The Democratic Republic of Congo is located in Central Africa, bordered to the west by the Short Atlantic Coast and the Angolan enclave of Cabinda, and the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), to the north by the Central African Republic and South Sudan, to the east by Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania, to the southeast by Zambia, to the southwest by Angola, and to the west by the country’s Short Atlantic Coast. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the second largest country in Africa (after Algeria). The country has exceptional natural resources, including minerals such as cobalt and copper, hydropower potential, large arable lands, tremendous biodiversity and the second largest rainforest in the world. Since its independence from Belgium in 1960, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been plagued by instability resulting from power struggles, culminating in the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and three decades of military rule under Mobutu Sese Seko. In recent years, violence has escalated, including clashes between armed groups over land and natural resources, extrajudicial killings by security forces, and political violence. The crisis in eastern DRC has attracted the most attention in recent months, with several armed fronts and regional parties involved, including neighboring Rwanda and Uganda. What is the background to the current crisis in DRC? What are its causes? How did it develop? And how can it be contained? These are the questions that we will seek to answer in this report..
Crisis Backgrounds
The history of the DRC is a series of successive political and military disturbances and conflicts, fueled by ethnicity and ideological differences that were ignited by the central states, or the major powers in the world. The roots of all these conflicts go back to international and regional competition over the vast resources of this charming country, whose wealth has become a curse and a curse on it. The Belgian colonial period in the Congo was one of the darkest pages of the history of this stricken country. In fact, the Congo was more than a colony. King Leopold II considered it a private estate and used its vast resources to increase his personal wealth. However, the post-independence period was no better, as the struggle between East and West for control of the country intensified, and it was a merciless struggle. The crisis in eastern DRC dates back to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, where widespread violence and a campaign of extermination against Tutsis and moderate Hutus drove two million people into the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, most of whom settled in refugee camps in North and South Kivu provinces. A small group of Rwandans who entered the DRC were Hutu extremists who began organizing militias inside the DRC. This led to the First Congo War in 1996, when Rwanda and Uganda invaded eastern DRC in an attempt to eliminate the remaining genocidaires on the run. This attempt coincided with the collapse of the Democratic Republic of Congo as a result of the rule of “Mobutu Sese Seko”.
Indeed, an alliance consisting of the Ugandan and Rwandan armies, along with the Congolese opposition leader “Laurent-Désiré Kabila”, was able to defeat “Mobutu”, and the political opposition “Laurent-Désiré Kabila” became President of the Democratic Republic of Congo in May 1997. The Second Congo War broke out in 1998, when “Laurent-Désiré Kabila” asked the Rwandan and Ugandan forces to leave eastern DRC for fear that they would control the mineral-rich region and annex it to their territory. This decision allowed armed Hutu groups to organize themselves on the border again, and Rwanda responded by invading the Democratic Republic of Congo with the declared goal of establishing an area in the border areas controlled by Rwandan special forces to create more distance from the Hutu militias in eastern DRC. Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, and Sudan participated in this war. In 2001, President Kabila was assassinated, and his son Joseph Kabila was appointed president of the DRC. A series of agreements were put in place to calm the situation, including the April 2002 Agreement, the Pretoria Agreement of July 2002 between Rwanda and the DRC, and the Luanda Agreement between Uganda and the DRC, which formally ended the war and the DRC Transitional Government took power in July 2003. The agreements also included the integration of some armed movements into the Congolese National Army. In 2008, the DRC and Rwanda cooperated to eliminate the FDLR in South and North Kivu provinces. Rwanda also arrested the leader of the CNDP and placed him under house arrest as part of the Kigali Agreement with the DRC.
