How Did We Get Here…?

The current crisis between DR Congo and Rwanda dates back to November 2021, when the largely defunct March 23 Movement (M23) militant group carried out lightning strikes on positions of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC), in the villages of Chanzu and Runyonyi in North Kivu Province, west of the Ugandan and Rwandan borders. By March 2022, M23 had seized key parts of Rutshuru territory, bordering Uganda and Rwanda. In May, they overran the Rumangabo military base, FARDC’s largest military installation in North Kivu. 
But prior to this, the M23 between March and November 2013, suffered numerous defeats at the hands of the Congolese military, the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), and the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) consisting of Tanzanian, Malawian, and South African troops. The UN Security Council’s Group of Experts on the DRC has previously implicated Rwanda in backing M23. Originally part of the Congolese military, M23 is dominated by Congolese Tutsis. It claims it wants to protect Tutsis against militant Hutu groups, including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which counts among its forces elements accused of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
In response to the rapid deterioration in the eastern DRC, the East African Community decided in June 2022 to deploy a regional force under Kenyan command to restore stability. President Tshisekedi’s earlier effort to permit Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda to operate jointly in eastern DRC under Congolese supervision failed due to bickering between Uganda and Rwanda. In addition to the agreement struck with Uganda, he worked out a deal with Rwanda on joint operations. A similar deal was reached with Burundi in July, setting the stage for the deployment of the Burundi military in South Kivu to pursue Burundian rebels. However, while the Ugandan and Burundian deployments went ahead as planned, the security deal between Rwanda and the DRC never worked. <...