 14 between the Congolese armed forces and M23 rebels near the eastern city of Goma.

Residents and rebel deserters described recent support from within Rwanda to the abusive M23 forces. This includes regular movements from Rwanda into Congo of men in Rwandan army uniforms, and the provision of ammunition, food, and other supplies from Rwanda to the M23. The M23 has been recruiting inside Rwanda. Rwandan military officers have trained new M23 recruits, and have communicated and met with M23 leaders on several occasions.

“Not only is Rwanda allowing its territory to be used by the abusive M23 to get recruits and equipment, but the Rwandan military is still directly supporting the M23,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “This support is sustaining an armed group responsible for numerous killings, rapes and other serious abuses.”

The latest Human Rights Watch findings are based on more than 100 interviews since March, including with former M23 fighters who left the movement between late March and July and civilians living near the Congo-Rwanda border, some of whom were victims of abuses.

Democratic Republic of Congo to open national dialogue

By Christian Tsoumou and Jonny Hogg, Reuters

(Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo will start talks next week aimed at easing a political standoff in the capital and ending remote rebellions, with the leader of neighbouring Congo Republic taking some form of mediating role.

DRC's last major war ended a decade ago, but localised rebellions, as well as rampant corruption, have hamstrung efforts to rebuild the vast former Belgian colony, a target for billions of dollars of foreign investment.

As well as the "M23" rebellion near the border with Rwanda in the east, and one in the in the Katangan copper belt in the south, political tensions have simmered in the capital Kinshasa, in the west, since President Joseph Kabila's 2011 re-election in a vote the opposition says was riddled by fraud.

Now, the political opposition will take part in talks with the government, rebel groups and civil society, after Congo Republic's president, Denis Sassou Nguesso, agreed to "accompany" the process, although his role and the scope of the discussions are yet to be clarified.