Mountains That Remember: M23 and the politics that keep Africa burning

COMMENT | ANDREW PI BESI | On the occasion of Congo’s independence in June 1960, King Baudouin addressed the people of the Congo, declaring, in a condescending tone, “The independence of Congo is the end result of the work started with the exceptional personality of King Leopold II, which he tackled with determined courage and which has been continued with persistence by Belgium. It represents a defining moment in the destination, not only of Congo itself, but I have no hesitation in saying it, of all of Africa.”

Patrice Lumumba’s reply still roars across time: a lament, a prophecy, and a warning.

“Men and women of the Congo— I salute you… Our wounds are still too fresh to forget… We have known backbreaking labor rewarded with starvation wages; contempt and blows delivered morning, noon, and evening simply because we were Negroes… We have known the theft of our lands through ‘laws’ crafted only for the strong… But we say to you out loud: from now on, all that is over!”

Africa’s quest for independence from the twin yokes of the Arab slave trade and European colonialism was never a single, luminous march. It was a tapestry of contrasts—brilliance wrapped in brutality, hope raging against betrayal. Across coasts and kingdoms, entire families were torn apart by Arab and Portuguese slavers.

Then came November 15th, 1884—the Berlin Conference.

The British, the French, the Dutch, the Spaniards, and the Americans all filed into a hall under the patronage of Belgium’s Leopold II. They arrived pretending to be civilised; they left openly united in plunder. The gospel of Christ our Redeemer was replaced with greed. Leopold, in particular, was granted a territory ninety-eight times the size of his own kingdom. He christened it the Congo Free State—a phrase so soaked in irony it still bleeds. Today, we call it the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Yet democratic it is not. Republican, barely. Free, never quite. The DRC remains a vast cathedral of sorrow—home to at least fifty militias, a land whose citizens have not tasted the full sweetness of its vast mineral wealth. Its plunderers have changed flags, not intentions: Americans, Europeans, Chinese, and Arabs are all partaking.

Meanwhile, its political class—from the hesitant Kasavubu, who applauded King Baudouin’s condescending tirade in 1960, through Mobutu, the Kabilas, and now Félix Tshisekedi — has delivered catastrophe with unfailing discipline. To date, over six million Congolese have died as a result of political chaos. Governance was long ago replaced by decay. And for the Congolese Tutsi (Banyamulenge), citizenship was replaced by fear.

Anti-Tutsi ideology is so entrenched that it has become a national reflex. As Jason Stearns observed with clinical clarity, “No other image plagues the Congolese imagination as much as that of the Tutsi aggressor.”

What Lumumba declared “over” in 1960 is, heartbreakingly, still with us—sharpened, multiplied, and sanctified by the very leaders who inherited his revolution.

To understand the tragedy unfolding in the eastern Congo today, we must confront the specter that periodically rises from the hills of North Kivu: the March 23 Movement—M23. Born from the embers of earlier rebellions and from the unhealed wounds of the Great Lakes region, M23 is less a militia and more a symptom. A reminder. A warning.

Emerging from grievances tied to the botched 23 March 2009 agreement—an agreement the Congolese state never fully honored—M23 reorganised itself into a lean, disciplined force. This year, it has resurfaced with startling efficiency, sweeping through towns and strategic outposts with a precision that has exposed, yet again, the paralysis of the Congolese army. The entirety of the Kivu region is under their control. So is Uvira. To the ordinary Congolese family, this is not geopolitics—it is the sound of liberation boots.

And what does this resurgence portend for Africa—especially for those leaders who still champion the corrosive creed of identity politics? Leaders who, like Tshisekedi, mortgage their natural resources to Americans, Chinese, Russians, and Arabs in exchange for foreign backing to secure fragile power?

It means the continent is circling back to its most dangerous instinct: the belief that citizenship can be negotiated, that belonging can be revoked, and that whole communities can be turned into permanent suspects. M23’s rise is inseparable from decades of state-sponsored demonisation of Congolese Tutsi communities. When a government treats a segment of its own people as infiltrators, it inadvertently summons the very rebellions it fears.

The tragedy is not just Congolese; it is continental. From the Sahel to the Horn, from the Great Lakes to Southern Africa, political elites still find identity to be the easiest fuel for power—and the cheapest currency for evasion. When leaders cannot deliver jobs, security, or governance, they manufacture enemies. When institutions collapse, identity becomes the final refuge of the incompetent.

The return of M23 is thus a warning: identity politics, when weaponised by the state, does not preserve nations—it fractures them.
It breeds militias, invites foreign armies, and turns governments into arsonists who shout “Fire!” after lighting the match.

In the end, the Congo’s tragedy is no anomaly—it is the mirror Africa keeps refusing to look into. Our leaders, obsessed with signing mining contracts with foreigners to secure tomorrow’s election, are solely to blame for today’s failures. If farce were governance, our ancient continent would be a superpower. But history has no patience for such theatre. Sooner or later, reality arrives. It does not applaud.

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By Andrew “Pi” Besi | On X: @BesiAndrew