DRC Welcomes ‘Action’ by UN Intervention Brigade

The United Nations Intervention Brigade
in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a
new-style U.N. peacekeeping force with
a uniquely robust mandate, has finally
started fighting, the DRC government
said Friday. The force of more than
3,000 troops, mainly from Tanzania and
South Africa, has been in eastern Congo
for nearly three months and on
Thursday opened fire on the M23 rebels.

This was the moment many people in
eastern Congo had been waiting for,
DRC government spokesman Lambert
Mende said at a press conference. "I
think we can simply welcome the fact
that the brigade has gone into action,
since yesterday. It’s a good thing, better
late than never.”
There were about 16,000 U.N.
peacekeepers in Congo before the
brigade deployed, but they had taken
little part in the government's attempt to
neutralize the M23 rebels. Doubts had
been rising whether the new-style
brigade would be any different.

In a second day of fighting Thursday
between the army and the M23, some
17 kilometers north of Goma, however,
the brigade’s artillery unit from
Tanzania fired its field artillery at the
rebels’ positions, according to
international observers and sources
within the Congolese army.

It is unclear who started the latest
clashes. An army officer told VOA that
government troops had advanced four
kilometers since Wednesday, but other
sources believe they have moved
forward less than two kilometers.

Either way, the city of Goma is still
within range of M23 rockets. The M23
captured the strategic objective in
November, but then evacuated under
international pressure.

Mende said 11 rockets fell on Goma and
its outskirts Thursday, killing at least
one person and wounding 12. He said
experts reported that the missiles were
fired from Rwanda. Rwanda has
consistently denied supporting M23 and
has said that missiles were fired from
Congo into Rwandan territory in the past
two days.

Experts, including a Congolese army
officer, said the rockets that hit Goma
more likely had been fired from the
M23’s positions.
Mende was asked by a journalist
whether DRC should cut off diplomatic
relations with Rwanda over the
allegations that it has been supporting
M23, and that rockets have been fired
from its territory at Congo, and his
answer was effectively, no.

He said Congo's president, Joseph
Kabila, answered that question when he
said he would follow the advice of
regional leaders by not declaring war on
Rwanda or cutting ties with that country.

Mende noted that the president had
withdrawn his ambassador from Kigali,
though, leaving only lower ranking
diplomats at the DRC embassy there.
Congolese army sources say that only
the Tanzanian troops in the Intervention
Brigade have fired at the M23 so far,
and they did so from some ways behind
the government forces' front lines.

A U.N. source said the South African
government is not reluctant to combat
the M23 rebels, but its forces were not
needed in the latest engagement, which
required only the use of the Tanzanian
field artillery unit.

The intervention brigade commander
used to be Tanzania’s highest ranking
artillery commander.

TANZANIAN FORCES OF U.N