PREVIEW
Kinshasa balks at signing economic framework as Kigali-backed rebels consolidate territorial gains and set up proto-state
The pressure is mounting on Massad Boulos, senior Africa advisor to United States President Donald Trump, after the latest setback to his efforts to corral Congo-Kinshasa and Rwanda into a peace and security agreement underwritten by a mining accord. The signing of an economic cooperation deal due on 3 October was called off, with both Kinshasa and Kigali blaming each other for violating earlier commitments. Both parties are stalling in the three-track negotiations – in Addis Ababa, Doha and Washington DC – that Boulos has been trying to broker since he brought the foreign ministers of Congo-Kinshasa and Rwanda to sign an accord on 27 June at the US State Department (AC Vol 66 No 14, Trump’s peace deal hinges on minerals, militias – and megawatts). The plan was to expedite negotiations for the mineral-security accord then Congo-Kinshasa President Félix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame would sign a peace treaty in the White House within a month. It would have been promoted by President Trump’s supporters as another reason for him to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
That didn’t happen as disputes multiplied between Congo-K and Rwanda together with the Kigali-backed Mouvement du 23 Mars (M23). The biggest obstacles are M23’s continuing offensive in the Kivu provinces, as reported by UN experts, combined with Kinshasa’s failure to pull back its Forces armées de la république démocratique du Congo (FARDC) together with the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) and the sundry militias making up the Wazalendo (patriots) coalition from the very jagged frontlines in the Kivus.
Now the latest date suggested for a Kagame-Tshisekedi signing at the White House is 23 October, followed the next day by a Congo-Rwanda investment summit in the US capital. But that looks problematic in every way. First there was the cancellation of the signing of the Regional Economic Integration Framework (REIF) between Congolese and Rwandan negotiators on 3 October. President Tshisekedi’s office told its team in the US led by Patrick Luabeya, the director of the Autorité de Régulation et de Contrôle des Marchés de Substances Minérales, not to sign because of intensified fighting led by M23 in the Kivus.
War zone
Three days earlier, Binta Keïta, the head of Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en République démocratique du Congo (MONUSCO), had told the UN Security Council that the M23 were expanding the territory under their control in the Kivus, having seized the two provincial capitals, Goma and Bukavu, earlier this year (Dispatches 28/1/25, Kagame crosses red line as his forces back seizure of Goma).
Keïta added that the M23 had added another 7,000 trained fighters to their force and were barring UN peacekeepers from entering areas under their control and reporting abuses. UN officials reported that over 1,000 civilians had been killed in Kivu-Nord and Ituri provinces during June. The war zone was spreading despite the negotiations between Congolese officials and M23 representatives in Doha, she explained to the council. A team of Qatari facilitators in Doha has been trying to broker a military agreement between Congolese officials and the M23 and its political wing, the Alliance du Fleuve Congo (AFC), led by Corneille Nangaa, the former chair of the national electoral commission in Kinshasa.
Nnangaa’s involvement has escalated the conflict. He insists his mission is to topple Tshisekedi, and boosted his standing by recruiting the former Congo-K president Joseph Kabila to his ranks. That prompted the courts in Kinshasa to try Kabila for treason in absentia – he appears to be based in territory controlled by M23/AFC – and hand down a death sentence. Kagame has been more circumspect about his government’s war aims: he refuses to discuss how many Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) soldiers crossed into Congo (US intelligence sources reckon there are still at least 8,000 there) and insists the M23’s mission is to defend the political and land rights of Congolese Tutsi. None of that looks credible given the ferocity of the M23’s attacks and the rapid extension of territory under its control (most of the Kivu provinces), together with the logistical and military backing coming from the RDF (AC Vol 66 No 3, After seizing Goma, Kigali’s rebels head south).
In late August, the AFC/M23 coalition sent a small delegation to Doha – comprising only René Abandi and Colonel Dieudonné Padiri – with a narrow mandate to negotiate a ceasefire and the immediate release of imprisoned fighters. Kinshasa has refused to consider unilateral releases, insisting that prisoner issues be resolved only as part of a comprehensive accord. On 14 October, the Congo-M23 talks are due to resume in Doha.
But there is no agreement on the core issue: whether Kivu-Nord and Kivu-Sud return to Kinshasa’s control or whether the M23/AFC continues to build an independent state. The two aspirations are irreconcilable. A possible compromise would be for Kinshasa to concede autonomy to the territory under M23 control in exchange for the latter agreeing to end its quest for sovereignty and independence. But the prospects for that are near zero.
