Posted on 02/16/2025 6:01:49 PM PST by BenLurkin
BUKAVU, Congo — Rwanda-backed rebels have "occupied" a second major city in mineral-rich eastern Congo, Congo's government said Sunday, as M23 rebels positioned themselves at the governor's office in Bukavu and pledged to clean up after the "old regime."
Associated Press journalists witnessed scores of residents cheering on the rebels after they entered Bukavu following a dayslong march from Goma, a city of 2 million people they seized last month.
The rebels saw little resistance from government forces against the unprecedented expansion of their reach after their years of fighting. Congo's government vowed to restore order in Bukavu, a city of 1.3 million people, but there was no sign of soldiers. Many were seen fleeing on Saturday alongside thousands of civilians.
The M23 are the most prominent of more than 100 armed groups vying for control of eastern Congo's trillions of dollars in mineral wealth that's critical for much of the world's technology. The rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to the United Nations experts.
The fighting has displaced more than 6 million people in the region, creating the world's largest humanitarian crisis.
Rebels vow to 'clean up' disorder Bernard Maheshe Byamungu, one of the M23 leaders who has been sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council for rights abuses, stood in front of the South Kivu governor's office in Bukavu and told residents they have been living in a "jungle."
"We are going to clean up the disorder left over from the old regime," Byamungu said, as some in the small crowd of young men cheered the rebels on to "go all the way to Kinshasa," Congo's capital, nearly 1,000 miles away.
The M23 did not announce any seizure of Bukavu, unlike its announcement when taking Goma, which had brought swift international condemnation. Spokesmen for the M23 didn't respond to questions Sunday.
Congo's communications ministry in a statement on social media acknowledged for the first time that Bukavu had been "occupied" and said the national government was "doing everything possible to restore order and territorial integrity" in the region.
One Bukavu resident, Blaise Byamungu, said the rebels marched into the city that had been "abandoned by all the authorities and without any loyalist force."
"Is the government waiting for them to take over other towns to take action? It's cowardice," Byamungu added.
Fears of regional escalation Unlike in 2012, when the M23 briefly seized Goma and withdrew after international pressure, analysts have said the rebels this time are eyeing political power.
The fighting in Congo has connections with a decadeslong ethnic conflict. The M23 says it is defending ethnic Tutsis in Congo. Rwanda has claimed the Tutsis are being persecuted by Hutus and former militias responsible for the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and others in Rwanda. Many Hutus fled to Congo after the genocide and founded the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda militia group.
Rwanda says the militia group is "fully integrated" into the Congolese military, which denies it.
But the new face of the M23 in the region — Corneille Nangaa — is not Tutsi, giving the group "a new, more diverse, Congolese face, as M23 has always been seen as a Rwanda-backed armed group defending Tutsi minorities," according to Christian Moleka, a political scientist at the Congolese think tank Dypol.
Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi, whose government on Saturday asserted that Bukavu remained under its control, has warned of the risk of a regional expansion of the conflict.
Congo's forces were being supported in Goma by troops from South Africa and in Bukavu by troops from Burundi. But Burundi's president, Evariste Ndayishimiye, appeared to suggest on social media his country would not retaliate in the fighting.
The conflict was high on the African Union summit's agenda in Ethiopia over the weekend, with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warning it risked spiraling into a regional conflagration.
Still, African leaders and the international community have been reluctant to take decisive action against M23 or Rwanda, which has one of Africa's most powerful militaries. Most continue to call for a ceasefire and a dialogue between Congo and the rebels.
The Congo River Alliance, a coalition of rebel groups that includes the M23, has said it was committed to "defending" the people of Bukavu.
"We call on the population to remain in control of their city and not give in to panic," alliance spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka said in a statement Saturday.
I don’t think I could possibly care less about the Congo.
DRC invites ‘modern investors’ to tap US$24T worth of mineral wealth
The Exchange by The Exchange February 9, 2024
https://furtherafrica.com/2024/02/09/drc-invites-modern-investors-to-tap-us24t-worth-of-mineral-wealth/
That said, things can get ugly really fast in that part of the world.
And the modern investors will be robbed blind and/or butchered by whatever tribal warlord swings thru the area.
No thanks. Africa is a bottomless pit.
Is there a Muslim angle to this? A lot of mayhem in west Africa involves Jihadists - but the Lamestream papers that over.
as best as i can tell from all of this confusion is that a bunch of african tribes are fighting a bunch of other african tribes, just like they’ve done for a thousand years, the only difference is they’re now fighting with fully automatic machine guns instead of spears and such ...
Wonder if it’s Hutus vs Tutsis again?
Speaking of M23:
Democratic Bundler in Bed with Congolese Warlord
The Washington Free Beacon ^ | Adam Kredo | Adam Kredo
Posted on 2/21/2012, 9:59:09 AM by jmcenanly
A prominent Obama administration trade advisor is one of the central players in a series of scandals and ethical rows that have reportedly placed him in cahoots with corrupt Congolese warlords and other questionable figures.
Kase Lawal, an oil mogul with longstanding ties to the Clinton family, was appointed in 2010 as a member of Obama’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.
Since his selection to the trade board, Lawal has become enmeshed in a pact to purchase large quantities of illegal gold from a violent Congolese warlord, according to a U.N. investigation and various reports.
The crooked gold deal—as well as several other past scandals—raise concerns that the Nigerian-born Lawal is unfit to advise the White House about an issue as sensitive as global trade.
Lawal—founder of the oil and gas conglomerate CAMAC International—stands accused of transferring millions of dollars to Gen. Bosco Ntaganda, a rebel commander who has been linked by the International Criminal Court to a series of ethnic massacres and rapes. The deal, if verified, violates a U.N. ban on doing business with rogue Congolese warlords.
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com
February 2011 : (Congo : Obama appointee Kase Lawal’s subsidiary’s company jet is impounded, crew detained for being used to smuggle gold from rebel [M23] held territories)
A private jet owned by a North Texas company has been impounded for the past 2 1/2 weeks and its passengers and crew detained by the Congolese government in central Africa, where officials say it was used to smuggle gold from rebel territories in the nation’s eastern provinces.
The plane was leased by Southlake Aviation, based in suburban Dallas-Fort Worth, to a subsidiary of CAMAC International, The Dallas Morning News reported in its Sunday editions.
CAMAC company is owned by Kase Lawal, a Nigerian-born Houston oil tycoon an appointee of President Barack Obama to the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiation.
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ——— Texas-owned private jet owned impounded in Congo, AP/HoustonChronicle , 2/20/11
***
Jan 3, 2012
UN REPORT SAYS HOUSTON EXEC ORGANIZED ILLICIT GOLD DEAL
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/U-N-report-says-Houston-exec-organized-illicit-2439644.php
Could be something similar (although that was East Africa).
What about the millions of non-orthodox Christians killed in the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2008?
Not this time, there isn’t a Mohammedan angle to it.
Think of this as similar to the European world war 1 - lots of ethnicities/nationalities mixed up and fighting each other to get nation-state boundaries.
Those two ethnic groups are spread over not only Rwanda, but also Burundi and the eastern DRC
The "Banyarwanda" spill over all three states as you see
The problem is that the national border maps of Africa practically don't match up with the ethnic/nation borders - inherently unstable.
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