UN peacekeeper Killed as Congo Army approaches rebel stronghold

A UN peacekeeper has been killed and
another injured during a third day of
fighting between government forces and
rebels in eastern Congo on Sunday, as the
army pressed toward the rebel stronghold
of Rutshuru.
The UN mission in Congo (MONUSCO) said
the Tanzanian peacekeeper was killed
during fighting with M23 rebels in the town
of Kiwanja, north of the regional capital
Goma, the largest city in eastern Congo.
“The soldier died while protecting the people of Kiwanja,” Martin Kobler, the head of MONUSCO,
said in a statement. The previous round of clashes between the army and rebels in late August
killed at least two Tanzanian peacekeepers.
Following two months of relative calm in the region, fighting flared up on Friday after peace talks
in Uganda broke down when M23 pressed for a full amnesty for its leaders. Each side blamed the
other for starting the fighting.
President Joseph Kabila, who last week threatened a return to military action, said an
unconditional amnesty was not an option.
A Congolese army officer on the front line said the army took Kiwanja and Kalingera from M23 on
Sunday, a day after wresting the strategic town of Kibumba near the Rwandan border from the
insurgents.
Fighting was continuing at Kiguri, 25 km (15 miles) north of Goma, he said.
The army had also opened a second front to the north of M23 positions and was moving
southward to Rutshuru, officers said.
“We are consolidating the zones we have conquered,” army spokesman Colonel Olivier Hamuli told
reporters near the front line. “Very soon we will take Rutshuru. Those who disarm, we will accept,
the others we will pursue.”
M23 said in a statement on Sunday it had withdrawn its troops from Kiwanja, accusing the army of
sending in fighters in civilian clothing to try to draw UN troops into the conflict.
M23 threatened to withdraw its delegation from the stalled peace talks in Kampala unless there
was an immediate end to hostilities. It said it would then launch a large-scale counter-offensive.
Tough New Mandate
Congo’s army, supported by a new UN intervention brigade, scored its first victories against the
rebel movement, which has been fighting for nearly two years, in late August, forcing the rebels
away from Goma.
The UN brigade has a tough new mandate to eliminate armed groups in the eastern provinces,
though it has not been involved in the past three days of fighting.
The support of the brigade and the weakening of the rebels has fuelled belief that Congo’s army –
notoriously disorganized, undisciplined and under-supplied – could defeat M23.
Army sources told reporters in Goma that M23 had been weakened by desertions, with some 40
rebels taking advantage of a corridor created by the government troops to allow then to flee rebel
lines.
M23 began in early 2012 as a mutiny by soldiers demanding the government implement the terms
of a 2009 peace deal signed with a previous Rwanda-backed rebel group, many of whose members
had been integrated into the army.
UN investigators and the Congolese government have accused Rwanda of supporting M23, charges
Rwanda has repeatedly denied.
Army spokesman Hamuli said some M23 fighters had fled towards the Rwandan border in the face
of the army advance.
“There are small pockets of M23 resistance in the hills near Rwanda,” he said. “We think Rwanda
has to prove its good faith and oblige M23 to disarm, or disarm them itself.”
He refused to discuss the possibility of a return to peace talks in Kampala. “We are soldiers,” he
said. “We will continue to do our jobs as soldiers.”