Beyond the Single Story: Rwanda’s Support to the March 23 Movement (M23)

Alphonse Muleefu

doi:10.37974/alf.244

Abstract

Since the news broke about the mutiny of some of the Congolese Armed Forces - Forces Armees de la Republique Democratique du Congo (FARDC) in April 2012 and their subsequent creation of the March 23 Movement (M23), we have been consistently supplied with one story about the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). A story that puts much emphasis on allegations that the government of Rwanda and later to some lesser extent that of Uganda are supporting M23 against the government of the DRC...

Highlights

Since the news broke about the mutiny of some of the Congolese Armed Forces - Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) in April 2012 and their subsequent creation of the March 23 Movement (M23), we have been consistently supplied with one story about the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
A story that puts much emphasis on allegations that the government of Rwanda and later to some lesser extent that of Uganda are supporting M23 against the government of the DRC. This narrative was reinforced when the UN Group of Experts for the DRC (GoE) issued an Addendum of 48 pages on June 25, 20121 making allegations similar to those already made in Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) report of June 3, 20122, that the government of Rwanda was providing direct support in terms of recruitment, encouraging desertion of FARDC soldiers, providing weapons, ammunitions, intelligence, political advice to the M23, violating measures concerning the freezing of assets and collaborating with certain individuals
Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) was operating inside the DRC together with the FARDC under an agreement between Rwanda and the DRC to fight the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) rebels, which meant eliminating security concerns for Rwanda

Summary

Introduction

Since the news broke about the mutiny of some of the Congolese Armed Forces - Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) in April 2012 and their subsequent creation of the March 23 Movement (M23), we have been consistently supplied with one story about the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Parties agreed among other things to (art.1) the transformation of CNDP into a political party and reintegration of its forces into the FARDC, (art.3) adoption of amnesty, (art.4) facilitation of national reconciliation, (art.5) resolution of local conflicts, and (art.6) return of refugees.[12] M23, whose name stems from that peace agreement, accuse the DRC government of “failure to restore security in the Kivu, failure to return refugees, discrimination in the army, and the killing about 50 of their colleagues who were transferred to Dungu in the Orientale Province.”[13] The eastern DR Congo has been under the control of those different armed groups for a very long time now. James Kabareba, Rwanda’s Minister of Defence, French being the original version

14 HRW ‘MONUC: A Case for Peacekeeping Reform

Rwanda’s International Conspiracy ‘paranoia’

Motivation for Rwanda’s Support for M23

Findings

Conclusion