The M23 Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Civilians in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are living in a nightmare. In the past year, the Rwandan-backed March 23 Movement – or M23 for short – has raped and killed dozens of civilians in the DRC’s North-Kivu province.

And this isn’t the first time. A decade ago this same group operated in the same part of the Congo, with funding and some military support from Rwanda. 

But back then, in 2013, the Obama administration used diplomacy and legal tools, like sanctions to pressure Rwanda to stop its support of M23. The group collapsed without that Rwandan backing. And many analysts thought it was gone for good. Until now. Rwanda has restarted its support of M23 and the group is clashing with the Congolese military, attacking civilians along the way.

Only this time, the US response has been more talk and less action. The Biden administration has warned Rwanda to withdraw support from M23, but it hasn’t used the same diplomatic and legal tools that worked a decade ago. 

To explain the conflict in DRC, and what the United States can do to pressure Rwanda to withdraw, we have Daniel Levine-Spound and Ari Tolany. Daniel is a human rights lawyer and researcher who specializes in the DRC and South Sudan. Ari is the Program Manager for the U.S. Program at the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), a nonprofit organization which works to prevent civilian harm.  

Show Notes: 

• Daniel Levine-Spound (@dlspound) 
• Ari Tolany
• Daniel and Ari’s Just Security article on the M23 conflict and the U.S. response 
• Just Security’s DRC coverage
• Just Security’s Rwanda coverage
• 23:45 NYU’s American Journalism Online Program
• Music: “The Parade” by “Hey Pluto!” from Uppbeat: https://uppbeat.io/t/hey-pluto/the-parade (License code: 36B6ODD7Y6ODZ3BX)
• Music: “Caravan” by “Arend” from Uppbeat: https://uppbeat.io/t/arend/caravan (License code: QVHYMGIQGD5TGMEP)

Transcript

Paras Shah: Civilians in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are living a nightmare. 

Al Jazeera clip: Josephine Mwamini told us that their husbands were killed when the M23 armed group attacked their villages. Many people in this camp on the outskirts of Goma tell similar stories. Josephine says she went back to her village and found her husband dead, among about 30 men who were killed with machetes and left barely buried in shallow graves. 

Paras: In the past year, the Rwandan-backed March 23 Movement — or M23 for short — has raped and killed dozens of civilians in the DRC’s North Kivu province.

And this isn’t the first time. A decade ago this same group operated in the same part of the Congo, with funding and some military support from Rwanda. 

But back then, in 2013, the Obama administration used diplomacy and legal tools, like sanctions, to pressure Rwanda to stop its support of M23. And it worked. The group collapsed without that Rwandan backing. And many analysts thought it was gone for good. Until now. 

Rwanda has restarted its support for M23 and the group is clashing with the Congolese military and attacking civilians along the way. Only this time, the US response has been more talk and less action. The Biden administration has warned Rwanda to withdraw support from M23, but it hasn’t used the same diplomatic and legal tools that worked a decade ago. 

While the United States has poured billions of dollars in aid and weapons to support Ukraine, it has done far less for the DRC. Those different responses undermine the idea that every country should be free from aggression by its neighbors and that there are consequences to violating those international rules.

This is the Just Security podcast. I’m your host, Paras Shah.  

To explain the conflict in the DRC, and what the United States can do to pressure Rwanda to withdraw, we have Daniel Levine-Spound and Ari Tolany. Daniel is a human rights lawyer and researcher who specializes in the DRC and South Sudan. Ari is the Program Manager for the U.S. Program at the Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), a nonprofit organization which works to prevent civilian harm. 

Hey, Ari, hey, Daniel, welcome to the show. 

Ari Tolany: Thanks for having us. 

Paras: Before we can discuss the current conflict in the DRC and how the US should respond to M23, we need to understand the history of how it came to be. And this history is important because it helps to explain why Rwanda is so involved in the DRC and how M23 emerged and what its goals are. 

Daniel, where do we need to start in order to understand the M23 movement?

Daniel Levine-Spound: So let's start with one of the worst events of the 20th century, the Rwandan genocide. In 1994, over the course of several months, approximately 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by government forces and extremist militias.

Paras: Just to remind listeners, the Tutsi and Hutu are ethnic groups in Rwanda. Tell us more about the conflict. What happened when it ended?

Daniel: During that time, the Rwandan government was fighting a war against the rebel army known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front or RPF, and President Paul Kagame, or current Rwandan President Paul Kagame was a key leader. When RPF took over the country and effectively ending the genocide, thousands of Rwandans crossed the border into the DRC, and many lived in refugee camps along the border. 

