This July, Rwandan president Paul Kagame and Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi met in Luanda, under the supervision of Joao Lourenço, Angolan president appointed by the members of the East African Community (EAC), to mediate the talks regarding the conflict in eastern Congo. The initial conclusions of the meeting were the immediate withdrawal of positions occupied by the March 23 Movement (M23), the establishment of an ad hoc observation body under Angolan auspices, and a section on the exploitation of the DRC's natural resources while respecting state sovereignty. 

All of these summer meetings were aimed at finding solutions to the thorny conflict between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda regarding the situation in Kivu. They also took place in the context of the resumption of fighting following the capture of Bunagana by the rebels of M23 last June. 

Composed of former Tutsi fighters from Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defense of the People, M23 was reintegrated into the Congolese army following the March 2009 agreements. After its reinstatement, it was quickly pointed out for its abuses of power within the newly reformed Congolese army and its dissident practices. Its members were accused by the United Nations of supporting mineral trafficking and by international organizations, such as Human Rights Watch, of perpetrating numerous acts of violence against the civilians. From 2012 onwards, these accusations quickly led to an increase in tensions between M23 and the Congolese government. Additionally, there were suspicions about Rwanda's support for the rebel faction. This information was reported in an official letter from the UN Security Council in June 2012. In this tenuous context, the capture of Bunagana was a victory and a resurgence of M23 against the Congolese government. The town served "as a base" for M23 in November 2012, as had the town of Goma, before M23 lost the war to the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) and the international coalition, before taking refuge in Uganda. This past summer, photos of overturned armored vehicles believed to belong to the FARDC have been posted on social networks and, according to the UN, more than 30,000 people have been displaced by the fighting. The DRC government continued to accuse Rwanda of supporting these abuses, which Kigali has fiercely always denied. 

In the wake of these events, the tripartite meeting in Luanda was aimed at finding new avenues for appeasement between the two powers. A "roadmap" aimed at achieving this objective stipulated a willingness to normalize diplomatic relations between Kinshasa and Kigali. It also provided for the immediate cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of M23 from its positions in the DRC as the Congolese presidency had specified on Twitter. The meeting was also intended to define the modalities of this roadmap. While this announcement seemed like a good start with the “de-escalation agreement" between the DRC and Rwanda and the re-launch of a permanent DRC-Rwanda joint commission, no official peace agreement has been reached since these meetings. The terms of the various commitments made have not been specified.

Seeking to Ease Tensions

Located on the border with Uganda, Bunagana is the capital of North Kivu province and a strategic city for the DRC's border trade with the Great Lakes region. According to Congolese economist Kamala Kaghoma, a lecturer at the Université Officielle de Bukavu, "Bunagana is an important town economically because it facilitates access to Uganda, which has more access to the sea than the DRC, and also allows the country to have a passageway to the sea. So Uganda, through Kenya, has more access to the sea than the DRC”. Therefore, the recapture of the city by M23 is a destabilizing factor for the region and also a symbolic failure for the Tshisekedi government. 

With the resumption of its activities in November 2021, M23 is now, more than ever, the epicenter of tensions between Kigali and Kinshasa. According to a recent United Nations report, the armed group is still supported by the regime of Paul Kagame in spite of the agreements. This report highlighted the participation of Rwandan soldiers in several attacks against Congolese soldiers in North Kivu province between November 2021 and this July. Prior to the release of this confidential information, EAC leaders had previously discussed the issue at a meeting in Nairobi, proposing a regional solution to the crisis including the creation of an inter-state military force. However, the release of the report and recent events have shown that the diplomatic agreements discussed during the summer have not been able to override the realities on the ground or ease tensions between the two states. Somes examples are the capture of Rumangabo, Kiwanja, and Rutshuru. 

The Luanda agreements also raised another important point. In addition to the deployment of the regional force decided in Nairobi and the updating of the tripartite agreement of Kigali, dating back to 2010, several agreements were passed between the two belligerents. First, Rwanda should not participate in the regional force. Second, it should support the fight against M23, the Rwandan rebels of the DFLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), as well as their dissidents. At the beginning, officials were rather confident following these meetings. For the Rwanda Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vincent Biruta, the recommendations agreed upon were a "new step in the right direction.” However, the  involvement  of regional organizations in the crisis, such as the EAC, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), indicated the possibility of regional and even international solutions to the crisis.

However, recent events in the conflict have dashed the hopes and commitments made last July. From the beginning of the meetings, organizations were opposed to these agreements. For example, LUCHA, a Congolese civil organization of defense of the rights of Congolese civilians advocating non-violence, denounced the Luanda agreements due to the normalization of diplomatic relations with an “aggressor state,” pointing out Rwanda.

