After a few days of truce, last Friday the heavy artillery bombings of the Congo loyalist forces began against the positions of the Congolese Revolutionary Army (ARC), the military arm of the M23. The initiative was supported by an already tested communication strategy: once the rain of the missiles ended, the journalists waiting in Goma were sent to the battlefield to watch the response of the ARC troops. A timeline designed to accredit the thesis according to which the rebel movement would be responsible for having attacked, first. The clashes in recent days, however, represent a turning point with the entry into the war of the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Congo, whose helicopters have at least delayed the M23 counter-offensive.
UN peacekeepers had kept aloof in the earlier stages of the fighting that began in November last year and despite pressure from the FARDC to involve them in support of their offensives. But in the latter circumstance, the loyalists resorted to a stratagem to provide UN with the pretext to intervene. Fleeing from the ARC counter-offensive, the regular army soldiers took refuge in the UN base, whose command decided at this point to mobilize the air force against the rebellion.
The unilateral decision of the FARDC to violate the ceasefire established at the beginning of the peace talks should perhaps have posed some problems to the French general Benoit Chavannat who heads the military contingent of the UN. Especially since the officials and their staff cannot be not aware about the resumption of fighting was incumbent.
FARDC also formed an alliance with a number of tribal militias, including mainly the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR), the Rwandan Hutu rebels led by a group of military personnel responsible for the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda. A and again UN did nothing except wwtching instead of dissuade the regular army in making this coalition which includes ex-genocidal people.
UN peacekeeping missions should be neutral and work towards the end of conflicts. But since they became stabilization Missions for about a dozen years, their role has gradually undergone an involution that has led them to manage the war instead of working in search of a solution to the crisis. And civilians still die under their eyes.
References:
https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/05/25/fighting-eastern-dr-congo/