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Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo – A year after M23 rebels seized control of Goma, the capital of eastern DRC’s strategic North Kivu province, the streets are bustling with foot and car traffic and markets operating almost as normal.

But on roads across the city, some of the most essential buildings remain shut.

On one street, the yellow and black logo on Rawbank stands above a bolted door and a shut ATM machine; nearby, the blue and white Ecobank sign stands above doors sealed by big blue shutters; and on another street, the blue and orange Access Bank logo and flags frame more locked doors.

It was early on Monday, January 27, 2025, when M23 rebels made good on their threat from a few days prior and seized Goma, before advancing in DRC’s east and taking other key cities in the weeks and months that followed.

With the deteriorating security situation, all banks in Goma shut, and ATMs stopped operating. The effects on the local population were harsh – and immediate.

Sitting at the door of a pharmacy she runs in central Goma, Sheilla Zawadi watches the traffic on the road go by, recounting the way her business and livelihood have changed in the last year.

She has an account with Access Bank, but lost her bank card just before the city fell to the rebels – and she does not have a mobile banking app to conduct transactions electronically.

Fortunately, she has a Visa card, which allows her to withdraw money – as long as she finds a bank or ATM.

So, like many others in Goma, the 37-year-old mother of three decided to make a plan – crossing from Goma into neighbouring Rwanda to find a bank.

“I had to cross the border to get to the ATMs in Rwanda,” Zawadi says.

But the workaround came with challenges – and more expense.

“To withdraw the equivalent of $100, I had to pay up to $15 in fees at the ATMs. And in Rwanda, I could only withdraw money in the local currency, which was the Rwandan franc.”

After that, she’d cross over from Rwanda, meeting informal money dealers along the border between Gisenyi and Goma, who would help change the Rwandan francs into dollars and then into Congolese francs. But she loses money with every exchange.

“It’s more expensive to withdraw money in another country. If only the banks would reopen,” she complains.

A year after banks shut, they have not resumed operations even as the security situation has normalised. The government in Kinshasa and M23 officials who now run the city trade blame about who is responsible, while the banks themselves have not said much or referred on occasion to “temporary closure” due to the “security situation”.

The border between Gisenyi and Goma is always busy. People line up in a single file to cross from one side to the other. Every day, dozens flock to ATMs and banks in downtown Gisenyi to withdraw their money the same way Zawadi does. Others also use ATMs installed at the customs office between the DRC and Rwanda.

Meanwhile, in Goma, the economy is cash-based, or, for those who can, run through electronic transfers.

In the city’s main market, traders and buyers say commodity prices have surged, while everyone is struggling to make a decent living.

“Before, we used to buy in bulk at an affordable price. Today, prices have risen sharply and customers hardly buy anything any more,” said trader Esperance Mushashine. “We’re holding on as best as we can, but the situation isn’t improving.”

Difficult for ‘economy to return to normal’

Before M23 rebels captured Goma a year ago, there were days of fighting.

The group, which is known to be backed by Rwanda, is one of 100 armed groups operating in the east. It claims to be fighting the government for the rights of DRC’s minority Tutsi population.

A couple of days before M23 took Goma, Congolese General Peter Cirimwami, the military governor of North Kivu, was killed on the front lines, reportedly in a rebel assault.

A day later, the rebels announced they would capture Goma and warned the Congolese army, its allied militias called Wazalendo, Southern African Development Community (SADC) troops, Burundian army, European mercenaries and peacekeepers to surrender.

The Sunday night before the siege, at about 10pm local time (20:00 GMT), the rebels entered the city in military clothes amid heavy gunfire and explosions.

By early Monday, they announced they were in control of Goma, while Congolese soldiers and their allied militias fled or surrendered.

The Congolese government later said thousands of people were killed in the M23 advance, while hundreds of thousands were displaced.

Afterwards, the rebels said they had brought peace to the city, as they soon advanced into other parts of DRC’s east, capturing Bukavu, the capital of neighbouring South Kivu province, and other key cities and towns over the months to come.

In Goma, many citizens found relief in the change of leadership, but for others, the challenges were only beginning.

Banking transactions, withdrawals, and transfers have become a marathon – and many say they feel abandoned to their sad fate.

