DR Congo M23 rebels advance on Goma in North Kivu

[wautd]

Because with all the shit going on in the Middle East, you'd almost forget there are other powder kegs in the world as well

Rebels in eastern DR Congo have advanced to within a few kilometres of the provincial capital, Goma.

The M23 rebels say they have no plans to take the city but residents fear it could fall at any moment.

The UN Security Council this weekend condemned rebel attacks and demanded an end to outside support for the group, noting they were well equipped.

UK Foreign Minister William Hague has condemned the M23 advance and urged British citizens to leave Goma.

"Any British nationals in Goma should leave, and any in DRC should check the FCO's updated travel advice," he said.

Government forces and United Nations troops still control Goma's airport, but the UN says the humanitarian situation is worsening, with some 60,000 internally displaced people fleeing the fighting.

The UN said more than 10,000 fleeing civilians were seen passing near the airport on Sunday.

The rebels captured the town of Kibumba 30km (19 miles) north of Goma, on Saturday, and have since edged closer towards the North Kivu provincial capital, which lies close to the borders with Rwanda and Uganda.

UN deployed

The UN said its peacekeeping forces, Monuscu, fought advancing rebels throughout Sunday, using rockets, cannon rounds and helicopter gunships.

Although it has deployed 17 quick reaction units on patrols throughout the city, the UN describes the situation in Goma as "extremely tense".

"There is a real threat that the city could fall into the M23's hands," said spokesman Kieran Dwyer.

Monuscu has 270 international staff in Goma, while there are an additional 355 international UN staff in the city.

"We strongly condemn the continued violations of international humanitarian and human rights law by the M23," said Mr Dwyer.

"The leaders of the M23 must and will be held accountable for their actions."

The French ambassador to the UN Gerard Araud noted this weekend there would be no solution to the crisis without an agreement between the DRC and its neighbours, including Rwanda.

Kigali denies Congolese allegations that the rebels are backed by Rwandan troops and heavy weaponry.

But UN experts say they have evidence of Rwandan support for the rebels, and this week asked the Security Council to sanction senior Rwandan officials as a result.

The fighting is the most serious since July in the mostly lawless but resource-rich eastern DR Congo.

Nearly 500,000 people have fled their homes since April when the rebels mutinied from the army.

On Tuesday, Uganda closed the Bunagana border crossing near Goma after a request from the DR Congo government, which said the M23 was illegally raising money from people travelling between the two countries.

Last month, a UN panel of experts said Rwanda and Uganda were supplying M23, also known as the Congolese Revolutionary Army, with weapons in what is seen as an on-going battle for control of the region, which is rich in minerals.

Rwanda and Uganda strongly deny the allegation - Rwanda has called on both sides to stop fighting, saying stray bullets have fallen on its side of the border, injuring civilians.

The UN and US imposed a travel ban and asset freeze earlier this week on the group's leader, Sultani Makenga.

The UN has a large force in DR Congo to help the government establish its authority in the mostly lawless east.

Are you in Goma or elsewhere in the DR Congo? What is your reaction to the advance of M23 rebels? You can send us your views and experiences using the form below.

So basically we got the government army on the retreat, the UN bluehelmets dug in their bases and a war criminarl with his rebel army in front of the gates of a major city. I'm cynical enough to expect this ending bad.

[Sea Skimmer]

The city might hold, the areas involved are vast, and the government and UN troops highly dispersed, but as they fall back on the city things get more concentrated and the superior firepower and air support should count in a way they have not before. Still nothing like the original Congo Crisis or the Second Congo War. Its no surprise the UN troops would rather remain static, while they number several thousand in the area almost every company is from a different country, as is typical for UN operations odds are they have shit for ammunition and nobody will have the command authority to call in the 10,000 other UN troops spread all over the Congo to save them if they are about to get butchered. So stay behind the wire and see what happens. If the UN took this serious they'd at least be asking for someone to come up with troops to replace the thousands which have been pulled out of the Congo in the last couple years. The place is rather immensely huge, and air support very very slim.

The only war crime Bosco Ntaganda is accused of though is using child soldiers, as young as 15, which by the standards of central African wars isn't that bad. Its not genocide anyway though I'm sure he done some nasty stuff he isn't indicted on. If he takes Goma though, it is rather doubtful he'll retain control of his troops, if he wants too or not and bad things will happen. I love how the UN has placed a travel ban on him, as if he totally would feel like leaving his rebel army in the Congo for a shopping trip in Paris or something. Him leaving the Congo would be the best possible thing right now, M23 would most likely collapse overnight if he was gone.

