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This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting
SINGING IN OWN LANGUAGE
SHEEP BLEAT
THEY CHATTER TO EACH OTHER
BABY CRIES
EXPLOSION
LOUD GUNSHOTS
GUNSHOTS BECOME MORE FREQUENT
CONTINUOUS GUNSHOTS
VOLCANO RUMBLES
SHOUTING AND SCREAMS
TRANSLATION: The name Kasongo is not my name.
Kasongo is an alias.
What I can tell you is that I am a high-ranking officer,
in the Congolese army.
TRANSLATION: As long as the Congolese leaders...
..do not have a patriotic sense...
..Congo will stagnate in misery forever.
NEWS REPORT: It's election time in one of Africa's most chaotic
countries and no-one in Congo is expecting a smooth ride.
GUNSHOTS
POLICE SIRENS
Our country has almost no system of governance.
Our national army is disorganised and poorly paid.
Because of this, sergeants will sometimes leave the army
to join rebel groups.
The government eventually negotiates with these rebels
and then fits them back into the army,
often with a higher ranking position than they had before.
The rebels who started this current war call themselves the M23.
Makenga is the acting leader,
but he used to be a colonel in our national army.
I have joined rebel groups three times and our hope was always
that it would bring stabilisation to Congo on all levels,
on a social level, on an economic level, but no.
The fighting continues.
HE SCREAMS
EXCITED CHATTER
THEY SING IN OWN LANGUAGE
NEWSREEL: The Congo, in the heart of Equatorial Africa,
is three times larger than Texas.
The Congo is a giant country.
It has several mountains, waterways and a lot of minerals,
especially here in the East.
I think America remembers the souvenir that Congo gave them.
It was with our uranium that they bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima,
which made them the superpower.
When it comes to our mineral wealth,
Congo is a bit of a geological scandal.
Understand that the population does not benefit at all
from the product of our wealth.
Where does the money go?
It gets diverted into the pockets of corrupt leaders, big men,
big organisations and even foreign powers that profit,
while the Congo doesn't.
The victims are the Congolese themselves.
SINGING IN OWN LANGUAGE
DRUMMING
MUSIC: Kampeni, by Bahati Bukuku.
Goma is the centre of the North and South Kivu provinces.
It is a strategic town in the region.
Goma is the economic heartland.
There are more than a million people here.
This is where all the natural resources are brought in,
this is where they are exported from.
Goma sits on Lake Kivu and is on the border of Rwanda.
It is also close to the border of Uganda.
The rebels have now steadily been making their way
from their base near the border with Uganda
towards Goma, the main city here.
There are more than 450 tribes here in Congo and all of them are
represented here.
This is a hugely mineral-rich part of the country.
It is also very, very far from Kinshasa, the capital,
so government doesn't really reach here properly.
The main power is the power of the gun,
and whoever controls that
controls also potentially very lucrative deals.
This instability has brought others, as well.
Just outside Goma is a dense forest.
This forest makes a good hideout for anyone
who wants to start a rebellion.
Here, you can conquer a plot of land,
collect villagers from the area under your control
and have them exploit minerals and sell them for you.
Then you can buy guns, weapons and you can buy food.
Other than the M23 rebels, there are more than 50 armed groups out there.
If today, I decide to go into the forest and start a rebellion,
I will have people to follow me.
All these rebel groups are confusing to even the Congolese.
They all have different acronyms that claim to stand for freedom,
liberation or democracy,
but they only succeed in terrorising the population.
Everything that is happening in this war has been done before.
The M23 are threatening to take Goma unless the government gives them key
positions in this region.
It is no coincidence that these rebellions occur near our borders.
A Human Rights Watch report draws a link between Rwanda and M23.
Two neighbouring countries, Rwanda and Uganda,
have been accused of backing M23.
Rwanda firmly denies any involvement.
There is no evidence, there are no facts.
Because it is not happening.
EXPLOSIONS, GUNFIRE AND SHOUTING
Just about five minutes ago,
M23 rebels walked through the streets of Goma
without anyone stopping them.
They have definitely had outside help.
Government troops retreated and UN peacekeepers stood by, watching.
The Congolese national army has seen a catastrophic collapse in morale
over the last few days in particular.
The head of the land forces was fired
for allegedly covertly backing the rebels.
A series of talks have been taking place
over the past week in an attempt to resolve the crisis.
Their trucks packed with ammunition and soldiers,
M23 rebels left the city they had conquered 12 days ago.
In return, the government must agree
to listen to and address the rebels' grievances.
Everything will be OK if they agree to the demands.
If President Kabila or anybody else provokes us, we will be back.
People have lost trust in their government,
and the United Nations' ability to protect them.
In regards to the international community...
..a stranger would never find you a solution in your own country.
But, since our independence,
we have never been given a chance to govern ourselves
without interference from the outside.
June 30, 1960, independence comes to the Belgian Congo.
King Baudouin himself flies
to the capital city of Leopoldville to break the bonds
that have linked his country and its African colony for 75 years.
Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of Congo, was a nationalist.
But the Americans thought he had Communist tendencies.
The Russians had backed Lumumba, given military and other aid,
as East vied with West to gain influence in the Congo.
For the Americans, during the Cold War,
they had to find a man to get rid of Lumumba.
And that is how they thought of Mobutu.
