Rwanda and DR Congo Sign Peace Agreement

Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have signed a peace agreement in Washington, DC, brokered by the United States.

The agreement is a breakthrough in the negotiations conducted by the administration of US President Donald Trump and aims to attract billions of dollars of Western investment to the region, which is rich in tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper, lithium and other minerals.

At a ceremony attended by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, the foreign ministers of the two African countries signed an agreement in which they pledged to fulfill a 2024 agreement to withdraw Rwandan troops from eastern DR Congo within 90 days.

Kinshasa and Kigali will also launch a mechanism for regional economic integration within 90 days.

Commenting on the signing, US President Donald Trump said:

“They’ve been fighting for years, and with machetes, it’s one of the worst, most horrific wars that anyone has ever seen. And I was just lucky to have a man who managed to settle it. We’re getting a lot of mining rights for the United States in the Congo as part of this deal. They are very honored to be here. They never thought they would be here.”

Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe called the agreement a turning point. Congolese Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said that it should be followed by a process of disengagement.

Later, Trump met with both ministers in the Oval Office, where he handed them letters inviting Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame to Washington to sign a package of agreements that Massad Boulos, Trump’s senior Africa adviser, called the “Washington deal.”

Nduhungirehe told Trump that previous agreements had not been fulfilled and urged the US president to remain engaged in the process. Trump warned of “very severe sanctions, financial and otherwise,” in case of violation of the agreement.

According to analysts and diplomats, Rwanda has deployed at least 7,000 soldiers across the border to support the M23 rebels, who earlier this year seized two of the largest cities in eastern DR Congo and lucrative mining areas.

The Congolese authorities accuse Rwanda of supporting these rebels, who consist mainly of ethnic Tutsi fighters from Congo. The rebel movement emerged from the long-running 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The group claims to represent the interests of the Congolese Tutsi, an ethnic group that has been targeted for extermination.

The M23’s actions, the latest stage in a long-running conflict that has its roots in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, have raised fears that a larger war could draw in neighboring Congolese countries.