For 3 years, the japanese Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been embroiled in an armed battle between the military and the M23 insurgent group that has killed a whole bunch of individuals and displaced almost two million.
M23 was first shaped after a mutiny inside the Congolese nationwide military (FARDC) in 2012. Although the preliminary insurrection was crushed, the group took up arms towards the military and allied “Wazalendo” self-defence teams once more in 2022, and has since seized swaths of territory in North Kivu province.
M23 says it’s defending the pursuits of minority Congolese Tutsis, lots of whom say they endure discrimination and exclusion in DRC for his or her ethnic hyperlinks to Rwanda’s Tutsi group.
Kinshasa sees M23 as the best safety menace it presently faces, with regional tensions escalating as our bodies together with the United Nations accuse Rwanda of supporting M23 with troops and weapons, fuelling the insurrection – one thing Rwanda denies.
Regardless of makes an attempt at ceasefires and negotiations – together with the 2022 Nairobi peace process and up to date mediation efforts by Angola – preventing has continued. In Lubero, M23 superior a number of dozen kilometres in only a few days in December.
Bertrand Bisimwa, the top of the political wing of M23, maintains that the group is preventing a “defensive” conflict. He spoke to Bojana Coulibaly, a researcher specialising in peace and safety in Africa’s Nice Lakes area, concerning the conflict in japanese DRC and hopes that dialogue will prevail.
Bojana Coulibaly: Are you able to inform us what M23’s calls for are?
Bertrand Bisimwa: Our calls for boil right down to a battle for survival. We’re waging an existential conflict as a result of the Congolese authorities is subjecting a part of its inhabitants to dying. And this didn’t begin right now. It has been happening for many years, the place persons are pressured to hunt refuge, fearing dying, avoiding being killed. There’s hate speech and there’s additionally a form of radicalisation that’s taking form. Part of the residents, particularly the Tutsi, function scapegoats for the Congolese authorities to distract the individuals from its governance failures.
So, we advised ourselves that we should not sit idly by and watch our residents being killed on this means. This is the reason we’re presently waging a defensive conflict to guard these residents. In order that they don’t proceed to be put to dying. They aren’t second-class residents. The state should maintain them and never think about them as stateless, or who are usually not Congolese. They’re full-fledged Congolese residents, like all different Congolese.
Coulibaly: Just lately, there’s been intense preventing between authorities forces and M23 in Nice North Kivu, within the Lubero territory. Might you clarify what occurred?
Bisimwa: In March, the mediator within the disaster between Rwanda and the DRC, Angola’s President [Joao] Lourenco, had invited us to Luanda to convey the message from the African Union which was to signal a ceasefire. We signed the ceasefire, however Kinshasa refused to signal it. Later, Kinshasa merely continued the conflict towards us, and we began once more – we continued to defend ourselves.
On December 15, a gathering was scheduled between the Congolese authorities and the Rwandan authorities, which additionally had simply signed their ceasefire, though the Rwandan authorities or the Rwandan navy are usually not on Congolese soil and are usually not preventing.
The Congolese authorities wished to have a victory on the bottom earlier than the fifteenth. They put strain on us, with the intention of acquiring a victory that may put them in a cushty place so as to put Rwanda in entrance of a fait accompli – that both they signal what Kinshasa wished, or they’d virtually derail the Luanda assembly. That was the federal government’s goal.
That is how they put strain on us: they gathered greater than 22,000 males assembled round 15 regiments, supported by the FDLR [Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, an armed rebel group] – the previous genocidaires of the 1994 genocide towards the Tutsi in Rwanda – supported by the Wazalendo they usually use them towards us. We understood the manoeuvres, so we ready sufficiently to defend ourselves.
That is what led to this escalation of violence, as a result of for us, it was important to thwart this navy offensive on their half, and we succeeded in doing so.
We discovered that they proceed to arrange to reignite the conflict, and in the event that they do reignite it, we are going to proceed to defend ourselves to stop them from persevering with down that path, as a result of we consider that for peace, it’s essential to thwart the trail of conflict.
Coulibaly: The United Nations says M23’s advance in direction of the Nice North Kivu in addition to the rise in command of areas are a need for enlargement and conquest of territory. How do you reply?
Bisimwa: Since we began our conflict, we’re reacting to the offensive from the federal government that assaults us daily. And every time, we are saying it: in the event that they proceed to assault us, we are going to silence the weapons all over the place they shoot at us.
The logic of conflict dictates that when you’ve gotten supremacy over the opposite, you’re taking the house from which they had been taking pictures at you. And we struggle for that. After we struggle towards the federal government, those that assault us, we’re obliged to silence the weapons from the house the place they shoot. And that’s what permits us to cease the conflict. So, we can’t be shot at and simply defend ourselves with out taking the weapons from the opponent. That may be illogical, it might imply persevering with to submit ourselves to dying and to undergo dying the individuals which are in our space.
