News

The Democratic Republic of the Congo: Rebel Forces Marching Towards Goma

In the colonial era, two of the main powers that decided to colonize Africa were Britain and France. Over several months during the Berlin Conference in 1884, they divided up Africa just by drawing lines on a map. Britain wanted a series of colonies stretching from Cape-town to Cairo, and France wanted to go from west to east from Senegal to Djibouti. Through what is now called the Scramble for Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium took the country in the center of Africa– the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He called it the Congo Free State and carved his way through the “explorations” of Henry Morton Stanley and used the country for its resources. Instead of investing in the country like at least France and Britain had done–such as installing schools, building roads, and bringing what they deemed “civilization” to people– Leopold instead created labor-intensive industries in which local people were forced to work in under horrible conditions and that stripped the country of rubber and ivory in order to gain wealth for himself. The Belgium citizens didn’t know he was doing it. The rubber factories were horrible institutes where workers’ arms and legs were cut off if they didn’t bring in their allotted amount of rubber.  

Providing evidence of the Congo Free State’s common practice of cutting off hands of unproductive rubber harvesters is a missionary of the Congo Balolo Mission. From the collection of the Centre for the Study of World Christianity, Edinburgh.

Eventually Roger Casement and Jules Marchal figured out that ships were going into Congo empty and coming out full of rubber, not like any sort of trade exchange, and helped raise awareness of the situation. This began the first major Human Rights awareness movement to stop the rubber extraction in Congo. Mark Twain was also involved with this movement as well, publishing writings against the Belgium king. “Twain’s fiercest denunciation of the exploitation of another people by a Western power was directed at Belgium’s King Leopold and his Congo Free State’s systems of extracting ivory and then rubber from the heart of Africa” (Mark Twain’s Defense). In response, the Belgium government took out Leopold but didn’t make the situation better. 

The country had no groundwork, no foundation to succeed, with no unifying government coming out on top and very low literacy rates among the people as barely any education systems had been set up. There were no roads connecting the country, and “maps show roads linking Congo’s east and west, but on the ground they are often not there. The government in Kinshasa struggles to find out what is happening in the east, let alone govern it.” (Resurgence) 

The country gained independence in 1960 with Mbutu Sese Seko ending up as president. Mbutu stayed in government for around 30 years, and his corrupt leadership made the situation even worse. He didn’t pay the military and so they just stole from the people below them, who in turn stole from the people below them, and ultimately the population suffered. There were no services for the public, and they were constantly being taken from by those in higher power.  

Then in 1994 the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, were afraid of targeted retribution and so fled to Eastern DRC along with some of the population. Mbutu sent forces to clear them out and so the army attacked the Rwandan refugee camps and the leaders fled back to Rwanda. But while they were in the DRC, Rwandan leaders had seen how they could take advantage of the lawless and struggling country. So they organized armies and went into Congo. More different groups started coming in such as Portugal, Uganda, Belgium, and Angola, and they started backing different Congolese ‘rebel groups.’ All were trying to take control of the country and be able to extract more wealth from it for themselves, especially in Congo’s rich resources of minerals such as cobalt. 

This is the backdrop for the complicated layers of conflict and struggle that is happening in the DRC today. As an article from the Economist puts it: “To call eastern Congo complex is like calling the Congo river a stream. It hosts dozens of overlapping conflicts, involving perhaps 120 militias. To oversimplify: the killing is driven mainly by the failure of the state. ”  

The Congo river. (Google Images)
A Potemkin tour of eastern Congo fails to conceal the scale of bloodshed

The country formed the Congolese army called the NCDP, or the National Congress for the Defense of the People. A group of the Tutsi minority mutinied in 2012 and formed the M23 or March 23 Movement, named after the date of a failed peace accord. They said they did this because they were not happy with pay and conditions of the Congolese army, but also had more complicated reasons.

 In 2013, this rebel army stormed through the hills of eastern DRC, ravaging villages, and ended in the taking of the city of Goma, situated in North Kivu, a city of 700,000 people. M23 was eventually demobilized when the UN pressured Rwanda to stop backing the rebel force. But now M23 is attacking again, in almost the same patterns of claiming strategic villages. In an area where multiple armed groups have wrangled over the land and resources for decades, M23 is further destabilizing the area. There had been a ceasefire, and they said they had waited nine years for a peace accord that hasn’t happened and now are going to resort to violence. If they continue to Goma, the DRC will use force. Other countries are sending in troops trying to stop them from their second march on Goma, and people are waiting to see if foreign troops will prevent battle. (DRC Fighting). In the ensuing conflict, thousands have been displaced in recent weeks and many have sought refuge in Goma and hundreds have marched in Goma, protesting against Rwanda and for peace. DRC accuses Rwanda of backing M23 although Rwanda defies that. 

Thousands have been displaced as DRC’s army struggles to stop the M23’s advance [File: Moses Sawasawa/AP Photo]
M23 hopes to topple the government by getting to Kinshasa, the capital of DRC. It is always a worry that they will gain further positions than before. But, “given the fact that M23 is a ragtag army, and the vast 1136 km distance between Goma and Kinshasa, it is highly unlikely that the rebels can topple the government…Many say the rebellion is fuelled by the presence of vast mineral resources in eastern DR Congo, claiming the rebels want to win control of them” (Q&A). Martial law, the army employed by the government to stop M23’s advance, has not made anything more secure. “This year more than 2,000 people are known to have been slaughtered with bullets or machetes in these provinces. Many more die of disease or hunger because of the strife. Over the same period 1.3 million Congolese have been forced to flee their homes, swelling the number of internal refugees to 5.5m. That total is more than in any country except Syria.” (Ec Martial Law). 

Please keep this country in your prayers, and keep yourself updated on M23’s march on Goma. People should know about the situation in the DRC, and not a lot of people do. Congo matters. An article in the Economist explains that its war might be more confusing than the good-versus-evil struggle in Ukraine, but tens of millions of people are suffering because of it. This beautiful, densely populated, politically unstable, and resource-rich country at the heart of Africa cannot prosper until Congo is stable. 

 

Sources: 

 

Image credit

All images are taken from articles in sources or from google maps/images.

Cover image caption: A Congolese army tank heads toward the front line near Kibumba in the area surrounding the North Kivu city of Goma, Congo, on May 25 during clashes between the Congolese army and M23 rebels. ARLETTE BASHIZI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Comments are closed.