Its soldiers are underpaid and underarmed. Its ranks are riddled with factions pursuing their own interests. And successive presidents are said to have kept it weak for fear of a coup.
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s army has appeared too weak and dysfunctional to stop a militia that has swept through the eastern part of the country in recent weeks. The militia, called M23, has seized two major cities, two strategic airports and large stretches of Congolese territory.
Félix Tshisekedi, the president, tried to prepare for this moment, strengthening his military to squash the thousands of fighters roaming in the east. But that response has crumbled in the face of the M23 advance, leaving Mr. Tshisekedi increasingly isolated, his domestic support evaporating, peace talks with regional powers stalled and strong international support lacking.
M23 is backed by Rwanda, Congo’s much smaller neighbor whose troops have trained, armed and embedded with the rebels, according to the United Nations. Rwanda has acknowledged that its troops are in Congo but denied controlling M23.
“This conflict has two sides,” said Fred Bauma, the executive director of Ebuteli, a Congolese research institute. “One is Rwandan support to the M23. And the other one is internal weaknesses of the Congolese government.”
In a recent interview with The New York Times, Congo’s president said the army’s problem was that it had been infiltrated by foreigners, and blamed his predecessor for failing to address the problem.
“My predecessor spent 18 years in power without rebuilding the army,” Mr. Tshisekedi said. “When we started to overhaul and rebuild it in 2022, we were immediately attacked by Rwanda, as if they wanted to prevent the reforms.”
Over the past month, those attacks have accelerated, and the Congolese army and its allies — which include European mercenaries and armed groups known as the Wazalendo, or Patriots — have lost battle after battle.
M23 is pushing into new territory, surrounding the city of Uvira, and marching both north and south. In Bukavu, Congolese soldiers retreated in long columns before M23 had even attacked the city.
After a battle for the city of Goma, M23 fighters loaded hundreds of captured troops into trucks and drove them out of the city for retraining. Police officers have also surrendered en masse and joined M23, according to a rebel spokesman. Congolese soldiers and their Wazalendo allies have frequently turned on each other, fighting over supplies and access to locations where they are accused of extracting bribes.
A Feeble Giant
On paper, Congo appears well placed to deal with threats coming from its much smaller neighbor. Experts estimate it has between 100,000 and 200,000 troops, far more than Rwanda or M23.
But the Congolese military has long been known for weakness and corruption.
Unmotivated soldiers boost their paltry incomes by extorting civilians, often at Congo’s hundreds of roadblocks, the most lucrative of which can pull in $900 a day, many times a soldier’s monthly salary.
Commanders collect payments from their subordinates — or extra salaries, for ghost workers who exist only on paper — in a long-entrenched system of graft and abuse. Troops lack trucks for transport, and instead often commandeer motorcycle taxis to get from deployment to deployment.
“The army really operates like an armed group,” said Peer Schouten, a researcher on peace and violence at the Danish Institute for International Studies, with a focus on Central Africa.
Knowing this, Mr. Tshisekedi tried to strengthen the army. In 2023, he more than doubled the military budget from $371 million to $761 million — dwarfing Rwanda’s $171 million, though both countries’ equated to just over 1 percent of their gross domestic product.
Some of the money was spent on better arms. Congo recently bought attack drones from China, as well as surveillance and attack aircraft from a South African defense company. It also spent $200 million on a regional force that pulled in southern African troops.
But “increasing capability is not something that can happen overnight,” said Nan Tian, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
On the other side of the conflict is M23, a militia with decades of experience in eastern Congo and backed by as many as 4,000 well-armed, well-trained Rwandan troops operating on Congolese territory.
Rwanda is tightly controlled by its president, Paul Kagame, who took over after the 1994 genocide. He has consolidated his power and brooks no dissent; his government says he won 98 and 99 percent of the vote in the last two presidential elections.
The Roots of Congo’s Fragility
Congo is the largest nation in sub-Saharan Africa. Much of it is remote and disconnected, and the state is either absent or predatory. Over 100 armed groups are active, and perpetrators carry out abuse with almost total impunity.
The roots of Congo’s fragility run deep. It was left with weak institutions and very little development after decades of Belgian colonialism. Then, after independence, the United States and Belgium backed the overthrow of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, and the United States later helped install Mobutu Sese Seko, a kleptocrat who ruled for nearly three decades. A civil war toppled Mobutu in 1997; his successor, Laurent Kabila, was assassinated four years later.
Mr. Tshisekedi has never enjoyed much popularity among his people. He took over the leadership of his party after the death of his father, one of Congo’s foremost opposition politicians, and took power in 2018, declared the winner of an election that polling data suggests he almost certainly lost.
And though he retained power in the 2023 election, voter turnout was the lowest the country had seen since independence. The Catholic Church, which has a long history of monitoring Congo’s elections, accused the national electoral commission of presiding over an “electoral catastrophe.”
Since then, Mr. Tshisekedi has signaled that he wants to change the Constitution, a tactic several African leaders have used to reset term limits and stay in power.
But these plans have been met with considerable opposition. Experts say his position is precarious, and the military failures in the east are weakening him still further. In Kinshasa, the capital, people are worried about his ability to control his security forces and fear a possible coup.
Mr. Tshisekedi has said he will reach out to the opposition and form a unity government.
Stalled Peace Talks
Several diplomatic attempts to resolve the crisis in eastern Congo have reached a deadlock, with Mr. Tshisekedi twice refusing to attend peace talks.
Congolese church leaders are trying to organize the latest round of negotiations, and have met with Mr. Kagame and several Congolese opposition figures. They want Mr. Tshisekedi to speak with M23, something Mr. Kagame insists on.
So far, Mr. Tshisekedi has refused to negotiate directly with M23. But as he stalls, his position appears to be getting weaker.
The conflict has caused the deaths of more than 7,000 Congolese citizens since January, according to the United Nations. Roughly 2,500 have been buried without being identified, Congo’s prime minister told the United Nations this past week.
Malawi, which took part in a Southern African force fighting against M23, has ordered troops to withdraw after three of them were killed in January.
Other regional players are taking advantage of Congo’s vulnerability and the lack of action from foreign powers to advance their own interests. Uganda recently threatened to attack the Congolese city of Bunia if “all forces” there did not surrender their weapons. Uganda has also supported M23, according to U.N. experts.
Without a strong army, Mr. Tshisekedi has continued to appeal to world powers, hoping they will pressure Rwanda to back down. When M23 attacked in 2012, international condemnation led Rwanda to withdraw support for the armed group, and it was eventually defeated. This time, there has been widespread criticism, but no sign that Rwanda intends to back down.
Ruth Maclean reported from Dakar, Senegal, and Guerchom Ndebo from Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo.
