At a summit held in Tanzania, east and southern African leaders urged an “immediate and unconditional” ceasefire to armed conflict within five days in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. But prospects for peace seem far from certain, even though Rwandan President Paul Kagame and his Congolese counterpart Felix Tshisekedi took part in the summit, albeit with Tshisekedi joining via video link.
While the summit’s final statement affirmed support for the DRC’s territorial integrity and urged the opening of humanitarian corridors to evacuate the dead and wounded, it made no explicit reference to Rwanda or its part in the conflict, even though a United Nations report last year said Rwanda maintained around 4,000 troops in the DRC and had de facto control of the M23.
Afterwards, Kagame said his country will not be silent if its security is threatened, and criticized Tshisekedi for shifting blame for the conflict. Rwanda denies it supports the M23, or that it has troops in the DRC.
Congolese army unable to stop M23 advances
By the end of January, the Rwanda-supported M23 rebel group claimed control of Goma, the capital of the North Kivu province in the eastern DRC, and ordered government troops to surrender.
Appearing before an emergency meeting of the in New York, Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner asked what international law would still need to violate for global agencies to respond with concrete measures. Though the United Nations itself had reported Rwandan troops were escorting the M23 fighters, the statement released at the UN Security Council’s meeting merely called for the removal of “external forces,” without specifically naming Rwanda.
Last week, a representative of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) said as the claimed control of on January 27 and in the immediate aftermath .
“If nothing is done, the worst could be yet to come,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights .
The rebels, who claim to be defending the rights of ethnic Tutsis, have said their aim is to march as far as the Congolese capital, Kinshasa.
In an interview posted to DW German on February 1, Martin Kobler, who led , said there had been a “failure in conflict prevention” by international actors, who should have intervened much earlier. Kobler said he felt “sadness, anger and frustration, because we proved together with MONUSCO and the Congolese army in 2013 that we could beat back the M23.”
What’s Germany’s role?
In a statement released January 28, Germany’s Economic Cooperation and Development Ministry (BMZ) announced it had canceled government consultations with Rwanda planned for mid-February.
“There cannot be ‘business as usual’ amid the current escalation in eastern Congo,” the statement read. “Rwanda and M23 need to end the escalation and withdraw. The BMZ is currently coordinating with other donors on further consequences.”
That, however, is “not yet a cut in development funding,” said Jakob Kerstan, the head of the DRC office of Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), which is affiliated with the Christian Democrats.
“The BMZ could immediately stop development funding. Incidentally, that’s what happened in 2012 and 2013, when the M23 had already taken Goma. There was a lot of international pressure back then.”
US President Barack Obama personally called Kagame, who led Rwanda then, as well.
“I can hardly imagine Donald Trump calling Kagame,” Kerstan said, referring to the current US administration.
Currently, it appears the foreign policy priorities of the
“We don’t yet know exactly what they actually think and want,” said Ciaran Wrons-Passmann, the managing director of Germany’s Ecumenical Network for Central Africa (ÖNZ).
“I don’t believe that the seizure of Goma at that time was a coincidence, with the Trump administration not yet fully established in office,” Wrons-Passmann added.
Sanctions on Rwanda demanded
Recently, Congolese nationals protested outside the offices of the EU delegation in Pretoria, South Africa.
“The situation in Congo is similar to that of Ukraine,” Elie Kalonji Ikasereka, a Congolese businessman who has lived in South Africa for two decades and was protesting with his family, told the Agence France-Presse.
“We are asking the European Union to apply the same measures to Rwanda and its President Paul Kagame that were applied to Russia,” Ikasereka said. “We want sanctions.”
There are sanctions in effect, though they are not comparable to those against Russia. The US and EU have applied sanctions to individual members of the M23, Rwanda’s army and some DRC soldiers.
“Germany and Europe are of course more directly affected” by , Kerstan said. The DRC, on the other hand, “feels much further away.”
With the main topic of domestic discussion in Germany and dominating foreign policy, he said, “the focus is different right now.”
Another complicating factor, Wrons-Passmann said, is that Rwanda has managed to “sell itself as a profitable partner in many areas.” For example, Rwanda is one of the largest contributors to the UN’s global peacekeeping missions.
The United Kingdom has also threatened to cut development aid to Rwanda. But the mere threat of sanctions is not enough, Wrons-Passmann said: “If you don’t do it in the end, you’ve lost more than you’ve gained.”
Rwanda as partner
In February 2024, a memorandum of understanding was signed with Rwanda that gives the European Union access to sources of . Rwanda will receive €900 million to develop its infrastructure and other purposes. The agreement is part of the €300 billion , through which the European Union intends to position itself against China and other competitors for economic influence.
The demonstrators in Pretoria accused the European Union of plundering the Congo with this agreement: The EU should “should come in through the main gate,” 50-year-old Monique Mbiya Nkolombo told the AFP outside the delegation in Pretoria. “It should stop buying minerals through Rwanda.”
Congolese exiles also protested in Brussels: “The EU knew that the minerals did not come from Rwanda and that they were stealing them from the Congo,” one activist said.
“The EU probably first needs to figure out how it wants to proceed,” Wrons-Passmann said.
Additionally, in November 2024, Brussels pledged to support Rwanda’s troops with an additional 20 million Euros to ensure security in the . For the UN, Rwanda is also a security partner in the , where Rwandan soldiers are countering the Russian influence of the mercenaries.
Even so, in recent years, there have been repeated statements condemning Rwanda’s support for the M23, says Jakob Kerstan from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
“However, many Congolese rightly have the feeling that this is not happening with the utmost vigor. Many people have the feeling that Europe and Germany only stand up for international law if it benefits them. This is also the reason why there are more and more , at least subliminally, among the Congolese population.”
Contributors: Anchal Vohra, Sandrine BlanchardEdited by Cai Nebe
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