M23 take on Sake, Kabila in Uganda
M23 Rebels
M23 Rebels in eastern Congo have taken control of the town of Sake, 24 km from Goma, a day following the capture of Goma after facing little resistance from government and UN troops.
“The rebels arrived an hour ago. Luckily there was no force used. Now they’re pretty much everywhere. The army has already left,” said Christian Bigebika the executive secretary of an association of local rights groups.
The M23 rebel publicist, Lt Col Vianney Kazarama said, “We will march to Kinshasa, and liberate the country,” while addressing a crowd shortly after taking control of Goma on Tuesday.
As explosions rang out in the lakeside city of Goma, civilians ran down sidewalks looking for cover as thousands of residents fled across the border to Rwanda.
Meanwhile, DR Congo’s President Joseph Kabila is in Kampala to hold crisis talks with his Rwanda and Ugandan counterparts. President Kabila arrived in Kampala on Tuesday afternoon, hours after Goma had fallen to the rebels.
Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame arrived hours later on Tuesday evening at Entebbe airport to attend the emergency meeting with Kabila and Museveni.
President Museveni is expected to mediate the meeting which he has been calling for between Kabila and Kagame over the past months.
The actions of the M23 rebels have prompted the US government to impose financial sanctions on Sultani Makenga one of the leaders of the M23 rebels.
The United Nations peacekeepers, known by their acronym MONUSCO, were not helping the government forces during Tuesday’s battle because they do not have a mandate to engage the rebels, said Congolese military spokesman Olivier Hamuli, who expressed frustration over the lack of action by the peacekeepers.
A UN spokesman said in New York said that the nearly 1,500 UN peacekeepers in Goma held their fire to avoid triggering a battle. “The peacekeepers cannot substitute for the efforts of national forces in Congo,” said spokesman Eduardo del Buey.
On Wednesday the Security Council will review the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force in Congo. A resolution adopted Tuesday by the Security Council asks the UN secretary-general to recommend possible redeployment, and possible “additional force multipliers.”
The resolution approved unanimously by the council imposes targeted sanctions, including a travel ban and assets freeze on the M23 rebel group leadership. But it did not name two countries accused by Congo of supporting the rebels: Rwanda and Uganda.
The council demanded that the M23 rebels withdraw from Goma, disarm and disband, and insisted on the restoration of the crumbing Congolese government authority in the country’s turbulent East.
The resolution also calls for an immediate end to external support to the rebels and asks the UN secretary-general to report on the allegations of foreign support while expressing its readiness to take appropriate measures.
The rebels are believed to be backed by Rwanda, and to a smaller extent by Uganda, which are accused of equipping them with sophisticated arms, including night vision goggles and 120 mm mortars.
Evidence is mounting of the involvement by Rwanda and Uganda, and on Friday, the United Nations Group of Experts is expected to release its final report, detailing the role the neighboring nations played in the recruitment, financing and arming of the rebel movement, which was born in April.
In the meantime, the M23 rebels have advanced towards Bukavu after taking Sake and encouraged by the continuous addition to their numbers as more troops surrender to join the rebels.
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Laurent Desire kabila literally walked to Kinshasa when he was fighting the Mobutu government and history may repeat itself if the DRC government is not careful. Government has not put there systems and its forces are bound to melt away from the presence of the rebels.
The confusion that you guys have created or brough in the great lakes region will one day come out, how on the world if Kabila claims that Rwanda is behind the M23 rebels and the same time meet with him or them? for what reason?. Am informing my fellow Ugandans that Uganda is not yet taken, we still have the strength to liberate our country from all this. Am telling you that Kashambuzi on his site http://www.kashambuzi.com told us the tutsi plan.
I am not impressed by your bad attitude towards tutsis. Tutsis wherever they are have a right to exist. I hope God forgives you.
The Congolese government headed by Gen.Joseph Kabila have failed to flush out all those fighting groups in Eastern Congo,there by subjecting the local people to all sorts of untold sufferings;including the Congolese who speak kinyarwanda.Its now high time the M23 rebels took it upon themselves to liberate their country and create peace in their country.
Secondly,Kabila has stubbornly refused to sit at a round table with those fighting him insisting that its Rwanda and Uganda not the rebels fighting him.Are the two countries responsible for creating the Congolese of Rwandan origin and settling them in E.Congo?Why does he want to distort history?Can he recall the circumstances under which late father ended up in living exile in Uganda and Tanzania? People need peace in the world over but where peace fails,war becomes eminent.
Byamugisha if i may ask,are the tutsi meant to be in Congo originally or Rwanda?if its Rwanda then let them stay there .why go to another country to occupy there?so sh’d bacholi go Rwanda now and stay there and see if it will make Rwanda happy?so BYAMUGISHA let it go.dont blame wake up Uganda.
the issue is not uganda or rwanda supporting the rebels, that is missing the point. the truth is that DRC has failed to transform into a cohesive nation or something near to that. it has no institutions like civil service, police,army or administrative structures. those in power have chosen ethnic marginalization as state policy. this leads to some groups living in constant fear of genocide. the west right from colnial period to date have worked to perpetuate this situation. the murder of lumumba was the pivotal point in this plot. he was killed coz he was a patriot. mobutu was planted to continue with the plot. remember mobutu was a regular guest at the white houe , palais elysee and 10 downing street, but patriots like nyerere were never invited even once!!! DRC seems to have failed to read into this plot and still moves along with it. her confusion still making her easy prey to western military industrial complex…. 50% of the global supply of cobalt still comes from there. over 80% of coltan the same. so the strategic importance of DRC to the west is obvious!!! the UN has always been a western instrument in all this. the region needs to wake up to this and do something about drc. Kabila must be forced to adress the issues of the rebels or the rebels be given conditional support to take over with a promise that they will work with the region to adress the institutional deficit in DRC.the UN and the west should be ignored now. instability is contegious. be warned.
congo has the most useless army so far all they do is run…..in bunaga they run into uganda and in goma they run away what kind of army is that??? they should die on duty atleast….time congo does something about there army there not even putting up ANY form of resistant
Africa, lets unit, we are tired of war and power minded individuals who think they can make the best leaders in the world, but given opportunity, they end up being worse.Remember our case [UG], talk of Idi Amin, Okello Lutua bla bla bla was there anything good out of the struggle? only selfish minded bundicts. We need to support DRC and stop such aggressive intrudement and disorganising the government and its people, who are scatered all over neibouring countries living in very poor conditions. We need to look at how best we can make use of our migger resources, to develop our country and uplift standards of living, instead of planning Heads of states meetings, buying explosives,and giving other people burdens of refegees, medical care bla bla bla. I will be glad seeing Africa standing against any rebel activity within and fighting it tooth and nail irespective of which rebel is fighting which government, Africa must be declared rebel free continent, where guns no longer reign but peace, justice, democracy and tranquility.