Summary
The deployment of U.N. forces in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo to allow for negotiations has actually removed Kinshasa's incentive to negotiate with rebels there. Talks between the Congolese government and M23 rebels were suspended Oct. 21 over disagreements related to amnesty, disarmament and the reintegration of the rebels into the country's military. Kinshasa has no desire to allow M23, which started as a mutiny of Congolese forces, to return to its ranks, and since U.N. troops are present to limit the actions of M23, the Congolese government sees no reason to compromise.
Analysis
While mediators claimed over the weekend that an agreement was only hours away, disputes over the most important articles of a draft agreement led negotiators to suspend talks. In the meantime, both sides have reportedly reinforced their positions in North Kivu, the eastern Congolese state where the fighting has taken place.
Negotiations have been ongoing since M23 briefly took control of Goma, the capital of North Kivu, nearly a year ago. At the time, M23 had demonstrated that it could capture population centers, and the government was unwilling to dedicate enough forces to overturn the rebels' gains, giving Kinshasa an incentive to enter negotiations.
However, the Congolese government was never really committed to negotiations. Instead, it wished to use them to stall M23 while it attempted to weaken the group by other means. Initially, Kinshasa tried to disrupt the support M23 received from Congo's neighbors, Uganda and Rwanda. Uganda has occasionally supported rebels in Congo because of its own economic interests across the border. For its part, Rwanda has traditionally backed Tutsi rebels in eastern Congo, including M23, because they contain the threat of Hutu rebels and help Kigali access eastern Congo's mineral commodities. Eventually, regional organizations, such as the Southern African Development Community, and the West became involved, threatening sanctions and diplomatic backlash in an effort to cut off this foreign support for M23.
These efforts had an impact on M23, which saw the rise of two distinct factions -- one loyal to M23 leader Jean-Marie Runiga and the other to Sultani Makenga. Runiga was eventually removed from his command. With Makenga now serving as de facto commander, M23 remained a military threat but sought to proceed with negotiations.
However, a major breakthrough in Kinshasa's dealings with the rebels came in late March, when the U.N. granted a mandate for a U.N. intervention force to be deployed in Goma. Made up of troops from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi, the brigade was the result of an earlier intervention force that had been proposed by the Southern African Development Community. The presence of the intervention force reduced M23's ability to threaten to capture Goma, and after offensives by the Congolese military and U.N. forces, the rebels were also pushed out of a safety zone surrounding Goma. This ensured that the rebels would be distant enough from the city to prevent them from attacking it with longer-range weapons.
With the threat contained, Kinshasa was able to harden its stance in negotiations, leading to their eventual suspension. The Congolese government has allowed Tutsi rebel groups to reintegrate into the military in the past (M23 is drawn from the ethnic Tutsi and Rwandan-supported Congress National for the Defense of the People militia), but those groups' demands for preferential treatment on political issues have been a constant source of friction between the government and the rest of the military. Kinshasa wants to avoid repeating history with M23, but M23 is insistent because integration into the military would enable it to continue to protect Tutsis in the area while also defending their many economic interests such as illegal mining. As long as the Congolese military, with the help of U.N. troops, is able to hold back M23, the government will have no reason to moderate its position.
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