Rwanda, M23 and the conflict in Congo explained | Start Here

let's talk about one of the longest running conflicts in the world it's happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo which is here people also call it the DRC or sometimes just Congo but don't confuse it with the Republic of Congo which is another country next door the DRC is huge but we're going to focus on the east of the country where fighting has been going on for almost three decades involving dozens of armed groups neighboring countries like Uganda Rwanda and Burundi have got involved too so it's always been super complicated never as clear-cut as one

side versus another but one rivalry that's played out this whole time has been between Congo and Rwanda and that's a big part of what's happening now at the start of 2025 a powerful Rebel group called The M23 took over the cities of GMA and bukavu the capitals of North and South kilu provinces but the UN and others say the M23 is getting all kinds of support from Rwanda and that Rwanda has about 3 to 4,000 troops on the ground in eastern DRC officially Rwanda denies any involvement Rwanda currently have any troops at all in eastn

DRC I don't know you the commander-in-chief yeah there are many things I don't know M23 did not come back on its own it came back because Rwanda backed it it's part of an ongoing tension and conflict to between Congo and Rwanda for 30 years now it all goes back to the 9s or 1994 to be precise that's when the genocide in Rwanda happened in just 100 days extremists from the majority ethnic group in Rwanda the hutus killed around 800,000 people most of them were tootsies a minority ethnic group The genocide ended when a tootsie Rebel

group took control of the capital kagali and seized power and by the way one of the leaders of that group was Paul kagame who's the current president of Rwanda and has been since the year 2000 now during and after the genocide hundreds of thousands of hus fled over the border to refugee camps in DRC but among them were some of the extremists who took part in the killings they then started to remobilize and carried with them the anti-tutsi ideology that had stimulated the genocide in Rwanda and therefore kagali saw them as enemies 2 years after

the genocide Rwanda invaded DRC to go after these Hutu militia groups and that kicked off what's known as the first Congo War other countries including Uganda and Burundi joined the fight they all went after Congo's president who'd been in power for more than 30 years kicked him out and installed a new government but they soon fell out with that new government and that triggered another even bigger War the war ended with a peace deal it included elections and a process to integrate various Rebel groups into the congales army but that deal never really brought peace

particularly in eastern Congo it's what some analysts called a no peace no war situation there's a proliferation of armed groups the Army has remained fragmented and also very abusive and criminalize and then internationally although the uh Rwandan and Ugandan governments who were heavily involved of course in the Civil War have forly agreed to pull out their troops from Eastern DLC in the early 2000s they never really agreed to reduce their influence 20 years later Eastern Congo is still being fought over one of the main features of the conflict has been a series of rebellions by

congales Tootsie groups often backed by Rwanda these groups have evolved over time but the M23 is the latest iteration and has become the most powerful it emerged in 2012 and got its name from a piece deal that had been signed 3 years earlier a deal the M23 says the congales government never fully implemented the M23 actually managed to capture GMA back in 2012 but were forced to withdraw after just 10 10 days and for a few years after that the M23 were essentially out of the picture but they came back in 2021 and have been

gaining more and more territory since then Kigali backed M23 Rebels ramped up their lightning offensive in the east of di Congo the way they've captured and this time held on to GMA and bukavu the Region's main cities shows just how powerful they've become K has returned to bukavu and people are getting back day our daily lives Rwandan backed M23 Rebels now aiming for the city of UA UA would be the third major city in M23 is Advance in eastern DRC in a matter of weeks it's estimated that M23 has 6,000 Fighters but a lot of

people say they couldn't have taken all this territory without rwanda's help the M23 itself uh from what we understand is really dominated by the ran Army for key battles um it's it's thr on an army that is that brings the Firepower that brings the coherence the discipline the organization the resources with it the M23 didn't have any of that if it hadn't been for the Ronan Army we wouldn't be here today if also you see the number of rondan military who are fighting alongside M23 one will wonder if it is the M23 is backing is

backed by Rwanda or if Rwanda is intervening just accompanying by m M23 now what do the M23 and Rwanda want an Eastern Congo well there's a lot going on here there's what the different sides are saying and also what experts are piecing together based on what's actually happening so for example the M23 and Rwanda say they want to protect tosis who faced discrimination and persecution in Congo for a long time but that doesn't necessarily explain everything they're doing or have done there is a history of persecution and discrimination against the congales tootsie community in the

