PREVIEW
Western governments will face pressure to impose new sanctions on Rwanda and the M23 militia group in the wake a report by Human Rights Watch
The international community is likely to face pressure to impose new sanctions on Rwanda and the M23 militia group in the wake of a report by Human Rights Watch detailing atrocities against civilians in the weeks after Rwanda signed a ceasefire brokered by the United States.
More than 50 people were ‘summarily executed… during door-to-door searches’ by Rwandan soldiers and the M23 militia group in Ulvira in eastern Congo-Kinshasa close to the Burundian border, during a month-long occupation of the city, according to the report (AC Vol 66 No 25, Trump’s peace deal unravels as M23 seizes strategic eastern city).
The report, which also details dozens of rapes and forced disappearances, was based on more than 100 interviews between March and April.
HRW says that the occupation started on 10 December, just days after Rwandan and Congo-K presidents Paul Kagame and Félix Tshisekedi signed a ceasefire and peace deal as part of the Washington Accords. That timing, which suggests that Kagame never took the US talks seriously, could infuriate the Trump administration, which already, in March imposed sanctions on the Rwanda Defence Force and is understood to preparing new sanctions targeting Rwandan security officials.
The European Union, for its part, last week confirmed that its funding for Rwanda’s peacekeeping mission in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado has been suspended indefinitely (AC Vol 66 No 25, Trump’s peace deal unravels as M23 seizes strategic eastern city).
At the African CEO Forum in Kigali on 14 May, Kagame conceded that the US and European measures ‘hurt’ but stated that ‘sanctions go in favour of the highest bidder’ a tacit accusation that Washington’s interest in Congo-K's minerals is the main motive (AC Vol 67 No 6, Kigali threatens to stop guarding gas project in Cabo Delgado).
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