Negotiations are always necessary, even between friendly nations. However, they imply good faith among parties. The Angola negotiations between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, were giving the Congolese government excuses to claim that it is not at war with its persecuted population, but that it is at war with Rwanda.
Rwanda is not at war, except with terrorists in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique and Central African Republic!
As the Angola peace protocol, signed by all three foreign ministers (Angola, Rwanda and DRC) reads:
- Rwanda is asked to “lower its defense mechanisms”;
- DRC is asked to “stop collaborating with FDLR”.
Nowhere in the protocol does it say that Rwanda should stop war in D.R.Congo.
The protocol is indeed self-explanatory. Every country in the world must have defense mechanisms in place, a fortiori, when a neighboring government is hostile and:
- Officially admits to collaborating with a militia made of people who committed genocide (see protocol);
- Has (through Note Verbales signed on July 26th2024 to the UN Residual Mechanism and the Republic of Niger), officially invited sentenced genocide masterminds to relocate to his country after their prison sentences, so they can train new recruits on the genocide ideology targeting Tutsi, and eventually targeting Rwanda;
- Makes daily threats of bombing Kigali.
In reality, with Rwanda’s defense mechanisms in place, DRC threats do not affect Rwanda’s security.
The DRC government is at war with its own population: The M23 rebel movement. “M23” refers to peace accords hitherto signed between the M23’s predecessor, the “National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP)” and DRC government on March 23rd, 2009, committing the latter to:
– Stop collaborating with, and disarm FDLR;
– Repatriate over a million Tutsi Congolese living in exile;
– Stop propagating hate speech against Tutsi.
Ten years after the March 23rd accords, the DRC government still refused to implemented its commitments, and Congolese Tutsi refugees were still languishing in exile, which prompted CNDP to take-up the name “M23” as a reminder, and restart the war with their government.
In restarting the war, the M23 movement came from Uganda, not Rwanda. They entered through Bunagana, which has no border with Rwanda, as all parties, except Kinshasa confirm (Uganda’s President Museveni corroborates this).
However, when DRC’s militia-like army FARDC was routed by M23 rebels in Bunagana, Kinshasa chose to immediately claim that M23 came from Rwanda, for the following reasons:
– that position played in their political rhetoric of denying citizenship to Tutsi Congolese and accusing them of being Rwandan – not Ugandan;
– Justified the defeat of the FARDC on the battlefield against a small, ill equipped rebel group;
– Gave the DRC government an excuse to coalesce with the FDLR, which committed the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, were defeated in July 1994, fled to DRC, started targeting Congolese Tutsi, forcing them to flee and to start a liberation movement (CNDP, M23, etc.) since 30 years;
– Enabled them to fuel anti-Tutsi sentiments within the Congolese population, and eventually coalesce the FARDC with hundreds of local militias against M23;
It is important to note that the same propaganda was used by the genocidal regime in Rwanda in 1990, calling the RPF a “Ugandan movement” to justify its armies’ defeats, cultivating anti-tutsi sentiments within the Rwandan population, rounding up Tutsi civilians in Kigali calling them “traitors”, killing many of them and throwing others in jail.
After M23 seized parts of Ruchuru and Masisi, the region intervened. A “Nairobi Peace Mechanism” was put in place, chaired by former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta to facilitate peace. The choice of Uhuru Kenyatta as the facilitator was not anodin. It recognised that the standing agreement between CNDP and the Congolese government had been signed in Nairobi, ten years before.
The Nairobi mechanism preconised a peacekeeping force in Eastern DRC to halt the fighting. Countries of the East African Community deployed a “Peacekeeping force” named the East African Standby Force (EASF) to enable negotiations, between M23 and the government of Kinshasa.
The force was to preside over
- The disarmament of M23, its cantonment and demobilisation, with some elements to be eventually reintegrated in the FARDC at a later stage;
- Neutralisation of the FDLR;
- Repatriation of Congolese Tutsi refugees.
This was the letter of the Nairobi accords of March 23 2009 between CNDP and the DRC government. Only, Kinshasa had no intention of implementing the Nairobi agreement.
Instead, once the EASF was deployed in Eastern DR. Congo, the DRC government asked them to deviate from their mandate and fight M23, which it termed as a foreign militia. However, Kenyan and Ugandan contingents who have seen refugee camps made of families of M23 rebels in their respective countries for 30 years, had a clear understanding of the situation Congolese Tutsi and their persecution by their own government. They decided to stick to their mandate and refused to fight M23.
