The situation in eastern Congo is once again escalating dramatically. After long months of the planned advance of the M231 mercenaries – reinforced by other alliances of so-called rebels and units of the Rwan- dan army, all under Rwandan control – and for the third time in this endless war, Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, has now been completely captured by this guerrilla armada. Fierce fighting through- out the northern part of North Kivu prov- ince preceded this. In addition, there has been a violent occupation of the world’s largest coltan mine at Rubaya, near Sake. (See: “‘In war, the first victim is the truth’. Thirty-year economic war for raw mate- rials in eastern Congo”, in: Current Con- cerns No. 27 of 31 December 2024). The capture of the nearby metropolis is also un- derway. The Congolese national army has evacuated its positions without resistance. In the days prior to the occupation, Goma was under artillery fire and thou- sands of desperate people were forced to flee from the invaders. But where to?
Civilians fleeing the combat zones north of Goma and heading for the city, some of them among the tens of thousands. A few days later, gunfire and artillery shells are also heard in Goma, and in some cases they are also fired at the huge improvised tent camps on the outskirts of the city. (picture Keystone)
The frontline town, located a few kilo- metres from the border with Rwanda, has survived several occupations and has been under siege for some time. In recent months and weeks, the numerous refugees from the northern districts have necessitat- ed the creation of immense, improvised ref- ugee camps in and around the city. These have grown once again in the last few days. The improvised tent camps, mainly made of plastic tarpaulins, have been erected on bare ground and stretch as far as the eye can see around the city. The number of ref- ugees struggling to survive in this war – abandoned by the entire “Western world of values” – is in the millions.
Devastating dimensions of the humanitarian disaster in Goma
International aid organisations are them- selves in need of help. Artillery shells re-peatedly hit the refugee camps, causing horrific injuries. In a news release titled, “The ICRC condemns attacks that left many civilians in North Kivu wounded or dead”, the Geneva-based Internation- al Committee of the Red Cross reports the following:
“The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is alarmed by the dev- astating impact on the civilian population of ongoing armed clashes in and around the city of Goma in the Democratic Re- public of the Congo (DRC). Of special concern is the massive influx of people wounded by firearms and explosive weap- ons into ICRC-supported facilities, in particular the CBCA Ndosho Hospital in Goma.”
The extent of the humanitarian catas- trophe is illustrated in the following ac- count given by Myriam Favier, head of the ICRC’s sub delegation in Goma:
“Some of the wounded are transport- ed by motorbike, others by bus, or with the help of volunteers from the DRC Red Cross. Civilians are arriving with serious bullet and shrapnel wounds. The whole hospital has been mobilized and three sur- gical teams are working around the clock to treat patients, some of whom have been forced to wait lying on the floor because of the lack of space. […] This situation has been caused by the use of artillery in densely populated areas – in particular, in large urban areas like Goma or in camps for displaced people – and by the devastat- ing impact of intense clashes on the civil- ians caught in the crossfire. […]” (ICRC, news release 28 January 2025)
A senior surgeon describes the situation
Dr Denis Mukwege, senior physician, and the founder and clinic director of the Panzi Surgical Hospital in Bukavu (South Kivu), describes the misery that this war has brought to the civilian population of east- ern Congo for the past 30 years. The doc- tor and peace campaigner was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018. In 2022, he was one of the candidates in the rigged elections for Congolese president. Mukwege was not interested in the results of the election, but in the opportunity it provided to draw to the attention of the Congolese voters, the con- fused situation in their threatened country. He was the only candidate who resolutely and courageously named the real reasons for, and perpetrators of, this war against the Congolese people. The following excerpts are current views of a man who, as a spe- cialist in the horrific injuries of women who have been systematically raped, has been doing all he can to help people in the clin- ic he founded, since the start of the wars in eastern Congo in 1996.
‘Finally put an end to this economic war!’
Kagame, the autocratic head of state of Rwanda, cancelled a summit meeting with Tshisekedi, President of the Democratic Re- public of Congo, to resolve the ongoing cri- sis. This was accompanied by gestures that were degrading for Tshisekedi. The next day, the first strike of the current campaign towards Goma began. Dr. Mukwege report- ed these developments on his website:
I am very concerned after reading the latest report of the United Na- tions Group of Experts on the Dem- ocratic Republic of the Congo2. Despite the agreement for a humani- tarian truce and a ceasefire, the Ki- gali regime continues to flout inter- national law and pursue its policy of territorial expansion with its AFC/ M23 coalition auxiliaries support- ed and controlled by 3,000 to 4,000 RDF elements. In a flagrant violation of the territorial integrity and Con- golese sovereignty, those troops use sophisticated military equipment and high-tech weapons […]. It controls the conquered territories, in partic- ular the Rubaya area, whose mines constitute one of the largest sources of coltan in the world.
