(PHOTO 1: Female demonstrators at the gates of MONUSCO HQ, Friday,
November 23, 2012)

(PHOTO 2: I call these women the "Sisterhood of Bereavers." They don
black mourning clothes and white headbands. They have been squatting
MONUSCO HQ since the day after the fall of Goma)

***

Flanked by riot cops led by Col. Kanyama-- Lukunga District
commander--thousands of Kinshasa women from all walks of life marched
Friday, November 23, from the Central Post Office on Boulevard du 30
Juin to MONUSCO's headquarters, before heading to the US Embassy.

They all wore white headbands as a dual sign of… ( Read on! )

(Photo: Prez Paul Kagame, Yoweri Museveni, and Joseph Kabila at press
briefing in Kampala, Wednesday, November 21, 2012)

***

Sources in Goma report that there have been at least 50 known
disappearances of Goma residents ever since M23 seized control of the
provincial capital of North Kivu.

The "disappeared" are members of pro-Kabila political parties and civil society.

"One day you see your neighbor, the next day the person mysteriously
vanishes!" a Goma source told me today.

There's no way of determining whether blogger-journalist Charly
Kasereka is among those "disappeared" by… ( Read on! )

(Photo: Gen. Gabriel Amisi Kumba aka Tango-Four, suspended FARDC Chief
of Land Forces)

***

Readers of this blog were among the first to learn about the
devastating content of the Final Report of the UN Group of Experts on
the DRC, especially the part implicating Gen. Gabriel Amisi Kumba in
criminal activities.

(See my post of November 8, 2012, titled "UN Group of Experts Final
Report: FARDC
Chief of Land Forces Gen. Gabriel Amisi
heads a 'criminal network''':
alexengwete.blogspot.com/2012/11/un-group-of-experts-final-report-fardc.html?m=1.)

I concluded that post by this warning to the… ( Read on! )

M23 insurgents and their Rwandan masterminds didn't see this coming: a
fierce defense by the FARDC for every single inch of the Congolese
homeland.

It now seems that the latest change of tactics by the FARDC includes
resorting to counter-guerrilla combats with smaller units as well as
ganging up with local patriotic self-defense militias known as
"Mai-Mai."

(By the way, in conversations with FARDC officers I've voiced all
along my skepticism regarding for instance the use of tanks in the war
in the Kivus.)

A vivid illustration of this tactical change occurred--or is still
occurring--at… ( Read on! )

In a daring move that amounts to hocking a loogie at M23 and Rwanda,
two of my Goma sources--a physician and his wife, a political
scientist--left Goma at 6:00 HRS this morning local time (GMT + 2)
aboard a Toyota pickup, bribed M23 "border guards" ($500), entered
Rwanda, and at Gisenyi, hired a cab for Bukavu!

I am glad to report that they are safe and sound at Bukavu, the
capital of the South Kivu Province.

They were stranded at Goma Airport when their CAA flight was grounded
(see my previous posts).

They couldn't immediately leave for Kinshasa from Bukavu, however, as
all the seats are… ( Read on! )