African leaders had called on M23 to sign a peace agreement with the government of President Joseph Kabila (right). Photograph: Alexander Joe/AFP/Getty Images
Congolese rebels have surrendered after a 20-month uprising, offering the best hope of peace for years in the country's war-ravaged east.
The M23 rebel group declared a ceasefire and said it was ready to disarm and demobilise troops and pursue a political solution to end the crisis.
"The chief of general staff and the commanders of all major units are requested to prepare troops for disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration on terms to be agreed with the government of Congo," the M23 leader, Bertrand Bisimwa, said.
The announcement came hours after Democratic Republic of the Congo government forces drove the rebel fighters out of their two remaining strongholds. "Tshanzu and Runyoni were taken by the army around 3am," government spokesman Lambert Mende told Reuters. "Many M23 fighters are surrendering. Militarily this is finished."
The Kinshasa government expects peace talks mediated by neighbouring Uganda to resume soon, Mende added.
Al-Jazeera showed pictures of M23 military leader General Sultani Makenga's abandoned home in the village of Chanzu and quoted witnesses saying he had fled to neighbouring Rwanda.
The M23 is made up of fighters who deserted the Congolese army in April 2012 following a mutiny. Its name is a reference to a 23 March 2009 peace deal the CNDP militia accused the Congolese government of betraying. Eight hundred thousand people have fled their homes since the insurgency began.
The rebels' capitulation marks a dramatic turnaround. Less than a year ago they marched into and captured the major eastern city of Goma and bragged they were ready to march on the capital. UN peacekeepers were passive spectators and the Congolese army descended into a drunken, defeated shambles.
But the lightning reversal appears to be a vindication of the UN decision to create its first fighting force with a mandate to go on the offensive. Tanks and helicopters from the 3,000-strong UN intervention brigade have supported a reorganised, better paid and more disciplined Congolese army in the recent advances.
Perhaps most crucially of all, the backing that the M23 received from Rwanda has virtually dried up in recent months, regional analyst Jason Stearns blogged last week. "According to several reports from the frontlines, despite indications of some cross-border support in the Kibumba area, the M23 was largely left to its own devices," Stearns wrote. "'The Rwandans just wouldn't pick up their phone calls,' one source close to the M23 leadership told me."
Rwanda has always denied the charge made by the UN's group of experts that it was providing military and logistical support to the M23.
African leaders meeting in Pretoria, South Africa, congratulated Congolese government forces and the UN peace enforcement mission in eastern Congo for "recapturing M23 strongholds and restoring government control". Joseph Kabila, the Congolese president, was at the meeting but his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, sent his foreign minister.
Conflict in eastern Congo goes back two decades to the Rwandan genocide and has claimed millions of lives, earning the label "Africa's first world war". The collapse of the M23 marks a hopeful breakthrough but numerous other armed groups continue to operate in the vast area.
Russell Feingold, US special envoy to the Congo and the Great Lakes region, told a briefing in Pretoria: "In a region that has suffered so much, this is obviously a significant positive step in the right direction."
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