Also should be pointed out, Goma is on lake Kivu, and against the Rwandan border so on the one hand, rebel attack routes are limited, but on the other hand the whole place could become a trap too. At least the airport is within the urban area.

[Lictuel]

Since no one else posted this up to now and this is an update to the topic of this thread : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20405739

Fighters from the M23 rebel group have captured Goma, the main city in resource-rich eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The rebels met little resistance from the army or UN peacekeepers.

The leaders of DR Congo and Rwanda, Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame, flew to Uganda for talks, amid claims that Rwanda was backing the rebels.

France called for the UN Security Council to strengthen the peacekeepers' mandate to intervene in the conflict.

Mr Kabila has urged people to "resist" the rebels.
Protesters burnt UN and ruling party property in the north-eastern city of Kisangani, as they vented their fury over the fall of Goma.

The UN said it had received reports that the rebels had abducted women and children from Goma.

Aid agencies say tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in the last five days as conflict escalated.

This is the first time since the war officially ended in 2003 that rebels have entered Goma, raising fears that a wider conflict could reignite.

Some five million people died in the DR Congo war, which dragged in neighbouring states - including Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola.

Some crowds reportedly shouted "welcome" and "thank you" as M23 leader Sultani Makenga and hundreds of his fighters entered Goma, which has a population of about one million.

A BBC correspondent says a senior rebel commander told him that if the government refused to enter into talks, they would carry on to Bukavu, another major city in eastern DR Congo.

The 22,000-strong UN force in DR Congo, known by the acronym Monusco, did not intervene.

UN spokesman Eduardo del Buey said peacekeepers "cannot substitute" for the national army, adding that the 1,500 UN troops in Goma held their fire because they did not want to risk civilian lives.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called for Monusco's mandate to be altered to give it more powers, saying it was "absurd" that the UN force could not stop the rebels.

In a television broadcast, Mr Kabila called on people to defend the country. "DR Congo is today confronted with a difficult situation. When a war is imposed, one has an obligation to resist," he said. "I ask that the entire population defend our sovereignty."
Mr Kabila flew late on Monday to Kampala to discuss the conflict with his Ugandan counterpart President Yoweri Museveni, as well as Rwanda's Mr Kagame.

Rwanda has denied persistent accusations by the DR Congo government and UN that it backs the M23 rebels.

Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said the conflict in eastern DR Congo could only be resolved through talks.

"By focusing on the blame game and ignoring the root causes of conflict in the DRC, the international community has missed the opportunity to help the DRC restore peace," she said, in comments posted on the government's website.

Various rebels groups have been active in mineral-rich eastern DR Congo since the end of the war in 2003.

The latest conflict broke out after a mutiny in the army in April, when a group of former rebels formed the M23, also known as the Congolese Revolutionary Army.

About 500,000 people have fled the fighting since then.

The M23 is largely made up of ethnic Tutsis, the same group which dominates the government in Rwanda.

Are you in DR Congo? Send us your comments and details of your experiences using the form below.

[Sea Skimmer]

So the UN peacekeepers once more prove worse then useless, not surprising, though the fact that they ever fought at all kind of was. Afterall the UN's own reports for years have said they've actually been making things worse by doing nothing but blocking the Congoleses Army from fighting. Bring on the mercenaries; its going to happen if nothing else does.

[Sea Skimmer]

Cool, so word is the UN forces have successfully managed to get themselves partly encircled at the Goma airport, which according to Google Earth, is surrounded by dense housing. If they didn't want to put civilians 'at risk' they sure choose a lousy place to be isolated and maybe be forced into a full scale battle. They aren't full encircled because the airport is directly against the border with Rwanda. So this may well end with the bluecaps being forced to retreat into the very country they accuse of backing the rebels!

Since the UN itself says the rebels have 120mm mortars, the airport could now be easily shutdown by indirect fire attacks, weapons that big could crater the runway until it was unusable. Remains to be seen if M23 will feel like forcing the issue, I'm sure they are much too busy looking now to figure anything out. It still seems to be the case that nobody has any real clue about how big M23 actually is.

[Irbis]

What I can't wrap my head around in this conflict is how two tiny, landlocked countries fresh from genocide bloodletting can do what is basically raiding and occupying territory of far larger neighbour for 15 years now without some risk of retribution. Is Kongo really that failed state?