Crisis Renewal
In late 2021, after the M23 managed to overrun UN-backed Congolese forces, tensions flared again between the DRC and Rwanda. The tensions escalated in 2022, until Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi called on his countrymen to enlist against “Rwandan aggression” in the Rutshuru region. Tshisekedi said Rwanda had set its sights on “confiscating our minerals.” He expelled the Rwandan ambassador, Vincent Kariga, and severed diplomatic relations between the two countries, accusing Rwanda of pursuing expansionist ambitions under the auspices of major powers such as the United States and Britain. Tshisekedi cited a report by UN experts that drone footage had revealed the presence of individuals wearing Rwandan army uniforms in M23 camps. Rwanda rejected the accusation, saying a Congolese fighter jet had violated Rwandan airspace when it briefly landed at Rubavu airport in western Rwanda on the Congolese border, and accused Kinshasa of colluding with a Congolese-based Hutu rebel movement. The Congolese government said in a statement that “foreign support may be responsible for M23 fighters having a steady supply of ammunition and the ability to fire mortars for several hours at a time.” But M23 has continued to reject the OHCHR report, denying that it killed 29 civilians in Ruvumu in eastern DRC, and instead blaming the Hutu armed group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, for the attack. After reviving the East African Community to expand and deepen political, economic and social cooperation and create a large regional economic bloc with economic influence in the region, the DRC has opened its east to new markets and investors from Kenya, Tanzania and South Sudan. This integration, which is planned to link the city of Goma in eastern DRC to the Ugandan capital Kampala, will bypass neighboring Rwanda and limit its dominance over the trade route that used to link Kinshasa to East Africa. Rwanda has therefore closed the Gatuna border crossing since 2019, disrupting the country’s official trade and exacerbating smuggling activity through other outlets. In addition to the capital Kinshasa, there are two major cities, Bumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi, which are active in mining and exporting crude oil and other products, especially to China, which accounts for about 50% of the goods exported from the DRC. In addition to the impact of the rebel movements on the political and economic situation and exports through neighboring countries, disagreements between the heads of these countries have also cast a shadow over the overall situation. While there is a noticeable rapprochement between the Congolese presidents Felix Tshisekedi and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, there is a noticeable disagreement between the Ugandan and Rwandan presidents, despite their previous relationship as comrades-in-arms in the 1980s. However, their mutual accusations regarding their support for dissident groups in their countries have distanced them, which has also affected Kagame’s relationship with Tshisekedi. However, the Congolese president insists on the military path, as he imposed a state of siege in the Ituri region and North Kivu, placing the two provinces under military control, and inviting Ugandan and Burundian forces to work with him, after the rebels’ bombings on 24 and 25 May.
Parties of the Crisis
The influences of several parties are intertwined to escalate the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
At the Congolese level; more than 200-armed rebel groups are active in the mineral-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, but four movements are considered the most active in the region:
First, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR): an armed rebel group operating in eastern DRC and composed of ethnic Hutus who oppose Tutsi influence in Rwanda. It was founded because of the merger of groups of Rwandan refugees in September 2000, including the “Rwanda Liberation Army”, and was active in the late Second Congo War and subsequent conflicts in Kivu.
Second, the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP): founded by former fighters from the “Congolese Rally for Democracy”. From the “National Congress for the Defense of the People” emerged the “M23” movement, which is composed mainly of ethnic Tutsis and has been violently fighting the Congolese army for control of Goma and the surrounding area for many years.
Third, Allied Democratic Forces: A terrorist organization affiliated with ISIS, it was founded in 1996 in western Uganda and initially claimed to be fighting for an Islamic state in Uganda, where it constitutes between 15 and 35% of the population. It later expanded into neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, where it operates in North Kivu province near the border with Uganda. The movement went largely unnoticed from 2001 until 2013, when it returned to the scene and continues its deadly attacks to this day despite the efforts of the Ugandan army and campaigns by the Congolese army against its fighters.
Fourth, the Cooperative Forces for the Development of Congo: Founded in 1999 during the Second Congo War, it operates in Ituri province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. It began as an agricultural cooperative before becoming involved in defending the Lendu ethnic group, claiming that the ethnic group was unfairly dominated by the Hema ethnic group. The group had been largely silent before returning to attack in 2017 and has since continued to attack local civilians and Congolese military forces, as well as gold mines and other sites.
Regionally; Uganda and Rwanda have been widely reported to be destabilizing the DRC to control the region’s natural resources. Gold has been at the heart of the controversy surrounding the eastern DRC crisis and its beneficiaries, particularly between Uganda, Rwanda, and Congo, as gold is an important source of foreign exchange for Rwanda, the vast majority of which comes from eastern Congo. Many Congolese have suggested that Rwanda’s actions in eastern DRC suggest that Kigali considers the region part of its sphere of influence. In a surprise move for Rwanda, Uganda sent its forces into eastern DRC in a joint offensive with the Congolese army against the Allied Democratic Forces rebels in November 2021. Many analysts believe that it was this operation, and especially Uganda’s intervention, that led to the emergence of the M23 movement (and not the failure of the Congolese government to implement the peace agreement, as the movement claims).
