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Some time has passed since Cornell Nanga had a office job. The former Congolese civil employee has spent most of the past two years in the case of fatigue, as head of the rebel groups coalition fighting to control the East in the country.
But in January, M23 seized the most prominent militias in the Congo River alliance of Mr. Nanga, the regional capital of Juma, and obtained a new disturbance: supervising the city government.
Now, it works from a respected migration office, while two people wearing black clothes without observation at the door. Outside, the small -sided soldiers gathered with a fluff peach mustaches in circles, and they are the bright Kalashnikov on their backs.
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A rebel movement called M23 has taken many Eastern Congo in recent months. Its ruling in one of the main cities in the region provides evidence about the long -term ambitions of the group.
But even as the M23 rebels intervened into the inappropriate role of officials, their final goals of this region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are still transparent.
With the neighboring Congo and Rwanda – which supports the M23 – due to the drafting of a peace agreement this week, Mr. Nanga insists that they do not intend to overthrow the national government. However, until recently, the M23 was still pushing to a new area. In cities like Goma, the rebels work to depict themselves as capable rulers, and they offer a window in the group’s efforts to consider a legitimate political movement.
“All over the Congo today, people expect to come because they want to change,” says Mr. Nanga. “They want good judgment … they want development.”
The consequences of the rebels
M23 is the latest in a long series of Congolese rebel movements that enjoyed the support of Rwanda. “It is a course with the same demands in practice,” says Onesphore Seatumba, an international crisis analyst, says. Returning to the mid -nineties.
This was when the Rwandan forces infiltrated the border to follow up on the 1994 genocide. Génocidiares. Over the next thirty years, a series of gang movements for mineral wealth, land and simple survival have been clashed, and agents often work in the broader conflict between the Congo and Rwanda.
M23 is the most successful of these Rwandan alignment forces. The rebels took over Guma for the first time in 2012, but they withdrawn in a hurry, as military defeats and international sanctions slapped their Rwandan supporters in exile.
While the M23 was underground, Mr. Nanga was rising throughout the Congo government. In 2018, he chaired the electoral committee that chose the rubber rubber for the current president, Felix Chesikdi, which led Punished by the United States To vote voting and extortion.
Later, when he began to wander with Mr. TSHISECEDI and his influence faded, Mr. Nanga has publicly admitted his role in falsifying the election results. This caused repercussions between the two men, and Mr. Nanga was placed on a different political path.
In the Congolese government, “I have seen a lot of mistakes. I have seen a lot of responsibility,” says Mr. Nanga.
“Come and compare”
In 2021, the M23 was restarted, with a new attack. Meanwhile, Mr. Nanga was also returning to a political return, this time by establishing the opposition alliance of the Congo. The coalition was established in 2023, M23 and other rebel groups and government control movements from all over the country were collected, and presented a platform to negotiate with the Congolese government.
As a result, Mr. Seemtumba says, the M23 demands have become “more political and more patriotic.”
This vision is revealed in the rebel -controlled Juma, where the M23 appoints new officials. Among them Helen Nirajir Mukadshi, former M23 intelligence agent specializes in monitoring civil activity. Now, she works in the mayor’s office.
“We live well,” she says. “Come and compare the M23 control areas with those under government control.”
But there is evidence on the contrary. The banks are out of money, the airport has been closed since January, and Goma and its inhabitants areolated. Although the M23 restored the water and electricity supply that was cut during its progress, and the schools were reopened, the fear climate is suspended over the city. The militants are wearing uniforms in its streets in armored cars. Residents are forced to participate in weekly cleaning operations.
A correspondent correspondent of four store owners asked their stores looted during the M23 progress about life under the rebel government. All of them were afraid to speak. Meanwhile, the vibrant nightlife of Juma, which was until recently with the dance halls and the swimming pool, all disappeared. From Dark, the city is completely quiet, where people once met to chat and share news. Residents complain of thieves roaming the streets after dusk.
Expansion
The fall of Goma was followed by the rapid progress of the M23 in a new area. In February, it acquired Boukavo, the largest city in the nearby South Kivu province, and secured the full length of the Rwanda border with the Congo.
The group also accelerates the imposition of taxes on the areas it occupies, indicating that it is trying to create a parallel state. All goods that enter Goma, for example, are now subject to taxes. Over the past year, the M23 has held the terrible lands, known as its rich deposits in the Colin, which are used in batteries that operate mobile phones, laptops and electric cars. Although the M23 claims that he does not inhale the Colatian himself, the United Nations says it is. Extract 800,000 dollars In taxes monthly from miners and traders in Robia.
Mr. Nanga says that the group does this “because we are the authority of the state now.”
A tense decision
In April, peace talks in Qatar, M23 and the Congolese government announced Immediate shootingWhile preparing for a permanent agreement. In a separate deal in which the United States mediated on April 27, Congo and Rwanda pledged to stop supporting competing armed groups. Washington simultaneously in talks with both countries about investing in Critical minerals. The peace agreement is expected on Friday. However, many ceasefire operations were announced and then divided since the M23 conflict began in 2021.
Meanwhile, Guma’s residents accepted their new government, but they are more than the resignation of numbness more than optimism.
Gergamo’s house was wounded by a missile when M23 seized the city, and shrapnel cut off her head and leg. “I built this house myself without any help from anyone,” she says.
Now you wonder if it is worth starting again.