[Sea Skimmer]

The place is the size of much of Europe, with a defense budget that is a few billion dollars, so even if it wasn't so damn failed they still couldn't easily stop this. Communications are godawful, the population is massively diverse, the terrain is dense as an understatement. Rebel groups are near impossible to defeat without scorched earth tactics because you simply cannot deploy weapons like tanks and artillery that would normally be an advantage for a government in any numbers. Then you have the UN endlessly getting involved and basically trying to enforce a status quo instead of making one side clearly win as they at least did in the earlier Congo crisis (which were one long UN war crime). You can in large part thank the UN 'peace plan' that all these former rebels were ever part of the new army and thus already armed when they decided to rebel again.

Back when he worked in the big evil investment banking industry, one of the projects my dad was slightly involved with was a project to run power lines all the way from the capital Kinshasa to Katanga province, over 600 miles through the jungle. This way the precious copper smelters would be powered by the capital, and thus would make another attempt by Katanga to breakaway economically infeasible. Existing Power plants in Katanga were being shutdown meanwhile. This was the kind of thing dictator for life Mobutu did to stabilize the country. Worked for a while until corruption and the general absurdity of it all collapsed the economy.

[ryacko]

So the UN peacekeepers once more prove worse then useless, not surprising, though the fact that they ever fought at all kind of was. Afterall the UN's own reports for years have said they've actually been making things worse by doing nothing but blocking the Congoleses Army from fighting. Bring on the mercenaries; its going to happen if nothing else does.

UN troops are technically mercenaries, in the same sense that the Hessians were. Many poor countries have their soldiers work under the UN, because the UN compensates partially for services.
Of course, armies from poor countries are terrible.

If the US sent a marine expeditionary unit (two thousand troops) to stabilize the least stable country in the world for a given year, every year, the world would be at least half decent.

[Flagg]

So the UN peacekeepers once more prove worse then useless, not surprising, though the fact that they ever fought at all kind of was. Afterall the UN's own reports for years have said they've actually been making things worse by doing nothing but blocking the Congoleses Army from fighting. Bring on the mercenaries; its going to happen if nothing else does.

UN troops are technically mercenaries, in the same sense that the Hessians were. Many poor countries have their soldiers work under the UN, because the UN compensates partially for services.
Of course, armies from poor countries are terrible.

If the US sent a marine expeditionary unit (two thousand troops) to stabilize the least stable country in the world for a given year, every year, the world would be at least half decent.

You. Are. ADORABLE.

[ryacko]

So the UN peacekeepers once more prove worse then useless, not surprising, though the fact that they ever fought at all kind of was. Afterall the UN's own reports for years have said they've actually been making things worse by doing nothing but blocking the Congoleses Army from fighting. Bring on the mercenaries; its going to happen if nothing else does.

UN troops are technically mercenaries, in the same sense that the Hessians were. Many poor countries have their soldiers work under the UN, because the UN compensates partially for services.
Of course, armies from poor countries are terrible.

If the US sent a marine expeditionary unit (two thousand troops) to stabilize the least stable country in the world for a given year, every year, the world would be at least half decent.

You. Are. ADORABLE.

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contr ... er12_2.pdf (100,000 troops total, mostly from impoverished nations)
http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missi ... acts.shtml


20,586 UN troops in the congo, out of all probability, from poor nations. Their training is terrible.
Even 300 marines (with support) against a poorly armed rebel group of any size would still result in victory for the Marines.

[Esquire]

Of any size? And are we including Pyrrhic victories where every single Marine dies horribly and the enemy goes on to achieve their objective anyway, albeit with massive casualties?

[Stark]

Hey kids, is killing people how you make the world a better place? I guess that's why America has no trouble at all 'improving' countries around the world, right?

Shoulda just sent 300 marines from the MARINE HARD C.O.R.P.S. to Afghan, you noobs! Maybe 'world being half decent' is code for 'world where lots of black people are turned into human planks'.

I just want to know when his dad uttered this gem of foreign policy. I can see him now, sitting on his dads knee one night, and asking 'Dad, why doesn't everyone do what we say? Can't we just buy them?'. And his dad says 'Son, we don't buy peace. We kill all the non peaceful people with MARINES HARD C.O.R.P.S. SEMPER FI!'

[Flagg]

He's just so fucking cute. Can we keep him?

[Sea Skimmer]

The impressive part is how he manages to keep getting stupider.

[ryacko]

Really, now? Are mercenaries better then the US army?

If what will turn the tide in this conflict is several thousand well trained troops, wouldn't that work?

I really do think a few thousand marines would fare quite well against ten thousand rebels.

[Stark]

Even asking those questions just makes you look dumber.

Is war or conflict about who is 'better', in that who is 'better' simply wins? Obviously not.

It blows me away you actually ask a question with your preferred answer as the answer. And then you inflate your ridiculous '300 marines beats infinity BAD MANS' to some equally simpleminded numerical comparison.

