After the success of the Congolese army and U.N. peacekeepers in defeating M23 rebels, the U.N. Security Council agreed on Wednesday that attention should now turn to tackling other armed groups in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, envoys said.
At the top of the list is the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which includes some Hutus who fled neighboring Rwanda after the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus, said French U.N. Ambassador Gerard Araud.
Millions of people have died from violence, disease and hunger since the 1990s as dozens of rebel groups have fought for control of eastern Congo’s rich deposits of gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt and uranium.
In an unprecedented move, the United Nations deployed earlier this year an Intervention Brigade with a mandate to eliminate armed groups in eastern Congo.
The 3,000-strong brigade was an assertive new step for peacekeeping, which for years has been criticized in the region for inaction and failing to protect civilians.
“The general consensus was that we have to handle the other armed groups, and among which – I guess on the front line if I may say – the FDLR,” Araud said after a briefing of the 15-member Security Council on the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Tutsi-led M23 rebel group on Tuesday called an end to a 20-month revolt after the army captured its last strongholds. Martin Kobler, head of a nearly 20,000-strong U.N. mission in Congo (MONUSCO), said the focus would now be on the FDLR and Islamist group Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
“The ADF in many ways are the most scary of the forces because they are the only ones that have an ideology … the ADF is a Muslim extremist force and there’s talk of links to (Somalia’s) al Shabaab,” said a senior council envoy, speaking on condition of anonymity, before Wednesday’s briefing. Reuters