A United Nations official says M23 rebels have set up a parallel government in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This week, UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said the March 23 movement (M23) is strengthening its grip over the provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu in the eastern Congo and could seriously threaten the Congolese government, The Associated Press reported on Saturday.

The M23 rebels defected from the Congolese army in April in protest over alleged mistreatment in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC). They had previously been integrated into the Congolese army under a peace deal signed in 2009.

The mutiny is being led by General Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on a charge of recruiting child soldiers.

Ladsous denounced the parallel government set up by the M23 and said that "the sovereignty of the Democratic Republic of Congo has to be respected."

"They are already establishing a sort of de facto administration, controlling population, taking 'taxes' from people who pass through, and that of course is hardly acceptable," he told reporters in New York on Tuesday after a trip to Congo.

The UN official said a diplomatic solution had to be found for the conflict in the eastern Congo, which has displaced more than 220,000 people. Most of them have resettled inside Congo, but tens of thousands have crossed into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda.

On September 11, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said M23 rebels had committed war crimes, including rapes and massacres.

“The M23 rebels are committing a horrific trail of new atrocities in eastern Congo," Anneke van Woudenberg, HRW's senior Africa researcher, said in a report.

“The United Nations Security Council should sanction M23 leaders, as well as Rwandan officials who are helping them, for serious rights abuses,” he added.

However, Rwanda has denied the claims that high-ranking Rwandan officials are supporting the rebellion in Congo.


Kinshasa and the UN have said that the rebels fighting the Congolese army were trained in Rwanda.

On August 18, 2012, the 15 member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) denounced Rwanda for backing rebel groups in the eastern Congo, saying Rwandan "interference" in the Congo was threatening regional peace and stability.

Congo has faced numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on for over a decade and left over 5.5 million people dead.
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