𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗠𝟮𝟯 𝗦𝗨𝗥𝗥𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗗 𝗚𝗢𝗠𝗔 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗦𝗔𝗗𝗖

In 2012, the Congolese army, UN MONUSCO and a South African led SADC force defeated the CNDP, forcing them to retreat to the Ugandan Sabinyo Mountains while peace negotiations, known as the Congolese peace process, took place.

In 2013, after the Congolese government refused to honor the agreement to integrate CNDP fighters into the national army so the group rebranded itself as the March 23 Movement, or M23 and rearmed.

In 2024, after defeating the Congolese army in several battles following President Tshisekedi’s failure to uphold a 2021 agreement, the East African Community (EAC) Force was deployed to oversee a ceasefire as part of negotiations in Angola and Kenya. However, the Congolese government expelled the EAC Force due to its lack of aggression and instead invited the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to intervene and crush M23.

When the Congolese army and its allies—including UN MONUSCO, SADC forces, Romanian mercenaries, the FDLR, and Wazalendo militias—began advancing on M23 positions in opposition to the ceasefire, M23 mobilized its fighters from the Sabinyo Mountains and villages across eastern Congo. They quickly surrounded Sake, Goma, and the DRC-allied forces.

In reality, since 2012, M23 have a base in the Sabinyo Mountains at the border of Uganda and Congo, but they are also deeply embedded throughout eastern Congo in a population of an estimated 12 million Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese villagers plus their extended families from intermarrying with other tribes. As a result, these communities can mobilize and strategically surround any enemy in the region because they are the majority population of the region.

A war in eastern Congo against M23 can never be decisively won because over 12 million Kinyarwanda-speaking people have intermarried with other tribes in the area, creating a vast support network willing to fight for their rights to their land.

Often times M23 soldiers move upon their enemy in civilian clothes — as they did at Goma airport — and then they pounce on the enemy unawares.

So as long as the Congolese government, the UN, and their allies continue to ignore the grievances of Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese, scapegoating them as Rwandans, the conflict will persist, and more people from these communities will become radicalized to join M23 in defense of their land.

Negotiation remains the only viable solution. As Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese continue to grow in numbers and intermarry with other ethnic groups, they will get stronger and become an even more formidable force. Any attempt to wage war in eastern DRC will be as futile as a fish trying to fight the water. Even Western armies would struggle to dislodge a people so deeply rooted in their land.