December 2023 saw more than 200 South African soldiers arriving in Goma, the capital city of North Kivu Province in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as an advance party of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) troop deployment.

Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs Christophe Lutundula said that, “the main objective of the SADC force is defeating the M23 rebellion.”

The question remains whether SADC believes eastern DRC’s insecurity will be solved militarily.

In 2013, SADC troops were involved in fighting M23 rebels who were pushed out of the occupied territories. In late 2021, the rebel group reemerged.

The East African Community advised Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi that ending the security crisis should be done through a political approach embracing dialogue rather than military means.

Tshisekedi expelled the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF), which had prioritized enabling a cessation of hostilities and political dialogue, ahead of the chaotic December 20 general elections after which Tshisekedi was declared winner for another five-year term.

The SADC bloc was trapped in Tshisekedi’s lies that the M23 rebels are “terrorists, foreigners who are invading DRC”. By deploying a force solely to fight the rebel group without understanding its cause, SADC is aiding the genocide agenda in DRC.

The rebel group is fighting for the rights of its persecuted and disowned community to be recognized as legitimate citizens with full rights as any other Congolese nationals.

The rebels are fighting so as to protect the lives of Congolese Tutsi and Rwandophones who are targets of hate speech and violence orchestrated by their own state or government and aided by the Rwandan genocidal militia called FDLR. The latter was formed, in mid-2000, by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda who fled to eastern DRC after murdering more than one million Tutsi countrymen in Rwanda.

For the past three decades, the Rwandan genocide ideologues hiding in DRC have been spreading their genocide ideology, with the Congolese Tutsi community in the east of the vast country being the targets.

Hundreds have, so far, been murdered in various parts of eastern DRC.

Following her official visit to the DRC from November 10-13, 2022, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Wairimu Nderitu was deeply alarmed about the escalation of violence in the region where a genocide – the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda – happened.

Nderitu reported that in eastern DRC, the current violence is mainly the result of the refugee crisis which led to the flight of many individuals involved in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda to eastern DRC, forming armed groups like FDLR which are still active in eastern DRC.

"The abuses currently taking place in eastern DRC, including the targeting of civilians because of their ethnicity or presumed affiliation with warring parties, must stop," Nderitu stated.

A Congolese army coalition which comprises Burundian troops, Eastern European mercenaries, FDLR, and a myriad of other Congolese militia groups, poses a threat to the region. It has fanned violence and committed atrocities against civilians.

The January mid-term report by the UN Group of Experts on DRC confirmed that the Congolese army coalition is committing indiscriminate shelling, kidnappings, and targeted assassinations.

The coalition was also reported in looting cows and property belong to Congolese Tutsi, and burning down their houses.

The SADC troops will end up cooperating with the Congolese army coalition in committing atrocities targeting unarmed Congolese Tutsi.

The SADC force deployment will not bring peace in eastern DRC. The move will, instead, only deteriorate the insecurity in the volatile region.