The UN in the DRC is stabilizing the predatory Congolese state and part of the failure of the stabilization strategy is due to the insecurity stemming from conflicts between communities revolving around land, citizenship, control of space and the externalization of neighbouring instability

The sequence of events makes the immediate causes prompting the M23 rebellion quite clear. It all really started in February 2012 with the flawed attempt by some Western countries to have Bosco Ntaganda arrested as a condition for the recognition of Kabila as president after the messy and, deemed by many, fraudulent November 2011 elections.[1]

With this political backing, instead of just moving Ntaganda out of the picture, the Congolese army, the FARDC, used that opportunity to mount an assault against most of ex-CNDP commanders in South Kivu in the last week of March 2012 - prompting the first defections that would lead to the creation of the M23 - before doing the same in North Kivu ten days later. Their objective: make the ex-CNDP commanders lose their influence in the Kivu-region by deploying them outside the Kivu region, a move that would have left Rwandophone communities vulnerable to attacks notably from the genocidal Rwandan rebel forces, the FDLR.

DEFFECTIVE NARRATIVES?

A group of non-state actors, institutions and advocacy specialists with deep seated hostility towards Rwanda, have been able to orient the conversation about the crisis by creating a narrative blaming Rwanda for the creation of the M23 and for ultimate responsibility in the conflict and successfully selling it to sympathetic journalists.

The Congolese government, whose responsibility in the crisis was exonerated by the narrative, draped itself in this unexpectedly boosted legitimacy and refused to listen to its grumbling citizens evocating foreign interference leading to renewed military confrontation and more hardships for hundreds of thousands of people.

The damage caused by this narrative is by no means over yet. By ignoring the real causes of the conflict, the breakdown of the 23 March 2009 precarious, and yes, imperfect peace deal with far from perfect ex-CNDP partners and by advocating for militarized solutions, the international community is exposing eastern Congo and the wider region to even more violence and hardships with no sight of where this could end up.