Trump hosts Congo, Rwanda leaders in latest push for peace

By Trevor Hunnicutt

WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda together in Washington on Thursday to sign new deals aimed at stabilizing a war-scarred region and attracting Western mining investment.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi are expected to pledge their commitment to an economic integration compact already agreed to last month, as well as a U.S.-brokered peace deal reached in June but still not implemented. Their countries will sign agreements on critical minerals, security, and economic partnerships, according to a White House official.

Analysts say U.S. diplomacy has paused the escalation of fighting in eastern Congo but has failed to resolve core issues. The M23 rebel group, supported by Rwanda, seized the two largest cities in eastern Congo earlier this year in a lightning advance that raised fears of a wider war.

FIGHTING IN CONGO CONTINUES

The Republican U.S. president has been eager to burnish his diplomatic credentials. Since Trump returned to office in January, his administration has intervened in conflicts from the Middle East to Ukraine and beyond. Those efforts have brought mixed results: a Gaza deal, but also criticism that he should focus on domestic, cost-of-living concerns instead. Voters give him low marks on his handling of the economy.

Ahead of the meeting on Thursday, the president’s name was added to a sign outside the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, a government-founded nonprofit his administration tried to seize control of earlier this year. The Congo-Rwanda peace deal is expected to be signed at the institute.

The agreement, however, may not change the humanitarian crisis on the ground. Fighting continued on Thursday, with clashes between the rebels and Congolese army reported in several areas of South Kivu province. A spokesperson for M23 accused government troops of bombing several civilian areas.

Congo’s army and M23 rebels have accused each other of violating existing ceasefire agreements that were renewed last month. At a news conference in Washington on Wednesday, Congolese official Patrick Muyaya blamed M23 for recent fighting and said it was “proof that Rwanda doesn’t want peace.”

M23 is not attending the meeting in Washington. It is also not bound by the terms of any Congo-Rwanda agreement. A White House official said the deal signing “recommits the parties to the peace process” and reflected “months of intensive diplomacy led by President Trump, who made it clear to both the DRC and Rwanda that the status quo was unacceptable.”

Denis Mukwege, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his response to sexual violence in Congo, said the deals were driven more by the scramble for strategic minerals than by a genuine effort to end bloodshed. He said the peace deal would do little to support victims.

“For me, it is clear that this is not a peace agreement,” he told Reuters in an interview in Paris. “The proof: this morning, in my native village, people were burying the dead while a peace agreement was being signed. The M23 continues to seize territory.”

Rwanda denies backing M23. Kigali has said its own forces have acted in self-defense against ethnic Hutu militiamen linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when more than 1 million people were killed. A group of United Nations experts said in a July report that Rwanda exercises command and control over the rebels.

M23 says it is fighting to protect ethnic Tutsi communities in eastern Congo. The rebel group’s advances mark the latest episode in ethnic rivalry in Congo’s eastern borderlands with Rwanda, the source of conflict for three decades.

Two devastating wars in the African Great Lakes region between 1996 and 2003 cost millions of lives. The latest cycle of fighting has killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands more.

A REGION RICH IN MINERALS

The Trump administration has discussed facilitating billions of dollars of Western investment in a region rich in tantalum, tin, tungsten, gold, cobalt, copper, lithium and other minerals. Washington is scrambling globally to secure its access to critical minerals controlled by its rival, China.

Under the Trump-backed agreement, Congo would need to crack down on an armed group opposed to M23, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). Rwanda would need to withdraw its forces from Congo. Little apparent progress has been made toward either pledge since June.

“We hope that, after the signing, we will see improvement on the ground,” Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Additional reporting by Congo newsroom; Sonia Rolley in Paris, Simon Lewis and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Diane Craft and Paul Simao)