(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! )

(Photo 1: "A dead Congolese army soldier lies in the road north of Goma")

(Photo 2: Indian peacekeepers of InBatt2 open fire on M23 attacking
their base at Kiwanja, July 25, 2012)

***

At a particularly testy weekly press briefing Wednesday at MONUSCO
headquarters in Kinshasa, MONUSCO military spokesman Lt.-Col. Félix
Basse mounted a spirited defense of the FARDC and peacekeepers'
performance prior to the fall of Goma.

He said in part:

"MONUSCO didn't let M23 enter freely into the city of Goma. It had
instead fought alongside the FARDC at Kibumba till the latter fell
back to Goma and… ( Read on! )

Early in the morning of Wednesday Goma residents were forced to attend
an M23 rally.

Goma residents I spoke to afterward were mad at the international
press coverage of the rally, especially reports claiming that they'd
attended the gathering out of their own free will or that they were
supportive of the insurgents.

"Maybe those reporters are too young to remember that we also did
'freely' attend Mobutu's coercive rallies," one of my correspondents
said.

The French news channel France24 also produced one M23's so-called
"spokesman" who claimed to be from the Batetela ethnic group, no doubt… ( Read on! )