As M23 rebel group advances in Congo, a new leader signals a shift in its identity

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — After Rwanda-backed M23 rebels took control of the biggest city in eastern Congo this week, the man who emerged from the shadows to assert his leadership was not the group's long-time military leader.

Sultani Makenga, an ethnic Tutsi rebel leader sanctioned by both the U.S. and the U.N., was nowhere to be seen in Goma's Serena Hotel as the bearded Corneille Nangaa, in military fatigues, was ushered into the hall. Nangaa, who is not a Tutsi and who analysts say brings a more diverse, Congolese face to the group, told reporters of his plan to fight all the way to Kinshasa, the national capital a thousand miles away.

The spectacle was significant because it captures the evolution of M23 from an ethnic Tutsi-dominated outfit more than a decade ago to one that's now actively seeking to be seen as a Congolese nationalist group. That's the case despite the military support it gets from neighboring Rwanda, according to observers and analysts in Africa's Great Lakes region.

From election chief to rebel leader

Nangaa is the former head of Congo's electoral body who oversaw the 2018 presidential election won by President Félix Tshisekedi. He has been a controversial figure in Congolese politics for years. As the election commission chair, he oversaw the heavily criticized vote that elected Tshisekedi and led the U.S. to sanction him in 2019 for undermining Congo's democracy.

A falling-out with Congolese authorities, including a dispute over a mining concession, sent Nangaa into exile in Kenya. In 2023, he joined the Congo River Alliance, a political-military coalition including 17 parties and rebel groups opposed to the government of Tshisekedi and became a top political figure.

Besides the mining, his grievance is also believed to be due to the president’s alleged refusal to advocate for the U.S. dropping Nangaa from its sanctions list, according to Christian Moleka, a political scientist at the Congolese think tank Dypol. “His perception that he had been mistreated by the authorities is what pushed him towards radicalization,” Moleka said.

An unholy matrimony

Last year, Makenga’s M23 joined Nangaa’s Congo River Alliance and with Nangaa at the helm of the revamped outfit, the M23 looked even more menacing to Congolese authorities, analysts say.

M23 is more of a threat now because the group is trying to “decouple the question of self-determination in eastern Congo” from evidence of Rwandan support, said Angelo Izama, an analyst with the Uganda-based Fanaka Kwawote think tank.

The rebels want to provoke a national discussion on widespread feelings of neglect in eastern Congo while gaining “as much territory as possible such that they can force the Congolese state to deal with questions of genuine autonomy and to force some kind of negotiation,” he said.

Forcing political negotiations is “a smart move” for the rebels, “the only path out of this crisis,” he added.

M23 forcing local alliances in Congo

Unlike in 2012, when the M23 took Goma in a campaign led by Kinyarwanda-speaking fighters pushing mainly for their full integration into the Congolese army, “this time it has a national agenda,” the Crisis Group think tank said of M23 in a recent assessment.

With Nangaa’s Congo River Alliance as the “political umbrella" for the M23, the think tank said the rebels have accumulated resources and allies that made them “attractive partners not only to armed groups in eastern (Congo) but to others aiming to undermine Tshisekedi.”

“This is in line with (Rwanda's) probable strategy of creating a deniable but powerful Congolese front to exact the maximum leverage over Kinshasa and confirm its dominance of North Kivu (province), at a minimum,” the think tank said.

United Nations experts have asserted that some 4,000 Rwandan troops back M23 rebels in North Kivu. To take Goma, which is strategically located close to the Rwanda border, the rebels defeated Congolese government troops who long had been supported by local militias known as Wazalendo as well as U.N. and regional peacekeepers and mercenaries from Europe.

M23 was once defeated but regrouped after a failed amnesty

M23 has about 6,500 fighters, according to U.N. estimates. It emerged in 2012 as a rebel group led by Congolese ethnic Tutsis who said a 2009 agreement signed to look after their interests — including integration into the army and the return of refugees from elsewhere in east Africa — had been violated by Congo’s government.

Led by Makenga, a Congolese Tutsi, M23 took Goma in a November 2012 offensive and pulled out days later under international pressure. They were later repulsed by U.N. forces fighting alongside Congolese government troops in a military campaign that forced hundreds of them to flee to Rwanda and Uganda. Makenga, a self-appointed major-general often seen wielding a herder's staff in the bush, was among those who fled to Uganda.

In December 2013, with hundreds of the rebels cantoned in a remote forested area of western Uganda, M23 signed an agreement with Congo’s government that called for the repatriation of the rebels to Congo within a year. That proved difficult to achieve because of a dispute over the rebels’ demand for a blanket amnesty while Congo’s government wanted commanders such as Makenga tried for their alleged crimes against civilians.

In 2016, hundreds of M23 rebels fled custody in Uganda, from where they were to be airlifted back to Congo. The rebels resurfaced in 2021 and became the most potent of more than 100 armed groups vying for control in the mineral-rich territory. The U.S. Department of Commerce estimates mineral deposits there to be worth $24 trillion, most of them crucial to global technology.

A new face politically motivated

Unlike in 2012, Nangaa's selling point as the face of M23 is that he is from the Haut-Uele province and not Tutsi," said Moleka with the Dypol Congolese think tank. "This allows M23 to give itself a new, more diverse, Congolese face, as M23 has always been seen as a Rwanda-backed armed group defending Tutsi minorities,” said Moleka.

The Washington-based Africa Center for Strategic Studies, in an analysis published Wednesday, cited “a shifting political calculus by sponsors" of M23. Efforts to establish a parallel civilian administration and expand the illicit exploitation of minerals “suggests that the rebel group and their regional backers have longer-term objectives in holding and potentially expanding their territorial control," according to the assessment by Paul Nantulya, a Ugandan analyst with the group.

At an M23 news conference in Goma on Thursday, Nangaa said the rebels aim to set up a new administration in the city of 2 million people that's now home to hundreds of thousands of displaced Congolese. The rebels spoke to reporters of their plans to return displaced people to their homes, presenting a major challenge to Tshisekedi.

"We are here in Goma to stay as Congolese,” Nangaa said. “We will continue the march for liberation all the way to Kinshasa.”

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Associated Press writer Mark Banchereau in Paris contributed to this report.