A summit between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda was abruptly cancelled Sunday after the latest round of talks to end fighting in the eastern DRC deadlocked, dashing hopes for an immediate peace deal for the region torn apart by 30 years of conflict.
The talks between delegations from both sides stalled overnight over Rwanda’s demand that the DRC open direct dialogue with the Kigali-backed M23 rebel group that has seized swathes of the eastern DRC since 2021, displacing thousands and triggering a humanitarian crisis, officials said.
There had been high hopes that DRC leader Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame would sign a peace deal at a summit hosted by Angolan President Joao Lourenco, the African Union-designated mediator in the dispute between the neighbouring countries.
But after the talks stalled late Sunday, Kagame decided not to travel to Luanda for the meeting, Rwandan officials said.
Lourenco met with Tshisekedi and former Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta, another facilitator of the peace talks.
The Rwandan delegation had understood at negotiations ahead of the scheduled summit that the DRC would agree to its demand to open talks with the M23 militia, Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe told AFP.
However, the DRC delegation had “categorically rejected any idea of dialogue with M23, claiming that it is a terrorist organisation,” he said.
This was the only outstanding issue between the delegations, Nduhungirehe said, leading the talks to break down in the early hours of Sunday.
Kinshasa describes the M23 as “enemies of the republic” and said it was only ready to negotiate with Rwanda, which supports the rebels and without whom it says the M23 would not exist.
The M23 (“March 23 Movement”) has seized vast swathes of territory in the mineral-rich eastern DRC since November 2021.
The militia and Rwandan army nearly surround Goma, the capital of the DRC’s North Kivu province which is said to have more than a million inhabitants and nearly a million more displaced people crammed into camps.
– Broken ceasefires –
A Congolese government official told AFP on Sunday that Rwanda’s demand for direct dialogue between Kinshasa and the M23 had never been on the table since the start of the negotiations.
“Rwanda is now making the signing of an agreement conditional on direct dialogue between us and the M23, which has never been planned since the beginning of the discussions,” the official said.
As the peace talks collapsed, fighting was reported in the region on Sunday.
Half a dozen ceasefires and truces have already been declared and then violated in eastern DRC. A ceasefire signed at the end of July has already been violated by at least one M23 offensive and there have been regular incidents in recent weeks between rebels and Congolese armed forces.
Two days before the summit, all parties had expressed optimism for the sealing of a peace deal, entitled “for the restoration of peace and stability in eastern DRC”, according to the title seen by AFP.
Kagame and Tshisekedi last saw each other in October in Paris but did not speak, though they have maintained dialogue through Luanda’s mediation.
Early in November, the two central African neighbours launched a committee to monitor ceasefire violations, led by Angola and including representatives from both the DRC and Rwanda.
Kinshasa and Kigali a few weeks later approved a document setting out the terms by which Rwandan troops will disengage from Congolese territory.
Home to a string of rival armed groups, the mineral-rich eastern DRC has been plagued by internal and cross-border violence for the past three decades.
“Our country continues to face persistent rebellions, including the aggression by the Rwandan army and the M23 terrorists,” Tshisekedi said in parliament Wednesday.
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