SPECIAL REPORT-M23 rebels entrench their rule in eastern Congo even as Trump claims peace

By David Lewis, Sonia Rolley and Giulia Paravicini

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Hundreds of men and women sat in rows in a wooden hall listening to the leader of Congo's M23 rebellion at the end of a two-week re-education programme.

The rebel chief, Sultani Makenga, asked the students: Do they understand that only force can free their country from misrule by the government in Kinshasa?

"Yes, Commander," they shouted in reply, a video of the event shows.

But they won't be putting on fatigues. These new rebel "executives" comprise the civilian frontline in a campaign by M23 rebels to entrench a parallel administration across the tracts of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo they seized in a lightning advance in January.

The course took place in September near the town of Rutshuru in Congo's North Kivu province. There, the civilian attendees learnt the basics of handling weapons and did some military exercises. But the focus, according to four trainees and an M23 charter document outlining the group's doctrine, was more on Congo's troubled history – and on how to build a new, federal state anchored in good governance, based on M23's stated values of commitment, determination, sacrifice and discipline.

The 32-page M23 charter, which forms the basis of the civilian training course, has been circulated within the rebel group but hasn't been previously reported.

"You have come here for training to understand why we're leading this fight and what we need to do to free the country," M23 commander Makenga told the students, speaking in an M23 video of the September 2 event. "We think you've taken that on board."

The conflict in eastern Congo is one of eight wars U.S. President Donald Trump says he has ended in less than a year. At a signing ceremony hosted by Trump in Washington on December 4, Congo and Rwanda, which has long been accused of backing the rebels, reaffirmed their commitment to peace. U.S. officials say Western companies could invest billions of dollars to extract Congo's critical minerals once peace is secured.

The conflict isn't settled, however. M23 isn't a party to the pact Congo and Rwanda signed. On Friday, a day after the meeting, heavy fighting continued on the ground in eastern Congo.

And as M23 takes part in separate peace talks led by Qatar in Doha, the group is tightening its grip on power, undermining the prospect of any real end to the fighting. Under cover of the negotiations, M23 is effectively building a separate, self-sustaining government in the eastern part of Congo that has many characteristics of a fledgling state, Reuters has found.

The group has a military force that has roughly tripled in size this past year, with thousands of new fighters deployed to firm up M23's hold on the territory it has seized. The group has put in place a new civilian leadership structure with hundreds of loyal officials, including new provincial governors and mayors.

In a bid to operate independently of Kinshasa, M23 is trying to nurture its own financial institutions, as Reuters previously reported. It has been fixing roads, has imposed taxes on coltan-rich mines, and is issuing travel visas for visitors to the territory it runs.

M23 declined multiple requests from Reuters to comment on its state-building efforts and its stance on Trump's peace effort.

'HEADING TOWARD FEDERALISM, OR WORSE'

This reality on the ground shows that Congo could now be facing an enduring fracture – a recipe for sustained fighting in a country that has seen decades of war and rights abuses. Residents living under M23 rule said the rebels have restored some order after years of chaos, but their strict rules must be adhered to.

"There's no way they're going to implement any of the peace deals," said Jason Stearns, a Congo specialist and former member of the U.N. panel of experts on the country. "Their approach to the peace process is to hold on to power as long as possible."

Fred Bauma, head of the Congolese research group Ebuteli, which studies the country's endemic conflict, said he believes M23 is playing along with international mediation efforts to manage diplomatic pressure while buying time to reorganise, rest, recruit and redeploy troops.

"The way this crisis is managed will determine the future shape of the state. If the Doha peace process fails and the M23 prevails, we are heading toward federalism, or worse," he said, referring to the possibility of rebels continuing to govern swathes of the east.

Diplomats and analysts say both M23 and the Congolese government have been dragging their feet in peace talks. The government is making few concessions, even though it has lost territory, they note, and continues to harass rebel positions.

M23 leaders have said the rebellion's presence in the east is a result of the collapse of state institutions and that it had an obligation to provide security and services. The rebel group, the core force in a broader coalition called the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), or Congo River Alliance, denies being a Rwandan proxy. It has said it is committed to peace and is not seeking a partition in Congo's east.