[LaCroix]

I really do think a few thousand marines would fare quite well against ten thousand rebels.

You know, the US is having quite a hard time "winning" in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the entire area looks pretty much like THIS, (exaggerated, but not much worse), and thus is very air-strike and AFV-friendly terrain. The main advantage of the US is that they can drive around in armored vehicles, and thus are hard to ambush, and can retreat to a secure base.

Congo, on the other hand, looks like THIS...


And that's why we're laughing...

[Alkaloid]

Yeah I don't get the big deal guys. After all everyone knows when you are fighting a war you line up both sides in easily distinguishable uniforms and have them wale on each other until one side is all dead. External factors don't apply. They especially don't apply when fighting gorillas because they are so much bigger than normal people and thus easier to identify.

He's just so fucking cute. Can we keep him?

Probably not. All the really fun people eventually do something monumentally stupid and get banned.


Edit

Really, now? Are mercenaries better then the US army?

I might be wrong, but I think Skimmers point was less that mercs are inherently better at this sort of thing than regular troops, recent experience would indicate they really arent, all else being equal, but they are going to happen anyway and will at least be allowed (or not told not to by anyone they actually listen to) act.

[ryacko]

I really do think a few thousand marines would fare quite well against ten thousand rebels.

You know, the US is having quite a hard time "winning" in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the entire area looks pretty much like THIS, (exaggerated, but not much worse), and thus is very air-strike and AFV-friendly terrain. The main advantage of the US is that they can drive around in armored vehicles, and thus are hard to ambush, and can retreat to a secure base.

Congo, on the other hand, looks like THIS...
<snip>

And that's why we're laughing...

Afghanistan isn't totally flat.

Yeah I don't get the big deal guys. After all everyone knows when you are fighting a war you line up both sides in easily distinguishable uniforms and have them wale on each other until one side is all dead. External factors don't apply. They especially don't apply when fighting gorillas because they are so much bigger than normal people and thus easier to identify.

Pretty sure the US army shoots whoever is holding a gun, whether or not they are standing out side their house trying to protect it.

---

Regardless, this is a conventional civil war that is ongoing. All you need is garrison troops for all the major mining deposits after forcing rebels forces to disperse.

On the otherhand, we let the Taliban collect taxes and export opium.

[Flagg]

I really do think a few thousand marines would fare quite well against ten thousand rebels.

You know, the US is having quite a hard time "winning" in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the entire area looks pretty much like THIS, (exaggerated, but not much worse), and thus is very air-strike and AFV-friendly terrain. The main advantage of the US is that they can drive around in armored vehicles, and thus are hard to ambush, and can retreat to a secure base.

Congo, on the other hand, looks like THIS...
<snip>

And that's why we're laughing...

Afghanistan isn't totally flat.

Because we're winning there, right?

[LaCroix]

Wait...

I post THIS, and you reply...

Afghanistan isn't totally flat.

Did you even bother to look at the photo?

Pretty sure the US army shoots whoever is holding a gun, whether or not they are standing out side their house trying to protect it.

Regardless, this is a conventional civil war that is ongoing. All you need is garrison troops for all the major mining deposits after forcing rebels forces to disperse.

Such vision, such clear cut lines, such... BEAUTY.... To think that the real army has nuanced approaches and tactics, all this useless liberal commie crap... We should name you Commander in Chief for life!

[Aaron MkII]

Ryacko, you don't know anything, not even enough to realize you know nothing.

That terrain means us Westerners can't deploy any of our best stuff, even helicopter gunships are going to be of dubious usefullness. We'd be operating almost exclusively as light infantry.

Of course, you don't actually have to end a war by killing thousands, you could...negotiate.

[D.Turtle]

I remember a talk I heard from a soldier who had been a peacekeeper in Liberia (I think). Especially the part where he talked about the problems the jungle created for them: If you went off the normal paths beaten/walked into the jungle, you were lucky to get a mile or two a day. I imagine in many parts of the Congo its similar.

[Aaron MkII]

We had a few guys with us that went to the Congo the first time around. And its apparently pretty dense, bloody hot and generally unpleasant. So unless there is a clear cut plan with solid goals, we'll just piss away lives, again.

Honestly don't understand the hard on for playing world police either.

[Simon_Jester]

To the average citizen of a western country, modern media make a war in the Congo nearly as 'real' to Americans as, say, one in Mexico.

This makes it harder for stupid people to grasp why we (the US) don't interfere in wars in the Congo as avidly as we'd step in to deal with a war in Mexico.