On June 27, US President Donald Trump announced a peace deal between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. The deal was brokered by the US. Both nations have called the deal historic, and thanked Trump for his support.
Rwanda and the DRC have been at loggerheads for over three decades. There have been multiple wars fought between the two nations. Wars that have drawn in multiple neighbouring countries, dubbed Africa’s World Wars. The root of the present conflict lies in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Between April and July, 1994, hundreds of thousands of people were killed in Rwanda. Most of the victims were from the Tutsi ethnic minority. The pogrom was led by the Rwandan government at the time, which was dominated by members of the Hutu ethnic group. The Rwandan genocide ended when a force of predominantly Tutsi rebels captured large swathes of the country. This rebel group was led by Rwanda’s current President, Paul Kagame. The rebels ousted the perpetrators of the genocide, who fled to neighbouring nations including the DRC.
The genocidal regime managed to flee by mixing with the hundreds of thousands of civilian refugees who left Rwanda. But the regime regrouped within refugee camps in the DRC. And they created militias to conduct attacks on the newly established, Tutsi rebel-led Rwandan government. These genocidal militias are active even in the present day.
Rwanda’s government has invaded the DRC multiple times over the years. Ostensibly to dismantle these genocidal militias. It fought two full-scale wars against the DRC, first in 1996, and again in 1998. After that, Rwanda conducted covert campaigns against the former regime forces. Kigali backed armed groups comprising of ethnic Tutsis, living in the DRC. But now, one of these Tutsi-led armed groups has taken up arms against the Congolese government.
In January this year, a group called M23 conducted a lightning offensive in the Eastern DRC. It captured two major cities in the region, and routed the Congolese military. The DRC has blamed M23’s extraordinary success on support from Rwanda. Kinshasa says that Kigali is actively involved in the M23 campaign. Active-duty Rwandan military personnel are said to be embedded within the M23’s forces. So, according to the DRC, Rwanda is pulling the strings. And the reason is apparently to get access to Congolese minerals.
Eastern DRC is rich in minerals. From Gold to Copper, to even Cobalt and Coltan, minerals critical for modern electronics, the DRC has them all. Armed groups in the East have been exploiting this mineral wealth for decades. They conduct illegal mining operations to fund their militancy. The DRC says that Rwanda is heavily involved in this illegal mineral network. The armed groups aligned with Kigali allegedly smuggle illegally mined minerals into Rwanda. Rwanda then exports the smuggled goods to buyers all over the world, directly profiting by stealing Congolese mineral wealth. That is the charge by Kinshasa, which Kigali vehemently denies.
But now, the DRC has taken steps to protect its mineral wealth. It reached out to a party which would broker peace in exchange for a cut of mineral resources. Kinshasa appealed to Trump’s business instincts. They offered the US access to the DRC’s vast mineral wealth, in exchange for both brokering and supervising a peace deal. The mineral deal means that the US is now directly involved. It is now in Trump’s interest that peace prevails between the DRC and Rwanda. Kinshasa is banking on this, and so far, Trump hasn't disappointed.
Kigali was also all praises for Trump at the White House. Thanking him for his leadership and support. But Rwanda’s representative at the United Nations outlined additional steps for peace. Rwanda says it won’t back down until the militias linked to its old genocidal government are dismantled. Unless that happens, Kigali will keep backing the M23 militants.
And as for the M23, they were conspicuously absent at the US-brokered peace talks. The militant group has not agreed to surrender or give up the cities it controls in the DRC. But, it is holding separate peace talks with the government in Kinshasa. Will the Trump-brokered peace talks really lead to the end of the conflict in the Eastern DRC? Or has the Congolese government wagered the country’s mineral wealth for nothing? Only time will tell.