Gustave Katsuva, a resident of Goma, receives his assets through the Kenyan bank Equity BCDC, one of the main banks operating in eastern DRC. Despite the closure of banks in Goma, he says he continues to manage his account as if nothing had changed.

“Those of us who have been lucky enough to request or access online banking can access our money and our salaries via mobile apps, and we have lots of options for withdrawing cash. I can see notifications related to my salary payments,” he said, pointing out that he can also transfer money from his bank account to Mobile Money.

But he says he loses about 3 percent of his money every time he withdraws dollars in the city of Goma.

Economic analysts say the closure of commercial banks is weakening the local economy and has made the dollar scarce in an economy that has been dollarised for decades.

“The closure of banks and microfinance institutions does not facilitate the circulation of capital and currency,” said Deo Bengeya, a university professor in Goma. “Neither does it make it easier for the economy to return to normal.”

According to an economic analyst, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, “the banks were closed following the loss of control of Goma by the authorities in Kinshasa. Billions of dollars of savers’ money cannot be left to chance in banks in a region held by rebels.” He points out that the authorities in Kinshasa were and are the “only ones responsible” if the money was lost as a result of the war, and they avoided the worst by closing the banks and moving the cash to “secure” locations far from the ”sound of boots”.

Since the fall of Goma, M23 rebel leaders and Congolese authorities have been trading accusations over the closure of banks in Goma and other regions under M23 administration.

The coordinator of the M23-AFC political-military alliance believes that holding the population’s savings against their will may constitute a war crime.

“They ordered the banks not to open. The banks are holding the savings on [President Felix] Tshisekedi’s orders,” said Corneille Nangaa Yobeluo, head of the M23-AFC.

These allegations are false, according to the Congolese authorities, who describe them as “misleading”.

“The banks are not closed by government order. No bank can legally operate under US sanctions,” Congolese Communications Minister Patrick Muyaya Katembwe emphasised during a media briefing last year.

Al Jazeera reached out to the banks to ask about the reasons for continued closure, but most did not respond. Access Bank in eastern DRC said they were “not authorised” to comment. Equity BCDC Bank did not reply, but in a rare statement published in July last year, they informed customers that “branches in Goma and Bukavu have been temporarily closed for several months due to the security situation.”

‘Elusive’ peace

Although economically, there is much to complain about following the closure of the banks and Goma International Airport, the population remains divided over the capture of Goma.

M23 leaders say they have brought peace and basic services to the city, including a stable supply of water and electricity – and many residents agree.

“Since the AFC has been here, we have seen an improvement in the overall security of the population because today, at least, we can sleep peacefully. There are no more targeted killings of motorcyclists and money changers. Peace reigns here in Goma,” says Gentil Mulume, a resident.

According to M23, there were about 50,000 armed men in the city of Goma before they seized it, and it is this over-militarisation that they say was the root cause of instability in North Kivu.

Mulume also said he noted the good faith of the AFC-M23 authorities in resolving the social difficulties of the people of Goma.

“These days, water flows in the city 24 hours a day, there is no longer a water shortage and no untimely power cuts. We are seeing work being done on the road infrastructure.”

Still, other residents do not agree.

“Did they bring electricity to Goma? Did they bring water? Did they find Goma without roads?” asked Dieudonne Muweza, an architect, who believes that the M23-AFC leaders should prove themselves.

“I think the M23 leaders should show us the difference between their mode of governance and that of Kinshasa,” he observed, saying nothing has changed. He hopes for the total withdrawal of the M23-AFC from all areas under their control.

Muweza has been between jobs since M23 took over the city and wants all ongoing peace initiatives to be concluded to enable the Congolese people to enjoy an “endless peace” that seems “elusive” right now.

A year since M23’s rapid advance, peace deals mediated by the United States and Qatar have been signed by the rebels and the DRC’s government, while regional efforts also continue. The rebels recently withdrew from the city of Uvira, on the border between the DRC and Burundi, allowing the “symbolic” return of authorities installed by Kinshasa.

But for Congolese across the east of the country, the future remains uncertain.

