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Rwandan backed rebel fighters are battling the Congolese army for control over the key city of Goma. African leaders have called for negotiations between Rwanda and the DRC after reports of thousands of Rwandan troops entering the city alongside M twenty three rebel fighters.
We do not see.
From where I said, a possibility of a military solution to the challenges that faced eastern DRC. It was, it is, and I'm sure it will continue to be the case that engagement, dialog, consultations is the only viable way out of the situation in DRC.
The Rwandan president again denied this was a Rwandan offensive.
Twenty three are not Rwandan's please.
On today's episode of The Next Africa Podcast, we'll ask what's behind this latest round of fighting in this three decade long conflict and what the repercussions could be if a ceasefire isn't forthcoming. I'm Jennifer's Aposaga and this is the Next Africa Podcast, bringing you one story each week from the continent driving the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg can provide. Joining us this week are Bloomberg reporter Simon Marx and also Michael Kavanaugh, who
have both reported extensively throughout the region. Guys, thanks so much for being here. There's so much to discuss. This is obviously a fast moving situation. But Simon, maybe you can start us off by giving us a bit of context about who as of the people are that are involved in this fighting that we should be paying close attention to.
So this is a long running conflict. It's been going on for many years in eastern Congo, and it's extensively between two groups. It's the CONGLESE Army and also the M twenty three rebel group, which is largely drawn from Congolese communities of Rwandan origin. It's a very well organized rebel group that you and experts and many observers of what's happening in eastern DRC say are backed heavily by
the Rwandan state. Why Rwanda, Well, that's because Rwando are keen to see the Congles of Tutsi origin protected and their rights protected. They've had a long standing belief that Tutsis in this region have been discriminated against and their rights have not been upheld. This is really the origin of this year's long conflict that now exploded into the streets of Goma. Well, M twenty three have come in and seized large portions of the city, and.
From my understanding, much of M twenty three is made up of those with Tutsi origin.
Michael, is that fair to say?
It's fair to say, you know, the Tutsis and Hutusa found in a lot of the countries around the region, specifically in Rwanda, of course, but there are also in Uganda and Burundi, in particular in Urundi and then in
eastern Congo as well. And throughout history there have been movements of this population throughout the region for various reasons, colonial reasons, economic reasons, and reasons of violence, because there has been tension over the years between the two communities that the Hutus and the Tutsis, and you know, the most famous one of course for us in our lifetimes
or many of our lifetimes. So there are in nineteen ninety four Rwandan genocide which killed probably you know, between eight hundred thousand and a million, mostly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus during that time, and that's really the impetus for the current conflict. All these years later because after the genocide, Rwandan mainly Twozi led rebel movement pushed the Hutu movement out that had the government that had killed all the Chutsis and Rwanda pushed them into Congo, and
then a war broke out in Congo. The Congolese government was oversthrown. But we've seen sort of the embers of this war still burning and the embers of the genocide still burning in eastern Congo and throughout the country ever since.
And you mentioned, of course this has been going on for several decades. Maybe you can contextualize what the current conflict though, is over. Is it still dating back to a lot of these tribal issues that we saw, and why is it concentrated in Goma Michael.
It's still related in part to what happened all the way back then. These communities still exist and there is a rebel group known as the FDLR, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, whose origins are found in the perpetrators of the genocide. Though there are probably almost no people who've perpetrated genocides still among this group, they still the n per want and government thinks that they promote this genocidal ideology, and they believe they're.
An existential threat to the country.
They believe that genocidal ideology is a threat to Rwanda entirely and they need to completely stamp it out. At the same time, Eastern Congo is a place where rebel groups thrive.
They're probably more than one hundred that are there. It's a chaotic place.
