Congolese troops who surrendered to M23 fighters are cramped into vehicles to be transported to a camp outside Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. — Guerchom Ndebo/©2025 The New York Times Company
ITS soldiers are underpaid and underarmed. Its ranks are riddled with factions pursuing their own interests. And successive presidents are said to have kept it weak for fear of a coup.
Congo’s army has appeared too weak and dysfunctional to stop a militia that has swept through the eastern part of the country in recent weeks.
The militia, called M23, has seized two major cities, two strategic airports and large stretches of Congolese territory.
Felix Tshisekedi, Congo’s president, tried to prepare for this moment, strengthening his military to squash the thousands of fighters roaming in the east.
But that response has crumbled in the face of the M23 advance, leaving Tshisekedi increasingly isolated, his domestic support evaporating, peace talks with regional powers stalled and strong international support lacking.
M23 is backed by Rwanda, Congo’s much smaller neighbour whose troops have trained, armed and embedded with the rebels, according to the United Nations. Rwanda has acknowledged that its troops are in Congo but denied controlling M23.
“This conflict has two sides,” said Fred Bauma, executive director of Ebuteli, a Congolese research institute. “One is Rwandan support to the M23. And the other one is internal weaknesses of the Congolese government.”
Tshisekedi said in a recent interview that the army’s problem is that it has been infiltrated by foreigners, and blames his predecessor for failing to address the problem.
“My predecessor spent 18 years in power without rebuilding the army,” Tshisekedi said. “When we started to overhaul and rebuild it in 2022, we were immediately attacked by Rwanda, as if they wanted to prevent the reforms.”
Over the past month, those attacks have accelerated, and the Congolese army and its allies – which include European mercenaries and armed groups known as the Wazalendo, or Patriots – have lost battle after battle.
M23 is pushing into new territory, surrounding the city of Uvira, and marching both north and south. In Bukavu, Congolese soldiers retreated in long columns before M23 had even attacked the city.
A feeble giant
On paper, Congo appears well placed to deal with threats coming from its much smaller neighbour. Experts estimate it has between 100,000 and 200,000 troops, far more than Rwanda or M23.
But the Congolese military has long been known for weakness and corruption.
Unmotivated soldiers boost their paltry incomes by extorting civilians, often at Congo’s hundreds of roadblocks, the most lucrative of which can pull in US$900 (RM3,975) a day, many times a soldier’s monthly salary.
Commanders collect payments from their subordinates – or extra salaries, for ghost workers who exist only on paper – in a long-entrenched system of graft and abuse.
Troops lack trucks for transport, and instead often commandeer motorcycle taxis to get from deployment to deployment.
“The army really operates like an armed group,” said Peer Schouten, a researcher on peace and violence at the Danish Institute for International Studies, with a focus on Central Africa.
Knowing this, Tshisekedi tried to strengthen the army. In 2023, he more than doubled the military budget from US$371mil to US$761mil – dwarfing Rwanda’s US$171mil, though both countries’ equated to just over one percent of their gross domestic product.
Some of the money was spent on better arms.
Congo recently bought attack drones from China, as well as surveillance and attack aircraft from a South African defence company. It also spent US$200mil on a regional force that pulled in southern African troops.
But “increasing capability is not something that can happen overnight”, said Nan Tian, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
On the other side of the conflict is M23, a militia with decades of experience in eastern Congo and backed by as many as 4,000 well-armed, well-trained Rwandan troops operating on Congolese territory.
Rwanda is tightly controlled by its president, Paul Kagame, who took over after the 1994 genocide. He has consolidated his power and brooks no dissent; his government says he won 98% and 99% of the vote in the last two presidential elections.
The roots of Congo’s fragility
Congo is the largest nation in sub-Saharan Africa. Much of it is remote and disconnected, and the state is either absent or predatory.
More than 100 armed groups are active, and perpetrators carry out abuse with almost total impunity.
The roots of Congo’s fragility run deep. It was left with weak institutions and very little development after decades of Belgian colonialism.
Then, after independence, the United States and Belgium backed the overthrow of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, and the United States later helped install Mobutu Sese Seko, a kleptocrat who ruled for nearly three decades.
A civil war toppled Mobutu in 1997; his successor, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated four years later.
Tshisekedi has never enjoyed much popularity among his people. He took over the leadership of his party after the death of his father, one of Congo’s foremost opposition politicians, and took power in 2018, declared the winner of an election that polling data suggests he almost certainly lost.
And though he retained power in the 2023 election, voter turnout was the lowest the country had seen since independence.
The Catholic church, which has a long history of monitoring Congo’s elections, accused the national electoral commission of presiding over an “electoral catastrophe”.
Since then, Tshisekedi has signalled that he wants to change the constitution, a tactic several African leaders have used to reset term limits and stay in power.
Stalled peace talks
Several diplomatic attempts to resolve the crisis in eastern Congo have reached a deadlock, with Tshisekedi twice refusing to attend peace talks.
Congolese church leaders are trying to organise the latest round of negotiations, and have met with Kagame and several Congolese opposition figures. They want Tshisekedi to speak with M23, something Kagame insists on.
So far, Tshisekedi has refused to negotiate directly with M23. But as he stalls, his position appears to be getting weaker.
The conflict has caused the deaths of more than 7,000 Congolese citizens since January, according to the United Nations. Roughly 2,500 have been buried without being identified, Congo’s prime minister told the United Nations recently.
Without a strong army, Tshisekedi has continued to appeal to world powers, hoping they will pressure Rwanda to back down.
When M23 attacked in 2012, international condemnation led Rwanda to withdraw support for the armed group, and it was eventually defeated.
This time, there has been widespread criticism, but no sign that Rwanda intends to back down. — ©2025 The New York Times Company