The Start of the M23 Movement
The Democratic Republic of Congo experienced two civil wars, the first from 1993 to 1996, influenced by the Rwandan genocide, and the second from 1997 to 1999. Although the civil war ended there, it left behind more than 100 rebel movements, three of which emerged: the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, the Rally for Congolese Democracy, and the National Congress for the Defense of the People, whose alliance resulted in the M23 movement, known as the Congolese Revolutionary Army. The M23 was formed from the Union of Congolese Patriots, a political group with its own militia that controlled northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, founded by Thomas Lubanga in 2001 and then led by Bosco Ntaganda. Between 2002 and 2005, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported that the group’s forces committed numerous abuses against peacekeepers and political opponents. The M23, which is dominated by the Tutsi ethnic group and founded in 2006, won three seats in the general elections that year, but its differences with the government did not end. After signing a peace agreement on 23 March 2009, the movement took its name from the date of the agreement. The agreement stipulated that the movement would be integrated into the Congolese army, but the movement concentrated its presence in the oil and gold regions, and differences erupted between it and the army again, accusing Kinshasa of not respecting the agreement on the demobilization and reintegration of its fighters. The government accused the movement’s leader, General Bosco Ntaganda, of leading a rebellion against it and destabilizing the country. His soldiers, integrated into the Congolese army, led a Rwandan-backed coup and launched several attacks against government forces from the Rutshuru and Bunagana areas on the Ugandan border in June 2012. The M23, known as the M23, advanced eastward and deployed its forces in Kivu province. From the provincial capital, Goma, one of the largest cities in the republic, the movement seized vast swaths of territory and stoked tensions along Lake Kivu in the region. It launched attacks on security forces near the Rumangabo military base, which is historically symbolic, as it was the rebels’ headquarters after they seized it during the rebellion in 2012 and 2013.
The movement’s Return to the Forefront
Regarding the movement’s return to activity after a 10-year hiatus, the movement’s spokesman, Lawrence Kanyuka, said: “We did not become inactive, we only stopped fighting because we were waiting for the implementation of the declaration signed on December 12, 2013, in Nairobi, but after 14 months of negotiations in Kinshasa with the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, we were suddenly attacked by government forces.” Regarding the most important points of disagreement in those negotiations, Kanyuka said: “We proposed to the government to help neutralize groups of the Allied Democratic Forces, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda and the Mai Mai militia responsible for insecurity, and we offered military and political cooperation. While we were negotiating, we were surprised by a force that attacked our headquarters and killed 50 of our movement. When we tried to communicate with the government to find out the details, we did not receive a response, and we decided to start responding to the attacks.” The movement was led in its new phase by Sultani Makenga, who moved from Uganda with a large group of his followers and was stationed in the border triangle between Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
By 2022, the movement had become one of 120 armed groups in eastern Congo. The Congolese army’s refusal to negotiate with the movement and its leadership regarding a counterattack played a role in the escalation of military confrontations and the failure of negotiated solutions despite the efforts made by the East African Community. The state of back and forth between the movement and the Congolese army continued around the cities of eastern Congo, but international reports have proven that the M23 has achieved significant progress and remarkable successes. The senior UN official in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bintou Keita, described the movement as a “traditional army, not armed groups,” referring to the level of professionalism the movement has reached. The official also warned that the movement’s capabilities could exceed the capabilities of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since the beginning of 2024, and in reports documented by a number of competent authorities, the movement has launched the largest number of battles in its history and expanded its areas of control in an unprecedented manner. With the escalation of hostilities between the Congolese army and the movement, the army accused Kigali of sending special forces to conflict areas in areas bordering Rwanda, claiming that the neighbor had deployed Rwandan soldiers in the North Kivu region, which lies on the border. Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi stated on state television that “there is no doubt that Rwanda supported the M23 movement to come and attack the Democratic Republic of Congo.” At the end of 2022, Congo accused Rwanda again through a statement issued by Patrick Mobaya, Minister of Information and official government spokesman, in which he personally accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame, saying that “Kagame is adopting a position that sufficiently explains his strategy of constantly interfering in the internal affairs of the Democratic Republic of Congo to maintain a climate of terror in the east of this vast country”.
Thus, the causes of the current crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo can be summarized in a set of internal and external causes.
Internal causes: These can be summarized in a set of causes.
First, the conflict over land; the situation has been exacerbated by the demographic pressure resulting from forced displacement after the genocide resulting from the violence that occurred in 1994. Many refugees from Rwanda and Burundi are still residing in the region, creating conflicts between themselves on the one hand; and between them and local groups on the other hand. This results in violence that affects relations between countries.
Second, the elections; the M23 movement enjoys popular support in the Kivu region; therefore, there is a fear that the presidency in the Congo will use this unrest as an excuse to suspend the 2023 presidential elections in the region, as voters there largely prefer the opposition.
Third, mineral wealth; North Kivu is rich in minerals such as gold, coltan and oil; therefore, up to 90% of Congo’s gold is smuggled to neighboring countries. Armed groups, including criminal networks linked to the Congolese army, are based there, sometimes benefiting from trade and facilitating smuggling.
Fourth, the quest for revenge, which intensified after Rwanda’s sudden closure of the Gatuna border crossing in February 2019, which halted trade throughout East Africa.
External reasons: These also include some reasons:
First, the lack of clarity regarding the presence of Ugandan forces in northern Congo, as the Congolese and Ugandan authorities presented the operation as a joint military exercise. The same happened with Burundi, whose soldiers’ incursion into South Kivu was accompanied by complete secrecy. President Kagame thus felt threatened by the movements of his neighbors on his borders without disclosing either the goal, duration, or reasons.
