The African Union (AU)-sponsored peace proposal presented to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and its eastern neighbor Rwanda on July 30 continues to offer some seeds of hope to bring an end to 30 years of war and devastation in the world’s wealthiest nation in terms of natural resources.
That war, and the growing number of collateral conflicts associated with it, has cost more than 8 million lives and has displaced over 26 million villagers in central and eastern Congo since the overthrow of Dictator Joseph Mobutu in 1997.
A major obstacle inhibiting the peace is the lack of participation in the peace process of 140-plus rebel groups scattered about the central and eastern Congo and the DRC’s unwillingness to negotiate with the leaders of M23 and the AFC (Congo River Alliance), two of the largest rebel armies.
The two rebel group leaders, widely known to be under Rwanda protection, announced their autonomy from the AU peace proposal. The rebel leaders said the peace agreement is between two sovereign states – DRC and Rwanda – and that they are not beholden to its terms.
DRC President Felix Tshisekedi is just as adamant in his refusal to talk peace with the rebel leaders.
“As long as I am president, I will never face the M23 or the AFC,” he said. “It was Rwanda that requested the ceasefire, not us.”
Tshisekedi also is lending support to rebels at war against Kagame inside Rwanda. The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an ethnic Hutu group, reportedly took part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Paul Kagame began serving his fourth term as Rwanda’s president in August 2024. He first gained the presidency in April 2000. However, as the leader of the nearly 40-year-old Rwandan Patriotic Front, he has been the country’s de facto head since his rebel forces ended the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
Kagame is in line to become chairman of the EECAS (Economic Community of Central African States) beginning Sept. 18, a position that enhances his status in international politics.
An observation from the report PROJECT 2049 sheds some light on the core problem in the current conflict:
“Numerous U.N. and NGO investigations have concluded that competition between armed groups over resources such as tantalum has been a significant driver of the conflict. Three groups including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) and factions of the Congolese army (FARDC) taxed the mines and population as well as extorted minerals or cash at transit points for profit. The problem of illicit mining was also compounded by the DRC government’s inability to secure the proliferation of small-scale mining.”
LUANDA PEACE
The foreign ministers of the two nations sat at the table in Luanda, Angola August 20-21 to “analyze” the peace agreement proposal, as it was presented by the designated mediator, Angolan President Joao Lourenco.
This engagement was followed by a “Meeting of Experts” on August 29-30 to consider “specific aspects” of the peace proposal.
In its Tuesday, Sept. 10 report, AfricanIntelligence.com reports what appeared to be a positive trend developing in the talks between Rwanda and DRC in Luanda.
“Angola’s mediation has achieved significant progress in talks between eastern DRC’s belligerent parties, even if its implementation on the ground remains elusive,” the report said. “After receiving Congolese and Rwandan heads of intelligence and military security – as well as an M23 delegation – Luanda is now set to host the two countries’ foreign ministers.”
DISSIDENT VIEWS
The plan agreed to by DRC and Rwandan spymasters at their Aug. 29-30 meeting left some of the Congolese expatriates in the U.S. with a long list of questions about the effectiveness of the negotiations. There was a great deal of ambiguity over whether all Rwandan troops would be withdrawn from the DRC. And what would be the fate of the FDLR, the anti-Rwandan rebel group based in DRC that regularly takes its battle against Kagame into Rwanda without hindrance from the Congolese army? The DRC negotiator apparently agreed to let a part of Rwanda’s army remain in the DRC to ‘neutralize’ the FDLR.
The Congolese native scholar known to Jackson Advocate readers as Guardian Angel says the agreement is a bad one.
“Not sure who in the DRC came up with this nonsense,” she said in a September 3 critique of the agreement. “How can DRC accept Rwanda forces to come into DRC to look for FDLR? Kagame came to DRC multiple times using this as scapegoat. Here is DRC fighting Rwanda to get out of DRC then invite them to come look for FDLR? Where did Congolese brain go? Congolese used to be smart people.
