By John Stephen Katende

19^th Nov 2012: 

UN Chief Ban Ki-Moon

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon phoned Rwandan President Paul Kagame on Saturday “…to request that he use his influence on the M23 to help calm the situation and restrain M23 from continuing their attack”, according to peacekeeping chief Hervé Ladsous at UN headquarters in New York.

Reports indicated that the M23 rebels are now well-equipped with night-vision equipment and had advanced to within two miles of Goma, a crucial provincial capital in eastern Congo.

Colonel Vianney Kazarama, the spokesman for the M23 rebel group, had predicted that they would capture Goma.  “…We are about to take the town. We will spend the night in Goma tonight,” he said, although to date, there is no confirmation that they have actually taken the town.

The advance came despite the reported death 113 rebels and two army officers in fighting that culminated in a series of attacks by UN helicopters on rebel positions in eastern Congo on Saturday.

The M23 is primarily made up of fighters from the Tutsi ethnic group that was targeted in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. In 2008, a rebel group led by Rwandan commando General Laurent Nkunda marched his soldiers to the outskirts of Goma but stopped short of taking the city.

However, in a peace deal on 23 March 2009, the Laurent Nkunda’s CNDP rebels agreed to disband and their fighters joined the national army of Congo. They did not take up arms again until this spring, when hundreds of former CNDP fighters defected from the army, claiming the Congolese government had failed to keep its side of the 2009 agreement.

A recent report by the UN Panel of Experts accused Rwanda and Uganda of supporting the M23 rebels. Both countries denied any involvement.  Uganda even threatened to pull its peacekeeping troops out of Somalia if the UN does not withdraw the allegations against it.

The UN Security Council has said it will impose sanctions against M23 rebel leaders and demanded they immediately halt their advance.  END: Login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories mid-week for our updates

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