“They [M23] have done well on security, but we are very hungry,” said David Linda, a resident of Goma. “Peace is good. People are sleeping well. The guns are silent. But we don’t have food.”

A year after her life and bank account were thrown into disarray, Zawadi, the pharmacy owner – like other businesspeople in Goma – is still finding workarounds to make a living. Most of her customers pay her using internet or mobile banking, depositing into her bank account electronically. After that, she still crosses the border into Rwanda to withdraw foreign currency and change it to US dollars and then back into Congolese francs – losing a percentage with every transaction.

In Dhaka’s political chatter, one word often keeps resurfacing when people debate who really holds the reins of the country: “Kochukhet”.

The neighbourhood that houses key military installations has, in recent public discussions, become shorthand for the cantonment’s influence over civilian matters, including politics.

Bangladesh is weeks away from a national election on February 12, the first since the 2024 uprising that ended then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s long rule and ushered in an interim administration led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus.

The army is not vying for electoral power. But it has become central to the voting climate as the most visible guarantor of public order, with the police still weakened in morale and capacity after the upheaval of 2024, and with the country still reckoning with a “security apparatus” that watchdogs and official inquiries say was used to shape political outcomes under Hasina.

For nearly a year and a half now, soldiers have policed the streets of Bangladesh, operating under an order that grants them magisterial powers in support of law and order. On election duty, the deployment will scale up further: Officials have said as many as 100,000 troops are expected nationwide, and proposed changes to election rules would formally list the armed forces among the poll’s “law-enforcing agencies”.

Bangladesh, a nation of more than 170 million wedged between India and Myanmar, has repeatedly seen political transitions hijacked by coups, counter-coups and military rule, a past that still shapes how Bangladeshis read the present.  Analysts say that the army today is not positioned for an overt takeover, but it remains a decisive power centre: an institution embedded across the state, able to narrow civilian choices through its security role, intelligence networks and footprint inside government.

The military’s role now

Thomas Kean, the International Crisis Group’s senior consultant on Bangladesh and Myanmar, said the army has been “backstopping the interim government” not only politically but also “through day-to-day security amid police weakness”.

He said the institution is eager to see a transition to an elected government so the country returns to a firmer constitutional footing and so troops can “return to their barracks”.

“There are different factions and views within the army, but overall I would say that the army wants to see the election take place as smoothly as possible,” Kean told Al Jazeera.

Kean argued that if the army chief, General Waker-uz-Zaman, and the military “had wanted to take power, they could have done so when the political order collapsed on August 5”, the day Hasina fled to India amid a popular student-led revolt. But the military chose not to, he said, in part because it had learned from the fallout of past experiments with its direct political control.

Asif Shahan, a political analyst and professor at Dhaka University, said the military was aware that a takeover would have also jeopardised key interests, including Bangladesh’s United Nations peacekeeping deployments, which carry both financial benefits and reputational weight for the armed forces. Bangladesh has for decades been one of the biggest suppliers to UN peacekeeping missions, and receives between $100m and $500m a year in payouts and equipment reimbursements for these services.

But Shahan argues that the military remains “an important political actor”. Today, he said, its influence is “less about overt intervention than the institutional weight it carries through the security and intelligence apparatus”.

He also pointed to what he called the army’s “corporate” footprint. That footprint spans involvement in major state infrastructure projects, the military’s own business conglomerate, and the presence of serving and retired officers across commercial and state bodies.

Shahan said the last Hasina government “gave them a share of the pie”, leaving “a kind of culture of corruption … ingrained”. He suggested that this could translate into informal pressure on whoever governs next to do the same, and anxieties inside the force over whether “the facilities and privileges” it has accumulated will shrink.

On the election itself, Shahan too said that the possibility of the army trying to gain overt control was “very low” unless there is such a major law and order breakdown that there is public demand for the army to step in as the “only source of stability”,

Others who track the military closely agreed. Rajib Hossain, a former army officer and author of the best-selling book Commando, said he “strongly believes” the army will avoid partisan involvement for its own sake. “The army will play a neutral role during this election,” he said. “What we’ve observed on the ground over the past year and a half, there is no record of the army acting in a partisan way.”