Paras: How does the Rwandan government react to all these refugees leaving its country and moving into the DRC?

Daniel: In 1996, Rwanda and a couple of other regional states invaded DRC under the cover of Congolese rebellion, and they dismantle these refugee camps. They overthrow the Congolese government and they install a new president close to Rwanda, whose name is Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Kabila soon falls out with Rwanda and Uganda, one of the other states involved, and we see a new war break out in 1998. This time, things don't end conclusively. The Congo is divided between areas controlled by the Congolese government and those controlled by neighboring states through proxy forces. In 2002, a peace deal is signed, the country's reunified, and the withdrawal of foreign forces is stipulated.

Paras: In theory, a peace deal would have ended conflict in the area, right? But clearly that didn't happen here. Why did these tensions continue? 

Daniel: Rwanda, as well as their Congolese proxy force known as the RCD, aren't comfortable with an arrangement that didn't favor them. Rwanda had substantial economic and political interests in Eastern DRC. And many leaders of RCD, the Rwandan proxy, were Congolese Tutsi, a community that includes a number of influential businessmen and landowners, but has also faced waves of discrimination and times of violence in the Congo. For Rwanda, there were, I think, significant fears that the end of the war could mean danger for those for that community, as well as the end of their, you know, ability to profit economically from control of the DRC. So from 2004 to 2013, we basically have seen a series of important rebellions, led primarily by Congolese Tutsis, with on again, off again, support from Rwanda.

Paras: And Daniel, what was the reason for these rebellions?

Daniel: The causes of these rebellions are complex and contested, but we can think about both economic and security interests for many former rebels and their Rwandan backers. 

I think it's true that many fear that the Congolese state and feel the Congolese government wasn't interested in protecting the Tutsi community. And obviously the persistence of a former armed group known as FDLR, perhaps added to this fear. So in 2009, the Congolese government makes a deal with CNDP, which was at that point, the largest Rwandan backed rebel group, and the agreement is pretty vaguely written, but it stipulates that CNDP officers are going to be included in the security forces, and that CNDP will be transformed into a political party. 

Paras: Okay, so M23 takes its name from the day that agreement was made, March 23, 2009. Why is that day so significant to them?

Daniel: M23 emerges with the claim that this agreement has not been implemented. That's one of the original arguments that they make when they're formed. And when they emerge about a decade ago, you know, they quickly take over significant territory, much like they're doing today. But they notably took over the city of Goma, the most important city in the region, and they're accused of pretty egregious violations of international law. After M23 takes over Goma, there's a major international reaction, and the group is eventually defeated.  

And then after M23 is defeated, we really don't hear much from them. There are reports of M23 reemerging in 2017, but mostly for the past decade, we haven't heard much from M23, and international attention has really focused on other actors. That's partially why I think analysts were so surprised when M23 suddenly reemerges in 2021.

Paras: What exactly is the extent of Rwandan involvement in this conflict?

Daniel: So this is a really, really important question, perhaps the most important question. So at this point, there's really overwhelming evidence that M23 is benefiting from support from the Rwandan government. And I think we can think about Rwandan support in terms of two key elements. First, we have significant material and logistical support from Rwanda to M23, which includes things like weapons and munitions and uniforms. So if you talk to people in the DRC, including at the UN, they'll tell you that in contrast to other armed groups, M23 largely functions like a conventional military. It's well trained, well organized and has proven much more adept at holding on to territory than other groups. So that's part one.  

And then part two, we have, you know, substantial evidence of direct Rwandan military intervention in Congo. So this is Rwandan troops, Rwandan regular troops crossing from Rwanda into the Congo, both in support of M23 and to conduct unilateral military offensive operations against the Congolese military and other groups. Rwanda has denied supporting M23. We have no admission from the Rwandan government.

Paras: Daniel, thanks for walking us through that history. What we can see is that there is a long pattern of Rwandan involvement in the DRC and its support of M23 is an important piece of that context. I want to change gears a little and ask about the US’ response to what was happening in 2013. As the Obama administration is watching these events unfold, there must have been concern about how M23 would impact regional stability. How did the Obama administration react to the group?

Ari: So, the US used its security cooperation activities with Rwanda to kind of create a carrot and a stick. So, the US is among Rwanda's largest bilateral donors, but its security cooperation activities are actually pretty limited. So there were kind of two paths that the US pursued. And so what we initially saw was a real wave of congressional interest. So members of Congress and the Consolidated Appropriations Act and the National Defense Authorization Act, which are two pieces of must pass legislation, began to attach funding stipulations to foreign military financing for any state which was supporting certain armed groups in the DRC, so that's targeting support for M23. 

