The Little Covered Big War in Congo and Rwanda
Foreign Policy Brief # 201 | Damian DeSola | May 20, 2025
To the average westerner, and especially to Americans, the African continent seems to be politically and economically monolithic. One could recall instances where an interviewed passerby on Jay Leno or Jimmy Kimmel’s show would refer to Africa as a country. This point of view makes the western public less capable of discerning and debating foreign policy as it relates to Africa. Therefore, it is the mission of this brief to inform readers of an infamous armed group that has made headlines for its brutality and human rights abuses, but whose history and status remain vague in the casual reader’s news feed: M23.
Origin of Ethnic Disputes in Rwanda and Eastern Congo
Before delving into the complex nature of this rebel group and the conflict it perpetuates, the ethnic tensions established by European colonization throughout Rwanda and Congo must be explored. During the Belgian colonial rule in sub-Saharan Africa, the three ethnic groups of Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa, collectively known as the Banyarwanda, who had been living together for thousands of years, were labeled and turned into a caste system. The Belgians assigned the minority Tutsi as the ruling class, the majority Hutu the working class, and the 1% Twa below the Hutu as tribespeople.
As Belgium prepared and enacted decolonization policies, years of oppressive Belgian-backed Tutsi monarchy and enforced class structure coalesced into immense hatred between the two ethnicities. Tensions culminated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide of Tutsi, Twa, and “Tutsi-aligned” Hutu by radical Hutu militias.
The genocide resulted in a massive refugee crisis, especially of Tutsi, who crossed into the existing Congolese Banyarwanda communities in the Kivu region of the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). All Tutsi that settled in the DRC since the region’s decolonization in the 1960s have experienced discrimination from native Congolese. Even as certain Tutsi families have achieved massive wealth and influence in the Kivu region, they still find their rights as business owners and political actors to be precarious due to Kinshasa’s (capital of the DRC) reluctance and incapacity to provide adequate security and civil protections of Banyarwanda residents.
M23 Predecessor: The CNDP (2006-2009)
M23 originates from the Tutsi military elite that remained after the dissolution of its predecessor, the Congrès national pour la défense du people (National Congress for the Defence of the People, CNDP) that occurred on 23 March 2009: hence the name M23. The CNDP was a Rwandan-backed Congolese rebel group that formed in reaction to the failed military integration efforts of disparate rebel groups across the DRC after the Second Congo War. It was a coalition of Eastern Congolese Hutu and Tutsi military elites.
The stated purpose of the CNDP was to return the approximately fifty-five thousand Congolese Tutsi refugees in Rwanda and the dissolution of the anti-Tutsi Hutu-led Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, FDLR). These stated goals continued into CNDP’s successor the M23. However, experts believe the true purpose of both rebel groups is more closely related to controlling Eastern Congo mineral mines, protecting local business interests, and maintaining dubious autonomy of Banyarwanda communities in the Kivu region.
After the Congolese military and other militias routed the CNDP, an attempt to integrate the CNDP was partially successful after the March 23rd treaty. The autonomy of the CNDP within the Congolese army allowed the rise of Congolese Tutsi military leader and notorious war criminal Bosco Ntaganda; the Congolese assigned him to lead the integrated CNDP in the Kivu region of Congo. As the DRC focused on removing Ntaganda from power and dispersing the former CNDP out of Kivu, mutinies began to take place throughout CNDP’s ranks. Eventually, the mutineers and their leaders retreated to Rwanda to reorganize and soon declared themselves the M23.
The Original M23 (2012-2013)
Led by Ntaganda, Sultani Makenga, and other senior ex-CNDP and Rwandan miliary officers, the M23 comprised mostly out of former CNDP Tutsi rebels. In April 2012, the newly formed M23 began asserting control over Kivu. Before their defeat in late 2013, M23 gained control over valuable mines and major cities, including the largest eastern city of the DRC, Goma.
After M23’s successes due to an incoordinate Congolese military, an international coalition made up of UN troops and regional militaries pushed M23 out of the DRC and into neighboring M23-friendly Uganda and Rwanda. On 5 November 2013, M23 admitted its defeat. M23 split into regional entities, effectively pacifying it for the following decade.
