D. R. of Congo: M23 Rebels Take Their Offensive Online

Rebel military group the M23 movement has made headlines by entering into open conflict with the Congolese army, but it is not stopping at armed conflicts on the ground; the rebels have also gone on the offensive on the Internet and social networks.

They have created a website and a Facebook page where they publish numerous pieces of information on the security situation in the province of North Kivu and about their goals. In this video uploaded to YouTube by , an M23 leader speaks about the Movement’s strategy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDxOwIoABnI

Communication strategy

The website, M23 Congo RDC, explains the cause that M23 is defending [fr]:

M23 is demanding complete application of these agreements and began to go underground in April. But the conflict is more complex than that. The spark that ignited the cause was lit by Kinshasa when he decided, under pressure by the international community, to arrest Bosco Ntaganda, an ex-CNDP [National Congress for the Defence of the People militia] and a member of the regular army who had been made a general at the 2009 peace accords.

One of the most recent posts published on the site is entitled, ‘General Munene says Kabila is the sole obstacle to peace‘ [fr]:

According to Faustin Munene, who has been opposed to Joseph Kabila since 2010, the Congolese president is the main party responsible for the renewed violence in North Kivu. In an interview with Afrikarabia, the head of the ARP [French initials for Popular Resistance Army] also confirmed that alliances were being formed on the ground between the various armed groups in the eastern part of the country.

Munene adds:

The one person responsible for this explosion in the east is named Joseph Kabila. [There are] several reasons for that: his poor governing and the establishment of a dictatorial regime with no social justice. This is a regime that has taken all institutions hostage. He is entering into secret agreements that commit the republic, he is making decisions on his own, no one knows what he is doing.

Photo of Congolese army soldiers published on M23's Facebook page.

Photo of Congolese army soldiers published on M23's Facebook page.

Reactions on M23’s Facebook page

M23’s Facebook page [fr] currently has 754 members and many of them have reacted to the rebel group's media offensive. Many show how disappointed they are with the war currently going on in the eastern part of the DRC; Ayache Andre tells us:

The Congolese are victims of their hospitality. We should chase out the M23 terrorists with their accomplices. It’s a matter of life and death.

Patient Enzo Kadima writes:

Since when do we have Congolese Tutsis? Go back home to Rwanda we don’t want you here

Decker Malela responds to an M23 statement:

‎@Cokotracy Mirindi: you bloodthirsty people always use the same talk. Self-defense, self-defense….A pretext for revenge and killing the Bantus. As if only you Tutsis should defend yourselves.

The international community continues to pressure Rwanda to stop supporting M23. Another topic of discussion online is the decision of the United States to suspend aid to Rwanda [fr] following their support of M23:

The US government has decided to suspend its military aid to Rwanda due to the African country’s support of an armed uprising in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) next door. This aid, a sum of US$200,000 (164,000 euros) was intended to sponsor a Rwandan military academy for noncommissioned officers. “The United States government is gravely concerned by the evidence that Rwanda is involved in providing support to Congolese rebels, including M23,” stated Darby Holladay, a spokesperson for the State Department.

Army’s motivation questioned

Several villages and neighborhoods in North Kivu are under M23 control. However, heavy fighting continues between the FARDC (Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo) military and M23 mutineers to stop the M23 from taking control of Goma, the province’s capital.

M23 suggests on Facebook that the FARDC military is showing a clear lack of motivation, and that this could have a major impact on their battlefield performance:

Imagine a country where the soldiers at the front are on their own for survival, funds intended for supplies often vanish before reaching the troops, inevitably encouraging the soldiers to steal or pillage. These poor boys are left to their own sad devices…. We have learned that this herd of failed soldiers dress as civilians after they’ve stolen goods from the people they meet on the way to seeking shelter.

This notion is widely debated by Facebook users. Actually, the pay for a general in FARDC is US$ 100 and US$ 45 for an ordinary soldier. Rations are US$ 5 for soldiers at barracks, US$ 10 for those at the front.

One of the 86 comments on this post is from Jerry Smartkiss [fr]:

All I can see are a bunch of Rwandans in all these comments… And all the M23 soldiers are just Rwandans, why are they declaring themselves Congolese when they aren’t?

Fiston Bafaluma agrees [fr]:

dear compatriots, the time has come to join forces as one people, let’s kick these Rwandans who call themselves Congolese out of the country.

Georges Loop adds philosophically [fr]:

Too bad we’re not paid for the time we spend trying to understand Africa, and the brain cells used, we could make a career out of it.

Colonel Olivier Hamuli, FARDC spokesman in Goma, summarily dismissed [fr] arguments about a lack of motivation:

When M23 talks about unpaid soldiers, they are the ones who were commanders of major units in the region, explains Col. Hamuli. They were responsible for the soldiers’ pay that they were embezzling, as well as the munitions. They embezzled everything, and gave reasons that don’t hold water. And blaming all of that on the Congolese government today is absurd and laughable. The real reasons for their mutiny lie elsewhere.

3 comments

  • […] DR of Congo: M23 Rebels Take Their Offensive Online {Global Voices Online} […]

  • The M23 is just a mutant (CNDP) of Rwanda’s criminal rebels fighting to not only expropriate the DRC’s legitimate mineral resources, but its clear Kagame and his mad Tusti tribe are after the annexation of the mineral rich Kivus(as Tustiland) to Rwanda.

    Initially the West (Britain in particular) armed Kagame in order to anihilate and humiliate  Robert Mugabe’s army in the 90s DRC war as revenge for the seizure of white farms in Zimbabwe. however, like Bin Laden for the US, kagame does not know where to stop, particularly given the riches awash in the DRC. It is though interesting that like the fallen murderer of the twin towers, the west now have to awaken to the evils of Kagame and act before its too late. Together with his mentor Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame is the most dangerous element in the great lakes region. No solution that excludes his silencing one way or the other can solve the great lakes problems.

    it is worth noting that kagame, Nkunda and the Rwandan Tutsis in general always point a finger of blame against the west for subdividing Africa without consideration of Tribal boundaries. To them, The DRC cake (the mineral rich kivus) is too good to take the eye off. How he hopes he had as close a relationship with the US as Israel, so that he could invade that territory and be left to occupy (his own Golan heights).

    The FLDR provide him an enduring excuse to keep his rebels there in their various guises to pilage the minerals. Yet, even at the height of its hot pursuits into its neghbors, apartheid south africa for instance only did those pursuits in response to real attacks. Rwanda (where some reports note that 92% of the people feel safe in the country) instead simply talks of FLDR (HUTU rebels) programs to attack its territory then uses that as an excuse to send its proxy rebel groups into DRC. 

    Kagame is a cancer that africa can not afford to ignore. he is worse than even the murderous charles taylor. idi amin would turn in his grave.

  • […] dal suo timido inizio a luglio fino a diventare una piattaforma mediatica sufficientemente controversa da spingere ad un certo punto Facebook a […]

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