The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been invaded by Rwanda five times. The first two times (from 1996-1997 and 1998-2003), it led to large, bloody wars that engulfed the whole country and the broader region, drawing in nine African armies. The following two conflicts (2006-2009 and 2012-2013)—in which Rwanda has denied involvement but it has been confirmed by United Nations investigators and independent observers—were limited to a small area along the border in North Kivu province.
This time, unfortunately, it’s most likely to be a repeat of 1998.
The DRC says that it is in the throes of a new invasion. The conflict has internally displaced close to 3 million people over the past 14 months and killed thousands. It risks setting ablaze the entire region, which could destabilize already rickety regimes such as the one in Burundi.
Amazingly, the reaction of donors and diplomats—who, in contrast with crises from Sudan to Ukraine, have significant leverage—until recently has largely been to condemn the Rwandan invasion but do little else.
The most recent conflict began in November 2021, when Rwanda backed a dormant rebel group, the March 23 Movement (M23), that was hunkered down on the flanks of Mount Sabyinyo, an extinct volcano on the border between Uganda, Rwanda, and the DRC. The movement gained steam, seizing control of wide swaths of the DRC’s eastern highlands. In January, it escalated dramatically, storming into two towns on either end of Lake Kivu—Goma and Bukavu—within three weeks. Today, it controls a Connecticut–sized area.
With the fall of these two cities, each of around 1.5 million people, it is now clear that this rebellion wants to reshape the region. The rebels have begun to set up administrative structures—a population census, tax offices, and even new customary chiefs—that suggest that they are here to stay. They have recruited—sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not—local leaders to undergo political and ideological training in the various camps, and they have set up their own police force.
Increasingly, there are signs that senior opposition figures in Kinshasa, including former President Joseph Kabila, are at the very least in contact with the rebels. Several former senior officials from Kabila’s administration, including former Election Commission President Corneille Nangaa, are in the coalition of rebel groups that includes M23, and Kabila came out this past weekend with an op-ed in South Africa’s Sunday Times that echoed M23 talking points, placing the blame for the conflict squarely on Kinshasa.
Kabila is certainly not interested in becoming the governor of a rebel province—his aims appear to be targeted at the national level.
Perhaps most tellingly, the Rwandan government is believed by the DRC to have invested significant blood and treasure in this endeavor. Estimates by intelligence officials who spoke with the Guardian have placed the number of Rwandan Defense Force casualties in the thousands. United Nations experts believe that Rwanda has deployed between 4,000 and 7,000 troops to assist M23 in the eastern DRC, along with drones, armored vehicles, GPS-jamming equipment, and surface-to-air missiles. (Rwanda continues to deny that its military is present in the DRC.) They are unlikely to be content with a modest peace offering.
Finally, the narrative voiced by the rebellion has shifted from one of protecting Congolese Tutsi—an ethnic group that is present in the area close to the border—and dismantling the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)—a Rwandan rebel group based in the same area—to larger ambitions. The M23 has said that it will march all the way to Kinshasa; Rwandan President Paul Kagame said in mid-February that he sympathizes with this viewpoint.
The rebels—and Rwandan troops widely believed to be accompanying them—have already headed north toward Butembo, far beyond any FDLR position or area inhabited by Tutsis.
The shock waves can be felt in capitals across the region. In Kinshasa, the frailty of the regime has been put on display. The fall of Goma sparked protests in the capital, some of which led to violent attacks against embassies. Various media outlets have reported these were organized by the ruling party. There have also been persistent rumors of plans for a coup.
This has led Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi to reduce his travel schedule and increase his security—he was already protected by a private Israeli firm in addition to Congolese security services. Few believe that the M23 can march all the way to Kinshasa, roughly 1,000 miles through largely roadless jungles from the territory it currently controls, but the pressure on the government could lead it to collapse under its own fractious weight.
In an excess of caution, the United States and several other embassies have evacuated part or all of their diplomatic staff and families. Meanwhile, South African troops have continued to arrive in the southern Congolese mining town of Lubumbashi, perhaps to head off M23 advances in that direction.
There is panic in Burundi, as well. According to diplomats who spoke with us, the government there has sent upwards of 10,000 troops to fight alongside the Congolese army.
Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye has made his disdain for his northern neighbor clear, calling Kagame a hypocrite and liar. On Feb. 18, Ndayishimiye asked his citizens to prepare themselves for war, calling Rwanda an “enemy of Burundi” and stating that “[w]e will not accept to die like the Congolese who are killed like goats.”
Nonetheless, we have spoken with diplomats and Congolese security officials who have reported heavy casualties among their forces. Humiliated on the battlefield and struggling with a dire economic crisis, Ndayishimiye now appears to be reaching out to Rwanda to try to avoid the worst.