The other thing that the administration did, and this was really held up at the time as kind of a signature Obama administration foreign policy victory, was to use the Child Soldiers Prevention Act and designate Rwanda as a sponsor of child soldiers in order to automatically cut large portions of US security assistance, including critically International Military Education and Training, which is really the centerpiece of US support to Rwanda. Very famously, President Paul Kagame went through an IMED program in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 

And it's important to know that there are a lot of weaknesses and criticisms directed towards the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, that it ends up being wavered so much that it is toothless. And it's really important to note that the State Department and a lot of defenders of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act have really pointed to the Obama administration's actions in 2012, and stopping M23, as sort of a signature foreign policy victory of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act. However, with all of the waivers and the lack of Rwanda being designated last year, I think that really calls into question, again, the efficacy of the CSPA. And so Biden sort of has a chance here to revive and maybe replicate one of the Obama administration's sort of signature foreign policy victories, and also sort of reinforce or revive the utility of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act.

Paras: The Child Soldiers Prevention Act prevents the US from giving foreign military assistance, and that could mean financing and military education to groups that use child soldiers, or support groups that do. But because the executive branch can waive these restrictions, how effective of a tool was this law in the M23 conflict?

Ari: The Child Soldiers Prevention Act has been really criticized by human rights advocates as an ineffective tool because of the waiver system. So it was really important in this case that not only did the President Obama’s State Department designate Rwanda under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, it continued to actually enforce and not over-waiver restricted security assistance to prevent most IMED programming and other security cooperation going forward. 

Pretty critically, the United States was not Rwanda's largest security cooperation partner by far. It's a large bilateral donor, but its security cooperation programs with Rwanda are pretty heavily concentrated around International Military Education and Training, IMED. But what's really important about the US security cooperation enterprise as it sets the tone for a lot of other governments and donor states. So the US makes up over 40 percent of the global arms market. So even though its cooperation with Rwanda is pretty small, when the US made the decision to curb that assistance, it set the path for larger donors like France and the UK to accordingly cut their assistance. 

Paras: So just to make sure I'm understanding this right, the US and other Western countries used all these diplomatic and legal tools, like sanctions, to pressure Rwanda from stopping its support to M23. And once that Rwandan support is gone, the group essentially collapses. But if that's the case, why are we talking about M23 today? 

Daniel: Right, so basically, in November, this armed group, M23, emerges in North Kivu province in eastern DRC and begins attacking Congolese government or Congolese military posts. People don't really pay attention to this until 2022, when the violence gets a lot worse, and over the course of 2022,  what we basically see is M23 take over more and more territory and a growing number of villages and towns from the Congolese military. 

The Congolese military has tried multiple offensives to dislodge M23, but these have largely, although not always, been unsuccessful. M23 has indeed often responded with counter offensives that result in more territory being conquered. There have been a number of international initiatives to try to resolve this conflict, including negotiation processes hosted by neighbors and a regional force invited in by the Congolese government, but thus far, none of these have worked. You know, M23 remains in control of quite significant territory, and there's really no indication of an M23 withdrawal anytime soon. 

Paras: What other challenges is the M23 conflict making worse? 

Daniel: It should be stressed, really importantly stressed, that the conflict has had a devastating impact on Congolese civilians. The UN's estimated that 900,000 people have been displaced. Many of these displaced persons have little or no access to humanitarian assistance, or the most basic resources or services like food, clean water medicine. We've seen cholera and measles outbreaks in displaced persons camps and the response has been largely hindered by armed conflict.

Paras: Ari, I remember you saying that the Obama administration had a pretty hefty response to M23. It used different laws, sanctions and diplomacy to pressure Rwanda to pull support for M23. Has the Biden administration followed in his footsteps?

Ari: So today, the Biden administration's response has been a lot more muted than the Obama administration. We have seen public comment at the UN calling on Rwanda to seize supporting M23 and other sort of public diplomatic statements. It's also possible that there are security cooperation restrictions going on behind the scenes that we're not aware of. One thing that the Biden administration, I think, is really being characterized by is often that it prefers to conduct direct diplomacy around security cooperation, rather than publicizing or emphasizing what it's doing to a more general audience.

Paras: Okay, so from what we know, the executive branch isn't saying much publicly about its diplomatic efforts. But what about Congress? Are some members being more vocal? 

