After months of fragile calm in eastern DR Congo, fighting between armed rebels has resumed near the country’s borders with Rwanda and Uganda.
The resurgence of clashes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) involving March 23 Movement (M23) rebels, other armed groups and soldiers — believed to be part of the Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) — shatters a six month period of fragile calm in the region.
The latest hostilities are taking place in and around the M23-controlled strategic Masisi Territory of North Kivu Province near the country’s border with Rwanda and Uganda.
In Kitshanga, a strategic town in Masisi, some residents are now celebrating the victory of rival armed groups known as Wazalendo, or “patriots,” over the M23.
“Since the Wazalendos have been here, we have been quiet, we are praying that the M23 does not come back,” Sylvie Amahoro, a Kitshanga resident, told DW.
Political observers and analysts say the apparent shift in the power balance in Masisi is part of a complex conflict.
“The new shift creates more problems for all of us in the east African and Great Lakes Region,” Dr. David Matsanga, a London-based Ugandan expert on conflict resolution and chairman of Pan African Forum UK LTD, told DW.
“And it is very, very worrying that people are dying at the moment.”
Matsanga believes that a lack of honesty on the part of the Congolese government and its neighbors is a major challenge.
“The government of DRC itself is not sincere,” he said, adding that neither are the other Great Lakes Region countries.
A map of eastern DR Congo
Where was the Congolese army?
There is speculation that the Wazelendo collaborated with the Congolese army in the takeover of Kitshanga. But the army says it did not intervene and has not violated the cease-fire it agreed on with the M23 in March.
Matsanga is doubtful of the army’s neutrality in the latest developments in the town.
“Even the Congo government has factions that it supports. Do you have a militia that terrorizes your own people? So, the government of Kinsasha is never honest,” he told DW..
Guillaume Mutumayi told DW that he and other residents of Kitshanga can once again enjoy a “peaceful climate” — regardless of whether or not the army had played a role.
“We stay with the Wazalendo, the soldiers of the EAC (East African Community), and sometimes the FARDC, accompanied by some white mercenaries,” he told DW.
Matsanga sees the Congolese army as passive and ineffective.
“There is no DRC army. It is just a bunch of people who are fragmented from very low morale. They don’t have weapons to fight back. They don’t have enough training,” he said to DW.
CREDIT: DW
