By Mboneko Munyaga
All peace-loving people should rejoice that DR Congo and Rwanda have finally signed an agreement to respect each other’s sovereignty. The deal, inked in Washington DC on April 26, 2025 and witnessed by US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, offers the biggest hope for silencing the guns in that part of Eastern Africa. Peace in DR Congo has always been the desire, goal and objective of the East African Community (EAC), the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU).
After that initial step, the two EAC partner states were expected to come up with a comprehensive peace deal by May 2, 2025 (yesterday) that should return normalcy to Eastern DRC. DRC turned to the US for help after losing swathes of territory and two key cities of Goma and Bukavu last January in an unprecedented onslaught by M23 rebels, that the global community says are backed by Rwanda. Rwanda denies the charges though.
To seal the deal, the US promised the parties both government and private sector investments in the mineral rich region, while Rwanda too, shall finally breathe a sigh of relief that there won’t be instability directed at its territory from that side of the country. No wonder Marco Rubio called the agreement a “win-win” deal. However, it has come at a price for Africa, albeit over its integrity.
The EAC, SADC and AU were fervently working for peace in DRC and had come up with a raft of resolutions, recommendations and action plans for lasting conflict resolution under home grown mechanism. Apparently, all that effort, including the recent appointment of peace facilitators by a joint the SADC/EAC summits have now come to nought.
I am saying so because none of the regional co-operation blocs amounts to a snub, which doesn’t send the right signals for momentous Africa/US relations.
DR Congo is a member of SADC, while both DR Congo and Rwanda are partner states in the EAC, which aims ultimately for political federation. Again, I am not blaming the US here. My humble plea and cry, is actually directed at our brothers, Rwanda and DR Congo. Granted. Relations between them are beyond toxic level to the extent that DRC Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner and Rwanda foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe did not shake hands when signing the agreement, a simple but deep gesture that they were indeed ready to bury the hatchet.
Even though EAC, SADC and the AU appear not to have been involved in the Washington process, again my humble plea is that efforts shall continue to ensure that East Africans in general shall live guided and motivated by the imperative to promote justice for all, peace and stability in their region. Outsiders can help us but without the involvement of the locals, that assistance, however powerful the hand that extends it is, won’t help.
Geopolitics can be tricky terrain and perhaps, I am the least person qualified to venture in that area. But simple common sense tells me that there can never be lasting peace in both Rwanda and DR Congo through an arrangement that appears to sideline neighbours and regional partners.
Finally, the conflict in the DR Congo is simply part of “Africa’s poverty trap and resource curse.” In the book entitled: “Africa Unchained; The Blueprint for Africa’s Future,” the author, George B.N Ayittey writes: “The only way out of the poverty trap was somehow to raise the national and per capita incomes to the point at which savings and capital accumulation would be possible on a sufficient scale.” (First Palgrave Macmillan, paperback edition, September, 2006, Pg 67).
Without raising the people’s quality of life, Africa shall continue to be a hotspot for conflicts.
That in the end, both during chaos and in peace, shall always continue to benefit outsiders. We need to take bold steps and actions to get out of that quagmire and self-tethered chains.
