♪ >> you're watching al jazeera. these are the top stories. advisors to former u.s. president donald trump said they told him his claims of voter fraud were not legitimate. the statements were part of video testimony shown at the committee hearing on the attack of capitol hill on january 6 last year. >> my recommendation was to say that votes were still being counted, it is too early to tell

, too early to call the race. but, you know, the kind of race we ran, i think we're in a good position and will have more to say about this the next day or the next day, whenever we had something to say. >> ukraine says russia has destroyed the last bridge out of the eastern city of sievierodonetsk. most quebec separatists say ukrainian troops blockaded the city, wanting them to surrender or die. mr. international has acute pressure of war crimes for water because relentless shelling in ukraine's second-largest city. the rights group says it found evidence that moscow used cluster munitions. they cited one attack on a playground that killed nine people and wounded 35.

the uk's court of appeal has rejected a request to order the first flight -- to hold the first flight carrying refugees to rwanda. police in brazil are denying reports that the bodies of two men missing and amazon have been found. indigenous rights expert bruno pereira and dom phillips disappeared a few weeks ago. local media says two bodies were found, but haven't been identified. on sunday some of their belongings were covered. those are the headlines. the news continues here on al jazeera, after inside story. ♪

>> al jazeera. wherever you are. >> renewed fighting between the drc army and the m23 movement, and rwanda is accused of backing the rebels. what's behind this round of conflict? and could escalate into a full-blown war between the two neighbors? this is "inside story." ♪ hello and welcome to the program. i'm mohammed jamjoom. more than 25 years after the first congo war, the democratic republic of congo and rwanda are once again engaged in dispute . the central african neighbors have accused each other of firing rockets across their shared order, including a strike

that killed two congolese children. this seems to have been triggered by fighting between the m23 rebel group and state forces in the east. both congo and the u.n. have accused rwanda of supporting the m23 movement. the u.n. has urged all parties to immediately cease all forms of violence. >> the region does not need a new crisis. let's keep the channels of dialogue open at all levels , including at the community level, and help preserve the progress achieved in the recent years thanks to the various cooperation mechanisms. mohammed: the march 23 movement, or m23, is also known as the congolese revolutionary army . it is a rebel military group based in eastern areas of the democratic republic of the congo , mainly in the province of north kivu. its leadership is made up of members of the tutsi ethnic group. they say their aim is to fight enemy groups founded by hutus who fled rwanda after the 1994 genocide. the rebels merged with the

congolese army under a peace deal signed on march 23, 2009. but in 2012, they said the deal had not been upheld and broke away, naming their group the march 23 movement. ♪ alright, let's go ahead and bring in our guests. in accra, kambale musavuli is a researcher at the center for research on the congo-kinshasa. in kigali, gatete nyiringabo ruhumuliza is a political commentator. in the netherlands felix , ndahinda is a researcher focusing on conflict, peace, and justice in the great lakes region. a warm welcome to you all and thank you so much for joining us today on "inside story." kambale, let me start with you today. what's behind this new round of violence? guest: it is hard to tell. there has been an uprising of the m23 in the east, but they are not the only militia group active in the east, so it is very hard. we do know that there have been peace negotiations taking place

in nairobi with the many militia groups in the drc, to come up with some resolution for peace and stability for the east, something organized by the president of kenya. during this period, for some strange reasons, the the m23 has started their campaign to attack u.n. peacekeepers, and also the congolese forces in specific areas that has continued. we have noticed that the military power has increased tremendously by having power to attack at night, by having weapons that they didn't have before, which has caused the congolese government to state that there is tacit support of congo's neighbors, particularly rwanda, to the m23. i can say, no one really knows why the attacks have taken place at this present time, but it is a destabilizing force at the moment.

mohammed: you mentioned that there are talks or negotiations going on between different groups right now. first of all, how many groups are we talking about, and secondly, any iindications on how those talks are going i mean ? guest: some numbers to get up to 100 militia groups. but you have to understand even what that means, a group may have 20 rebels in its force occupying a territory and they will call themselves a rebel group. but the way to look at the groups in the eastern part of congo is that you have groups that are supported by congo's neighbors, particularly rwanda and uganda. and you do have local rebels who are either protecting the territory of interacting into illicit trade of minerals. but the essence of that is that, since 1996, congo has not known peace or stability mainly because of the interference of its neighbors like uganda, who

continued explicitly to support rebel groups in the east coast of the civilization of the congo . i can say it is about 100 of them, that it doesn't mean much. but why are they negotiating? congo just joined the east africa community. there seems to be political will on the part of kenya to see how congo can be stabilized, may be to bring about the potential of the congo for the east african community. and as i said, in nairobi, they have been really, really pushing hard to have peace and stability and th the negotiation has been for the rebel groups to put down their arms and be integrated into society or in the military. still ongoing at the moment. it is i want to ask you about um how you see things from your vantage point in kigali. why are tensions escalating now? guest: from kigali, people are

