Chez les rebelles

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​An M23 rebel stands overlooking the town of Bunagana, on the border with Uganda

When I last crossed the border from Kisoro to Bunagana, the Congolese authorities were in full bureaucratic swing, and battles raged further down the hill. The Congolese army (FARDC) were fighting the M23 rebels, whilst the United Nations swore to protect the town from falling.

Less than two months later, it is now M23 that control the border, and a relative calm exists in the half-emptied town. Men in uniforms identical to those of their FARDC counterparts walk through Bunagana, for the most part, defectors from the army. Though there are those wielding guns that are dressed in other uniforms, of unidentified origin.

Despite fears of an M23 march on Goma — for which defences have been heavily stepped up in recent weeks — Bishop Jean-Marie Runinga, the political coordinator for the group, says that they have no intention of heading there. He also strongly denies any Rwandan backing of the group, saying, rather incongruously, that if they did have Rwandan support then they would be in Goma by now.

On market-day, shops near to the border are bustling, with trucks being unloaded onto the roadside. At the other end of the town, an eery quiet reigns. Life is continues in Bunagana, but with close proximity to the Ugandan escape route. A border that many are still crossing come night-fall.

Some 20km away in the neighbouring Ugandan tourist-town of Kisoro, thousands fill the Nyakabande Transit Centre. Many have fled due to fears of M23 looting and recruitment, but those remaining in the rebel-held town are testament to the low incidence rate. One man tells me that the soldiers are well-behaved, just that they become a little rowdy at night.

The rebels seem well in control of the area, with none of the gunfire or shelling of my previous visit audible. Their ranks are growing with new defectors, and their confidence is increasing after recent military successes. Yet many of Bunagana’s remaining residents wonder how long the peace will last, and when war will return.

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​The "Bishop" Jean-Marie Runiga walks through the town of Bunagana, accompanied by M23 police

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Defending Goma

M23 rebels have increased the ground they hold in Rutshuru territory in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. From the hills of Runyonyi, where conflict raged last month, the rebels took Bunagana on Friday (July 6th) before moving down to Rutshuru Centre. They have now withdrawn from Rutshuru Centre and other towns they briefly held, but the risk of a march on Goma—the provincial capital—looms in the air.

The United Nations and Congolese army (FARDC) have deployed a dozen or so tanks in the stretch of land bordering the Virunga National Park between Goma and Kibumba, a small town some 25km from the city.

In Goma itself, peacekeepers have stepped up their “domination patrols” in an effort to reassure the population of their presence and commitment to keep the rebels far from the city. On the rim of a small, extinct volcano just at the edge of Goma’s wooden shacks, Indian peacekeepers are digging fox-holes for positions that will be “the last line of defence” before the city. “We have a clear view to the western flank” says the commanding officer there, gesturing towards the bush that extends to the base of the nearby Nyiragongo volcano. Below him as he talks, locals work on a patchwork of cultivated verdure, seemingly nonplussed by their new, foreign neighbours.

Last Wednesday (July 11th), Brigadier-General Harinder Singh (the UN brigade commander for North Kivu) met with General Lucien Bahuma who had arrived in Goma just the day before to command the FARDC’s 8th sector - the troubled North Kivu. Their strategy meeting was held on a hilltop overlooking UN tanks, just outside of Kibumba. Back in May, towards the end of the first ceasefire, thousands had fled Kibumba towards Goma when M23 first popped up on this side of the National Park. Coordination between the FARDC and M23 was the aim of the meeting, ensuring that no flanks were left open for the rebels to reach the city. Brig. Gen. Singh spoke of the need to learn from mistakes made in Bunagana when the rebels overran the strategic town on the Ugandan border. The UN seemingly weren’t sure who was FARDC and who was M23 after the government army strayed from their sector.

I couldn’t help but think back to May 19th, when Lieutenant-General Chander Prakash, the UN Force Commander for Congo, flew into Bunagana to the sound of heavy shelling and gunfire echoing out just down the hill, a few kilometres from the town. He stood in a patch of open ground, two Cheetah helicopters posed on the grass behind him, and addressed a crowd of local residents saying that the UN would absolutely not let Bunagana fall. Less than a month later, FARDC troops had fled across the border to Uganda, and one Indian peacekeeper had lost his life. M23 took control of the city.

The UN and FARDC launched helicopter strikes on M23 positions on Thursday and, reportedly, Friday, although the rebels claim they had little success. What it has provoked, though, is a letter sent by the new political wing of the group to the president of the UN Security Council in New York, asking if the UN has “changed its mandate to become an offensive and hostile force”, which they say would cause them to instruct their forces to put themselves in a defensive position against the UN contingents. “It is surprising that MONUSCO [the UN mission in Congo], considered as a neutral force for maintaining peace, chooses this moment to conduct an air-raid on the withdrawn and harmless positions of M23 further than 70km from the city of Goma.”

Overall, the chances of Goma falling are slim, and for now, few believe that M23 would march on the city. The rebels say that they have no intention to take Goma, although they would march on the city if attacks on Tutsis there continued. On Monday Rwandan students in Goma were escorted to the border for their protection with reports indicating that they had been attacked by an anti-Tutsi mob. Anti-Tutsi sentiment, however, does not seem obvious in the city.

The people of Goma seem unfazed by the armoured personnel carriers patrolling the streets and standing on intersections. If a fear of attack exists, it is not present in the throngs of people flocking to the markets and plying the rocky streets. Amidst the usual chaos of the city, a calm prevails here, despite the rebels occupying positions some 30km from Goma’s edge.

