The top U.N. envoy in Congo said
Monday there are "credible reports" that the M23 rebel group is
recruiting fighters and resuming activities despite last month's peace
agreement with the Congolese government following its military defeat.
Martin Kobler told the U.N. Security
Council that the M23 must not be allowed to re-emerge as a military force,
which would roll back regional and international efforts to end decades of
fighting centered in mineral-rich eastern Congo.
M23 launched its rebellion in April
2012, becoming the latest reincarnation of a Tutsi rebel group dissatisfied
with the Congolese government. Rwanda's Tutsi-led government has been accused
by U.N. experts and others of backing the M23 and using it as a proxy force to
secure access to eastern Congo's lucrative mining trade — an allegation the
government denies.
The December peace agreement between
the M23 and Congo's government, which was signed in Nairobi, requires the
insurgent group to demobilize its fighters and transform itself into a
political party.
In the past month, however, Kobler
said, "there are credible reports that the military recruitment of the M23
did not cease ... (and) of emerging M23 activities in Ituri in northeastern
Congo."
He urged Congo's government to
implement the agreement with M23 and expedite the disarmament, demobilization
and reintegration of its fighters, a process he said "is still too
slow."
Kobler also urged the Rwandan and
Ugandan governments "to do everything possible to prevent M23 elements
from sheltering or training troops on their territory."
The Congo conflict is a spillover
from the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda. Hundreds of Hutus who
participated in the mass slaughter escaped into Congo and still fight there,
along with other armed groups.
In February, the Congolese
government and 10 other African nations including Rwanda and Uganda took the
most concerted action to bring peace to Congo by signing an agreement not to
interfere in each other's internal affairs or host armed groups.
The Security Council followed up in
late March by beefing up the U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo with an
"intervention brigade" and giving it an unprecedented mandate to take
offensive military action against rebel groups to help bring peace to the east
by neutralizing and disarming their fighters. The council also authorized the
use of unarmed drones on a trial basis for intelligence gathering in eastern
Congo.
Mary Robinson, the U.N. envoy for
the Great Lakes region of central Africa, told the council by videoconference
from the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, that the positive atmosphere following
the December peace agreement between Congo and the M23 "has
vanished."
"The region is going through a
period of renewed turbulence," she said, pointing to an attack on Dec. 25
by ADF rebels on the town of Kamango that killed more than 50 people and
coordinated attacks on Dec. 30 in Kinshasa, Lumbumbashi and Kindu that left
more than 100 people dead.
Robinson urged all parties to the
February agreement to immediately implement all commitments "in order to
bring about concrete peace dividends and lasting life improvement to the people
in the region."
With the defeat of M23, Kobler said,
U.N. and Congolese forces are now focused on defeating the Democratic Forces
for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, which was formed by extremist Hutus from
neighboring Rwanda who took part in that country's 1994 genocide and then fled
across the border.
Kobler said first operations against
FDLR "have cleared some positions." He urged the Congolese forces
"to intensify the joint planning and execution of operations against the
FDLR."
Kobler said Congolese and U.N.
forces will also be going after the ADF, a group of Islamist rebel fighters led
by Ugandan commanders, this year.
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