Wikipedia Deep Dive

March 23 Movement

16 min read

In November 2012, a rebel army walked into Goma, a city of one million people, and simply took it. No prolonged siege, no months of bombardment—just armed columns rolling through the streets of the capital of North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The government forces meant to defend it had melted away. The rebels called themselves M23, a name commemorating a broken promise. They would hold the city only briefly before international pressure forced their withdrawal, but they had made their point: the Congolese state could not protect its own people.

That was just the beginning.

As of 2025, M23 controls not just Goma but Bukavu, the capital of neighboring South Kivu province, along with a constellation of major towns across eastern Congo. They are the dominant force in a region roughly the size of France, home to some of the world's richest mineral deposits and some of its most desperate humanitarian crises. How did a rebel group born from a mutiny of a few hundred soldiers become masters of such a vast territory?

The answer lies in the complicated, bloody politics of the Great Lakes region of Africa—and in the shadow of a genocide that occurred three decades ago but continues to shape everything that happens here.

The Ghosts of 1994

You cannot understand M23 without understanding the Rwandan genocide of 1994, when Hutu extremists slaughtered approximately 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in roughly 100 days. The killing only stopped when the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a rebel army composed largely of Tutsi refugees, invaded from Uganda and seized power.

Many of the génocidaires—those who had participated in the killings—fled across the border into what was then called Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They regrouped in the refugee camps of the Kivu provinces, right along the Rwandan border. Some of these fighters would eventually form the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, known by its French acronym FDLR, a militant group that has plagued the region ever since.

For Rwanda's new Tutsi-led government, this was an existential threat camped on their doorstep. The people who had tried to exterminate them were reorganizing just across the border, in a country too weak to control them. Rwanda's response would reshape Central African politics for generations.

The Rwandan government began sponsoring armed groups inside Congo. The logic was straightforward: if the Congolese state could not or would not eliminate the FDLR, Rwanda would create proxy forces to do it themselves. But these proxies often served other purposes too—protecting Tutsi communities in eastern Congo, certainly, but also securing access to the region's extraordinary mineral wealth and extending Rwandan influence.

The Rebellion Before the Rebellion

M23's roots trace back to a man named Laurent Nkunda, a former Tutsi rebel who had fought with the Rwandan Patriotic Front before establishing himself as a warlord in eastern Congo. By 2006, Nkunda had formed the National Congress for the Defence of the People, known as the CNDP—the direct predecessor to M23.

The CNDP was never a purely Congolese movement. From its inception, it received substantial support from Rwanda: training, equipment, sometimes direct military assistance. Nkunda operated from cattle ranches owned by a Rwandan presidential advisor. His officers attended training programs using materials provided by the Rwandan government. When the CNDP launched major offensives, Rwandan troops were deployed alongside them.

Rwanda justified this intervention by pointing to the FDLR. As long as génocidaires remained active in eastern Congo, Kigali argued, it had both the right and the duty to intervene. This was not an unreasonable position—the FDLR did represent a genuine threat, and the Congolese government was genuinely incapable of eliminating it. But the intervention also served Rwanda's broader interests in maintaining influence over a strategically vital and resource-rich region.

By 2008, the CNDP had become powerful enough to threaten Goma itself. The Congolese government, facing military collapse, had no choice but to negotiate.

The Poisoned Peace

On March 23, 2009—the date that would later give M23 its name—the Congolese government signed a peace agreement with the CNDP. The terms were generous to the rebels. CNDP fighters would be integrated into the Congolese national army. CNDP leaders would receive senior military positions. The movement would transform into a legal political party. Refugees would be reintegrated. And crucially, former CNDP officers would be allowed to remain stationed in the Kivu provinces, close to their home communities and their Rwandan backers.

This was supposed to end the conflict. Instead, it planted the seeds for the next one.

The Congolese government viewed the integration as a temporary expedient—a way to buy peace while it rebuilt its strength. The CNDP leaders viewed it as a permanent arrangement that guaranteed their autonomy within the national army. These incompatible visions were bound to collide.

