Rebels advance on key Congo capital

Rwandan-backed group edges to outskirts of Goma after hours-long clash

M23 rebels conduct training exercises in Rumangabo, eastern Congo, last month.
M23 rebels conduct training exercises in Rumangabo, eastern Congo, last month.

— A Rwandan-backed rebel group advanced to within 1.8 miles of Goma, a crucial provincial capital in eastern Congo, marking the first time that rebels have come this close since 2008.

Congolese army spokesman Col. Olivier Hamuli said the fighting began 6 a.m. Sunday and the front line had moved to just a few miles outside the city. After more than nine hours of violent clashes the two sides took a break, with M23 rebels establishing a checkpoint just 100 yards away from one held by the military in the village of Munigi, 1.8 miles outside the Goma city line.

Contacted by telephone on the front line, M23 rebel spokesman Col. Vianney Kazarama said the group will spend the night in Goma.

“We are about to take the town. We will spend the night in Goma tonight,” Kazarama said. “We are confident that we can take Goma and then our next step will be to take Bukavu,” he said, mentioning the capital of the next province to the south.

The M23 rebel group is made up of soldiers from a now-defunct rebel army, the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP, a group made up primarily of fighters from the Tutsi ethnic group, the ethnicity that was targeted in Rwanda’s 1994genocide. In 2008, the CNDP, led by Rwandan commando Gen. Laurent Nkunda, marched his soldiers to the doorstep of Goma, abruptly stopping just before taking the city.

In the negotiations that followed and which culminated in a March 23, 2009, peace deal, the CNDP agreed to disband and its fighters joined the national army of Congo. They did not pick up their arms again until this spring, when hundreds of ex-CNDP fighters defected from the army in April, claiming that the Congolese government had failed to uphold its end of the 2009 agreement.

Reports, including one by the United Nations Group of Experts, have shown that M23 is actively being backed by Rwanda and the new rebellion is likely linked to the fight to control Congo’s rich mineral wealth.

The latest fighting broke out Thursday and led to the deaths of 151 rebels and two soldiers. On Saturday, U.N. attack helicopters targeted M23 positions in eastern Congo.

Also on Saturday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon had called Rwandan President Paul Kagame “to request that he use his influence on the M23 to help calm the situation and restrain M23 from continuing their attack,” according to peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, who spoke at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Saturday.

In downtown Goma, panicked residents had come out to try to get more information on what was happening.

Hamuli, the spokesman for the Congolese army, denied reports that soldiers were fleeing.

In 2008, as Nkunda’s CNDP rebels amassed at the gates of Goma, reporters inside the city were able to see Congolese soldiers running in the opposite direction, after having abandoned their posts. The Congolese army is notoriously dysfunctional, with soldiers paid only small amounts, making it difficult to secure their loyalties during heavy fighting.

In their march toward Goma, the M23 rebels caused an entire refugee camp, holding an estimated population of 60,000, to bolt. An Associated Press reporter who traveled Sunday to the front line saw the remains of the refugee camp in Kanyaruchinya, a village along the road to Goma.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Ladsous said that the rebels were very well-equipped, including with night vision equipment allowing them to fight at night.

Reports by United Nations experts have accused Rwanda, as well as Uganda, of supporting the rebels. Both countries strongly deny any involvement, and Uganda said if the charges continue it will pull its peacekeeping troops out of Somalia, where they are playing an important role in pushing out the Islamist extremist rebels.

Information for this article was contributed by Maria Sanminiatelli and Rukmini Callimachi of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 11/19/2012

Upcoming Events