Warrior Security's Primus Wanga sends his latest sitrep from Goma, DRC
1. The rebel group M23 in the Democratic Republic of
Congo has repeated its call for a ceasefire after last week’s fighting outside
the city of Goma. The rebels have also warned that in their current
position they can easily target Goma airport.
2. It is still not clear who started the fighting last
week a few kilometers north of Goma or how it started. Congo's government says
M23 launched an attack, while M23 claims their men were fetching water and ran
into some government allies and a firefight broke out and escalated.
3. What is clear is that the M23 now commands a highly
strategic position north of Goma, a hill with a clear view of the airport
runway lined up in their artillery’s sights
4. The United Nations is currently deploying the so
called intervention brigade of more than 3,000 African troops with a mandate to
carry out targeted attacks on armed groups in eastern Congo.
5. The M23 have said that if attacked, it will be very
difficult for them to distinguish between the brigade and the 17,000
peacekeepers who are part of the U.N. mission in Congo, MONUSCO. Those
peacekeepers are mostly deployed to protect civilians at displaced peoples’
camps and elsewhere.
The Blue helmets come with an offensive
mandate while others are deployed in the same areas with a peacekeepers'
mandate. The issue of how the brigade is related to the rest of the
mission and how independent humanitarian actors such as NGOs relate to
MONUSCO is, I think a very big issue. The NGOs are also calling on the U.N. not to let the intervention brigade be
seen as the sole solution to the eastern DRC’s crisis, or allow it to detract
from what they describe as the need for the government to reform the Congolese
army and improve governance.
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| Primus Wanga (Centre) |