Moreover on the battlefield, things do not seem to have changed since the passage of these agreements. Recent reports show that the commitments made in Luanda have not found a significant resonance among the main parties involved. Last October, M23 expanded its influence in eastern Congo with the capture of two new towns in North Kivu. Faced with this development in the conflict, President Tshisekedi reacted by once again accusing Kigali of encouraging the destabilization of the region by supporting M23. Tshisekedi then called for the removal of the Rwandan ambassador  from the DRC and on "youth to mobilize" against the M23 threat in a televised address in November. Paul Kagame reacted by deploring his counterpart's attitude and Rwandan security forces have been on alert at the Congolese-Rwandan border. Joao Lourenco has sent a special envoy to Kinshasa to try to convince the DRC and Rwanda to participate in a third peace dialogue this month. Despite the current effort, the evolution of events between July and November attests to the difficulties in establishing a lasting solution and concrete commitments to resolve the crisis.

Competition in Kivu

If we look at the history of relations between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo on the Kivu issue, the Luanda agreements show the persistence of a fluctuating relationship between the two states. Despite the announcement of several commitments, the two states always return to their initial positions. On the one hand, Rwanda continues to support the actions of M23 through its nationals, which allows it to have an indirect presence in the territory and thus access to mineral resources. On the other hand, the DRC continues to allow the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) to circulate on its territory, carrying out operations against the FARDC. This group has become one of the most important armed groups in the region and poses a direct threat to Rwanda's internal security, as it is made up of former Hutu soldiers who participated in the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.

The apparent insolvency of the conflict also underscores the difficulties of response by regional and international organizations, particularly in their ability to coerce the two states. Regional organizations, such as the EAC, lack the coercive tools to force the two states to respect their commitments. Initially endorsed as an economic institution, the EAC is a recent political organization and its activity was only accelerated in 2017 as the East African Federation. Although it is attempting to increasingly unite through various stages of integration, it remains little known and most nationals of the organization's member countries remain uninformed and unconvinced of the effectiveness of the organization's political action. 

Additionally, reaching out to dissident armed groups is complex. Before the capture of Bunagana last June, the EAC had organized talks in May, inviting the presidents of the states of the sub-region but also Congolese and foreign armed groups to try to find agreements on the Kivusian question. However, most of the rebel groups did not show up, resulting in incomplete negotiations.

Foreign Influence

Adding to the complexities, traditional international mediators, such as UN peacekeeping operations and Western countries who have greater diplomatic and military resources, do not seem to have found the keys to resolving the crisis. For example, at this year’s UN General Assembly Emmanuel Macron, Félix Tshisekedi, and Paul Kagame agreed on the need to find common solutions to the crisis, stressing a "common will." Despite these encouraging statements, the annexation of new towns in eastern Congo barely a month after these declarations show the lack of implementation of concrete measures with Western mediators. These difficulties of the international mediators are crystallized by the continued exacerbation of tensions between the Congolese population and the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO). Present in the country since 2010 with the mission to protect civilians but also to participate in the promotion of peacekeeping in the DRC, MONUSCO is regularly the object of attacks and  numerous demonstrations in the provinces of South and North Kivu. Demands against the mission include its departure, which has already taken place in Butembo, the third largest city in North Kivu province.

Moreover, the growing interest of foreign actors in the region, such as Russia, raises questions about the potential choice of a new mediation model on the part of the belligerents. Last August, a meeting took place between Russian and Congolese officials. Russian diplomat Viktor Tokmakov, known for his links with Wagner, attempted to position Russia as an arms supplier for the DRC. Russia's appearance in the conflict comes at a time when the lack of Western support in the conflict with M23 is being denounced by those close to President Tshisekedi. According to Congolese political analyst Dady Saleh, meetings have increased over the summer between Moscow, Kinshasa, and some leaders of the paramilitary group. Although the group has not been mentioned since the current upsurge in tension, involving private armed groups in the resolution of the conflict would be an infringement on the sovereignty of the Congolese state, but even more so a threat to the rights of its population.

In the face of these blockages, a relevant solution should come first and foremost from the interdependent will of the two states to take strong measures to contain the conflict. On the one hand, it would be interesting to see the regional institutions equip themselves with legally, politically, and financially binding tools in order to force the states to revise their personal judgments in favor of the stabilization of the region. On the other hand, both presidents are far from ignorant of the realities on the ground. In various ways, they have been actively involved in the political and military life of their countries since the crisis began in the 1990’s. Their respective inactions can therefore only be explained by the primacy of their desire for personal enrichment via national resources rather than the security of their populations. Thus, the corruption of the rulers as well as their use of the belligerents involved contributes to a conflict that seems to have no end.