In the Army, he was known as the most brilliant.
Colonel Mobutu forced the Russians to close their embassy,
leave the Congo.
Mobutu was used by the CIA.
He saw the capitalists to the detriment of communism.
A new chapter begins in the dark and tragic history of the Congo with
the return to Leopoldville of the deposed premier Lumumba,
following his capture by crack commandos
of strongman Colonel Mobutu.
Here you see him on his third arrest.
One from which he went to a mysterious death.
With the support of the Americans,
Mobutu imposed a dictatorship for 32 years.
I grew up during that time.
When he came into power,
in the beginning, I must say he was good.
The economy of the country was strong, very strong.
The Congo produced many university graduates,
and the world respected many of these Congolese.
At least in those years, Congo was still moving forward a bit.
Then, all of a sudden, he re-baptised the Congo
with the name of Zaire.
Almost everything changed.
While he remained a vital ally to the West,
he expelled all the foreign investors that were here.
When they left, all the factories,
all the big plantations were acquired by Mobutu's colleagues,
but they did not know how to run them.
There were no executives.
Businessmen were replaced by inadequate people.
Money was embezzled and
where there's corruption, development can't exist.
Mobutu looted his country's diamond and copper mines.
He pocketed international aid.
Even offices were housed in this slum.
Just a few kilometres away from President Mobutu's
opulent lakeside villa.
That same system of corruption has become a Congolese tradition.
And it is even worse today.
We are living the consequence.
More obstacles to peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Government police are hearing complaints
of pillage or worse by M23.
When M23 was formed,
its core demand was to be reintegrated
into the Congolese Army,
with better pay and ranks.
Now, it is talking about setting up its own government,
with its own collection of taxes.
The UN mission could do little to stop M23 rebels
when they swept into the city of Goma.
The UN's response?
A new batch of troops with a wider offensive mandate.
It could take months for
an intervention force to be in place here.
During that time, M23 could make another attempt to take Goma.
EXPLOSION
EXPLOSION AND GUNFIRE
The fact that Rwanda supports all these rebellions
with their close ally, Uganda, no secret.
For us, it is known.
For the past 20 years, Rwanda has fought to control this region.
They have massacred many Congolese.
So, all the killings they have done,
really turned the Congolese against the Rwandans.
But, especially against the Tutsi tribe.
All this began when the colonisers entered the region,
and created a tribal hierarchy.
In Rwanda, with the support of the Belgians,
the Tutsi really crushed the Hutu for almost 40 years.
This created an ethnic tension that would eventually erupt.
In Rwanda, after the genocide, Tutsi rebel leader, Paul Kagame,
who received military training in America, took power.
Fearing revenge killings,
the majority of the Hutu tribe fled across the border into Congo.
Civil War in Rwanda drove more than
a million people across the border into Zaire.
It is the biggest exodus Africa has ever seen.
Hutu genocidaires hid among these refugees
and started plotting their return to power.
This is part of the reason
Rwanda began covert involvement in the Congo.
But it seems they have other ambitions as well.
The Rwandan genocide marked the beginning of the cycle of war
that has plagued Congo for two decades.
Rwanda always says they are not involved, but they are.
Myself, I am a witness.
I know what I'm talking about.
All three rebel groups I joined were supported by Rwanda.
This Thursday, M23 shells hit the outskirts of Goma,
killing a woman and a child, and a rocket struck the nearby village,
killing two and injuring the others.
There is growing anger about the deaths of civilians
over the last few weeks,
and criticism that peacekeepers didn't prevent the killings.
Meanwhile, hundreds of angry residents took to the streets
and were calling for President Kabila to step down.
They accuse him of incompetence,
in flushing out the rebels who continue to destabilise the region.
Throughout history, tribalism has been used.
Just as religion is often used by people in power,
to manipulate the population.
This creates tension that can erupt at any moment,
because the Congolese are living a life of frustration.
If our government does not impose itself to end this narrative,
then we are just constructing our state upon a fire.
Tomorrow it will burn again.
We are Congolese.
This is our country.
BANGING
SHOTS AND YELLING
Down here is the shot.
He heard the shot.
Yeah, noted.
The soldiers of the Democratic Republic of Congo have made
a decisive gain in their battle with fighters in the M23 rebel movement.
The M23 say they now want the fighting to stop.
The superior firepower of the Congolese army,
heavily supported by the UN,
has backed the rebels into a corner.
Congolese soldiers say that some of the dissidents
who gave themselves up
are from Uganda and Rwanda.
But the rebels' recent strings of defeats
suggests any foreign support had stopped.
The M23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo
has called an end to its 20-month insurgency.
The rebels surrendered overnight and those that remained
fled across the border into Rwanda or Uganda.
Rebel military leader Sultani Makenga is believed
to have escaped into Uganda.
Mamadou! Mamadou! Mamadou!
Mamadou!
Merci.
GUNSHOTS
SOBBING
GUNSHOTS
I liked him very much.
I am very saddened by his death.
He never retreated on a battlefield.
He had a strong sense of patriotism.
That's how he built this popularity with the people.
Even though he was a very distinguished boy,
he was also very young and he wanted to be a star.
Frankly, this was really a weakness.
A very big weakness.
It was not the enemy who killed Mamadou.
It was his colleagues.
There was an element of jealousy.
So they stopped him dead in his tracks.