Fighting Intensifies around Bunagana

The hills around Bunagana have been sporadically echoing the sound of gunfire over the past week, with occasional shelling and shooting in the early morning and late afternoon. Today, following an apparent offensive by M23 rebels on a Congolese army position near the village of Kinyamahura in the Jomba parish, the air was thick with the sound of pounding shells.

Many of the villages in Jomba have already emptied, but driving down the road from Bunagana towards Rutshuru, an eerie quiet reigned along the road; the displaced had already fled.

Columns of exhausted FARDC soldiers trudged towards Bunagana this morning, enervated from the fighting that began at around 4am. They were angry and dejected, having lost one of their forward positions. In the opposite direction, dark green army trucks sped past, filling the conflict zone with new fighters, hoping to take back their base.

Edging towards the fighting, the sound of heavy gunfire flooded through the thick, green vegetation. The rebels had captured the hill of Bugasa, occupying an advantageous position over the better armed FARDC troops.

From the narrow, dirt road leading towards Kinyamahura, a jeep took aim and opened up deafening rounds of anti-aircraft fire, trained on the rebels in the facing hillside. Around them, bullets zipped overhead.

Back in Bunagana, United Nations peace-keepers have set up a new mobile operating base, as twitchy troops from the Fourth Indian Battalion patrolled the main road adjacent to it. Lieutenant General Chandar Prakash, the UN Force Commander in Congo, visited Bunagana today to meet with community representatives in an attempt to reassure civilians that the peacekeepers would protect them here. Below where he sat with them, the cacophony of the unfolding battle rumbled up the hill, just a few kilometres from where they were seated.

Just before he got back in his helicopter, he greeted a crowd of people congregating around the landing site. “You don’t have anything to worry about whilst we are here”, he told them, encouraging them not to panic. But as the fighting around Bunagana reaches a new level of intensity, and with only around fifty peacekeepers in town, it is hard to say how reassuring those words were.

DRC: Conflict in the borderlands

From the town of Bunagana, straddling the Congo-Uganda border in DRC’s restive North Kivu province, the sound of a bomb exploding can be heard from a distant hillside. It is in these lush green hills that ex-CNDP rebels, now organised under the name M23 — le Movement du 23 mars — are engaged in offensives and counter-offenses with the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC).

Less than a week ago, the United Nations Stabilisation Mission for the Congo (MONUSCO) had established a temporary operating base manned by Indian peace-keepers in the town, under their mandate to protect civilians. But just a few hundred metres from their base, hundreds of people are crossing in and out of the porous border with Uganda, seeking refuge from the conflict whilst still returning to Bunagana for water, firewood and their belongings.

The previous week, the town had all but emptied and many doors still remain firmly padlocked shut, but some shops have reopened, and the main thoroughfare appears rather animated. The conflict, though, is disrupting people’s lives; a teacher in Bunagana says that she cannot afford to buy food - her income comes from pupils attending class, and right now, with shells and gunfire ripping through the landscape, there are none.

This afternoon, three hours after the bomb exploded on a hillside, heavy weapons fire ripped through the air in a village in Jomba, seemingly precipitating the heavy downpour that followed it. FARDC jeeps then burst out of the bush, carrying around sixty men as well as a large, truck-mounted automatic gun. The villages lining the route towards Bunagana have emptied, with clothes left unattended on washing lines and more padlocks sealing doors; the jeeps churned up the muddy road that drives straight through them, on their way to the next operation.

Less than a kilometre from where the jeeps emerged from the bush, a large contingent of foot soldiers march down the road, moving positions following the offensive. “Things are going well” said one, the morale of the whole detachment seemingly high.

A text-message partially received from the spokesman of the M23 rebels acknowledged an attack during the morning, but claimed that they had met the attack with a counter-offensive. Right now, it is impossible to assess the veracity of this message, nor their strength: isolated high in the hills, accessing them from Congo means crossing the front-line of the FARDC, something they are somewhat less than willing to allow.

In the meantime, the va-et-vient continues on the border, as people spend the night in neighbouring Uganda, ferrying their belongings in and out of the country. The chef du groupement says that people are living in deplorable conditions, often without food and shelter, and claims that three people have died since leaving their homes. As he sees it, either the army needs to chase out the rebels, or a peace needs to be negotiated. Until then, “it is my people that are the victims.”

Bunagana empties to Uganda

The road approaching Bunagana skirts at times just a few miles from the conflict between Congolese armed forces (FARDC) and mutinous rebels of the M23 movement. Yet populations along that road bustle around the outdoor market selling fruit and vegetables from the lush hillsides. Further up the hill, some are carrying mattresses and their belongings, rather than bowls of bananas.

The town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border is emptying into Uganda; the population has largely fled, locked doors line the main road. Army soldiers are gathering in the towns, and occupy the strategic hilltops above it.

For the residents of Bunagana, it is time to pack up the belongings once again. I was first here a month ago, a few days after clashes between the FARDC and army defectors. Then, according to residents, the battle lasted a few hours, during which the town had emptied into Uganda until things settled down.

The displacement this time seems to be somewhat more enduring and involving populations from neighbouring areas. There has been no fighting in Bunagana in the recent clashes, but the M23 rebels now occupy Runyiony, just a few miles from the border town.

Movement into Uganda ebbs and flows; some coming through the official border crossing, but many through the adjacent bush. Yet people continue to cross back into Congo, carrying the ubiquitous yellow jerry cans to fetch water — “there is no water for them there [in Uganda]” said a border official. And trucks continue to traverse the border from Uganda, ferrying goods through this important supply line. They were trundling over the border shortly after a reported airstrike on an M23 position.

The situation is far from clear.