But M23 also has called for the country to be further decentralised under a federal system that would weaken Kinshasa's grip on far-flung regions. The M23 charter seen by Reuters includes a plank that states that once Congo is peaceful and stable, it should become a federal state with free movement of goods and people within the region.

The Congolese government did not respond to requests for comment for this article. Kinshasa has said that any rebel efforts to establish a parallel administration violate Congolese sovereignty and must be removed as part of the peace process.

Rwanda has never publicly admitted to having troops in Congo. Its foreign minister, Olivier Nduhungirehe, reiterated to Reuters that the country doesn't back M23. But he said it was understandable that M23 has established a parallel administration in areas it now controlled.

Nduhungirehe said any deployments of Rwandan soldiers in relation to the Congo conflict were "defensive measures" to protect his country from a rebel group based in eastern Congo, the Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The FDLR, which was formed by some of the perpetrators of Rwanda's 1994 genocide, sometimes fights alongside the Congolese army.

The U.S. has called for the restoration of Congo's authority over all its territory. The U.S.-brokered deal reaffirmed in Washington last week calls for Congo to neutralise the FDLR and for Rwanda to withdraw its troops.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment. The State Department referred Reuters to prior statements it made in support of the signing and implementation of the December 4 accords between Congo and Rwanda. Qatar, which has been hosting peace talks between M23 and the Congolese government, did not respond to questions.

For this story, Reuters reported from rebel-held areas and interviewed more than 50 people, including officials and fighters from all sides, residents in territory occupied by M23, as well as diplomats and experts. Many spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals by the combatants.

DE FACTO STATE

Congo has been wracked by conflict since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, when a Hutu militia there slaughtered a million people, mostly Tutsis. The remnants of the Hutu militia fled to Congo, and the Tutsi-led government in Rwanda sent troops to hunt them down.

Rwanda's incursion triggered two wars that eventually sucked in most of Congo's nine neighbours and killed millions of people between 1996 and 2003, in a region prized for its minerals such as cobalt, coltan, copper, gold and tin. Since then, Tutsi fighters have led a series of insurgencies, arguing they need to protect themselves from Hutus and accusing the government in the distant capital Kinshasa of failing to uphold previous peace agreements.

M23 takes its name from the date of a peace deal that was signed on March 23, 2009, by the Congolese government and an earlier Tutsi-led rebellion, but never fully implemented.

M23 is dominated by ethnic Tutsis, as is the Rwandan government. Congo and international diplomats say M23 is supported by Rwanda, despite Rwanda's denials. U.N. experts have documented the presence of Rwandan trainers in some M23 camps. Two M23 recruits who spoke to Reuters confirmed this.

It's not the first time M23 has taken land in eastern Congo. Soon after it was created in 2012, M23 seized the most important Congolese city in the region, Goma, only to withdraw a few days later under Western pressure. The group was then defeated by a joint U.N.-government offensive that forced it into exile. Kinshasa refused to allow rebel fighters to rejoin the army or form a political party.

This time, M23 says it refuses to suffer the same fate and is digging in.

"M23 has launched a systematic state-building project to translate its military gains in the eastern Congo into a de facto autonomous region," according to Critical Threats, an American Enterprise Institute project to inform policymakers.

The rebels have recruited and deployed over 9,000 new fighters to beef up control of their territory, according to five U.N. and diplomatic sources. M23 has announced the appointments of provincial and city administrators in Goma and Bukavu, the other major city in the east. And more than 20 traditional community leaders have been replaced by representatives deemed more compliant with the rebels, according to a tally by the government in Kinshasa that hasn't been previously reported.

Oscar Balinda, M23's deputy spokesman, told Reuters in October that the traditional ruling families, not the rebellion, chose their new leaders after predecessors fled the fighting. Reuters was unable to reach those new leaders for comment. Balinda did not provide further details, and M23 didn't respond to follow-up requests for comment for this article.

The rebels have consolidated their control of Congo's international borders in areas they've conquered. In October, M23 said that foreigners can now only enter with visas issued by the rebel group and that entry documents from Congolese embassies are not recognised. A tariff sheet seen by Reuters lists the charges locals and foreigners must pay M23 to cross the borders it controls.

