GOMA — The head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, James Swan, sat down in Goma on Tuesday, November 3, with former president Joseph Kabila and the leaders of the rebel coalition Kabila now heads — and heard, face to face, that the coalition wants the UN mission gone. The meeting, at Kabila's residence in the rebel-held city, was Swan's first visit to Goma since the Front for the Refoundation of the Nation (FRN) was formed on October 12, replacing the AFC/M23 alliance, the Associated Press reported. Swan had arrived in Goma on Monday for consultations, and the two sides discussed civilian protection, humanitarian access and ceasefire monitoring under MONUSCO's mandate — a mandate that expires next month and that the FRN says should not be renewed.
Source: Associated Press via Africanews, Nov 3–4, 2026
Kabila was joined by FRN vice presidents Bertrand Bisimwa and Corneille Nangaa, while the MONUSCO side included senior military and civilian officials, Radio Okapi reported. The UN mission said the talks fall under its mandate to protect civilians, support humanitarian access and back efforts to monitor and verify the ceasefire, including through the Expanded Joint Verification Mechanism. The UN has long held that contacts with armed groups are needed for humanitarian operations and ceasefire monitoring, not to confer political recognition — a distinction that matters in Kinshasa, where President Félix Tshisekedi's government accuses Kabila of acting as a proxy for Rwanda.
Source: Radio Okapi via QNC News, Nov 4, 2026; Associated Press
“A total failure”: the FRN's verdict on 28 years of MONUSCO
Speaking afterwards, Bisimwa said the discussions touched on the coalition's goals, the peace process, the future of MONUSCO and the security and humanitarian picture in the east. On the mandate — which comes up for renewal at the UN Security Council next month — he was blunt. “28 years later, when you take stock of MONUSCO's activities, you find that it has been a total failure,” Bisimwa said, in remarks carried by the AP. “We think that one more mandate would change absolutely nothing for the situation in the country today. We would have liked the mandate to not be renewed and for MONUSCO to continue their retreat as planned.” The coalition also voiced reservations about any redeployment of peacekeepers to South Kivu, Congolese outlet Actualite.cd reported.
Source: Associated Press via Africanews, Nov 4, 2026; Actualite.cd via QNC News
On the fighting, Bisimwa said the FRN restated its support for the ceasefire but warned it would respond if its fighters, or civilians in areas it holds, came under fire from government forces. “We cannot allow our people to be massacred,” he said, urging Kinshasa to keep the promises it made under the Qatar-brokered talks. Those Doha negotiations began in April 2025 between Kinshasa and the AFC/M23; the sides signed a Declaration of Principles on July 19, 2025, and a Doha Framework for a Comprehensive Peace Agreement on November 15, 2025, setting out eight protocols covering the ceasefire, humanitarian access, security arrangements and the return of displaced people. The FRN, which has taken over the coalition's seat in that process, said it remains committed to the Doha track.
Source: Associated Press; Eastleigh Voice, Nov 3, 2026
The accusations around the table
Nothing about this meeting is uncontested. Kabila, who led Congo from 2001 to 2019, was sentenced to death in absentia last year by a Congolese court on treason and war-crimes charges, and Kinshasa accuses him of collaborating with the M23 rebellion; earlier this year the United States imposed sanctions on Kabila for his alleged role in funding and providing political support to rebel groups in the east, the AP reported. Congo, the United States and UN experts accuse Rwanda of backing the M23 — the FRN's military core — which controls large swaths of the east. For its part, the FRN accuses forces aligned with Kinshasa — the Congolese army (FARDC) and allies including the FDLR militia, Burundian forces and Wazalendo local militias — of fresh ceasefire violations: FRN spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka said on November 2 that government-aligned forces carried out overnight drone bombardments in Kuwihene, in the Rugezi sector, and at Point Zéro in the Minembwe region of South Kivu. Each of these claims is attributed to the side that made it; none has been independently adjudicated.
Source: Associated Press, Nov 4, 2026; FRN statement via Eastleigh Voice, Nov 3, 2026
Congo's other running emergency — the Ebola outbreak whose deaths passed 5,372 in the latest WHO situation reporting — was covered separately: Read: Congo Ebola deaths pass 5,372
Background: the world's largest displacement crisis meets a mandate deadline
Eastern Congo's conflict — dozens of armed groups fighting over territory and minerals, layered over the region's unresolved Rwanda–Congo hostility — has created one of the world's largest humanitarian crises, with millions displaced. MONUSCO, one of the UN's biggest and longest-running peacekeeping missions, has been drawing down under Congolese government pressure even as the M23 advance redrew the map: Goma fell in January 2025, and the coalition that holds it has since rebranded and put a former president at its head. The International Contact Group for the Great Lakes — which includes the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union — criticised the FRN on October 30, days before Swan's visit. That is the room Swan walked into: a UN mission negotiating its own survival with an armed coalition its host government calls treasonous.
Source: Associated Press; Eastleigh Voice, Nov 3, 2026
What is solid
- MONUSCO head James Swan met Joseph Kabila and FRN leaders at Kabila's residence in Goma on Tuesday, November 3 — Associated Press
- The talks covered civilian protection, humanitarian access and ceasefire monitoring, and were Swan's first Goma visit since the FRN replaced the AFC/M23 on October 12 — AP; Radio Okapi
- FRN vice president Bertrand Bisimwa called MONUSCO's 28-year record 'a total failure' and said the coalition wants the mandate, expiring next month, not renewed — AP
- The FRN restated support for the ceasefire and the Doha process, and warned it would respond if its fighters or civilians in its areas are attacked — Bisimwa, via AP
What is only claimed
- Kinshasa's charge that Kabila acts as a proxy for Rwanda, and the treason and war-crimes case behind his in-absentia death sentence, are the Congolese government's accusations — contested by Kabila's movement
- The FRN's November 2 accusation of government-aligned drone bombardments in South Kivu (Kuwihene and Point Zéro, Minembwe) is the coalition's claim, attributed to its spokesperson; Kinshasa's account of the same days is not in this reporting
- Whether Security Council members will renew MONUSCO's mandate, shrink it, or set a final withdrawal timetable is undecided — the FRN's opposition is one voice in that negotiation, not the decision
What happens next
The mandate vote at the UN Security Council next month is now the arena: Kinshasa, which has itself demanded MONUSCO's departure on its own timetable, must decide what version of a mission it can accept; the FRN has publicly committed to opposing any renewal in the areas it controls; and the Doha process — where the FRN now sits in the AFC/M23's old seat — runs in parallel, with ceasefire verification one of the very mechanisms MONUSCO is mandated to support. Watch for the Security Council's renewal text in December, any Kinshasa reaction to the Goma meeting, and whether the FRN's ceasefire pledge survives the South Kivu accusations both sides are trading.