Ban Ki-Moon, Jim Kim, and Mary Robinson came to the Great Lakes region this week, visiting Kinshasa, Goma, and Kigali. Their visit was supposed to provide impetus to the Framework Agreement (otherwise known as the Peace, Security, and Cooperation Framework, PSCF) signed in Addis Abeba on 24 February 2013.

The Framework Agreement is on first glance paradoxical: prompted by the recent escalation in violence in the eastern Congo, nowhere does it mention either the M23 or any other armed groups. In part, this is because it did not want to substitute itself for the (moribund) Kampala negotiations, which had been backed by the region. But this lacuna also stems from the fact that the PSCF has grander ambitions than just dealing with this recent outbreak. It wants to tackle the unfinished business ...

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News in the Congo has been surprisingly M23-deficient in the past few days. A group of Mai-Mai attacked Beni yesterday, killing several Congolese army officers (although their commander Hilaire has links well- to the M23); Kinshasa prepares for the visit of the United Nations Secretary-General and the head of the World Bank next week; and the country awaits a new head of the election commission (Appollinaire Malu Malu is the favorite, but his Catholic church seems opposed).

Is this because Kampala is dead? It would seem so--the negotiations have been on hold for weeks now, and the M23 has withdrawn, it says, until there is an official ceasefire. It suffices to look at the various proposals on the table there at the moment to see how far apart the two sides are.

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The intervention brigade is on its way, and it has inspired Cassandras and Pollyannas alike.

Most of the talk has focused on the military efficacy of the brigade, which will consist of 3,069 troops from southern African countries and will be led by a Tanzanian general. This focus is not surprising, given the robust mandate the Security Council provided in Resolution 2098 to "carry out targeted offensive operations...to neutralize [armed] groups."

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The Rwandan government issued a $400 million Eurobond yesterday, successfully borrowing capital on the international market to plug its debt gap. The funds, which pay a yield of 6.875 per cent, will be used to finance the building of its convention center, the development of RwandAir, and a hydroelectric power project.

This success comes on the heels of the World Bank and the African Development bank releasing some of the funds that had been suspended last year--$50 million and $49 million, respectively, according to diplomats in Kigali. While most of this money has been shifted from general to sectoral budget support, the range of donors I spoke with in Kigali all questioned this absolute distinction, suggesting that both categories consist of fungible funds. This releases some pressure on ...

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A court in Bukavu today sentenced the former governor of South Kivu Déogratias Buhamba Hamba to twelve months of prison and a fine of $1,000. The reason? Last Saturday, at around midnight, he was coming out of a marriage party when a UN military observer blocked his path with his car. When the Uruguayan officer took too long to move his vehicle, Buhamba got out and attacked the man, ripping his shirt and taking some of his documents.

In his defense, Buhamba, who is now a provincial parliamentarian, argued that he had the right to carry out the arrest of the UN official as a member of parliament. The court thought otherwise.

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Numerous sources are now reporting on the arrest of General Stanislas Nzeyimana (aka Izabayo Bigaruka), the deputy commander of the FDLR--the German Tageszeitung wrote about it last Friday, and sources close to the Tanzanian security services are now confirming.

Bigaruka, as he is commonly known, was not directly involved in the 1994 genocide, as he was in undergoing military training abroad at the time. However, he did play a significant role during the insurgency in northwest Rwanda between 1997-1998. He later became commander of the South Kivu division and eventually was promoted to become deputy overall commander in 2008.

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The Raia Mutomboki are perhaps the largest armed group in the eastern Congo, in terms of territory they control. Over the past two years they have managed to flush the Rwandan FDLR rebels out of vast areas, even forcing them to abandon their headquarters of many years in southern Masisi. And yet, the Raia Mutomboki are also one of the most ramshackle, fragmented, and ill-disciplined armed groups.

The Usalama Project's sixth report on this phenomenon can be found here.

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Maria Eriksson Baaz is Associate Professor at the Nordic Africa Institute and the School of Global Studies, Gothenburg University. Judith Verweijen is a PhD Candidate at the Centre for Conflict Studies at Utrecht University and the Faculty of Military Sciences at the Netherlands Defense Academy.

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The following is a guest blog by Anthony Gambino, the former USAID director in the Congo, and Steve Weisman, the former staff director for the US House of Representative's Subcommittee on Africa.

The last weeks have seen a burst of Congo news: a strange, small attack by Mai-Mai in central Lubumbashi; the surrender and transfer to the International Criminal Court of indicted war criminal Bosco Ntaganda; and Mary Robinson appointed as U.N. Special Envoy for the Great Lakes. These disparate events hint at some deeper truths about the Congo: its continuing instability; the hope for progress as Bosco, a major spoiler, leaves the scene; and the need for smarter international engagement to deal with the continuing challenges.

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For those interested in the debate surrounding peacekeeping and local violence--which Sévérine Autesserre launched several years ago--I just published this review in The Review of African Political Economy. The first fifty readers apparently get free access. Don't forget to check out the great articles by Judith Verweijen, Ann Laudati, and Theodore Trefon in the same issue.

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