M23 territory stretches hundreds of kilometres along Congo's frontiers, from Uganda in the north by Lake Edward, south past Rwanda and on to Burundi and Lake Tanganyika – an area estimated to have a population of up to 9 million.

MOUNT SABINYO BASE

After its short-lived occupation of Goma in 2012, M23 faded away and disbanded in 2013. According to the M23 charter document, military chief Makenga began in 2017 to quietly rebuild the group at a base on Mount Sabinyo, an extinct volcano home to endangered mountain gorillas where Congo, Rwanda and Uganda all meet.

Makenga had 324 people and only five guns at the time, according to the document. Five years later, he relaunched the rebellion in earnest, the document said, and the insurgents stamped their authority on areas they seized with checkpoints and taxes.

While some Congolese troops defected to M23 with their weapons, experts say much of M23's firepower was provided by Rwanda – from small arms and rocket launchers to guided missiles and sophisticated systems to neutralise U.N. and Congolese drones.

In January, M23 seized Goma and Bukavu, the capitals of North and South Kivu provinces, respectively.

Alexis Arieff, Africa policy analyst at the U.S. Congressional Research Service, said M23 is unlikely to cede territory quickly this time. "M23 appears to be seeking durable territorial control, which its leaders defend as an improvement over Congolese mismanagement," she said.

M23 has nominated hundreds of new rebel officials since January, according to rebel announcements reviewed by Reuters. The new officeholders range from provincial governors and ministers to town mayors and community leaders.

Some appointees led past rebellions. Others are younger Congolese Tutsis returning from neighbouring countries, but also from places further afield, including Australia, Scandinavia and the United States. Several former government officials and youth activists sympathetic to the cause have joined the movement, too, according to recruits and M23 announcements.

'DESTROY, BUILD, CONFIDENCE'

The civilian training programmes are an example of how M23 is continuing to recruit and indoctrinate people, further embedding its rule. Reuters reviewed video footage from the September training event near Rutshuru, and interviewed four recruits who attended several different sessions.

The re-education courses are designed to forge loyalty, trainees and rebel sources told Reuters. They are compulsory for civilian officials who want to keep their jobs, from the heads of state-owned companies to community leaders and low-level administrators, the sources said. Other attendees have included volunteers joining the rebel movement.

Besides the civilian training, M23 has at least two bases where it conducts military courses, according to three trainees and two U.N. sources. New recruits go to a camp in Chanzu, the sources said, while Congolese troops and fighters from government-allied militias who surrender are retrained at a former army base in Rumangabo. Both facilities are in North Kivu near Rwanda.

M23 had between 3,000 and 5,000 troops when the group seized Goma, according to the U.N. sources and three diplomats. It now has at least 14,000, including the 9,000 newly trained recruits, the sources said. The rebels say they have more recruits coming through and, in an October video filmed at the Chanzu camp, announced another 9,350 recruits.

A September 14 video from M23 made available to Reuters shows hundreds of men singing and clapping in formation, wearing olive green uniforms and the trademark rubber boots worn by many fighters to cope with the region's often wet and muddy terrain.

In the video, Corneille Nangaa, leader of the AFC, the political coalition dominated by M23, said the men were some of nearly 7,500 soldiers who had completed seven months of training. He said they were all former Congolese troops who had swapped sides.

Reuters confirmed the video was filmed at the Rumangabo base north of Goma, but was unable to verify who the men were or what training they had completed. The alliance didn't respond to questions for this article.

The military and civilian courses are designed to break people down, including by depriving them of food, before building them back up with rebel teaching, one of the trainees told Reuters.

"Destroy, Build, Confidence" was a motto trainers used, the trainee said. "They teach humility through humiliation and military discipline."

MINERALS AND LAND

As it trains administrators and reinforces its ranks, M23 is exploiting eastern Congo's mineral wealth as part of its funding strategy, Reuters found.

According to two Congolese government sources, M23 has seized 45 mining sites as of September across North and South Kivu producing coltan, cassiterite and gold.

The most significant is the Rubaya mine, which M23 seized in April 2024. It produces 15% of the world's coltan, the ore used to make tantalum, a key material used in electronic devices such as smart phones and computers, as well as in the aerospace and medical industries.

