The announcement comes
after the Democratic Republic of Congo's army heavily bombarded two hills
overnight, Chanzu and Runyonyi, the last rebel strongholds. In recent days the
rebels abandoned a swath of territory, including many towns and villages, after
being overpowered by Congolese army attacks.

M23, an ethnic Tutsi
militia, has been led and armed by Rwandan forces who often crossed into Congo,
according to a report by experts who advise the United Nations. It is the
successor to other Tutsi militias in the region with close ties to Rwanda.

But it is not the only
group responsible for atrocities against civilians in eastern Congo, an area
with a plethora of competing militias. Congolese army forces have also been
implicated in past abuses, as have the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of
Rwanda, or FDLR, an ethnic Hutu militia that includes some leaders of the 1994
Rwandan genocide.

M23 leader Bertrand Bisimwa
announced Tuesday that the rebels had decided to lay down their arms and pursue
the resolution of their grievances through political means.

"The chief of general
staff and the commanders of all major [M23] units are requested to prepare
troops for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration on terms to be agreed
with the government of Congo,"
he said in a statement signed in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

Russell Feingold, U.S. special envoy to Congo
and the Great Lakes region, said the issues of
disarmament and reintegration were crucial to a lasting peace.

"In a region that has
suffered so much, this is obviously a significant positive step" he told
journalists in the South African capital, Pretoria, where regional leaders had
met the previous day and urged the signing of a Congolese peace agreement.

Reuters news agency
reported that M23 rebels set fire to munitions depots and military trucks
before fleeing into the forest.

The whereabouts of M23's
military leadership, including a dozen wanted by Congo
for alleged war crimes, isn't clear, although analysts speculated they fled
into Rwanda or Uganda. The
Congolese government is now likely to call on its neighbors to surrender the
men so that they can stand trial.

Government spokesman
Lambert Mende said on Twitter in French that about 100 M23 rebels had
surrendered to government forces or been captured. Government forces were
pursuing other "negative forces" in the region, he said.

Eastern
Congo
remains awash with rebels and gunmen, but Mende said there was no place for
armed militias in the region. He cited groups such as the FDLR, Uganda's Lord's
Resistance Army and the Allied Democratic Forces, another Ugandan rebel group.

After accusations that Rwanda had offered M23 significant military help
as recently as August, analysts said the rebels' allies in Kigali appeared to stay out of the final
fight — one reason why M23 collapsed so swiftly.

It is the first time that
the Congolese army has crushed one of the major rebel groups operating in
eastern Congo,
after a major reorganization of the army this year by President Joseph Kabila.

M23's defeat also follows
the deployment of a new kind of U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo — a unit
with authority to go on the offensive against rebel groups, rather than wait
for them to attack and then try to protect civilians.

South African Rooivalk
helicopters were used for the first time in the final assault on M23 positions,
according to African military analyst Darren Olivier, writing in the African
Defense Review on Tuesday.

"The helicopters fired
multiple 70 mm
rocket salvos against M23 bunkers near Chanzu in what is a mountainous region
close to the Rwandan border," Olivier wrote. "Early reports from
sources in the area indicate that the action was successful, with the
Rooivalks' tactical approach through the clouds taking the M23 defenders by
surprise and their rocket fire being accurate enough to disperse them and
destroy one of the 14.5 mm
anti-aircraft guns that had been previously used to fire at the Rooivalks and
other helicopters."

M23's decision to
demobilize offers a rare opportunity for the Congolese government and
international community to take steps toward peace in one of the world's most
troubled neighborhoods.

But analysts warned that
unless the Congolese army and U.N. intervention brigade disperse other armed
groups — particularly the FDLR, which is seen as a threat by Rwanda — it is
likely that another militia will emerge to take M23's place.

"The M23 is only one
of many armed groups operating in the eastern DRC," wrote Stephanie
Wolters, a regional conflict analyst at the Institute
of Security Studies in Pretoria, on Tuesday.
"There are many others that have long rendered the lives of the population
in these parts a living nightmare and that still need to be tackled politically
and militarily."

The advances by the
Congolese army followed the breakdown of peace talks with M23, which wanted to
see the group's leaders, including those wanted for war crimes, reintegrated
into the army, a demand rejected by the Congolese government.

Wolters said that M23 had
been severely damaged, not just by its military defeats, but by the reaction of
the Congolese people in areas it abandoned.

"The reaction of
relief and joy among the majority of people living in the liberated areas also
further damages the M23's desire to cast itself as a popular movement with wide
appeal, and it will be difficult to ever recover from that," she wrote.

Wolters said international
pressure on Rwanda over its
interference in the region — and a more robust U.N. and army presence in
eastern Congo — could
persuade Rwanda
to end its military support for rebel groups like M23.

"It will be more
difficult for Rwanda,
under such circumstances, to continue to clandestinely support the M23 or other
groups. Combined with growing criticism of Rwanda's
role in the DRC, this could lead Rwanda to conclude that it is time
to end its interference in that area," Wolters wrote. "The imminent
deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles that will monitor the border areas will
also make it more difficult for Rwandan involvement to remain under the
radar."

Congo analyst Christoph Vogel wrote in a blog post Tuesday that M23's end "may
well signify the final stage of what has been an 'era of armed movements' in
eastern Congo."

"This does not mean,
however, that underlying problems are solved," he said. Despite the
successes of the Congolese army and U.N. intervention brigade, "the root
causes and grievances may be left unaddressed again, if a political agreement
does not add up to what happened on the battleground."

Unless the Congolese Tutsi
community is given social and political representation, he said, a new
rebellion would likely emerge in the future.