A triumphant leader of the M23 rebels today promised to capture all of the Democratic Republic of Congo, including the capital Kinshasa, as thousands of soldiers and police defected to his forces.”We are now going to Kinshasa. No one will divide this country,” said Col. Vianney Kazarama, the M23 spokesman, to a cheering crowd of thousands at a rally in Goma, the eastern city the rebels took on Tuesday without firing a shot.
Col Kazarama said the M23 rebels’ next goal is Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province on the other side of Lake Kivu. He claimed the rebels already control the town of Sake, 17 miles from Goma on the road to Bukavu, and will soon take Minova, a lakeside town in South Kivu.
More than 2,100 army troops and 700 police turned in their weapons, according to Col Seraphin Mirindi. The former army troops and policemen piled up their arms and ammunition in the stadium.
“Yesterday, we were enemies, but today we are friends,” said Col Mirindi. “We are brothers and we must work together.”
The rebel commander was addressing an audience of about 100 policemen – along with a similar number of bystanders – gathered in a baking hot room behind the town hall.Seated on a wooden throne, wrapped in white canvass and decorated with a scarlet sash, Col Mirindi said: “We want you to understand our ideology. The first priority is security of people and their belongings. Can you say you are secure when you are dying? I tell you, whoever loots, rapes or steals, he is going to be punished severely. We are very serious about this.”
Col Mirindi pledged that M23’s war against President Joseph Kabila’s regime would go on. Having seized one provincial capital – Goma in North Kivu province – the next target will be Bukavu, the main city in South Kivu. If that conurbation falls, the rebellion will move on to Kisangani, the main city in central Congo.
“We need to go to Bukavu to free it – and we need to go to Kisangani to free it,” said Col Mirindi. But first, he explained, the rebels would take a few days for “study, training and ideology”,
Col Mirindi ordered the police to return to their posts. “Since we must work together, we need to love each other,” he said. “We don’t need to bring up old stories. From today, everything is new.”
The blue-uniformed figures were soon visible on Goma’s shabby streets. And Col Mirindi had given them stern instructions: no looting and no extortion. “Who is ready for looting?” he demanded. “No one!” chorused the police emphatically.
Given that Goma is out of the hands of the national government, however, it was not clear who would be paying their wages.
But no gunshots echoed over the city and rebel fighters appeared disciplined, silent and un threatening as they strode their new domain in uniforms of smart camouflage, green forage caps – and Wellington boots. Their Kalashnikov assault rifles were slung from the shoulder, not ready for action.
The streets were soon filled with people and the atmosphere was calm. But every shop and petrol station remained closed and shuttered, while many chose to remain in the safety of neighbouring Rwanda.
During 52 years of tumultuous history since independence from Belgium, Goma has fallen into rebel hands at least three times before. On each occasion, there was a brief period of relief and even euphoria, before it became clear that the city’s new overlords were at least as brutal and predatory as those they had replaced. As the city experiences its fourth takeover, Goma is in the benevolent first stage.
How long the behaviour of its new masters will justify this optimism remains to be seen. Now that M23 – named after a failed peace agreement from March 23, 2009 – holds the biggest city in the east and a swathe of neighbouring territory, it will have immense bargaining power in the talks that will follow.
Already, Mr Kabila has been forced to negotiate. It emerged on Wednesday that he had met President Paul Kagame of Rwanda – allegedly the prime external force behind M23 – for two hours of talks on Tuesday. The rebel threat to advance further and capture more cities will only increase their bargaining authority.