“Whoever came up with this idea should be the first person to go to capital punishment. Kagame wants to exterminate the Bantu Rwandans. So, DRC will be helping him to accomplish that. There should be a dialogue between Rwandese so all their refugees can go back. Kagame doesn’t want them because all their land has been given either to big corporations or to Tutsi who came from Uganda.
“It is time the DRC government realize negotiating with Kagame will never work. And if DRC government continues to have talks with anything/anyone who has ties with Kagame, they are giving the Kivus to Rwanda. I don’t think Kivutiens will accept that. Time for the government to seriously concentrate on winning this war while Kivutiens still have some confidence in this DRC government. If the current DRC government feels they can’t win the war/don’t want to fight it, then form a transitional government that will fight this war and keep DRC whole. The DRC better think twice before engaging in this scheme.”
PEOPLE SUFFER
Even though the peace talks might allow for a degree of change in the national political crisis, the great majority of the people of the DRC can only expect minimal change in their lives at best, says Maurice Carney, co-founder and executive director of the Friends of the Congo, one of the few African American NGO’s with a long history of direct engagement with the people of the DRC.
“Yes, there’s talks between the United States and Angola’s Pres. Joao Lourenco facilitating negotiating between Tshisekedi and Kagame for the liberation of Rwanda forces responsible for the Rwandan genocide in return for his lifting his support for M23. And to pull out his 4,000 troops he has in the Congo right now. That’s in negotiation.
“Anything that will stop current conflict will be a positive resolution,” Carney says. “Not everyone will be happy with it, but if the people in the camps can go back home. If that’s the outcome of it, then that will be a positive step.”
But the many thousands of distressed and displaced families in eastern Congo are still waiting for word from the government that will allow them to return to their homes.
“Folks are displaced,” Carney said. “They need medical care. They’re still unable to go back home, which is ultimately what they want to do. They’re still coming to the camps. The conditions haven’t changed. There’s been little concern for the people around Goma, the largest city in the North Kivu province, who’ve been displaced from their homes and are now living in deplorable conditions in the camps around Goma.”
GERTLER GREED
“According to the World Bank,” Carney points out, “70 million of 110 million Congolese live on less than two dollars per day. Dan Gertler, the Israeli diamond dealer with exclusive marketing rights over DRC diamonds, makes an average of $200,000 a day on his royalties.”
Gertler, whose father launched the diamond markets in Israel, is reported to have paid the late Laurent Kabila $25 million for the control of diamond rights in DRC. Joseph Kabila, the son of Laurent, maintained a close relationship with Israel and Gertler during his 17 years as DRC president.
Current DRC president Tshisekedi has opened up the doors to the Congo’s rich natural resources to Gertler and the Israeli-connected Glencore mining company. Tshisekedi has also struck up a deal with the Israeli military to train the security forces of the DRC.
“I know that the Israeli defense forces have an official relationship with President Tshisekedi where they’ve been training Congo military,” Carney said.
“Israel’s Mossad is like the secret service and while the IDF is training Congo’s military, I don’t think that’s a coercive element so far as Dan Gertler is concerned. The Gertler connection is more around corruption. He’s in the Paradise Papers that show that Kabila benefited from kickbacks for providing the kind of access to Gertler that he did. It’s more a financial relationship with a security component or intelligence component co-existing. But it’s all about money as far as Gertler’s involvement is concerned.
DeWayne Boyd, co-founder of the DRC Crisis Group, said the United States government had black-listed Gertler for his exploitation of child labor in his Congolese diamond mines. None of his enterprises could be promoted or sold in the markets of the United States at that time, Boyd said. But Donald Trump removed Gertler from the do not trade list. Biden put him back on the taboo list. But a million-dollar lobbying effort is currently on the table to persuade Biden to sanitize Gertler’s dirty money dealings once more.
The U.S has let the multinationals off the hook in the lawsuit that had charged them with complicity in exploiting child labor in the African mines.
