Fear of civil war as Congolese rebels march into Goma

As most of the world has been focusing on ongoing conflict in Gaza,a geopolitical crisis of another sort is unfoldingincentral Africa where therebel seizure ofthe substantialCongolese city of Gomacould have grave consequencesfor the troubled region.

"It's just the beginning. We don't know what will happen next and it has the potential to destabilize the Eastern Congo and the potential to destabilize the Congolese government depending on what the rebels decide to do next," Severine Autesserre, an assistant professor of political science at Columbia University, told CBC News.

The M23 rebelssoldiers who defectedfrom the Congolese armytook control of the provincial capitalofGoma and its international airport Tuesday, having met little resistance from government troopsor the UN peacekeeping force stationed in the area.

Thousands of residents from this part of the Democratic Republic of Congo hadalready fled as reports emergedof civiliancasualties, abductions and destroyed property, sparkingconcerns ofa full-out civil war like what had taken place a decade ago.

Adding to the volatility is that neighbouring Rwanda isaccused of backing the rebels and supplying them with weapons

"People who live in Goma, theyare really afraid, are veryworried and havegood reason to be," said Autesserre, an expert on the Africanregion. "Because whenever some kind of armed group takes over a city in the eastern Congo, it's really bad news for people there. It means a lotof human rights violations.

"If the rebel groups actually leave the city and theCongolese government troops takes over the city again, you have another process of human rights violations, of targeted killings and revenge killings. That's what happens everytime you havea change of control of a city," she said.

In this case,the rebel advance has disrupted all the humanitarian work that has been underway as aid workers have been forced to flee.

Autesserre said there were also reports of looting by the Congolese government forces as they evacuated Goma, which may in part explain why thousands of people welcomed the rebel troops.

Not much government support

"The Congolese government is not providing much in the East in terms of development," said Holly Dunn,a CarletonUniversity graduate studentwho hasspent time in the Congo conducting research.

"So people don't often have access to clean water, and their food supply is at times threatened.

"Education, health, jobsthese things are not readilyavailable to the majority of the population. Soyou can see thepeople supporting a rebel group trying to counter the government because I don't think they feel they're getting much government support."

Goma is not only the provincial capital, it isalso consideredaneconomic and political hub.

"So strategically, it's super significant for this rebel group to have taken Goma because they had control of parts of North Kivu," says Autesserre. "They had control of rural areas but now they have been able to solidify their control by taking control of the city. They can use Goma as a base for further attacks on other places."

She went on to note that Goma is also "symbolically extremely important. The last time there was an attack on Goma by the same kind of rebel groups, it was in 2008, and everyone was panicking.Everyone was saying at that time that if they had taken over Goma everything would have unravelled."

In 2008, those fighters from the now-defunct National Congress for the Defence of the People, or CNDP, stopped just short of the city. The Congolese government negotiated a peace deal with thegroup to put downits arms in return for being integrated into the national army.

That deal fell apart this April, when up to 700 soldiers, most of them ex-CNDP members, defected from the army, claiming that the Congolese government had failed to uphold their end of the deal.

They charged that they were not properly paid and equipped, and that the government had systematically discriminated against ethnic Tutsis, which make-up the majority of the ranks.

Some analysts believe the main objective of the M23 is to gain controlover the richmineral resourcesof North Kivu province. Autesserre, however, said thatwhile control of natural of resources is important, control of land is also "extremely important" as it's a source of power.

But the worry now is that the escalation could plunge the region into civil war,similar to theconflict that officially ended in 2003.

A decade of tension

The situation has remained tense since 2003andviolence has continued to plague the region. Autesserresaid thatwhen she was stationed in Gomabetween 2010 and 2011, there continued to befighting in the area.

"You had this kind of violence ongoing since the official end of the war in 2003. So to me the civil war has continued. It'sjust the fact that now it's escalating. The fact that Goma was taken is really marking the escalation of violence and thats really worrying."

So far, UN troops, because of their mandate to not engage rebel forces,have done little,saying they wereholding fire to avoid triggering a battle.

But Autesserre said the UN forces could be more proactive. "The mandate can be interpreted in many different ways and to me it's interpreted very restrictively right now."