The meeting of the presidents of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, scheduled for yesterday in Luanda, was canceled, according to AFP, dampening any hope of an immediate agreement to restore peace in the east of the DRC torn apart by conflicts for 30 years.
Congolese Presidents Félix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame were to meet during the day for a summit organized by Angolan head of state Joao Lourenço, designated mediator of the African Union (AU) in the conflict between Kigali and Kinshasa. An agreement “for the restoration of peace and stability in eastern DRC” had to be put on the table. Two days before the summit, all parties said they were optimistic that the text would be signed. But on Saturday, a meeting of the foreign ministers of the two countries which was also held in Luanda, dealing with the conditions of the agreement and which stretched until late at night, ended in a failure of the negotiations. “There is an impasse, because the Rwandans have made it a prerequisite for signing an agreement that the DRC conduct a direct dialogue with the M23,” said Giscard Kusema, spokesperson for the Congolese presidency present in Luanda, yesterday.
A few minutes later, the Angolan presidency announced to the press that “contrary to expectations, the summit will no longer take place today”. Félix Tshisekedi was already at the presidency in Luanda. Paul Kagame never went there, believing, according to Kigali, that the summit was “no longer relevant” after the failure of Saturday’s ministerial meeting. The M23 (March 23 Movement), an armed group supported by Kigali and its army, has seized large swaths of territory in the mineral-rich east of the DRC since November 2021. Goma, capital of the North Kivu province which has more than a million inhabitants and nearly a million war-displaced people crammed into camps, is surrounded by rebels and units of the Rwandan army.
Continued fighting
On the ground, fighting was reported yesterday in the region. Half a dozen ceasefires and truces have already been declared and then violated in eastern DRC. A new ceasefire was signed at the end of July.
It has already been undermined by at least one M23 offensive and regular incidents in recent weeks between rebels and Congolese armed forces. At the end of November, the DRC and Rwanda already approved a concept of operations (Conops) establishing, in theory, the departure of Rwandan soldiers and the neutralization by the Congolese army of the FDLR in just 90 days. The FDLR, an armed group formed by former senior Hutu officials of the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994 since refugees in the DRC and which fights the M23 just like a nebula of pro-Kinshasa militias in the east, constitute in the eyes of Kigali a permanent threat.
A first “harmonized plan” to end the crisis dated August initially provides for the neutralization of the FDLR as a prerequisite for the departure of Rwandan soldiers. It was rejected by the DRC which demanded “simultaneity of operations”. “Rwanda is now making the signing of an agreement conditional on a direct dialogue between us and the M23, which has never been planned since the start of the discussions,” denounced a Congolese government source yesterday. According to Kigali, Kinshasa however gave its agreement in principle, but as part of another crisis resolution initiative under Kenyan mediation, focused on the issue of armed groups present in eastern DRC. The DRC refutes this information.
Former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, mediator of talks between the DRC and Rwanda within the framework of the Nairobi process, was invited to Luanda yesterday. Kinshasa, which describes the M23 as an “enemy of the Republic”, only plans at this stage to negotiate with Rwanda which supports the rebels “and without which the M23 would not exist”.
