PREVIEW
Washington envoy Boulos has prompted Kinshasa and Kigali to offer mining rights and military changes
Under the terms of a peace process agreed with the United States, the governments of Congo-Kinshasa and Rwanda are due to submit separate draft peace agreements ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting hosted by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in mid-May. This follows regional consultations last month led by Massad Fares Boulos, who has been named as US President Donald J Trump’s special envoy for Africa. Boulos has high-level access in Washington, partly because his son Michael is married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany.
Kinshasa and Kigali are also hoping to agree minerals-access deals with the Trump administration, as part of a US offer of greater investment in the Great Lakes region. But the vast bulk of the resources are in Congo-Kinshasa. Rwanda’s other card is to offer to host immigrants deported from the US. On 4 April, Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe confirmed on state television that talks on a migration deal with the US are ‘at an early stage’.
US Envoy Boulos says the minerals agreements will be signed in July at the same time as the peace deal. He adds that the US commitments to Congo-K will be on a ‘much bigger scale, because it's a much bigger country and it has much more resources.’ (AC Vol 66 No 8, Washington tries a new push in Kinshasa).
Boulos was in Doha last week for the Qatar-mediated peace talks between Congo-K and Rwanda.
Fighting is continuing ahead of the foreign ministers’ meeting but both sides are changing tactics. Kinshasa is stepping up its use of military drones after Rwanda and its M23 proxies had used them to defeat the Southern African Development Community force (SAMIDRC) which had no air defences. Led by 3,000 troops from South Africa, the SAMIDRC force has begun to withdraw troops from Congo-K. They will travel by land through Rwanda’s Rusumo border post to Tanzania – having been granted safe passage by Kigali – before being flown home.
President Félix Tshisekedi is trying to shore up his position after reports that former president Joseph Kabila wants to return to Congolese politics after self-exile in South Africa.
In April, Kabila said that he would return to the country ‘from the east’ and was expected in Goma (Dispatches 10/3/25, Kabila on manoeuvres as pressure on President Tshisekedi grows). Last week, Justice Minister Constant Mutamba confirmed that the government was looking at ways to lift Kabila’s immunity from prosecution, one of the privileges of the ‘senator for life’ title conferred on Kabila as part of his decision not to contest the 2019 presidential election, pointing to a ‘substantial body of documents, testimony and material facts’ linking Kabila to the M23 militia group supported by Rwanda.
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