Tshisekedi was furious! There is a video in which he is lambasting the Kenyan commander of the standby force in a summit in Bujumbura, Burundi. However this did not phase the Kenyan General who stayed committed to his mandate and a few months later, Tshisekedi decided to expel the EAC Standby Force. No explanation has been given to date, by the DRC government, a member of the EAC, to its fellow member states.
Before they left, the M23 had demonstrated good faith, by ceeding its conquered territory to the Burundian contingent of the EASF. The agreement stipulated that EASF would hold the ceded territories, and not allocate them to neither the DRC army, nor its partner militias, secure them to enable Tutsi refugees in exile, and internally displaced people in Goma to return.
Burundian troops did just the opposite. As soon as M23 gave them its territories, they immediately relinquished them to FARDC and Wazalendo, exposing the returned populations to reprisals, atrocities and fresh displacement. This prompted M23 to reatack and re-seize the territories. The Burundian contingent set their own barracks of fire and fled with Wazalendo and FARDC army. By that incident, Burundi had shown that it was in DRC for different reasons, and that will not take long before they show their real mission…
Another step made to undermine the Nairobi accords was Tshisekedi’s decision to arm the population; and coalesce with violent militias; a carbon-copy of the defeated genocidal regime in Rwanda. As a result, disarmament and cantonment of M23 is no longer on the table. Indeed how can you disarm people and send them into hostile communities that are armed?
After the expulsion of the EASF, Thsisekedi went to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and asked them to replace the East Africans, this time with a mandate to engage and root out the “invaders”. Tshisekedi sold it as a war between blocks, namely the “Nilotic Easterners v. the Bantu Southeners”, with DRC as the prize, which he promised he would rather offer to his “Bantu brethren”. This argument is straight out of the FDLR and Genocide ideology book, that characterises Tutsi as aliens to Central Africa.
While no one in the SADC countries was possibly impressed by Tshisekedi’s ethnic nonsense, three countries, namely Tanzania, South Africa and Malawi volunteered troops to a “Southern African Development Community (SADC) Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SAMIDRC)”, for “personal reasons”. Burundi, probably second after the DRC as the only two ethnist countries of the 21 century, deserted the “Nilothic” camp of EAC and joined the fray as a non-SADC member, to cement “Bantu solidarity”.
Why did they do so?
- South African politicians have mining concessions in Eastern DRC. But most importantly, it is South Africa’s securocracy’s vocation to undermine Rwanda’s interests. If they have zero prestige in the Southern African region of which they once held total, unquestionable sway, it is because of the Rwanda Defence Force. The Rwandan Army has succeeded where they failed in neutralising the Jihadists in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. The jobs that Rwandan companies are doing in Cabo Delgado were the preserve of South African companies. They lost prestige, money, defense contracts and more, to Rwanda. Did Rwanda do it to undermine South Africa? Not really. Rwanda was called in to bridge a gap, but that’s besides the point. Countries have no vocation to love each other, they collaborate, compete or fight, that’s just how it works. With South Africa, strangely, we have done, and still do all three….
- Burundi is pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing against the Burundian Tutsi, similar to that of DRC, and has hundreds of thousands of Burundian Tutsi refugees scattered across the region. In a recent declaration, its president Evariste Ndayishimiye recently declared to his army generals, “If we do not fight M23 in DRC, they will find us here in Bujumbura”…
- Tanzania is in DRC due to personal of interests of powerful individuals within the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi, whom at the same time harbor personal and deep-rooted enmity towards the RPF and Paul Kagame .
- Malawi is in the DRC for SADC Solidarity, some prestige, and mainly the adventure. Luckily they haven’t confronted M23 in battle, which would edify them with some existential perspective. South Africans and Tanzanians have, while Burundians wish they hadn’t.
Indeed M23 killed around ten South Africans troops and captured a double dozen of Tanzanians. The Tanzanians were quietly released and repatriated to their country through negotiations brokered by Rwanda between M23 and the TZ government. Those powerful CCM dignitaries have since been neutralised. Both South Africa and Tanzania, have since vowed not to engage M23 in battle anymore.
- As for Burundi, its army has simply been decimated. See, Burundi had a different arrangement with the DRC. President Ndayishimiye offered his army as mercenaries. They endorsed the congolese army’s uniform and are paid to fight, possibly under the command of the highly ineffective congolese commanders and Eastern European mercenaries.