There are rebels that oppose the governments of Uganda, of Rwanda, of Burundi. It's a place where there are many small rebel groups that protect local communities. There are ethnic issues, there are land issues, and of course there are economic issues as well, because Eastern Congo is extremely rich in natural resources. The land is fertile, the land is full
of minerals. It's the most important place in the world for a mineral and are called coltan, which is in just about all of your mobile phones and all of
your laptops. And there's tin ore, there's gold, and especially in the last few years with the rise in the price of gold and some of the other minerals located there, we're seeing a real update take in conflict linked to the exploitation of minerals, which are then smuggled through neighboring countries, enriching armed groups, enriching certain communities, enriching Congo's neighbors, but
not enriching the Congolese. And so this has become a massive flashpoint between local communities and between the regional nations there who are all benefiting in some way from Eastern Congo's resources. But it's resulting in pretty serious conflict and that ends up in Goma. Goma is really the focal
point because it's the main trading hub. It's right on the border with Rwanda, near lakes, It's near lots of different ways where you can sort of transport various natural resources to both sides, and so Goma has become the focal point. It's also where the UN is based and where most NGOs are based.
And we've heard President Kagame of Rwanda deny that Rwanda has any involvement.
Is he still standing by that right now? Simon?
I mean, what are we hearing from Rwanda especially about this current conflict because it is getting international attention.
Yeah, President off Rwanda has been quite coy about this issue for a long time. For many years, he outright denied any involvement or links to the m twenty three rebel group. But in recent years, UN experts have done a lot of probing on this issue and have found lots of material evidence of Rwandan troops based inside Congo and also weapons acquired by the Rwandan army also appearing
on the battlefield. So it's become very hard for Porlka Garmi to continue with this outright denial, and I think more recently it's fair to say he's become let's say, a bit more philosophical about Rwanda's position on this. He often talks about the importance of protecting Congolese communities of Tutsi origin in the country. He often talks about the need to eradicate the FDLR group, which Michael just mentioned.
So it's clear Rwanda has a very strong ideological stance in this conflict, but there are many who think that it goes way beyond that. It's also a quest for ownership of the land of the economic riches in this area that Rwanda benefits from.
Stick with us, Simon and Michael when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about the international reaction and what impact it could have on the wider region.
As this continues we'll be right back. Welcome back.
Today, we're talking about the fighting in Goma between Rwandan backed rebels and the Congolese forces that has left many people dead.
And millions more at displaced.
We have Michael Kavanaugh and Simon Marx, our reporters, with us. What's been the reaction to this latest round of fighting. Michael, you, from my understanding, used to live in the DRC.
You've spent a lot of time there.
How does this reaction compare to what you guys have seen in the past.
The last time that the M twenty three took Goma was in twenty twelve. There was an enormous international reaction, an enormous amount of pressure on Rwanda on the twenty three. Eventually, an Adventure Brigade was formed by the United Nations which went and fought the M twenty three and destroyed them, at least temporarily.
This time we're not seeing yet the same amount of pressure.
We're not seeing the same level of sanctions, the same level of attention.
And there's no doubt that the moment when this invasion.
Of Goma is happening is a particularly interesting moment because there's a change of administration in the United States. The US has been the most outspoken about Rwanda's influence on the M twenty three and its participation in this conflict. And there's also a change of course at the African
Union as well in terms of the leadership. So you know, this is a moment where I think there's a lot of flux in the international community and people aren't quite sure what to do to get Rwanda to change its policy towards the M twenty three, nor to figure out how to bolster the Congolese army in a way that would allow them to fight back from the M twenty three advance. So it's a very confused, continuous situation, and countries are starting to talk about sanctions, starting to talk
about other ways, other levers of pressuring Rwanda. But Rwanda has already gone through this before, and the M twenty three have gone through this before, and so they certainly if they're willing to take Goma again, they're ready to face those similar kind of consequences. And so I think that's the reason why people are so concerned that actually the endgame might be a kind of broader war and more extensive occupation of eastern Congo. Now that's a pretty
extreme thing to say. We don't know that that's what's going to happen, but this is what various actors and experts are warning about.
Are there other players or leaders on the continent who could make a difference though, because we've heard South African President Ramaposa has called President Kagame, would that move the needle potentially?
So I think in terms of the continent's ability to ride in this, I mean we've seen the East Africa community today as we speak, holding talks in Nairobi, and the African Union has a summit next month in Addis where they have scheduled a meeting, high level meeting about this crisis. And Angola has had a very sort of key role in in mediating this crisis with its president Jo Lorenzo, and he will be taking over the presidency
of the African Union. So I think these are the countries that you have to watch for and you can probably see a scenario. I know a lot of European countries are already looking at trying to back a sort of AU led peace initiative led by the Angolans on this. Whether it gains any steam, it's hard to say because the longer a ceaspire isn't agreed to, the more the potential for this thing, the spiral.
