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Will White House critical mineral deal ease peace path?
Africa Confidential
As Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Congo-Kinshasa’s Félix Tshisekedi prepared their smiles for the cameras at the signing of their peace agreement in the White House on 4 December, it was hard to disguise the bad blood in the air. Congolese diplomats, led by Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner, say that Rwanda and the M23 have repeatedly flouted the June ceasefire agreement. If that augurs poorly for the new agreement’s durability, so too do the accusations of sabotage from the Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo, whose spokesperson said its troops had come under attack from the M23. Similar accusations were made against FARDC by M23’s allies, while last week Kagame claimed that Kinshasa was trying to unpick the agreement.
Kenya’s President William Ruto was also in Washington, invited as a ‘guarantor’ of the agreement. That is something of a public relations coup for Ruto, after the East African Community – of which Kenya is part – was forced to withdraw its own peacekeeping force at the behest of Tshisekedi.
Many are questioning the point of the signing ceremony. Some hope that hard economic logic will encourage a rethink. Last week, Qatar confirmed that it would invest US$21 billion in Congo-K, on top of the investment and mining deals promised by business allies close to the Trump administration.
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