Willy Ngoma raises her finger and gives a palmaditas on the back to a group of white people while parading with their heads beaten in front of him. “It does not joke with the M23, friend,” he warns them in English. It is Wednesday, January 29 and Romanian mercenaries hired by the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (RDC) are admitting their defeat before the military and spokesperson of the M23 Rebel Group after not being able to prevent them from being made with rubber control.
A day earlier, the M23 Congolese militiamen had entered the city of more than two million inhabitants without great resistance after more than a year, giving up the surroundings of the North Kivu region. It is not the first time that they do it: in 2012 the Tutsi majority group, financed and supported with material by the dictator Paul Kagame, of the same ethnicity, already entered into rubber unleashing a regional crisis. Now the M23 has entered accompanied by soldiers of the Rwanda Army, whose president, Paul Kagame, had never admitted to explicitly support the group to date, despite the tests confirmed by the UN.
They have been able with everything and against all: Rwanda and the M23 group has given him the same murder to 17 foreign soldiers, including one Uruguayan, one from Malaui and 13 South Africans, all part of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Monusco) as well as the regional forces of the Community Development Mission of the Southern Development of South Africa (Samidrc). They have also been able with the Romanian mercenaries that Ngoma and the militias of self -defense congroens said goodbye Wazalendo. In East RD Congo there are more than six million displaced people and the UN calculates that only in what we have been in 2025 another 400,000 people have been displaced For the fighting.
The situation is worse and can lead to a continental conflict. The South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, said in a statement that death is for the attacks of the M23 and the Rwanda army, which enraged Kagame, who replied that there was “much distortion, deliberate attacks and even lies” in his statement, denying that they were their forces or those of the M23 who killed their soldiers, thus responsible for the Congolese government.
Félix Tshisekedi, president of RDC, has called all citizens of legal age to enlist in the army and has promised a blunt response, threatening to attack Rwanda. This possibility is unbelievable seen that they have not been able to contain them in their own country and that they even move towards Bukavu, capital of the Kivu Sur region.
The president has also charged against the inaction of the international community after protests in the capital that have caused fires in the embassies of the United States and France.
Three decades of conflict
The conflict between Rwanda and RDC is not new. Already in 1996, the Kagame Government invaded the east of the neighboring country in the neighbor of the neighbor in what was considered the first war of Congo. Kagame accused the Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of sheltering the Hutu militiamen who had led the Rwanda genocide against the minority Tutsi two years before and who ended the life of more than 800,000 people and decided to support the guerrilla Laurent-deseir Kabila.
These helped the insurgency to overthrow Mobutu and defeat, but in 1998, just over a year later, Kabila, already as president, wanted to part with the influence of Rwanda and Uganda and ended up causing a new rebellion that resulted in the Second War From the Congo, the most deadly that would last four years and involved nine African countries.
After peace, the tension has continued with the appearance of March 23 movement, which arose from criticism due to the lack of integration of the Tutsi in the Congolese army led by President Joseph Kabila, son of the first. In 2012 they managed to gum, but the withdrawal of the more than 270 million international aid to the Kagame government caused a tacit agreement to stop financing the M23, which ended up defeated.
Nine years later, the M23 resurfaced from its ashes in 2021 after the differences with TSHISEKEDI and already in 2023 it was rumored that they could be done with a rubber. Now, they get it again and they already control Kivu Norte, a territory that is twice the size of Belgium, and seek to continue towards Kivu Sur, an equal province of great.
The African Israel
The Rwandan official rhetoric to invade his neighbor is in fear of a possible Hutu invasion that causes a second genocide, but the reality is the economic interest in the minerals present in the east of RD Congo.
Rwanda does not have its own mineral resources, but its neighbor has some of the most valuable minerals in the world such as gold, diamonds and, above all, two thirds of the coltan and half of the cobalt reserves that exist throughout the world. These are vital for energy transition, especially for electric batteries and mobile phones and it is estimated that the value of all Congo minerals is equivalent to the United States economy.
Even so, if we look at the map, it is striking that a country like Rwanda with a size smaller than Catalonia and a population of 15 million people can invade a region rich in minerals in a country with 100 million inhabitants and a surface total that adds that of all countries of Western Europe.
To be able to understand it, you have to understand the geopolitical power that Kagame has managed to earn. Kagame has managed to exploit the fault of the international community for not avoiding the 1994 genocide against the tutsis to obtain support and financing to its regime.
40% of the annual budget of the Ruandés government comes from the nearly 1.3 billion development aid it receives from its international partners, mainly from the United States, which contributes 174 million, almost three times more than Japan and Germany. France is also a vital partner after retaking diplomatic relations in 2019 and giving in four years 500 million dollars in development aid, as well as the United Kingdom, which beyond almost 40 million dollars annually has had a great relationship under conservative governments who have legitimized the country as a safe place with their agreement to expatriate irregular immigrants.
All that money has served Kagame to clean his image under propaganda visit Rwanda, the tourist motto that can be seen throughout the world in the sleeve of football teams such as Paris Saint-Germain, Arsenal. The Executive has also managed to position Kigali as a capital of international events and has reached agreements with the NBA to host the finals of the maximum continental competition of African basketball, the Annual FIFA Congress or this year the World Cycling World Cup. In December, Rwanda confirmed his candidacy for F1 to return to Africa.
Now, all this could be in check. British Foreign Minister, Labor David Lammy, has notified Kagame that he could lose the 1,000 million dollars in development aid if he does not stop supporting M23. That already happened in 2012, but this time Kagame is considered in a strong position.
The Rwandés President has calculated that this time they will not turn their backs. Donald Trump’s arrival may have encouraged him. Trump already criticized the Congolese government in campaign by launching Bulos that they sent their prisoners to the United States as irregular immigrants. In addition, last year the Tshisekedi government denounced the Apple technology for stealing its minerals of mines not authorized by the government. Kagame may have valued that Trump, a friend of large technology companies, might prefer to ensure minerals with the control of M23 and Rwanda and not of the Congo, thereby obviating the Congolese territorial integrity and all international legislation. At the moment, the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has asked for a fire that avoids an escalation of the tension and that allows a “prosperous regional economy.”
Be that as it may, the future regional scenario will depend on international partners. The possibility of a third war of Congo with continental participation is possible, although it is difficult to think of a coordinated attack against Kagame’s army. Thus, it is not unreasonable to think that Kagame ends up controlling with the M23 the regions of Kivu Norte and Kivu Sur de facto as Russia has done in locations of Donbás or Israel with the territories occupied in Palestine.
Even so, the withdrawal of international financing to Rwand mining areas in exchange for the withdrawal of the neighboring country.
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