A UN Security Council delegation that spent three days in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on Sunday confirmed the DRC’s accusations against Rwanda that Paul Kagame’s country is supporting the M23 rebels. The group is increasingly conducting offensives in the eastern DRC, which is experiencing an upsurge in violence. However, UN experts have called for negotiations to end the violence.
“It is also clear that Rwanda supports the M23. It is also clearly established that there are regular incursions by the Rwandan army in North Kivu. This too is unacceptable,” said Nicolas de Rivière, France’s ambassador to the United Nations and head of the delegation that visited the DRC from March 9 to 12 to assess the country’s security situation.
The Security Council delegation, which ended its mission on Congolese soil on Sunday, met with President Félix Tshisekedi and on Saturday visited Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, which houses a camp where most of the country’s displaced people are concentrated.
As for the sanctions demanded by the Congolese authorities and civil society against the M23 movement, the French diplomat said: “There is pressure, coercive measures that are taken among others against the leaders of M23. It is a strategy that will continue and expand and which we are committed to”.
This visit comes after a ceasefire negotiated with the mediation of Angola at the request of the African Union, and broken down on the very day it was to come into effect, failed. Several other similar peace initiatives have also failed in the past.
The 23 March movement, also known as the M23, is a group created following the Kivu war. It is composed of ex-rebels reintegrated into the Congolese army following a peace agreement signed on 23 March 2009 with Kinshasa. But in 2021 this rebel group took up arms again to demand the implementation of these agreements. But in 2021 this rebel group took up arms again to demand the implementation of these agreements. But the government of Paul Kagame has always denied this.
