The leader of the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels in eastern Congo remarked on Thursday that the ceasefire call from Kinshasa and Kigali “doesn’t concern us,” as his forces advanced further into Congolese territory, capturing the strategic town of Walikale.
Walikale is the farthest west the rebels have reached in a swift advance since January that has already overrun eastern Congo’s two largest cities. The town of 15,000 people fell after fighting on Wednesday between the rebels and the army and allied militias.
The conflict, rooted in the fallout from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and competition for mineral riches, is eastern Congo’s worst since a 1998-2003 war that drew in multiple neighbouring countries and resulted in millions of deaths.
With troops from Congo, Rwanda and Burundi having all participated in fighting this year, a conflict that has simmered for years is evolving into a wider regional war, experts say.
“The enemy now controls Walikale,” Nestor Mavudisa, a spokesperson for Democratic Republic of Congo’s army, told Reuters.
Walikale is in an area rich in minerals including tin and lies along a road that links four eastern Congo provinces.
Its capture puts the rebels within 400 km (250 miles) of Kisangani, which is the country’s fourth-biggest city and has a bustling port at the Congo River’s farthest navigable point upstream of the capital Kinshasa.
Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame called on Tuesday for an immediate ceasefire after a surprise meeting in Qatar’s capital Doha, their first direct talks this year.
The leader of the M23 alliance dismissed the appeal, and said his forces were not fighting at Rwanda’s behest.
“We are Congolese who are fighting for a cause,” Corneille Nangaa, head of the Congo River Alliance (AFC), told Reuters in an interview in eastern Congo’s biggest city, Goma.
“What happened in Doha, as long as we don’t know the details, and as long as it doesn’t solve our problems, we’ll say it doesn’t concern us.”
Direct Talks Between Kinshasa And M23?
The United Nations, Western governments and independent experts all say Rwanda has been providing arms and troops to the ethnic Tutsi-led M23.
Rwanda has denied backing M23 and says its military has been acting in self-defence against Congo’s army and a militia founded by some of the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide.
Congo and M23 had been expected to have their first direct talks on Tuesday in Angola after Tshisekedi’s government reversed its longstanding refusal to speak to the rebels.
But M23 pulled out on Monday, blaming European Union sanctions on some of its leaders and Rwandan officials.
Analysts say the move showed how strong the rebels felt as a result of their battlefield gains.
However, Nangaa reiterated demands for direct talks with Kinshasa, saying it was the only way to resolve the conflict. M23 has called for an end to what it says is the persecution of Tutsis in Congo and improvements to national governance.
“We demand that if there is a dialogue, it be a direct dialogue,” he said. “We are keen on any peaceful solution.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