Eastern Congo it's very important to say that um on and yet there wasn't an increase in that discrimination or persecution in the days leading up to the M23 Rebellion it's not like they responded to an imminent threat the M23 in Rwanda also say they're going after Hutu extremists these are the groups we mentioned earlier that Rwanda first went after back in the90s there's one group in particular which comes up it's called the fdlr and Rwanda still sees it as a security threat the FD question has to be answered we have to find a solution that

is something Ronda has been always bringing up even when according to the UN report according to many uh actors in the region according to randan officials themselves the threat to Rwanda that represented fdlr has changed completely over years genocide has such a foundational role and run in society that it's impossible to actually disentangle genuine security concern from manipulation and pretext another reason people talk about is natural resources because this region has a lot of really valuable minerals that have always helped to fuel and fund the conflict there it's minerals like gold Cobalt and coltan which

is used to make all kinds of electronic devices a recent report by un experts said that the M23 had taken in control of a mining area called Raba in 2024 it's got one of the biggest col mines in the region which was earning the M23 around $800,000 a month last year it said minerals were being exported via Rwanda last year about 1.1 billion dollars of minerals were exported from Rwanda that's a very it's a huge amount for such a small economy and most of those minerals came from the Eastern Congo now another question is whether

the M23 is Ambitions may have grown particularly off the back of all their recent military success because the M23 is also part of an alliance that seems to have political aims that go well beyond Eastern Congo it's called the AFC the acronym of its French name which translates as Congo River Alliance and the AFC is led by this guy cor nanga who's not Tootsie he's the former head of Congo's electoral commission but has become one of the main opponents of the president Felix chisti nangas said says he wants the M23 to take the fight all

the way to the capital and take control of the whole country our objective is Congo we are fighting for cono we are not fighting for Min regime has destroyed the Army has destroyed the National Police he has destroyed Administration and above all he has destroyed Justice now President chetti says Congo's Army is ready to defend every inch of territory and his government has designated the m 23 as a terrorist group but we're not really seeing signs of that on the ground there are reports of congales soldiers surrendering and even fleeing to Rwanda and Congo's Army

and government are notoriously weak the congales Army is a real mess and it has been historically it's been Riven with factions that come from armed groups that refused to be dissolved into the Ary so they retain parallel command structures um it's also an army that's extremely corrupt uh and all issues of pay and resources are um the subject of very severe infighting amongst senior military contrast that with the M23 and Rwanda who've been rapidly taking and holding territory and setting up parallel administrations in those areas uh everywhere it goes it's destroying administrative records issuing birth

certificates setting up tax collection services and Revenue Services it very much feels like this is a long-term occupation so what about attempts to resolve this situation well there have been a couple of regional peace initiatives going on but neither have made much progress meanwhile Congo's president has called for countries to Blacklist Rwanda the US has put sanctions on a Rwanda Minister and the UK has announced some measures including pausing financial aid to Rwanda the EU is talking about suspending their mineral trade but have held off on sanctions for now since 2012 Rwanda has made itself

very useful to a number of Western countries with whom it has a whole range of different uh ties uh whether it's sponsoring football teams or most importantly rwanda's peacekeeping operations in Central African Republic and I think notably in mosm Beque where the Rwanda Army is protecting a very important installation of the total oil company and I think these um create uh a set of relationships with Western politicians which means that Western politicians are very reluctant to challenge Kigali ultimately unless you force these leaders bring them to the table via means of international sanctions International boycotts

close the money tap we're not going to see this um conflict ending unless you have some serious pressure being placed on the groups and while this cycle of conflict goes on driven by all sorts of motivations and competing interests it is unsurprisingly civilians who are bearing the biggest cost thousands of people have been killed in the recent fighting and hundreds of thousands have been displaced almost 1 million people were already living in camps around GMA they'd fled there to escape other rounds of fighting over the years but some of those camps have been attacked and

destroyed and the M23 have also ordered thousands of people to leave these camps it's a critical issue here because you've got some of the most needy people on the face of this Earth really people that have been displaced for 2 years 3 years and even more now having to return back to their their home villages for decades the conflict in eastern DRC has also been characterized by some of the worst atrocities imaginable some of the commanders have actually been found guilty of war crimes at the international criminal court in the Haag and this pattern of

violence is still playing out Human Rights Watch says that in recent fighting both sides have killed and raped Camp residents interfered with Aid delivery and committed other abuses UNICEF says children are also being targeted with rape and at levels surpassing anything they've seen in recent years the UN has accused the M23 of executing children I honestly don't think we've heard the extent of the humanitarian crisis unfolding sexual and gender based violence directed at children at women has really left scars that will continue on in individual Community lives for years to come at the end of

the day it's uh 30 years of suffering for millions of conges people who do not have anything to do with the interest of one or another and who only want to live in a peaceful uh country at start here we cover topics that come up in the news check out this video we made that explains international law and the ICC and follow me on Instagram so you can stay up to date with all the stories we're working on [Music]