European Union calls on Rwanda to ‘stop supporting M23’ in DR Congo

Message to the Government of Rwanda to “stop supporting M23”the Tutsi rebel movement that has taken over much of the area north of Goma in the eastern sector of DR Congo, sent on Saturday the European Union.

Specifically, “strongly urges Rwanda” to “stop supporting M23” and “use all means to pressure M23 to comply with the decisions” of the heads of state and government of the East African Community of States, said a press release signed by Josep Borrell, the head of European diplomacy, and follows the release of a UN expert report on DR Congo.

In this report, released in December, experts tasked by the international organization to investigate the crisis stressed that they have “evidence” documenting that “direct intervention by the Rwandan armed forces on the territory of the DR Congo” was underway at least between November 2021 and October 2022.

Kigali is accused by Kinshasa, but also by the governments of the US and several EU member states, of supporting and fighting alongside the M23 rebels in North Kivu, a Congolese province that neighbors Rwanda. The rebel movement has seized vast swathes of land there in recent months.

Her government Rwanda firmly denies this accusation.

But according to the expert report, Rwandan military launched operations to “reinforce M23” as well as “against FDLR” (Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda, “Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda”), a predominantly Hutu armed organization founded by former officials accused of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

The existence and violence of this group, described as a threat by Kigali, has been cited as a justification for past interventions by the Rwandan army in DR Congo.

Release of UN experts’ report ‘puts an end to lies and deception’ of Kigali, which “abuses the good faith of international public opinion”, was the reaction of the government in Kinshasa yesterday Saturday.

Given the “gravity” of what he complains about, the DR Congo government called for this report to be considered by the UN Security Council so that Rwanda would suffer “all the consequences” and to “punish Rwanda for its aggression”.

In its statement, the EU also called on Kinshasa to “cease and prevent any cooperation” between its army and “armed groups, especially the FDLR”.

Rwanda on its side accuses DR Congo, where presidential elections are scheduled to be held in December 2023, of instrumentalizing the armed conflict for electoral purposes and of “fabricating” a massacre which, according to a United Nations investigation, was committed in late November by members of M23 and claimed the lives of at least 131 civilians in the villages of Kisise and Babo, according to the still preliminary casualty count.

Diplomatic initiatives are underway to resolve the crisis in the eastern part of DR Congo, where a regional power of East African states has begun to develop, under the administration of Kenya.

Fighting raged north of Goma on Friday between the DR Congo army, backed by paramilitaries, and M23 rebels.