In the meantime, the former CNDP commanders used their new positions to enrich themselves spectacularly. They controlled mineral smuggling operations, extracting gold, coltan, and cassiterite from eastern Congo's mines and shipping them across the border. They ran unauthorized taxation systems, essentially operating as a parallel government. They embezzled from military budgets. One of the most effective at this was Bosco Ntaganda, who had served as the CNDP's chief of staff and now held a senior position in the Congolese army despite being wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes including the use of child soldiers.

The Breaking Point

By 2011, tensions were becoming unbearable. The Congolese government, under pressure from international donors to reform its military, began trying to assert control over the former CNDP networks. It attempted to transfer ex-CNDP commanders out of the Kivus, breaking their territorial power bases. It launched a "regimentation" initiative meant to eliminate parallel command structures.

The former rebels resisted. They claimed security concerns—the FDLR remained active, and Tutsi officers feared being deployed to areas where they might face ethnic hostility. They pointed to discrimination within the military. But they were also fighting to preserve their lucrative fiefdoms.

The controversial Congolese elections of November 2011, widely criticized as fraudulent, provided the spark. International donors demanded military reforms as a condition of continued support. The Congolese government responded by moving decisively against the CNDP networks. In February 2012, presidential advisors met with Rwandan officials to discuss economic incentives for Rwandan cooperation in breaking up the ex-CNDP power structure.

For Bosco Ntaganda and officers like him, the writing was on the wall. The International Criminal Court had just convicted Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a Congolese warlord, for similar crimes to those attributed to Ntaganda. The Congolese government was coming for them. Their Rwandan protectors might be bought off.

They decided to act first.

The Mutiny

The first attempt at rebellion, in January 2012, failed almost comically. Mutineers in Bukavu couldn't coordinate, couldn't recruit enough supporters, and mostly ended up surrendering or returning to the army they had tried to desert.

But the organizers learned from their mistakes. On May 6, 2012, a more carefully planned mutiny succeeded. Several hundred soldiers, mostly former CNDP fighters, broke away from the Congolese army and retreated into the volcanic highlands of Masisi. They called their new movement M23, invoking the date of the 2009 peace agreement that they claimed the government had betrayed.

The stated grievances were about that agreement—unpaid salaries, broken promises about political representation, failure to reintegrate refugees. The real motivation was simpler: survival. Ntaganda and his associates were about to be arrested, prosecuted, potentially extradited to face justice at The Hague. They chose war instead.

Rwanda's Fingerprints

What happened next would have been impossible without Rwandan support. A few hundred mutineers, operating in difficult terrain against a larger government force backed by United Nations peacekeepers, somehow became a conquering army.

A United Nations investigation would later document the extent of Rwanda's involvement. The Rwandan government didn't just arm and supply M23—according to the UN report, Rwanda effectively created and commanded the rebel group. Rwandan officers planned operations. Rwandan troops crossed the border to fight alongside the rebels. Rwandan territory provided a safe rear area for training and regrouping.

Rwanda denied everything, of course. It always has. But the evidence was overwhelming, and in 2024, when M23 resurfaced after years of relative dormancy, another UN investigation found the same pattern: direct support from the Rwandan military.

The question is why Rwanda keeps doing this. The FDLR, which once provided the main justification for intervention, has been dramatically weakened over the years. More than 4,500 FDLR combatants have been repatriated to Rwanda, and the group is a shadow of its former self. Yet Rwanda's support for armed proxies in eastern Congo continues.

Part of the answer is economic. Some estimates suggest that 10 to 30 percent of Rwanda's mineral exports may actually originate in Congo, smuggled across the border from rebel-controlled mines. Rwanda has become a significant exporter of minerals that it doesn't actually produce in meaningful quantities domestically. The profits from this trade benefit both the Rwandan state and well-connected private actors.