surprised and confused by two things. two developments. the first development was, as soon as m23 re-emerged to attack the drc, the military wing has been in rwanda for just under 10 years, but the military wing has been in uganda for five years. five years later, they crossed and camped into the drc forests without being attacked and without attacking anyone. so everybody was aware of the existence of m23 in the congolese forest for at least five years. now, when they started attacks recently, rwanda was surprised that the first thing the drc did was to point fingers at rwanda and say if they attacked they um last be supported by a up. i think one of the problems and the reason m23 exists, is that

the congolese often don't make a difference between people who speak kinywarwanda in the drc, and congolese citizens. so and m23, one of the things they are demanding is that they are discriminated against in their own country and they are considered to be r rwandans even though they are fully congolese. every time they attack, because they attacked speaking in that language, they look like rwandan people. so people conclude that rwanda is behind them. the accusations were followed by measures. we had the airlines around the air that were flying into drc whose license was suspended.

the ambassador was summoned to receive letters of protest. now the drc has been shelling rwandan territory. the territories closer to the border with the drc and kisimi. if you look at the morphology of the rwandan country, airborne that falls there has much more devastating effects than fighting that have been going on in congo for 20 years which have no effect in keis kinshasa. rwanda is not like congo. it is extremely vulnerable to any accidental or otherwise, deliberate shelling of its population. kiniki is the place where we have invested --

mohammed: sorry to interrupt you, let me get back to the point you're making. i want to ask your opinion on all this tension that is escalating right now could actually spillover into a full-blown war between the neighbors. how big of fear is there right now? guest: there are fears that this could escalate into a regional war, given the nature of the accusations going on from different sides, and given the dynamics, the narratives and especially also the flames that are igniting in the media, particularly social media. and of course, politicians reacting to all of that. i think the threat is realistic. with the fighting in one area, with the border posts occupied by the m23, anything can happen from there. and from what i can read in social media, subject to

verification, a lot of congolese soldiers have crossed again into uganda. a lot can happen. one would really hope that all actors of goodwill from the regional powers like kenya and so on and international interveners probably need to do something to avoid escalation. we are in quite dangerous territory. mohammed: the african union has launched efforts to try and mediate this crisis between kinshasa and kigali. has any progress been made? guest: unfortunately, no progress has been made. because the negotiations have to be based on facts and evidence . we have what we call an extended joint verification mechanism that is based in drc whose reports the drc do not believe. for example, the drc is adamant that rwanda is supporting m23 in

spite of any independently verifiable facts. they extrapolate. they say, if m23 is efficient on a battlefield that means they're supported by rwanda. but the joint verification mechanism has not established that, so negotiations cannot go on because the drc for instance would say that m23 comes from rwanda. uganda would confirm that m23 actually comes from uganda but the drc would persist that it comes from rwanda. given that there is no evidence to that. the internal political dynamics of the drc make it easy to point fingers at rwanda, which have nothing to do with rwanda. it is congolese internal affairs . which then congolese government makes it difficult for the congolese government to do honest and open negotiations , because they have to please there on political pressures. -- they have to please their own internal political pressures.

mohammed: it sounds like you are saying that the mechanism really can't function in an appropriate way right now. first of all, let me ask you, what are rwanda's immediate concerns, and how then can things actually start being de-escalated? guest: the mechanism actually functions very well under the patent of the international commission for the great lakes region. the mechanisms include more than 10 countries. they do provide reports on a frequent basis. in fact, what they are saying right now is that yes, the drc is sharing bonds on the random -- on the r r rwandan territory. there is no country in the world that is condemning rwanda for supporting m23, simply because there is no evidence of such allegations. only the drc is making allegations. so how can the situation be

escalated? one, it can be escalated if the drc is capable of dealing with internal problems by negotiating with its own several groups that, in my opinion, they have not been able to defeat the terribly. number two, we are worried about two things as rwandans. one, they bomb our territory. when you bomb kinigi, you are bumming a home to mountain gorillas. this is part of our national income. you are bumming a very densely populated region with a population. this is dangerous for us. that is number two. number three, and the last point that worries us very much, now the army of the drc, having lost repeatedly on the battlefield, have recruited fdlr, which is

the force of liberation in rwanda, the former people who committed the genocide. they are collaborating with the national army of the drc. the communist president admitted it. now the two are being supported by the monument which is the you enforce, imagine a human force that is collaborating with genocide perpetrators on a daily basis. it is becoming mainstream. this is something that worries r rwanda's site. mohammed: the you and is urging all parties involved to immediately cease all forms of violence in these border regions between rwanda and the drc. from your perspective, their immediate steps that can be taken to ease tensions, and is the u.n. in any way effective in all of this? guest: first we have to make a correction.

