GOMA — A Rwandan-backed rebel group advanced to within three km of Goma, a crucial provincial capital in eastern Congo, marking the first time that rebels have come this close since 2008. Congolese army spokesman Col. Olivier Hamuli said the fighting has been going on since 6 a.m. Sunday and the frontline has moved to just a few km outside the city. He denied reports that Congolese soldiers were fleeing and refusing to fight. Contacted by telephone on the front line, M23 rebel spokesman Col. Vianney Kazarama said the group will spend the night in Goma. “We are about to take the town. We will spend the night in Goma,” said Kazarama. “We are confident that we can take Goma and then our next step will be to take Bukavu,” he said mentioning the capital of the next province to the south. The M23 rebel group is made-up of soldiers from a now-defunct rebel army, the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP, a group made-up primarily of fighters from the Tutsi ethnic group, the ethnicity that was targeted in Rwanda's 1994 genocide. In 2008, the CNDP led by Rwandan commando Gen. Laurent Nkunda marched his soldiers to the doorstep of Goma, abruptly stopping just before taking the city. In the negotiations that followed and which culminated in a March 23, 2009 peace deal, the CNDP agreed to disband and their fighters joined the national army of Congo. They did not pick up their arms again until this spring, when hundreds of ex-CNDP fighters defected from the army in April, claiming that the Congolese government had failed to uphold their end of the 2009 agreement. — AP
