The City and Country of Washington, D.C., the United States government has voiced strong condemnation of the Rwandan government’s support for the M23 armed group currently engaged in violent attacks in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The U.S. Department of State’s spokesperson, Matthew Miller, released a statement titled “Escalation of Hostilities in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo” on the Department’s website, emphasizing the sanctions imposed on the M23 group by both the U.S. and the U.N. for various violations. The statement underscored that the M23 armed group, with the backing of the Rwandan government, had carried out an incursion into the town of Sake in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, leading to severe human rights abuses such as displacement, deprivation, and attacks.
Furthermore, the United States government urged Rwanda to withdraw all Rwanda Defense Force personnel from the DRC and dismantle its surface-to-air missile systems. The statement also called on the M23 armed group to immediately cease hostilities and retreat from its current positions surrounding Sake and Goma. The U.S. government emphasized the need for all parties involved in the conflict to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and to hold individuals accountable for human rights violations in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) conflict.
The U.S. government also urged the DRC government to continue supporting confidence-building measures, which should involve discontinuing cooperation with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group labeled as a “negative force” by regional entities and the DRC government due to its endangerment of civilian populations. The ongoing conflict in the border towns of Sake and Goma involves the rebel group known as the M23 movement, allegedly supported by the Rwandan government, conducting attacks on civilians and engaging in mortar exchanges with the DRC army. While the M23 insurgency claims to defend the rights of the Congolese Tutsi community against Rwandan Hutu killers who fled after the genocide, the abundant mineral resources in the border region serve as a significant incentive. The severity of the hostilities in eastern DRC has prompted a mass exodus of civilians fleeing for safety.