A
rebel group known as the March 23 Movement, comprised of army
deserters, took over
Goma yesterday, a Congolese city of about a million people in
the Great Lakes region, with little resistance from government
troops, who are poorly equipped and paid sporadically, or the
United Nations forces there to provide the Congolese government
support. The U.N. says it
fired hundreds of rockets in failing to defend the city. The
rebels, meanwhile, addressed residents and local government
officials and troops at a soccer stadium, where they say
thousands more defected to them.

The rebels are widely believed to be backed/influenced by Rwanda
and/or Uganda.  Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni has been president
since 1986, fighting as a guerilla in the central African jungle
since the 1960s. U.S. special forces are assisting the Ugandan-led
counter-insurgency aimed at the warlord Joseph Kony and the Lord’s
Resistance Army, but the Great Lakes region is plagued with rebel
outfits. In July, the last time M23 rebels threatened to take over
Goma, it was to Museveni that both Joseph Kabila, the president of
the Congo since 1997, and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon went
in order
to stop it.

Rwanda, meanwhile, has been backing rebel groups in the eastern
Congo since the 1994 genocide of Tutsis by a Hutu-led provisional
government following the mysterious plane crash of the long-time
Rwandan dictator Juvenal Habyarimana. That government retreated to
the jungle after the genocide, and Rwandan-backed rebel movements
have helped fuel
a succession of long-term regional conflicts, namely the First
and Second Congo Wars. Rwanda is widely believed to be backing the
M23 rebels, even being condemned by the United Nations for doing
so, but its president
denies it. The United States pulled
$200,000 in military aid to Rwanda when the allegations hit the
tipping point in July.

$202 million in foreign aid
funding was requested by the State Department in the 2011
budget for Rwanda (with $438 million for Uganda and $228 million
for the Congo). The U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the
takeover of Goma has been criticized for not sanctioning the
Rwandan backers in addition to rebel leaders. Rwanda joined the
Security Council last month despite
growing condemnation for its backing of rebels in the Congo.
The presidents of Rwanda and Uganda have now joined Kabila in

demanding the M23 rebels withdraw from Goma, as the rebels
consolidate territory and
look ahead to the capital Kinshasa.