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Rabat – The President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo has publicly accused Rwanda of “aggression” in its eastern regions where Moroccans make up a large part of a UN peacekeeping force.
Addressing the UN General Assembly earlier this week in New York, President Tshilombo denounced what he described as two decades of “aggression” within Congolese borders, pointing to Rwanda as the source of the ongoing violence in his country.
The DRC president directly accused neighboring Rwanda of “massive” support to M23 rebels who are spearheading a new wave of violence in the country’s troubled Kivu provinces. The recent flare-up in violence has put immense local pressure on the UN peacekeeping mission, where a large contingent of Moroccan peacekeepers has struggled to deal with a more organized and well-equipped rebel force that has rapidly taken over large parts of DRC territory.
The failure of the local peacekeeping mission to directly confront the M23 armed group has prompted locals to call for the mission to either step up and engage the armed group, or leave.
Tshilombo pointed to Rwanda as having supported M23 in shooting down a helicopter of the UN’s Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). “The M23 with the support of the Rwandan army even shot down a MONUSCO helicopter and killed eight blue helmets…committing a war crime,” he told the General Assembly.
The failure of the local peacekeeping mission to directly confront the M23 armed group has prompted locals to call for the mission to either step up and engage the armed group, or leave. Photo: UN
Aside from accusing Rwanda of directly sponsoring the primarily Tutsi M23 movement, the DRC president claimed that Rwanda had used its own forces in March, when M23 forces took over large swaths of the border region with Uganda and Rwanda.
Within two months the previously weakened force had overrun the DRC’s largest military base in the region, even as Ugandan forces were in the region to fight against another armed group, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
For Morocco, the fresh accusations publicly pit two of its African trade partners against each other, with a large contingent of Moroccan peacekeepers caught in the middle of the fighting in North Kivu.
Tshilombo emphasized that the ongoing cross-border violence could only be stopped through international support and mediation, and called on UN member states to investigate the case based on UN reporting. Taking no action would only encourage Rwanda to continue its “aggression,” he said, adding that “It is a question of the very image and credibility of our organization.”