The experts mandated by the Se-curity Council have reported, with Red Cross doctors and volunteer helpers are doing all they can. They have been in- creasingly short of everything since the fighting started again three years ago. (picture Keystone)
supporting evidence, that the AFC/ M23 coalition exercises a monopoly on the fraudulent extraction, trade and illegal export of minerals from Rubaya to Rwanda. This causes the most significant recorded contami- nation of the supply chains of “3T” minerals (tin, tantalum and tung- sten) in the Great Lakes region for the last ten years.
Experts estimate that the AFC/ M23 coalition controls the trade and transport of approximately 120 tons of coltan per month and that the tax on the production and trade of Rubaya coltan generates at least USD 800,000 per month for the oc- cupying forces.
Faced with the critical situation prevailing in eastern DRC, we once again urge the community of States to no longer accept superficial condemnations and empty words. Strong sanctions must be adopted against the actors of destabiliza- tion. Immediate and decisive meas- ures must be taken to ensure that Rwanda ceases its support for the M23 and immediately withdraws its forces from Congolese soil.
It is time to put an end to this economic war and the illegal ex- traction and trade of strategic min- erals in the heart of Africa […]. (Panzi News of 10 January 2025)
Congolese civil society is under threat from within
In a statement on the Congolese news channel “congoflash infos” on 28 Janu- ary, Patrick Mbeko, a politician with Con- golese roots and author of two fundamen- tal studies on the endless war in eastern Congo since its beginnings3, made the fol-
lowing points, among others: What is cur- rently taking place in and around Goma is not a natural disaster, but a long-planned strategic step that will be followed by fur- ther acts of military aggression. One prob- lem in the region is that the Tshisekedi government has neither sufficient informa- tion nor the necessary forces to effective- ly stop the international annexation of part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There is an unprecedented gap between the expectations of the Congolese and the passivity or even inability of the govern- ment in Kinshasa. Among the leading po- litical class in Kinshasa, praise dominates, fuelled in part by ethnic tensions and cli- entelism. According to Mbeko, it is time to speak clearly with the Congolese. All Con- golese must see clearly what is planned: the balkanisation of the Congo, the divi- sion of its coveted, strategically impor- tant natural resources among the sharks of modern finance, with Rwanda as a mili- tarily secured international contact point.
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What is currently taking place in and around Goma, combined with unbearable human suffering, has been planned for a long time, has strong international lobbies in the background and is being strategically and tactically led mainly by Rwanda’s army under the command of its autocratic head of state. This is done with the connivance and support of the authoritative states and organisations of the self-proclaimed “val- ues West”, which supposedly stands for freedom, democracy, and prosperity for all. Kagame’s autocracy, and his role in the 30-year war in eastern Congo, is support- ed by the West. This is especially true of the EU, with Germany in the lead, which pumps hundreds of millions of euros into the country every year. In return for this support, the EU, and therefore also Ger-
many, received a favourable contract con- cluded with the Rwandan leadership last spring. In it, Rwanda guarantees to sup- ply the EU with raw materials, primari- ly cobalt, lithium and tantalum, which are essential for the automotive and weapons industries as well as computer technology. This is what is really at stake, and not the conjured-up “civil war” or “war of rebellion”. The fact that today the entire Western world speaks of the paid merce- naries in eastern Congo as “rebels”, as if from a single mouth, is yet another un- acknowledged rule in the international media war for opinions, one almost cer- tainly enforced by various secret servic- es. It is a historical lie in short form. The so-called rebels are well-paid mercenaries under the command of unscrupulous profi- teers, both domestic and foreign. They are named in hundreds of UN reports, well or- ganised in UN archives, but which need not concern them. As long as lies and hid- den agendas determine the fate of our world, they are safe. Not so when the wind changes. •
1 M23 is the abbreviation for the “23 March Movement”, the new name for the particular- ly sadistic terrorist group CNDP, which was disbanded on 22 March 2009. AFC, Alliance Fleuve Congo (Alliance of the Congo River), is the collective name for other phan- tom rebel
formations in the service of discreet internation- al donors.
2 https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/
n24/373/37/pdf/n2437337.pdf. Denis Mukwege re- fers to the UN document “Letter dated 27 Decem- ber 2024 from the Group of Experts on the Dem- ocratic Republic of the Congo addressed to the President of the Security Council”, UN document S/2024/969. It records the failure of Uganda’s and the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s efforts to gain military control over the various so-called ‘rebel’ groups.
3 “Stratégie du chaos et du mensonge”, with co-au-
thor Honoré Ngbanda-Nzambo, 2014; and current- ly “Malheur au vaincus”, 2024