Throughout the evolution of M23, Rwanda played an outsized role in supporting the group and its predecessor. By sheltering M23 leaders, and supplying them with arms, recruits, military officers, and other forms of necessary support, Rwanda has taken advantage of these rebels. Kigali has benefitted from the access to minerals, a buffer zone created by the rebels, and the instability of its large neighboring rival. While denying all involvement in M23, evidence collected by the UN has shown irrefutable proof of Rwanda’s complicity in aiding M23’s abhorrent activity in the Eastern DRC.
The European Union and the United States have condemned and sanctioned M23 and Rwandan leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The UN’s Human Rights Watch (UNHRW) has found evidence of the group engaging in heinous acts of mass murder, rape, summary execution, and the forced recruitment of children and young men into their ranks under threat of death. The UNHRW has also identified the Rwandan Military (RDF) to be aiding M23’s conflict against the DRC as well as engaging similar underage recruitment and crimes against humanity.
When defeated in 2013, Ntaganda handed himself over to the US Embassy in Rwanda who transferred him to the ICC. In 2019 the ICC found him “guilty, beyond reasonable doubt, of 18 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Furthermore, a Congolese military court sentenced Makenga along with other M23 officers to death in absentia for treason and war crimes. Makenga and others sentenced remain part of M23 or at large.
The M23 Today (2019-Present)
After years of relative peace, M23 recently reignited conflict across Kivu and Eastern DRC, once again retaking mineral rich land and occupying cities, including the vital Goma. The stagnant peace talks between the DRC and M23 and lack of urgency on the part of the DRC allowed time for M23 to regroup on the borderlands of Mt. Sabyinyo. In early 2019, the first modern M23 attacks occurred. These coincided with multiple terrorist attacks in the Eastern DRC that Rwanda and the DRC attributed to Islamist extremists. Rwanda and the DRC agreed to allow a Rwandan police contingent to operate on Congolese territory to root out these extremists, but the Congolese population presented fierce resistance to legal Rwandan actions on DRC territory. The insecurity Rwanda felt from these protests prompted an increase of support for M23 to provide a regional buffer.
M23 escalated their attacks alongside Rwandan military units, continually expanding their territory which now extends across both Uganda and Rwanda’s border with the DRC. The UNHRW has found evidence of M23, Rwanda, the DRC, and DRC-aligned militias using artillery to decimate displacement camps. Multiple attempts by the DRC to defeat M23 have failed. Multinational coalitions comprising of regional partners, French diplomats, UN experts, and the African Union, engaged in efforts throughout the crisis. However, these diplomatic and military attempts have shown little result. In certain cases, M23 has returned certain villages and cities to occupation by Kenyan forces, but they still retain control over an extensive amount of Eastern DRC.
Recently, the DRC and M23 have begun peace talks in Doha, Qatar. While both sides show confidence and vow to work towards a lasting cessation of armed conflict, indications from inside sources paint pictures of reluctance and unwillingness to engage in necessary forms of trust building. M23 states it finds the DRC’s adverse attitude to releasing suspected M23 members from custody to be a sign of stagnation in any progress towards peace. Furthermore, the United States has recently shown interest in facilitating a peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda in hopes of gaining access to the mineral-rich land currently occupied by M23. The International Monetary Fund gave notice that the DRC is facing financial instability due to M23’s occupation of tantalum and gold mines.
Conclusion
This article provides an overview of M23’s history and ongoing conflict in Eastern DRC. The group, its Rwandan backers, the DRC, and the militias it backs, have all come under scrutiny for gross human rights abuses for purposes that remain vague. While news feeds focus on Ukraine and Israel, cases like M23’s go underreported and unnoticed. The near-nonexistent coverage by western news sources prevents any attention or real discussion of the situation. Without exposure to even a fraction of complex conflicts like that of the Congo, Rwanda, and M23, there cannot be national conversations that would lead to potential solutions. Meanwhile, the United States’ interest in peacemaking is exclusively based on a desire for mineral access.
The story of ethnic conflict in the Congo is far from over and atrocities against human beings will continue. It is our duty, with the liberty of information access and stable national security, to engage in conflict analysis and conversation for the sake of the millions of displaced people whose lives remain under constant threat.
Engagement Resources
- International Rescue Committee Democratic Republic of the Congo crisis profile
- UN brief history of Rwanda
- International Committee of the Red Cross: Democratic Republic of the Congo