there have been countries and institutions that have actually put pressure on rwanda to stop supporting rebels and interviewing. even the last statement, under-secretary-general, the spokesperson clearly stated, indirectly, that outside forces and neighboring countries should stop supporting the m23. he may not be specifically saying rwanda, but we know what he refers to when he says outside. specifically the united nations, the youth and peacekeeping forces depend on the u.n. security council, the political will of the council to stop the war in congo. we have seen that the political will has lacked. one would ask why. there are two nations in the security council who are playing

cover for rwanda, specifically the u.n. and the unit -- the united states and the united kingdom. rwanda is about to receive $150 million for receiving refugees from the u.k.. so the u.k. has everything to do with making sure that its ally on the african konta that is not held to account. same for the united states. what would bring about peace in congo? i think we must be genuine when having this discussion about the drc. we are speaking about it as if the m23 is a rebel force that just appeared. it has been going on for 25 years. when talking about the m23, you are talking about the cmbp, which is connected to the rcd, which is connected to the fdlr. what are these names? those are the same rebel groups that existed in the congo since

1996. how do i know that? the leader of the so-called m23, sultan, who has an arrest warrant from the congolese government, who travels in uganda all the time. there are also m23 rebels with arrest warrants who are living in rwanda and have not been extradited to the drc. they are all implicated in the war in the congo that has taken the lives of millions. even lately, there was the shelling of giseni and kinigi. where bosco was. he failed to say that just yesterday there was a bombing of the school in the drc by the rwandan military, a school where a six-year-old and a seven-year-old died. for peace and stability to take

konta the region, we must be honest. why do we have conflict? it is very simple. it is the destabilization of the drc to get control of congo's wealth. using proxy rebel militias in this case. mohammed: you heard him talk about destabilization. i want to ask you, is the community doing enough to to try to put pressure when it comes to this situation, and i going to see the international community stepping to help de-escalate things? guest: i can always hope, and probably think that there will be some kind of background channels and a lot of talks and a lot of, say, diplomatic activity around, trying to find a solution. at least at the interstate level . even at the regional level, i mean, kenya has been very much present in the last year. i would expect countries like tanzania and so on to be very much involved in trying to find

a solution. that being said, i guess we never have that final lasting solution unless we really try to look at the depth of what are the issues. my friend already talked about the acronyms and backgrounds to the different movements, but we need to look at the phenomenon of m23 as part of a bigger problem with eastern drc and security and peace in the eastern drc and the incidence in the wider region. and we have to look at the history and the tons of unread issues. they need to be broken down at different levels. there are issues at the local level in north kivu specifically, and in south kivu specifically. last year we had close enough to the same level of debate about the south kivu, with fighting

still very much on going there. so in south kivu as well, we have a lot of local unresolved issues. these tend to have a big residence at the national level, strictly speaking within the congolese landscape. here we are talking about issues of identity, ethnicity, citizenship, control of land, and issues of power, including at the local level, traditional authorities and so on, part of the legacy of the belgian colonial systems which successive postcolonial administrations have never really lived up to reckoning with. or have not organized to reflect modernity. second, we need to look at the regional level. local, national, but also regional level. many of those problems, for example, when talking about identity issues, when you read most of the narratives you have

around m23 on social media, if you're only sticking to that space, m23 does not exist. it is nothing but cover for rwanda. in fact there is no such thing as a random thing, everything about m23 is rwanda. that is a very dangerous inaccuracy. there are issues that need to be investigated around m23, how does it thrive, is it supported or not? that is the work for all of those verification mechanisms. i am sure that in the coming months and years we will get you and reports on that -- report from the u.n. on that. mohammed: you have a situation where both the drc and rwanda are accusing each other of supporting armed groups and even launching cross-border attacks. are there actual mechanisms that exist that are able to investigate these claims? and how are the facts

established? guest: for many years now, we have had a group of experts on the drc from the u.n. that is meant to investigate what happens in that part of the country. it has produced turns of reports and so are not on what goes on. but documenting is one thing. coming up with actions matter to resolve problems is another thing. and most of the time, action lacks when it comes to resolving in a lasting way some of the issues. i keep insisting that our local issues, there are domestic issues in the drc, there are regional issues, and international issues when you are talking about for example, minerals and so on, their art regional interests, commercial interests between the drc and its neighbors. but also international.

all of those need to be tackled. if you tackle one of those and don't address the others, you can only postpone the problem. mohammed: we have run out of time, so you have to leave the conversation there. thanks so much to all of our guests, kambale musavuli, gatete nyiringabo ruhumuliza, and felix ndahinda. and thank you, too, for watching. you can see the program again anytime by visiting our website aljazeera.com. and for further discussion, go to our facebook page, that's facebook.com/ajinsidestory. you can also join the conversation on twitter. our handle is at @ajinsidestory. furthering mohammed jamjoom and the whole team here in doha, bye for now. ♪

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