Further fighting in the
eastern Democratic Republic of Congo was already in the offing with the
government pledging to eradicate Rwandan Hutu fighters, who include the
remnants of the militia that carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

An offensive is "being
planned, but we cannot announce it", an army spokesman for the eastern North Kivu region, Lieutenant-Colonel Olivier Amuli, told
AFP Wednesday.

Government spokesman
Lambert Mende said the M23 was only the first of a plethora of well-armed and
organised groups — numbering as many as 45, according to the US special envoy for the region — in Kinshasa's sights.

"The M23 was at the
top of the list; they were replaced by the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the
Liberation of Rwanda). We will get on with disarming them," Mende said
Tuesday.

Kinshasa has been repeatedly accused of
using the FDLR as pawns in a complex proxy war with neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda, in turn accused of backing
groups such as the M23.

The rebels' crushing defeat
appeared to signal that the minority Tutsi-led Rwandan government had finally
yielded to intense diplomatic pressure and chosen to abandon its alleged proxy.

Among the demands of the
M23 in peace talks that collapsed in the Ugandan capital Kampala last month was the neutralisation of
the FDLR, which they say regularly harasses the Tutsi community.

The Rwandan government has
adamantly denied supporting the M23, made up mainly of ethnic Tutsis who speak
the main Rwandan language Kinyarwanda.

Rwanda awaits results

Human Rights Watch also
called on Kinshasa and the UN force MONUSCO to "address the threat posed
by other abusive armed groups" in the lawless region where human rights
abuses including rape, murder and recruiting child soldiers are commonplace.

And it called for the
arrest and prosecution of M23 leaders for war crimes in "fair, credible
trials".

The head of MONUSCO, Martin
Kobler, said he had "warned the other armed groups… not to take
advantage… of the current void" left by the M23 or face action by the UN
troops tasked with protecting civilians.

At closed talks in New York, Kobler was quoted as saying that the UN force
would reinforce its positions "to avoid flows of arms across the border,
to avoid the FDLR crossing to Rwanda."

Rwanda, a temporary Security Council member, made it clear it would not
hesitate to send troops over the border into DR Congo if Kinshasa failed to stamp out the FDLR.

"Rwanda remains
fully prepared to use all necessary means to protect its people and
territory," its UN envoy Eugene Richard Gasana was quoted as saying during
the same meeting.

Kobler had also stressed it
was vital to "finalise the next stages of the agreement discussed in Kampala" to address
the grievances of the former Tutsi rebels.

The issue of amnesty was
central when the last round of talks broke down.

In Jomba, as well as in
nearby Chengerero, farming towns north of the regional hub Goma from where the
M23 launched their rebellion, few Tutsis could be found.

'No Tutsis or Hutus, just
Congolese'

One who gave his name only
as Ferecien said he and his wife and three children returned home after hearing
that the M23 had surrendered. He said the provincial governor had issued a
statement saying that there were "no Tutsis, or Hutus or Nande, just
Congolese".

The disbanding of the M23
marks the clearest and most significant military victory for the Congolese
government since the 1963 crushing of a separatist rebellion in the southern province of Katanga.

Analysts say better
preparation by the Congolese troops and the unprecedented offensive mandate
granted to a special UN brigade tipped the military balance.

The heavily armed
3,000-strong UN intervention brigade joined 17,000 MONUSCO peacekeepers already
deployed with a mission to stamp out the armed groups.

The UN humanitarian agency
OCHA said more than 35,000 people who had fled the fighting would begin
returning home, and warned of the dangers posed to civilians by "large
quantities of unexploded ordnance".

The powder-keg North and
South Kivu region, with its patchwork of ethnic groups and vast mineral
resources, saw the birth of the 1996 Rwandan-backed rebellion that toppled
Mobutu Sese Seko and installed Laurent-Desire Kabila, the father of the current
president.

The region was also the
detonator of the 1998-2003 conflict known as the Great African War, which
involved nine countries and claimed more than 2.5 million lives.

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda saw
800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, slaughtered by the military and Hutu
militias.