Finally, Uganda is trying to thread a very fine needle: On the one hand, the chief of the army and son of the president, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, has expressed his enthusiastic support for the M23. He is close with Kagame, whom he calls his “uncle” and “political mentor.” U.N. reports indicate that Ugandan officers have supported the M23 with logistics and transport since 2023, and M23’s political wing often holds meetings in Uganda.
On the other hand, the Ugandan army is still conducting joint operations with its Congolese counterparts against Ugandan rebels based in northeastern DRC (the Allied Democratic Forces, or ADF). The government in Kampala has also obtained lucrative mining and trade deals in the country. Immediately after M23 captured Goma and Bukavu, Uganda announced that it was sending several thousand more troops to the eastern DRC, expanding its area of operations there.
The message was clear to Kigali: You might be increasing your territory, but this is our zone of influence. These internal tensions in Uganda are bound to get worse as the battle to succeed President Yoweri Museveni, an octogenarian in power since 1986, heats up.
Until recently, not many observers thought that Rwanda could be trying to reshape the entire region. Rwanda is a small country with a GDP just twice the size of Guam (an island with 170,000 people). It depends on foreign aid and support—in recent years, foreign aid has hovered north of a quarter of its revenue. But Rwanda was projected to earn $660 million from tourism in 2024, and it has positioned itself as a major conference hub, hosting more than 150 conferences in 2023, which the government reported earned its economy $91 million.
Perhaps more than anything else, it relies on “Brand Rwanda”—a reputation for efficiency, stability, and a miraculous rebirth after the horrors of the 1994 genocide. It is not for nothing that it has paid for expensive advertising on the jerseys and stadiums of Arsenal, PSG, and Bayern Munich soccer clubs. This brand attracts tourists, but it also elevates the country on the world stage, diplomatically and politically. But it is difficult to maintain this brand while invading another country.
While it is difficult to parse the interests of the opaque regime in Kigali, its sights have long been on the eastern DRC. It considers this area to be part of its sphere of interest, not too different from Pakistan’s views on Afghanistan, or Israel’s actions in southern Lebanon. Thirty years on, the genocide remains the bedrock of Rwandan politics; the establishment there has adopted a maximalist approach regarding security threats, swinging with sledgehammers at flies.
In the case of the FDLR, which is based in the eastern DRC and includes some officers who participated in the genocide, Rwandan officers have spoken about the need for “strategic depth”—to defend the country from outside its borders.
Economic interests matter as well. Minerals made up almost 80 percent of Rwandan exports in 2023, generating more than $1 billion. Most of this is gold that is refined and sent to Dubai. Many experts think much of that was smuggled from the eastern DRC.
While it would be reductive to solely boil Kigali’s motivation down to a mineral-grab—Uganda and Burundi also benefit without being at war with the DRC, and the rise in smuggling to Rwanda predates the M23 war considerably—the value of these exports has been rising and surely influences decision-making.
Finally, ideology plays a role. Members of Rwanda’s elite have long called into question colonial borders, especially those with the DRC. When Rwanda launched its first invasion of the DRC—then called Zaire—in 1996, officials showed diplomats a map of a Rwanda 50 percent larger than its current borders, extending into the DRC.
While this is a dubious interpretation of history, Rwanda may have been encouraged by irredentism in Russia and China, as well as U.S. President Donald Trump’s cavalier attitude toward international law. People around Kagame are increasingly open about their view that the eastern DRC could become a permanent buffer zone or something resembling a “Kurdistan model,” in which a nonstate armed group governs the area.
Given the weakness of the Congolese army, donors and diplomats may be the only barrier standing between Rwanda’s ambitions and achieving this apparent goal. And yet, it is only now that donors have timidly begun applying pressure.
The European Union and the United Kingdom have increased funding to Rwanda during the M23 rebellion, in part because the latter has figured out how to make itself useful: It is the largest African contributor of personnel to United Nations peacekeeping, and it has deployed thousands of troops to northern Mozambique, where they help protect large gas projects by French and Italian multinationals.
Rwanda has offered its services to allow European countries—the United Kingdom and Denmark—to “offshore” asylum-seekers to Rwanda; both deals appear to now be scrapped, but the notion of externalizing the treatment of refugees is still attractive. This week, three former African leaders were appointed as facilitators of a regional mediation effort, brokered by the Eastern African Community and the Southern African Development Community.
Since the fall of Goma, donors have escalated their rhetoric and peppered it with some actions. The German government has suspended talks about a new aid package, the United Kingdom suspended some aid, and the United States has sanctioned James Kabarebe, one of the masterminds of Rwanda’s actions in the DRC going back to 1996.
It is doubtful that this will be enough. Kagame said in mid-February that he will “spit in the face” of those who threaten him with sanctions. That does not augur well for the region—an M23 advance could further shake the governments in Uganda and especially Burundi.
In the meantime, millions of Congolese are stuck between their ineffective government and the predations of a neighboring country.
The post Rwanda’s Attack on Congo Could Plunge Africa Into War appeared first on Foreign Policy.
