M23 Runs a Parallel Administration in Eastern Congo as Ebola Outbreak Passes Its Peak

Researchers and residents in Goma describe the M23 movement as having built what one analyst called a methodically consolidated parallel administration in the areas of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo it controls, financed by taxing trade and mining. The New Humanitarian's account, republished by AllAfrica, sets out how the group collects revenue at road checkpoints, border crossings and mine sites. United Nations experts and several Western governments say Rwanda backs M23. Kigali denies directing the group and says its concern is armed factions on its border.

The region supplies a meaningful share of the world's tantalum, tin and tungsten, and cobalt is mined elsewhere in the country. When an armed group taxes the ore and the transport routes, minerals entering formal supply chains carry payments to that group even when the buyer follows due-diligence rules on paper.

Separately, Congolese authorities said the Ebola outbreak has passed its peak as infection rates slow. Almost 3,500 people have died. Public health specialists cautioned that the Bundibugyo strain is not yet under control and that transmission can resume where surveillance is weakest, which in this outbreak means the areas the state does not administer.

The two stories describe one condition: where the Congolese state does not collect taxes or run health surveillance, someone else collects the taxes, and no one runs the surveillance.