Second, the lack of agreement between the Ugandan and Rwandan presidents partially affected Kagame’s relationship with Tshisekedi, given the closeness between Tshisekedi and Yoweri Museveni, as the Rwandan and Ugandan presidents have been comrades-in-arms since the 1980s, but later parted ways.
Third, The sudden emergence of the M23 movement, and the movement’s previous relations with both Kampala and Kigali.
Fourth, the Congolese president’s insistence on the military path and his efforts to subjugate the armed groups by force; imposing a state of siege in Ituri and North Kivu and placing the two provinces under military control; in addition to his invitation to Ugandan and Burundian forces to work with him. This provokes Rwanda.
An Imminent War and Regional Efforts to Resolve the Crisis
Considering this extreme tension between the two neighbors – Congo and Rwanda – international parties began warning of a war that might break out between them. The first came from the UN Special Envoy to the Republic of Congo, who warned of the deterioration of the situation in the east of the country due to the activity of the “M23” movement, which has made significant progress and expanded into new areas, leading to record and unprecedented displacement. Last February 2023, the United States informed the two countries that they were on the “brink of war” and must stay away from it, and this warning was classified as the most severe. In an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council called by France to discuss the increasing violence in eastern DRC, US Ambassador Robert Wood said that Rwanda and Congo, along with regional actors, must immediately resume diplomatic talks, considering that regional diplomatic efforts, not military conflict, are the only way towards a negotiated solution and sustainable peace. To end the chronic unrest in eastern Congo, the East African Community (EAC), which consists of seven countries, took the initiative to form a regional military force of between 6,500 and 12,000 soldiers, and called on local armed groups to join a political process to resolve their grievances, because the other option was “military confrontation with them.” The regional military force was deployed in northern Nord-Kivu with missions that included participating in the fighting alongside Congolese forces against the “M23”, but after a year in Congo, the movement withdrew its forces, amid accusations from the government that the regional forces were inactive and not serious about confronting the rebel movement. On the other hand, Congolese citizens accused the East African forces of appearing to coexist with the movement that they were supposed to confront with war, and the Congolese president criticized the forces’ unwillingness to confront the rebellion, which prompted Congo to ask the group to withdraw. After the failure of the East African Community in its mission and with the escalation of the movement’s attacks and its increasing military gains on the ground, President Tshisekedi called on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – which consists of 16 countries in southern Africa – to deploy its forces in the region. Three countries among the group’s members agreed to deploy about 5,000 soldiers, which raised doubts about its feasibility, especially since the East African Community forces were twice this force, but did not achieve any significant achievement, which lowered expectations for what this force could do.
How Can the Crisis be Contained?
The crisis in the region can be contained through a set of steps: First, activating the regional force that had been previously agreed upon and called the “Regional Monitoring Mechanism of the Peace, Security and Cooperation Fund”, which is responsible for combating armed groups in the region and investigating violations that occur in the region. Second, Congo should establish clear rules for foreign military operations on its territory, in addition to the importance of transparency regarding what Congo agreed upon with its neighbors. Third, Uganda and Burundi should provide more clarity regarding their activities in the Kivu region. Fourth, forming mining, road construction and reconstruction companies jointly owned by the four countries. Fifth, developing plans to reintegrate armed groups better than previous plans, with security guarantees and involving the local community in these plans. Sixth, all countries must pledge not to assist groups opposed to the regimes of neighboring countries, with clear conditions for inviting dissident groups. International commitment to a long-term peace process and the legalization of economic, political and legal relations in the DRC are essential elements to prevent long-term political and economic instability in the Great Lakes region. Kenya, France, the United States and other stakeholders must work to defuse these tensions, to avoid Chinese, Russian or extremist (ISIS) involvement if the status quo continues.
Conclusion;
Since the beginning of this year 2024, the DRC has witnessed an escalation in military operations by the M23 rebel movement, which has expanded its area of control significantly in previous years. The movement’s ability to cut off the roads leading to Goma, the capital of the Nord Kivu region, and its seizure of areas rich in mineral resources has led to renewed accusations between Congo and Rwanda and escalating tensions between them, prompting international institutions and influential Western powers to warn that the two countries are on the brink of an imminent war. The East African region suffers from a set of tensions and intertwined conflicts between its countries, the most prominent of which is currently the conflict between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, which in turn affects the security of the region as a whole. Given the intertwining of regional and international interests in that region, this conflict also carries another model of the conflict of interests of the major powers in the struggle for influence within Africa. This represents a real danger of escalating the conflict at that stage, which could lead to dire consequences for the future of the countries of the region.
