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As M23 rebel group advances in Congo, a new leader signals a shift in its identity

As M23 rebel group advances in Congo a new leader As M23 rebel group advances in Congo a new leader

Kampala, Uganda – After Rwanda -backed rebels took control of the largest city in the eastern Congo this week, the man who came out of the shadow was not to confirm his leadership of the military leader for a long time.

Sultan McKenga, the ethnic leader of Tutsi, was approved by the United States and the United Nations, wherever he could see at the Serena Hotel in Guma, where Cornell Nanga bearded, in a military fatigue, was entered into the hall. Nanga, who is not Tutsi and analysts say it brings a more diverse face to the group, to reporters about his plan to fight all the way to Kinshasa, the national capital, a thousand miles away.

The scene was important because it embodies the development of the M23 from a group dominated by ethnic Tursi for more than a decade to one to one who is now actively seeking to be seen as a church national group. This is the case despite the military support he receives from neighboring Rwanda, according to observers and analysts in the Great Lakes region of Africa.

Nangaa is the former president of the Congo Electoral Commission, who supervised the 2018 presidential elections that President Felix Chesikde won. He was a controversial figure in Congolese policy for years. As Chairman of the Electoral Committee, he supervised the vote strongly on the vote that elected TSHISECEDI and led the United States to its sanctions in 2019 on charges of undermining the Congo democracy.

The fall with the Congolese authorities, including a dispute over the mining concession, led to Nanga in exile in Kenya. In 2023, he joined the Kongo River alliance, a political-military alliance, including 17 parties and a rebel group opposing the TSHISECEDI government and became a higher political figure.

Besides mining, his complaint is also believed that the alleged president’s refusal to defend the United States to bring down Nanga from the sanctions list, according to Christian Malik, a political scientist at the Congolese Research Center. Mulka said: “His perception that he has been subjected to treatment by the authorities is what drove him towards extremism.”

Last year, Makerga’s M23 joined the Kongo River alliance in Nanga and with Nanga at the top of the renewed uniform, the M23 looked more threatening the Congolese authorities, analysts say.

Angelo Isama, an analyst at Daban Vanaka Kuto, said in Uganda.

He said that the rebels want to raise a national discussion about the feelings of large -scale neglect in the Eastern Congo with the acquisition of “the largest possible amount of land so that they can force the Congolese state to deal with real issues of real autonomy and impose a kind of negotiation.” .

He added that forcing political negotiations is a “smart step” for the rebels, “the only path of this crisis.”

Unlike 2012, when the M23 Goma took a campaign led by Kennarawanda fighters who are mainly pressing their full integration in the Congolese army, “this time it has a national agenda,” the crisis group said.

With the Nanga Congo alliance as the “political umbrella” of the M23, the Research Center said that the rebels have accumulated resources and allies who made them “attractive partners not only for armed groups in the east (Congo) but for others who aim to undermine TSHISEDII.”

“This is in line with the potential strategy (Rwanda) to create a denial, but strong for the accuracy of the leverage on Kinshasa and its dominance over the north of Kivu (the boycott), at least,” said The Alaz Tank.

United Nations experts confirmed that about 4,000 Rwandan forces are returning M23 rebels in northern Kivu. To take Guma, which is located in a strategic location near the borders of Rwanda, the rebels defeated the Congolese government, which had long been supported by local militias known as Wazalendo, as well as the United Nations peacekeeping forces and the United Nations and regional mercenaries from Europe.

M23 has about 6,500 fighters, according to United Nations estimates. It appeared in 2012 as a rebel group led by the Congolese Ethnic Tutsi, which said the 2009 agreement was signed to care for their interests – including the integration into the army and the return of refugees from other places in East Africa – the Congo government violated.

Under Makenga, the Congolese Tutsi, took M23 Goma in the November 2012 attack and withdrew days after international pressure. They were shot later by the United Nations forces fighting alongside the Congolese government forces in a military campaign that forced hundreds of them to flee to Rwanda and Uganda. Makenga, a self -renewed brigade often seen practicing shepherd employees in the bush, was among those who fled to Uganda.

In December 2013, with hundreds of rebels in a distance area in western Uganda, the M23 signed an agreement with the Congo government that called for the return of the rebels to the Congo within a year. This has been proven that it is difficult to achieve due to a dispute over the rebels’ demand for a comprehensive pardon, while the Congo government wanted leaders like Makenga to tried their alleged crimes against civilians.

In 2016, hundreds of M23 rebels fled in Uganda, where they would be transferred to the Congo. The rebels returned in 2021 and became the most powerful of more than 100 armed groups competing for control of minerals rich. The US Department of Commerce estimates metal deposits of $ 24 trillion, most of which are necessary for global technology.

Unlike the year 2012, the Nangaa Point as the M23 interface is that it is from Haute-EuledE, not TURTSI. “The face, as M23 has always been seen as an armed group backed by Rwanda, defending the Tutsi minorities,” said Mulka.

The Washington Strategic Studies Center in Washington was martyred in an analysis published on Wednesday, as a “changing political account by the sponsors” from M23. Regional supporters have long -term goals in retaining and possibly expanding their regional control, “according to the evaluation of Paul Nantolla, the Ugandan analyst at the group.

At a M23 press conference in Goma on Thursday, Nanga said that the rebels were aiming to create a new administration in the city with a population of two million people now home to hundreds of thousands of displaced Congolese. The rebels spoke with the correspondents of their plans to return the displaced to their homes, which is a major challenge to TSHISEDII.

Nanga said: “We are here in Juma to stay as a Congolese,” Nanga said.

___

The Associated Press Mark Panshiro’s writer in Paris contributed to this report.

https://i.abcnewsfe.com/a/05a0d092-f862-4864-9930-46407046024c/wirestory_c8c83dfff70afdd1ea112b54f93515ff_16x9.jpg?w=1600

2025-02-01 07:30:00


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