“It’s an ongoing issue and it’s not getting the attention it deserves, “Boyd said. “People are suffering immensely in the DRC while the corporations profiting from the exploitation are carrying on business as usual. And nobody is addressing the dire situation that these mining communities, particularly the women and children, are being subjected to. And nobody’s saying nothing.”
Boyd says the DRC government paid $1 million to a Washington-based lobbying group, led by a former state department official Amos Hochstein, to lobby Joe Biden to lift sanctions on Gertler. “As of today, September 10, there’s no official government response to that lobbying effort. A leading civil society nonprofit decried the effort to lift the sanction and petitioned Biden to not lift it. Since Biden dropped out of the Presidential race, however, there’s been no indication of what he might have decided. We hope that he won’t lift the sanction.
“Gertler, Elon Musk, Hochstein and other billionaires are all tied together in this dirty business,” Boyd said. “They’re all about that money. So, they are out to advance their economic interests above the plight of the people. In the lawsuit, the court’s decision was that the multinationals were not guilty of any wrongdoing, which is crazy. Hochstein is lobbying the U.S. on their behalf.”
AFRICAN CONTRACT
Congolese conservationist and wildlife protector Adams Cassinga, a native of the eastern Congo, points out that the DRC, Rwanda, and Burundi all shared a common government and currency under Belgian’s colonial rule.
A wildlife activist and National Geographic Explorer, Cassinga is a native of Bukavu. He is founder and CEO to Conserv Congo, an organization dedicated to fighting the poaching and wildlife trafficking that is causing havoc in the Congo forests while throwing its ecology and natural resources out of balance.
Cassinga was shot three times in 2006 while investigating a case. He was awarded Caxton’s “No Guts – No Story” prize for his work. He was also selected for a US State Department Mandela Washington Fellowship.
“Prior to 1960, the Belgian Congo, as we were then called, was actually the Belgian Congo/Rwanda/Burundi,” Cassinga said. “The DRC, Rwanda and Burundi were one country. We used one currency. Burundians used to work in DRC. Some Congolese went to work in Rwanda and vice versa. So there used to be some mass displacement of people, and historically we fought a lot. Tribes coming from Bukavu, we fought over cattle, we fought over land, we fought over a lot of things, but surprisingly, we did have a treaty that said we are related for eternity. It means we can fight, but we’re gonna have to make up and continue. That’s history. But apparently, when you come to Kinshasa, that history is not known. It’s ignored.”
“We have always been interdependent. Everyday. Even as we speak, this fight or the crisis that exists between Rwanda and DRC, there were at least between 5,000 and 10,000 Rwandans crossing over into DRC to work every day. The food we eat in Goma comes from Rwanda, because of a better organized agriculture sector. And the market is in DRC.
“We have always been brothers. But there is a problem at the political level because our leaders have a need for conflict. I have a feeling that there may be some commitments that were made by our leadership, which of course will redound to the advantage of others, and which they think once they get in there (in office) they can turn on their word. In politics, that is called treason,” he said.
The drawing up of a written contract has little meaning in traditional African conceptualization, Cassinga said.
“Africans don’t understand what a contract is, because in our culture as Africans, there is no such thing as a written contract. The contract you give is your word . Your word of honor,” he said. “And that’s why we breach it so many times.”
The position of Kagame and Museveni of Uganda is probably rooted in Kabila Sr. turning his back on them after they had helped to overthrow Mobutu. Cassinga suggested.
“I believe that a lot of our leadership, including Kabila Sr., is a victim of that. In Congo, we don’t understand the idea of the contract as the average American would. Whether we like it or not, Rwanda and Uganda feel that they helped remove a tremendous burden in the history of the DRC for it to be able to develop. We have been dragging our feet while it was them who paid the price of bringing in the boys and girls to help us overthrow Mobutu. They did not benefit in any direct way. We have had the bad luck to be such a huge country full of resources and potential and being surrounded by nine neighbors who are always envious of us.”