According to the United Nations, Rubaya is a vital economic lifeline for the insurgency, earning $800,000 a month through taxes imposed on players involved in the production and trade of minerals. U.N. investigators say the ore is smuggled through Rwanda for export to refiners in Asia.

Rwanda's foreign minister, Nduhungirehe, told Reuters it isn't unusual for minerals from Congo to transit through Rwanda. But he said Kigali isn't in charge of the trade.

Another source of conflict in the region is land. The years of fighting have uprooted countless people. Access to and ownership of land – which is often tied to ethnic identity – has thus frequently fuelled violence. To address this, M23 has established an "arbitration centre", a judicial system parallel to existing government structures to resolve land disputes.

Some watchdogs suspect a rebel-backed land grab. In an April study, the U.N.'s refugee agency found that hundreds of households that fled in earlier fighting said their land was now occupied. Witnesses said Rwandans had taken the land, preventing them from returning.

"The rebels have consolidated their control through a systematic effort to dismantle existing state authority and civil structures," a U.N. panel of experts said in July. M23, the panel added, "replaced them with its own parallel governance, targeted perceived dissenters, erased institutional records, and laid the groundwork for demographic and land control changes."

As in previous insurgencies, both government and rebel forces have been accused of atrocities, including raping and killing civilians. Both sides deny deliberately targeting civilians.

Reuters spoke to seven people, including two minors, who have been through M23 military training sessions. They described gruelling conditions and severe punishments for perceived ill-discipline.

While some in Congo have joined the rebels willingly, others are running scared. Since the M23 takeover, more than 500 activists and journalists have sought U.N. protection, the U.N. human rights office in Congo told Reuters. It is unclear how many of the people obtained refuge. Joseph Kakisingi, head of a network of national humanitarian NGO, said he has left eastern Congo after coming under pressure to align with the rebellion.

Balinda, M23's deputy spokesman, said the group enforces discipline, such as banning drugs and alcohol in its ranks, but denied anyone was forced to join up. "If all these people are joining us, it cannot be all that bad," he said.

Ten months into M23's occupation, some residents say they continue to struggle with economic disruptions such as bank closures. An atmosphere of fear and mistrust has set in, they say. But they also welcome improvements in security the rebels have brought to the streets of Goma and Bukavu, especially at night.

"It's true," said one Goma resident. "You can go out at night, but you must respect the rules. Otherwise, watch out!"

'SEND US YOUR YOUTH'

As the rebels put down roots, one question is how far Washington might go to pressure M23 and its backer, Rwanda, to relinquish territory.

The U.S., Britain and the EU have imposed sanctions on several M23 and Rwandan officials and some of their businesses over the rebellion. Diplomats say Washington has another package of sanctions ready if Rwanda fails to meet commitments made in U.S.-brokered deals to "lift its defensive measures" by the end of the year. Experts say "defensive measures" is diplomatic code for the Rwandan troop presence in Congo. The experts estimate Kigali still has up to 7,000 soldiers there.

But at the same time, Washington and Kigali struck a deal in August for Rwanda to take up to 250 migrants deported from the United States, in a sign the two countries are comfortable working together.

Rwanda's Nduhungirehe told Reuters that Kigali would lift its defensive measures once the FDLR, the Hutu rebel group, has been neutralised. FDLR spokesman Octavien Mutimura said the group would only disarm as part of a process in which it is allowed to take part in Rwandan politics, a scenario diplomats say is unlikely.

Despite its repeated interventions in Congo, Rwanda enjoys a reputation as a reliable and stable African partner for many Western nations. Its troops contribute to peacekeeping missions and are protecting a major French-led gas project threatened by jihadis in Mozambique. Its tourist board sponsors professional American football and basketball teams and top-flight European soccer clubs.

As M23 and Kinshasa trade blame for the continued fighting, the message rebel leader Nangaa has been delivering to his recruits suggests peace isn't imminent.

"Go door to door. Mobilise the youth," he said at the civilian training in September. "You have learned that those who dream we're going to take a step back are just dreaming. We're not going to go backwards. We will free Congo."