You will notice that each time we achieve the higher hand over the opponent and take the house from which they had been taking pictures at us, we cease there, and we wait. In the event that they launch the identical offensive once more, at that second we advance. So, we can’t be blamed for defending ourselves and for profitable towards the offensive that’s imposed on us.
When there’s conflict, persons are afraid and may flee, as a result of they have to search shelter. And it is a fully regular angle. So, we can not place this duty on only one social gathering. I feel there’s a form of refusal to face actuality on the stage of the United Nations as properly as a result of we succeeded throughout our liberation motion in bringing again or emptying greater than 9 camps of displaced individuals that had been arrange within the space that we management right now. OCHA lately printed a report the place it acknowledged that greater than 480,000 households have returned to their houses, in our space. And so, I feel that as an alternative of beginning to condemn, everybody wants to take a look at themselves, and we should have the braveness to say what is definitely occurring on the bottom.
Coulibaly: After M23 was excluded from the peace course of in Nairobi in April 2022, the Luanda course of has been stumbling over the difficulty of dialogue – as a result of Kinshasa considers you to be only a proxy of Rwanda. What’s your place concerning this refusal of dialogue?
Bisimwa: The refusal of dialogue by the Congolese authorities is a refusal of a civilised decision of conflicts. As a result of the civilised world right now not fights; it resolves issues by dialogue and strikes on. However Kinshasa is within the logic of conflict.
It’s essential to first perceive the framework by which we had been in Nairobi in 2022. On April 10, the heads of state of the East African Group had gathered, on the request of President [Felix] Tshisekedi, to ask us to withdraw to a sure distance, as a result of we had simply liberated areas. And the Congolese authorities wished a dialogue with us.
We discovered that civilised as a result of we advised ourselves, in any case, now we have the dialogue we wished so as to deal with the basis causes of the battle. So, we discovered ourselves in Nairobi on April 20, 2022, and we thought we had been coming to speak. However whereas we had been in Nairobi, the armed forces of the DRC started to reclaim the areas from which we had withdrawn, and it was shifting in direction of our positions.
We alerted the facilitators that there’s a scenario creating on the bottom that must be stopped rapidly as a result of it dangers escalating. The facilitator mentioned with the Congolese authorities, however nothing was stopping on the bottom.
Sadly, we weren’t listened to and the conflict restarted. The subsequent day, FARDC troopers wakened, they shot at our troopers; we defended ourselves and the conflict resumed. The Congolese authorities used that as an excuse to say that it could not tolerate us within the room and that we must always depart.
That’s once we understood that the Congolese authorities was not able to be in dialogue with us. And it’s the similar logic nonetheless in place right now.
Struggle can not remedy our issues. Dialogue alone can enable us to handle the basis causes of the battle. As a result of it has lasted a very long time. The east of the nation is struggling due to these conflicts that don’t finish. And the east of the nation is our residence. That’s the place our households reside. Our households can not proceed to be put to dying daily just because the capital is positioned 2,000km from the place we reside. If Kinshasa can not remedy our issues, it ought to allow us to remedy them ourselves.
Coulibaly: Congolese Minister of Overseas Affairs Therese Kayikwamba Wagner mentioned on France 24, that she want to invite all armed teams to a dialogue or to renew the Nairobi course of, however that Kinshasa categorically refuses any dialogue with M23. How do you reply?
Bisimwa: Everybody is aware of – the entire world is aware of – that there aren’t any extra armed teams in Congo. All these armed teams have been built-in into the FARDC as reservists. There’s a legislation that got here out; all these Wazalendo, all these we name the VDP, are auxiliaries of the FARDC who’ve been formally built-in. The FDLR has been built-in formally into the FARDC. So, there aren’t any extra armed teams.
We’ve no drawback with these armed teams. We’ve existential issues that won’t be solved by armed teams. It isn’t these armed teams that handle the nation, it’s the authorities that manages the nation. It’s to the federal government that we should deal with and never the armed teams.
The second factor, and I would love Minister Wagner to know this very properly: we aren’t preventing for jobs inside the authorities. We aren’t preventing for ranks. Our officers, our troopers have been within the Congolese military. That they had ranks there. There are some amongst us who’ve been ministers in Kinshasa, who’ve been within the authorities. They left as a result of the issue had not been resolved. Because of this right now, even when we had been provided these positions, it might not resolve our distress, our struggling.
We should deal with the basis causes of the battle to cease the violence within the east of the nation. Every considered one of us, if the nation turns into peaceable, can reside the place they need, now we have land that’s fertile. We will domesticate the land, we will hold our cows, we will produce milk, we will go train. Every of us can have a possibility for our household and for our survival, slightly than going into politics.