Could you and peacekeepers potentially make a difference. They've been there throughout these years.
The Manusco peacekeeping force in Eastern Congo has been pretty useless, to be honest, in containing this war. It's highly imp popular. It's not seen as a unit that engages when violence actually comes about. It struggled to protect communities and because of that, actually they've had a steady process of drawing
down their troops from the region, not increasing them. In recent days we've seen the Blue Helmets pull back and not really get too involved in this fight, albeit some of them have lost.
Their lives Michael.
And the unit is there, of course to back up the Congolese army, and that's become more and more true over the years that if the Congolese army is not fighting, then the UN is not going to go out of their way to attack the rebel groups or push them back. But they do provide still really important logistics, you know, healthcare and medicine. They provide important places, you know, when these conflicts kick off, like we're seeing right now, where does everyone go the UN bases. The UN bases are
full right now, they're full. They're taking more fired at, taking bullets, but they're surrendered troops, surrendered militia, you know, civilians, human rights defenders, Congolese government officials.
The UN has.
All been working to evacuate them, treat them.
So they still play a very essential.
And important role in the region if they're just not like a hot army.
The risk for Polka Gami in backing the M twenty three arguably is a lot less today than what it was ten twelve years ago, the last time the M twenty three stormed into Goma. And that's because Rwanda has a much bigger role to play on the continent but also internationally with its relationships with governments across the globe. And it does this by providing large numbers of peacekeepers
to various contingencies of the UN across Africa. It has its soldiers in the Central African Republic where it's supporting the government on a bilateral basis, and it's helping a lot in Mozambique to protect French LNG assets that TOTAL are interested in. And so in general, I think a lot of people view Rwando's a bit of a post genocidal success story. But when you go to the country, that's what people see first and foremost, and this is one could go with quite a lot of accolades.
So then considering all of this, you guys, before we wrap up, what will determine what happens next? I mean, Michael, you were laying out how this is a changing world order, right we have a new US administration, different leaders have come into power on the continent.
What's determining the outlook.
The Congolese believe that the international community needs to intervene.
They've asked for two emergency sessions of the Security Council to ask for sanctions, to ask for sanctions against Rwandan officials, political and military. They've asked for embargoes on the sale of Rwandan minerals and the purchase of weapons. But at the moment this has still falling on deaf ears. So if you're from the Congolese point of view, they really need international pressure on Rwanda. It's just not clear that
that pressure is being mobilized right now. Without that kind of pressure, Rwanda is seems to be happy to carry on and again because they feel like they have security risks. Existential security risks. They're protecting their borders, they're protecting their country.
They have seen a genocide, they have seen the effects of extreme violence as it spreads, and they're sick of the chaos on the border in eastern Congo, and so you know, they feel they're justified in what they're doing right now because of that.
The big question is can you get Felix Jiessicadi and Polka Gum in a room together, And it's been a very long time since that's happened. There are attempts to and I think Ruto has attempted to do that even today in Nairobi, but it's not happened. So the longer this goes on, the higher the risk of what people call, you know, a regional conflict could occur. So you know, the head of M twenty three political wing, Colne n Anga, he's out there saying that he wants to push on
even beyond so he's being very vocally bullish. This is one to watch in terms of whether this escalates way beyond the city of Goma.
And you can read all of our coverage across Bloomberg platforms. Now here's some other stories we've been following across the region. This week, but Tswana's President Dumaboko, who swept to power in October elections, said his government has reached a diamond extraction and sales agreement with tbiers that will bring certainty to the gem dependent economy. The Southern African nation is the world's biggest producer of rough diamonds by value and
the industry generates the bulk of its income. And former South African President Jacob Zuma's daughter will face charges related to anti government riots in the country four years ago in which three hundred and fifty four people died. And you can follow these stories across Bloomberg, including the Next African Newsletter. Will put a link to that in the show notes. This program was produced by Adrian Bradley. Don't forget to follow and review this show wherever you usually
get your podcasts. I'm Jennifer Zabasoga. Thanks as always for listening. We'll see you next time.