Since independence, the Congolese state has faced various provinces of the country seceding and proclaiming independence; sometimes for several years. But Kinshasa has never agreed to these or to plans for a compromise allowing for greater federalism.
Instead, it has sent its forces to fight secessionists until the rebel provinces return to Kinshasa’s fold. Even if President Tshisekedi was willing to cede some control in the east to the M23/AFC, it would amount to political suicide. His legitimacy is heavily invested in his defence of Congolese sovereignty and fiery opposition to what he regards as Kagame’s expansionism.
Statelet
The M23/AFC are consolidating their nascent state in the Kivus. In late August they announced the formation of the Justice Revival Commission. Led by Délion Kimbulungu, it is naming judges and aims to restore functioning courts and tribunals across rebel-held territory. They are appointing administrative officials across the territory and are intervening in chiefdom-level succession disputes. Massive challenges remain. No commercial banks are open, forcing the few who can to use Rwandan banks instead, and causing endless difficulties with the supply of both Congolese francs and US dollars. The administration is not paying salaries to most of those working for it – combatants are being prioritised, even they are not getting much, and there appears to be very little left for anyone else.
| |
|
|
|
ENTER REFORMIST MINISTERS, EXIT PRESIDENTIAL RIVAL KAMERHE
The new Congo-Kinshasa cabinet in place since August comprises 54 members – down one from the previous – and now includes six vice-prime ministers, up from four. Judith Suminwa remains prime minister. The Presidency called the reshuffle ‘inclusive’. Adolphe Muzito – a former prime minister under Joseph Kabila and long-time protégé of Antoine Gizenga – returns as Minister of Budget. A senior figure in the Unified Lumumbist Party, Muzito now oversees one of the most strategic portfolios, including the civil service payroll (Dispatches 18/8/25 Tshisekedi seeks to broaden his base).
Another ‘inclusive’ appointee is Floribert Anzuluni, the new Minister of Regional Integration. Anzuluni is a former Filimbi (‘whistle’) activist – Filimbi being one of the country’s most prominent youth-led civil society activist organisations. The new Minister of Justice, Guillaume Ngefa-Atondoko, is also a veteran human rights advocate. He founded the Association Africaine de Défense des Droits de l’Homme during the Mobutu era – one of the first independent rights organisations in the country.
A widely welcomed appointment is Louis Watum Kabamba as Minister of Mines. Watum previously served as Minister of Industry and is a trusted technocrat. From 2010 to 2014, he headed Randgold’s Kibali gold mine in Haut-Uélé, before becoming managing director of Kamoa-Kakula – a vast copper mine jointly owned by Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe and China’s Zijin Mining Group. In April 2024, Watum was re-elected president of Congo’s Chamber of Mines.
But Senator Jean Bamanisa, former governor of Orientale Province, has announced his intention to revive the stalled debate on constitutional reform. Many fear the debate could reopen the door to presidential term limit revisions although cabinet ministers strongly reject this. Tshisekedi’s hopes of constitutional reform were dashed earlier this year by M23’s blitzkrieg advances in North and South Kivu. But with frontlines now largely stabilised – except around Uvira and Fizi, where clashes continue – the President may see Bamanisa’s initiative as a chance to reassert his agenda.
A major opponent to date of such a change has been Vital Kamerhe, who was the president of the Assemblée Nationale. Kamerhe is from South Kivu, where he has built a political powerbase that secured his Union pour la Nation Congolaise 36 seats in the Assemblée Nationale, making it one of the largest components of Tshisekedi’s coalition. He and Tshisekedi had made an agreement that Tshisekedi would serve one term as President, and then Kamerhe would become the presidential candidate in his place. Tshisekedi reneged on that promise and won the 2023 presidential election. But the President’s Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social (UDPS), at Tshisekedi’s behest, supported Kamerhe’s candidacy as president of the Assemblée Nationale.
But then the UDPS turned on Kamerhe and petitioned for his removal. Kamerhe resigned on 22 September and will be in no doubt that it was Tshisekedi who engineered his departure. So far, Kamerhe has diplomatically explained that he resigned in the interest of national unity. Yet if Tshisekedi resumes the drive for a third term, Kamerhe may be induced to take a firmer position.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright © Africa Confidential 2025
https://www.africa-confidential.com
Prepared for Free Article on 10/10/2025 at 16:15. Authorized users may download, save, and print articles for their own use, but may not further disseminate these articles in their electronic form without express written permission from Africa Confidential / Asempa Limited. Contact subscriptions@africa-confidential.com.