But the deeper answer is strategic. Rwanda views the Kivu provinces as its sphere of influence, a buffer zone that it cannot allow to be controlled by hostile forces. Whether those hostile forces are the FDLR, the Congolese government, or anyone else who might threaten Rwandan interests, Kigali seems determined to maintain leverage through armed proxies. It's a policy that has brought Rwanda considerable criticism but also considerable benefits, and nothing has yet forced it to change course.

The Fall of Goma

M23's 2012 offensive was shockingly successful. By November, the rebels had pushed through government defenses and were approaching Goma. On November 20, they entered the city virtually unopposed. A million people suddenly found themselves under rebel control.

The capture of a major city—a provincial capital—by a rebel group marked a humiliating failure for both the Congolese government and the international community. The United Nations had thousands of peacekeepers in eastern Congo. They did not stop M23's advance.

What stopped M23 was not military force but diplomatic pressure. The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, a body representing countries in the area, intervened. With the Congolese government finally agreeing to negotiate, M23 was persuaded to withdraw from Goma.

But the rebels didn't go far. They continued to hold significant territory in North Kivu, and fighting continued throughout 2013. The tide only turned when the UN deployed a new intervention force with an unusually aggressive mandate: not just peacekeeping but peace enforcement, with authorization to actively attack rebel positions. Combined with renewed Congolese military operations and, crucially, the suspension of Rwandan support under international pressure, this eventually broke M23's military power.

By late 2013, M23 appeared finished. Its fighters had been pushed into Rwanda and Uganda. Its leaders had fled abroad. The movement announced a ceasefire and expressed interest in peace talks.

The Long Dormancy

For the next several years, M23 existed mainly as a political organization in exile, lobbying for implementation of peace agreements and amnesty for its members. Some fighters remained in the bush, conducting low-level operations, but the movement seemed to have been decisively defeated.

This was an illusion.

In 2017, M23 remnants resumed insurgent activities. For several years, this remained a relatively minor concern—guerrilla attacks, skirmishes with government forces, nothing like the campaigns of 2012-2013. The movement appeared to be a spent force, capable of nuisance operations but not serious military threats.

Then, in 2022, everything changed.

The Return

M23's resurgence caught many observers by surprise. The group had reorganized, reequipped, and evidently reestablished its connection with Rwandan military support. In rapid succession, it launched offensives that overwhelmed Congolese army positions across a wide area of North Kivu.

By late 2022, M23 was approaching Goma again. In November, their advance forced approximately 180,000 people to flee their homes in a single wave of displacement. The Congolese army withdrew from the area around Kibumba village, essentially abandoning the approaches to the provincial capital.

The humanitarian situation, already catastrophic, grew worse. Eastern Congo has been called the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman or child, and the renewed conflict added to the toll. In June 2023, Human Rights Watch documented systematic abuses by M23 forces: unlawful killings, sexual violence, recruitment of children as soldiers. These weren't isolated incidents but patterns of conduct.

The United Nations Security Council responded with sanctions against M23 leaders and pointed directly at Rwandan officials as complicit in the rebellion. But sanctions have rarely changed Rwandan behavior, and they didn't now.

The Fall of Two Capitals

What M23 achieved in 2025 dwarfed its 2012 seizure of Goma. The group now controls both Goma and Bukavu—the capitals of North Kivu and South Kivu, respectively—along with major towns like Bunagana, Kiwanja, Kitchanga, Rubaya, and Rutshuru. They have become the dominant military power in a vast swath of eastern Congo.

M23 now leads what it calls the Congo River Alliance, a coalition of rebel groups operating in the region. This represents a significant evolution from the group's origins as a mutiny of former CNDP fighters. It has become an umbrella organization capable of coordinating multiple armed factions.

The Congolese state has essentially lost control of its eastern provinces. Government forces have proven unable to reverse M23's advances. International peacekeepers, despite their mandate to use force, have been marginalized. The civilian population endures the consequences: displacement, violence, exploitation, and the collapse of services that were already minimal.

