M23 rebels
| ...M23 stands for March 23 Movement, also known as the Congolese Revolutionary Army. The Tutsi group was founded in 2012 as a Rwandan sock puppet, which no doubt seemed a good idea at the time, but in less than a year the Congolese army defeated them, and then Rwanda publicly stepped back in response to international pressure. M23 started acting up again in late 2021, reportedly again at Rwandan instigation... |
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
on Tuesday, despite a cease-fire due to take effect.
Both sides accused the other of triggering the festivities.
M23 front man Lawrence Kanukya said the cease-fire agreement had come into effect as of 12 p.m. local time (1100 UTC) and that it would "open the way for direct dialogue with the Kinshasa government."
UN Secretary-General António Guterres
...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years...called on the leaders of M23 to respect the agreement.
WHAT ELSE DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE FESTIVITIES?
M23 front man Willy Ngoma told the AFP news agency that the group was defending itself after an attack from the army.
Fighting erupted on Monday in the province of North Kivu. According to hospital sources and aid workers, several civilians were left dead and injured in the violence.
Army front man Guillaume Ndjike said late on Monday that the M23 "and their sponsors from the Rwanda Defence Force" had attacked a Burundian contingent of an East African regional military force.
Ndjike said M23 had targeted a camp for displaced people and the area of Mubambairo, causing "huge damage."
WHAT IS THE M23 REBEL GROUP?
More than 600,000 people have reportedly been displaced in eastern Congo in recent months during M23's territorial advances.
Kinshasa has long accused Rwanda of providing the rebel group with support. The assessment has been shared by independent UN experts and the United States.
The M23 have captured swaths of territory in Congo since late 2021. The Tutsi-dominated rebel group had been inactive for over a decade.
In March 2022, the Angolan presidency of the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
announced a new timetable for the cessation of hostilities.