What we would like is to speak with them to resolve points associated to the governance of the nation. A governance that kills us, a governance that sends us into exile, a governance that doesn’t enable us to offer for our kids tomorrow and the day after. Our youngsters should have the ability to reside. We should create an setting that permits future generations to not inherit the issues that now we have not managed to resolve.
Coulibaly: The most recent battles towards the federal government coalition passed off close to territories affected by the presence of the ADF armed group. Is there a hyperlink between your motion and this group that claims to be from Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS)?
Bisimwa: We had been the primary on this nation to denounce the ADF menace. And I consider that now we have been speaking about it for greater than 10 years. And the Congolese authorities has at all times taken us for people who find themselves joking. They mentioned the ADF doesn’t exist. At present, this concern has turn into a actuality seen to everybody, as a result of they’ve excelled in massacres towards the inhabitants and to say that it’s us who’ve hyperlinks with them – that can be immoral, to assume in that means. We’ve at all times fought for these individuals to be neutralised. And the earlier they’re neutralised, the higher the nation could be right now.
The FARDC or the Congolese authorities don’t mobilise as many forces towards the ADF as they mobilise towards us. In opposition to the ADF, they only ship a number of troopers to accompany the Ugandan military that does all of the work; towards us, they mobilise greater than 15 regiments of twenty-two,000 males. They mobilise spectacular weapons, spectacular state-of-the-art tools. So, between us and people who behave on this means, who can we are saying is nearer to the ADF?
Coulibaly: You’re accused of exploiting the mines of Rubaya for the benefit of Rwanda. What do you say to this?
Bisimwa: Concerning Rubaya, we didn’t need it firstly, as a result of we by no means had the intention of taking areas the place there are minerals. We’ve at all times prevented this in order that we’d not confuse our existential trigger with the exploitation of minerals.
However the actuality is – and we communicated it – that there was a coaching centre in Rubaya maintained by the Burundian military with the Imbonerakure militia, which skilled younger individuals, the Congolese, within the dealing with of bladed weapons, with the intention of infiltrating them into our house to sow dying and desolation. We communicated this to the world so that everybody would perceive that there’s a menace in Rubaya that must be addressed rapidly. There was no response, and everybody uncared for this. That is how we made the choice to cease this factor as a result of it was going to create for us extra issues than options.
After we entered this house, on this space of Rubaya, there was by no means any preventing inside Rubaya. The technique we took was to evacuate from Rubaya all those that had weapons in these mining websites. The second group of individuals to evacuate from these websites had been kids who had been used within the mines, with all of the potential for accidents. The third group of individuals we extracted from Rubaya had been pregnant ladies who fairly often had been mistreated.
At present, Rubaya is doing properly. We’ve saved in Rubaya the identical individuals, the identical organisations that had been exploiting the mines as a result of they’re personal entities that had been exploiting the mines there. And now we have forbidden our officers from being within the mines of Rubaya. There’s not a single member of the M23 within the mines of Rubaya. So now we have left this exploitation to those that had been doing it. And we’re pleased with a small tax to permit that this police mechanism that now we have established round Rubaya can proceed to carry. That is what now we have finished.
Coulibaly: M23 presently controls the Virunga Nationwide Park, which is a world biodiversity reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Website in peril since 1994. What’s the present standing of Virunga Park because you arrived there in 2023?
Bisimwa: What now we have at all times finished, in, round or close to this park, whether or not on the stage of our populations, or within the actions we take, is to guard this world biodiversity reserve. Earlier than our arrival, we discovered that the park was overrun by the FDLR who had been engaged in woodcutting actions to make charcoal. There’s a United Nations report that was launched and which acknowledged that the FDLR profited from this charcoal commerce. They had been speaking about greater than $100m a yr.
The second factor we seen was the invasion of the park by armed teams, together with the FARDC. These FARDC who weren’t paid, they had been killing the park animals to feed themselves. And we mentioned no, now, there’s not a single tree left within the parks. So, we created a safety drive for the park that works in settlement with the rangers to guard the park.
The third motion we took was an academic motion in direction of our inhabitants. To make them perceive that they’ve no real interest in invading the park. As a result of we discovered that the boundaries of the parks had been threatened. There are even residents who’ve taken plots of land within the park concession, which was unacceptable. We began by educating our inhabitants to make them perceive that we will profit from what comes from the park in one other means. That’s to say, when vacationers come, what they may pay as vacationers will enable us to hold out growth tasks.
After we arrived on the park, there was no wildlife. However now, all of the animals that had left the park are beginning to return as a result of there’s safety. We will see the hippos parading within the swamps. We will see households of antelopes operating right here and there. We will see the gorillas. And it’s stunning. Everybody who passes by that highway is aware of methods to recognize the great thing about the character that God has given us, and I consider that it’s a privilege that now we have, which we should protect.
Be aware: This interview has been edited for size and readability.