The Tutsi Question

One of the most troubling aspects of the M23 crisis is how it intersects with ethnic politics. M23's leadership and core membership are predominantly Tutsi, part of a community that has lived in eastern Congo for generations but whose nationality remains contested. Congolese politicians have sometimes accused all Tutsis of disloyalty, of being Rwandan agents rather than true Congolese citizens. This rhetoric has fueled intercommunal violence and complicated any political resolution of the conflict.

The Tutsi community of eastern Congo faces a genuine dilemma. They have legitimate grievances about discrimination and physical threats from ethnic militias. Rwanda presents itself as their protector, and M23 claims to defend their interests. But the actions of Rwandan-backed armed groups have also deepened hostility toward Tutsis among other Congolese communities, creating a cycle of fear and violence that benefits no one except those who profit from perpetual conflict.

Breaking this cycle would require the Congolese state to credibly guarantee the rights of Tutsi citizens while Rwanda ended its support for armed proxies—two things that seem equally unlikely in the current environment.

The Mineral Connection

Eastern Congo contains some of the world's most valuable mineral deposits. Coltan, essential for electronics manufacturing. Gold. Tin. Tungsten. These resources have financed armed groups of every description for decades, and M23 is no exception.

The mineral trade creates perverse incentives. Armed control of mining areas generates revenue. That revenue purchases weapons and recruits fighters. Those fighters seize more mining areas. The cycle is self-sustaining as long as there are buyers for the minerals, and there are always buyers. The global demand for electronics ensures that someone will purchase what comes out of Congolese mines, regardless of the blood on them.

Efforts to create "conflict-free" supply chains for minerals have had limited success. The trade is too lucrative, the enforcement mechanisms too weak, the alternate routes too numerous. M23 and groups like it have learned to launder minerals through multiple intermediaries until their origins become untraceable.

Rwanda benefits from this system both directly, through the participation of Rwandan commercial actors in the smuggling trade, and indirectly, through the ability to use proxy forces financed by mineral revenues. It's a remarkably efficient arrangement from Kigali's perspective: the proxy war in Congo essentially pays for itself.

The International Failure

The international community has been dealing with conflict in eastern Congo for three decades now. The United Nations has maintained one of its largest and most expensive peacekeeping missions in the country, with little to show for it. Successive peace agreements have collapsed. Armed groups proliferate faster than they can be demobilized. The humanitarian crisis grows worse each year.

Part of the problem is that the international community has never been willing to confront Rwanda directly. Rwanda is a donor darling, praised for its economic development, its clean streets, its efficient governance. Paul Kagame, the Rwandan president who has held power since the genocide, cultivates an image as an enlightened reformer. Western governments are reluctant to antagonize a success story, even when that success story destabilizes a neighboring country.

The UN Security Council issues statements and imposes sanctions, but these measures have not changed the fundamental dynamic. M23 continues to operate. Rwanda continues to support it. The Congolese state continues to fail. And millions of civilians continue to suffer.

What Comes Next

There is no obvious path to peace in eastern Congo. The Congolese government lacks the military capacity to defeat M23 and its allies. Rwanda shows no intention of withdrawing its support. International pressure has been insufficient to change either calculation. And the underlying issues—contested citizenship, ethnic tensions, mineral wealth, weak governance—remain unresolved.

M23 is not going anywhere. It controls more territory now than at any point in its history. Its coalition is broader, its position more entrenched. Unless something fundamental changes, the suffering of eastern Congo's population will continue indefinitely.

The March 23 Movement takes its name from a broken promise—the peace agreement of 2009 that was supposed to end one cycle of conflict but instead created the conditions for the next. That pattern of betrayed agreements, renewed violence, and failed interventions has repeated so many times now that it seems less like a historical aberration than the permanent condition of a region that the world has failed to save.

Perhaps the most tragic aspect is that everyone involved knows what needs to happen. Rwanda needs to stop sponsoring armed groups. The Congolese government needs to build effective institutions. The international community needs to enforce meaningful consequences for those who perpetuate the conflict. None of this is mysterious. All of it seems impossible.

And so the war continues, year after year, with M23 now ascendant and no end in sight.