Ari: What we are seeing is a lot of interest from significant members of Congress, which could presage stronger action in this year's NDAA and Consolidated Appropriations Act. So we have really powerful senators like Senator Durbin, the current chair of the Judiciary Committee, and Senator Menendez, the current chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and both of them have issued public letters calling on Biden to review security assistance to Rwanda and curb or add more sanctions in light of its actions towards M23, and its actions in support of M23, rather.  

Paras: You also mentioned that the Child Soldiers Prevention Act is an important tool. Is Rwanda still designated under that law? 

Ari: Last year, Rwanda was not designated. So Biden really has two kind of simple two actions that he can take. So first, his administration should designate Rwanda as a sponsor of child soldiers in the 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report. And then second, Biden should not waive security assistance to Rwanda. The Stimson Center estimates that about 97% of all security assistance prohibited under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act has actually been waived and sent to countries which use child soldiers. So rather than waiving provisions in the national interest, the Biden administration should hold strong and prevent IMED, FMF and all of other band forms of assistance under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act from going to Rwanda until a set of narrow conditions are met, namely Rwanda ceasing support of M23 and withdrawing its own forces from the Congo. 

Paras: Daniel, sanctions were a big part of the story when the Obama administration acted. How can Biden use sanctions?

Ari: In addition to potentially cutting or curving or, you know, ideally, freezing security sector assistance to Rwanda, the administration can also take actions against potential Rwandan commanders or government officials. The US could take measures to sanction individual M23 commanders, and I think that could send a more powerful signal, it would certainly be a bold move, but can send a powerful signal about the fact that the US is willing to punish Rwandan officials themselves for what's happening in the DRC, not just M23 proxies.

Paras: As we've been talking, it made me think about how much the US talks about Russia's war in Ukraine. It seems like it comes up at every White House briefing or State Department briefing. But in comparison, the US says so much less about Rwanda's war in the DRC. What should we make of those two very different US responses?

Daniel: On the one year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, President Biden framed the way that the international community would respond to Russia as a question, would we respond? Or would we look the other way? And on Ukraine, what we've really seen is response. We don't need to get into the details,  but we've seen a significant response from the United States, and the West more generally, including the mobilization of language around international law, and a lot of discussion of the crime of aggression and violations of the UN Charter. And I think, when you look at this from the perspective of what's going on in the DRC and Rwanda, you really wonder, are we seeing two different standards depending on the context, right?

So when we hear about Rwanda and the DRC, often the narrative is one of confusion, different states supporting armed groups, lots of fighting going on. And the problem with that kind of language is it obfuscates what's going on, or a key part of what's going on, which is a Rwandan military intervention on Congolese soil, taking over a Congolese territory and fighting with the Congolese government. And with no, you know, adequate self defense argument or no admission of what it's doing. So I think, looked at it from the DRC perspective, it feels a little bit like there's a French expression, deux poids deux mesures, right? So two circumstances, two contexts, two different responses. And I think that really comes across in the DRC. 

I think if you're looking at this, again, from the perspective of a lot of people living in eastern DRC, we see that when Russia takes over significant territory and offers inadequate self defense arguments, it faces real consequences. But thus far, Rwanda has been able to take over significant territory and support an armed group for, at this point, way more than a year, and suffer very, very, very little economic or political consequences.

Ari: I would characterize the US response to the international order as international law for thee and not for me. So the US has always been extremely happy to advocate for international law and the UN Charter when it suits its goals, and it can be more happy to jettison those requirements when it is in its strategic interests or it's not, it's not seen as relevant. So you know, the US has applied very different rhetoric around international law and Ukraine than it has in Palestine, for example. 

And so I would just say that it is important, I think, because increasingly there is a perception among countries, and a very wide cognizance, that this is the approach. And I think if the US or other states are to have any kind of credibility in responding to international aggression, and promoting any kind of international order, those rules have to be evenly applied regardless if a country is a US ally, and regardless of the country and regardless of the region in which that country is located.

Paras: Daniel Ari, thanks so much for joining the show and helping us put this conflict, its costs and what the US can do in response in context. Your Just Security piece has much more on the law and policy dimensions of the conflict and the US response, and we'll link to it in the show notes.

Daniel: Thanks so much, Paras. It was great to be here.

Paras: The Just Security podcast is produced in partnership with NYU’s American Journalism Online program. AJO trains students to become world class journalists, no matter where they live or work. Find out more about AJO, and how you can apply, in our show notes.   

This episode was hosted by me, Paras Shah, with co-production and editing by Tiffany Chang and Michelle Eigenheer. Our music is the song “The Parade” by Hey Pluto! 

Special thanks to Clara Apt, Viola Gienger, Alex Kapelman, Ben Montoya, Daniel Levine-Spound and Ari Tolany.  

If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.