But, he added, pressure on the institution has been intense since 2024. “Internally, there’s an understanding that if the army fails to act neutrally, it could lose even the public credibility it still has,” he said.

Mustafa Kamal Rusho, a retired brigadier general at the Osmani Centre for Peace and Security Studies, also told Al Jazeera that the military does not have “any clear intent” to influence politics, though “it still remains a critical power base”.

That leverage was clearest during the 2024 uprising, Rusho said, when Bangladesh’s political crisis reached a point that many Bangladeshis and international watchdogs viewed the military’s posture as decisive. “If the military did not take the stand that it took, then there would have been more bloodshed,” he said.

With protests escalating, the military refused to fully enforce Hasina’s curfew orders and decided troops would not fire on civilians. It enabled Hasina to flee to India on an air force plane, and the army chief then announced an interim government would be formed.

In an Al Jazeera documentary on the uprising last year, Waker-uz-Zaman, who is related to Hasina and was appointed less than two months before her collapse, also stressed that his forces would not turn their guns on civilians. “We don’t shoot at civilians. It’s not in our culture … So we did not intervene,” he said.

In the same interview, he added: “We believe that the military should not engage in politics … It’s not our cup of tea.”

When the military ruled

That hasn’t always been the military’s position.

After the 1975 assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s founding leader and then-president, by a group of military officers, the country entered a period marked by coups, counter-coups and military rule upheavals that reshaped the state and produced political forces that still dominate elections.

One of them was the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), founded by army general-turned-ruler Ziaur Rahman, who emerged as the country’s most powerful figure in the late 1970s before moving into civilian politics. Rahman was assassinated in 1981 in a failed coup attempt by another group of military officers. The BNP remains a key contender in the February 12 vote, now led by Rahman’s son, Tarique Rahman, who has returned to front-line politics after a long exile.

In 1982, then army chief Hussain Muhammad Ershad seized power and ruled for much of the 1980s. Writer and political historian Mohiuddin Ahmed has described Ershad’s takeover as coming only months after he publicly argued that “the army should be brought in to help run the country”.

Eventually, a pro-democracy movement led by Zia’s wife, Khaleda Zia, and Hasina, also Mujibur Rahman’s daughter, forced him from office. The BNP won a landmark election, and in 1991, Khaleda became the country’s first female prime minister.

Since then, Rusho said, the military’s influence “became more indirect”, though Bangladesh still saw an abortive May 1996 showdown when the then army chief, Lieutenant General Abu Saleh Mohammad Nasim, defied presidential orders, and troops loyal to him moved towards Dhaka. Nasim was arrested and removed from office.

A decade later, in 2007, the military in effect “fully backed” a caretaker government that was formed to replace Khaleda’s second administration, which had ruled between 2001 and 2006. That caretaker government was installed in January 2007 after a breakdown in the election process and escalating political violence. The International Crisis Group described the caretaker administration as “headed by technocrats but controlled by the military”, while then-army chief Moeen U Ahmed argued the political climate “was deteriorating very rapidly” and that the military’s intervention had “quickly ended” street violence.

It was only after 2009, when Hasina came back to power – her Awami League had first ruled between 1996 and 2001 – that the military became “subordinate to the civilian regime”, Rusho said.

Blurred lines

But even though the military today insists that it does not want power, it has often drifted into the political terrain.

A major moment arrived just weeks after Hasina’s ouster, in September 2024, when General Zaman told the Reuters news agency he would back Yunus’s interim government “come what may”, while also floating a timeline for elections within 18 months. The interview, which critics described as something unprecedented for a serving army chief, placed the military close to the country’s central political debate.

Hossain, the former army officer and author, criticised the public nature of the intervention. “If he [Zaman] had discussed this after sitting with all the stakeholders … the interim [administration], political parties, protest leaders … and then gone to the media, that would be acceptable,” he said. “But here, he declared it unilaterally and blindsided the government from his position of power. He had no authority to do that.”

“You may say this is an extraordinary, transitional time and the military has a role to play,” Hossain added. “But then, why do we have an administration at all?”

Shahan, the Dhaka University professor, said Zaman “came very close” to crossing the line and explained it as a product of military institutional culture after August 5. “Military organisations … like to follow standing operating procedures, order, stability,” he said. But August 5, he added, was “a political rupture” that forced the army and the nation into uncertainty: about the interim government’s longevity, legitimacy and how it would deal with the military.