It is suspected that about one thousand (1000) burundians were killed in eastern DRC in less than six months. To instill terror in their enemies, after every battle M23 commanders radio their adversaries’ commanders and the Red Cross to come and collect their casualties so they can go burry them far from its controlled territories. this terrifies other troops, so much so that new Burundian soldiers have taken fear and refused to deploy to Eastern DRC. About a thousand were court martialed in Bujumbura.
But enough with war stories, back to diplomacy – or its failure thereof;
When the DRC lost the town of Bunagana to M23, it escalated its accusations of a Rwandan invasion, expelled it’s Ambassador to Kinshasa, and armed the FDLR militia to attack villages in Kinigi on Rwanda’s territory, kill people and destroy property, prompting Rwanda to enhance its defence mechanisms, which the DRC saw as a threat.
The African Union then mandated Angola’s President João Lourenço to mediate between the two countries in order to defuse any misunderstanding and de-escalate tensions.
Rwanda went in the Luanda peace process in good faith and in observance of AU’s guidance. However the DRC took the opportunity to brandish Rwanda’s cooperation as proof that it is at war with them.
The peace accords stalled for about two years, until finally, on the 25th November 2024, the two foreign ministers and security services of DRC and Rwanda reached and signed a frame agreement, which they termed “Concept of Operations” (CONOPs), that was to be consecrated by the Heads of State Summit in Luanda today on December 15th 2024.
However, on 24th November 2024, a day before the Ministerial meeting in Angola, the DRC Prime Minister Judith Suminwa led a delegation to Goma, in which her Minister of Justice Constant Mutamba called for the Killing of all Rwandan traitors (read Tutsi congolese) and launched a “fatwa” against Rwanda’s President. This however did not deter Rwanda’s Foreign Minister and Security representatives from adhering to the CONOPs.
On 11th December 2024, four days before the Summit between the DRC and Rwandan Presidents in Angola, the Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi speaking in Parliament, referred to the return of displaced Kivu populations in areas controlled my M23 as “Rwanda’s operating a replacement of legitimate Congolese populations with foreigners” ( https://www.dw.com/fr/kigali-d%C3%A9ment-le-d%C3%A9peuplement-d%C3%A9nonc%C3%A9-par-tshisekedi/a-71053595?maca=fr-Twitter-sharing )
This statement, is totally false for three reasons:
- The majority (Approximately 90%) of populations of Ruchuru and Masisi (two Kinyarwanda names) are Kinyarwanda speaking Congolese, because that area used to belong to the Rwandan Kingdom;
- All reports confirm that areas controlled by M23 are much safer than regions controlled by the Congolese army FARDC and the myriad of violent militias in coalition with them (a recent Amnesty International report accuses the DRC Army of mass killings in Goma, and cases of racketeering, raping and killing by Wazalendo militia are reported daily in Goma. M23 too is accused of some crimes, but reports converge that it is the least violent movement of all, far behind the DRC army, FARDC and its ally the Wazalendo.);
- At the risk of stating the obvious, there is no reason a Rwandan citizen, or any citizen for that matter, would leave the welfare state that is Rwanda, forsake universal education and healthcare, security and prosperity, life expectancy at 70 years of age, free housing and monthly stipends for the poor, to go and face diseases, famine, racketeering, rape and possibly death in Eastern DRC, at the hand of all the predators mentioned above. That is precisely why there are about a million Kinyarwanda speaking Congolese in Exile!
Also, readers will appreciate the timing of the escalating saber-rattling rhetoric, days to major peace milestones.
Finally, such statements justifies the M23 struggle as they confirms that the DRC government does not recognize the citizenship of Congolese Tutsi.
An anecdote in ending, foreign diplomats clause to the negotiations tells me the new DRC’s Foreign Minister has never shaken the hand of his Rwandan counterpart in about six rounds of negotiations. Angola’s Foreign Minister Tete Antonio is bamboozled!
I believe it is for all these reasons, that Rwanda’s President has decided to not take part in the latest Luanda Summit, to give a chance to the Congolese warring factions, namely M23 and the Government to negotiate directly in the view to implement their March 23rd, 2009’s commitments.
A french version of the article on this link: https://gateteviews.rw/la-rdc-ou-lechec-de-la-diplomatie/