SAKE/GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo, (Reuters) – R ebel forces in eastern Congo vowed yesterday to “liberate” all of the vast central African country as they began seizing towns near the Rwandan border and spoke of a 1,000-mile march to the capital Kinshasa.
The M23 rebels, widely believed to be backed by Rwanda, captured the eastern city of Goma on Tuesday, a provincial capital home to a million people; United Nations peacekeepers simply looked on, after Congolese troops had quit the town.
Regional leaders called on the rebels to halt their advance and Congo’s President Joseph Kabila appeared to soften his stand yesterday, saying he would look in to rebel grievances as the insurgents extended their reach.
“The journey to liberate Congo has started now,” Vianney Kazarama, spokesman for the rebel group, told a crowd of more than 1,000 at a stadium in Goma. “We’re going to move on to Bukavu, and then to Kinshasa. Are you ready to join us?
Hours later, a rebel unit took control of Sake, a strategic town near Goma on the road running the length of Lake Kivu to Bukavu, 100 km (60 miles) away. In the 1990s, the current president’s father burst out of the same area at the head of a rebel force to overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko.
A Reuters correspondent in Sake saw heavily armed rebels in control of the town and no sign of fighting. The bodies of four uniformed men and one in civilian clothing lay by the road. Locals inspected shelled buildings, burned out cars and a tank abandoned by the Kinshasa government’s FARDC army.
The government in Kinshasa issued a statement on Wednesday admitting it had lost the battle but pledging to win the war: “Victory will be ours. That is what the Congolese want.”
RWANDAN ROLE
The rebels accuse Kabila of failing to grant them posts in the army in line with a peace deal that ended a previous revolt in 2009. The current rebellion also reflects local ethnic tensions, intertwined with Rwanda’s desire for influence over a neighbouring region rich in minerals.
Rwanda previously backed the insurgency that swept Kabila’s father, Laurent, to power in 1996 after a march across Congo to oust Mobutu, veteran dictator of a country then known as Zaire.