Those anxieties, Shahan said, likely pushed Zaman to speak. In principle, he said, it is reasonable for the army chief to say elections are needed for stability. But “when he set a specific timeline – within 18 months – that is beyond his role”, Shahan said. “It then appears as if he is dictating.”

Shahan added that the problem becomes sharper when that kind of specificity appears to respond to a party demand; he was referring to a time when only the Bangladesh Nationalist Party was repeatedly pushing for a vote timetable.

Eight months later, in May 2025, Zaman again weighed in, telling a high-level military gathering, according to local media reports, that his position had not changed and that the next national vote should be held by December 2025. After that, Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb, a special adviser to Yunus, wrote on Facebook that “the army can’t meddle in politics” and argued that the military chief had failed to maintain “jurisdictional correctness” by prescribing an election deadline.

Around the same period, rumours emerged suggesting that Yunus had considered resigning amid political discord.

The shadow Hasina left

Another reason that analysts say the military’s role is being debated so intensely now is because of Bangladesh’s recent wounds.

During Hasina’s 15-year rule, human rights organisations argued Bangladesh’s security apparatus was often used for political control. Human Rights Watch has described enforced disappearances as a “hallmark” of Hasina’s rule since 2009.

When the United States sanctioned the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in 2021 over allegations of extrajudicial killings, the US Department of the Treasury said, “These incidents target opposition party members, journalists, and human rights activists.” Critics argue that security institutions became central to governance, and questions about how that machinery was used are now part of the post-Hasina political settlement.

Hossain, the former officer, said the Hasina-era legacy still echoes inside the top brass. “If you look at the leadership, the general, five lieutenant generals, and some major generals and brigadier generals, a lot of them were part of Hasina’s apparatus,” he said, “aside from a handful of professional officers”.

A report by Bangladesh’s Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances says disappearances were used as a “tool for political repression” and that the practice “reached alarming levels during key political flashpoints”, including in the run-up to elections in 2014, 2018 and 2024. The commission said it verified 1,569 cases of enforced disappearance.

In cases where political affiliation could be confirmed, the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing accounted for about 75 percent of victims, while the BNP and its affiliated groups accounted for about 22 percent. Among those “still missing or dead”, the BNP and its allies accounted for about 68 percent, while the Jamaat and its affiliates accounted for about 22 percent, the report said.

The commission also noted that the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the military-run intelligence agency, had been “accused of manipulating domestic politics and interfering in the 2014 parliamentary elections”, and argued that perceived alignment with the Awami League compromised its neutrality.

Several senior military officers, including 15 in service, are now facing trial in a civilian tribunal on charges of enforced disappearances, murders and custodial tortures.

The proceedings have become a delicate issue in civil-military relations, as cases against serving officers in civilian courts are rare in Bangladesh’s history.

Former army chief Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan wrote on Facebook that local media had reported disagreements over the “trial process” for officers accused of crimes against humanity and that those disagreements had created what he described as a “chasm” between the interim government and the army’s top leadership.

Hossain, the former officer, however, said he disagreed. “These trials are not defaming the army,” Hossain said. “Rather, they are a kind of redemption for the institution to recover from the stigma created by the crimes of some self-serving officers.”

He argued that accountability could motivate younger officers and reduce the risk of the military being politically exploited again. Rusho, the retired brigadier general, also argued that politicisation under Hasina was driven less by formal doctrine than by executive control over careers.

“Promotions, important postings, placements … they were influenced considerably by the executive branch,” he said. “When you influence postings, some people’s loyalty often gets diverted to political masters, [and] it affects … professionalism and capability.”

Kean of the International Crisis Group said the real test for Bangladesh now would be whether it can stop the security state from being reabsorbed into partisan politics.

“The military is going to remain a powerful institution in Bangladesh, with a level of influence in domestic politics,” he said. “One hopes that the lesson of the past 18 months is that the military is better to support civilian administrations rather than be in power directly – that it can be a stabilising force, and one that is ultimately committed to democracy and civilian leadership.”