Congo-Kinshasa: Joint Regional Initiative Must End Violence in DRC

3 February 2025

The Herald (Harare)

SADC at it's Extraordinary Summit in Harare on Friday made it clear that it would not abandon the Democratic Republic of Congo, in fact wishing to strengthen support for that country which is facing a rebel onslaught in its two eastern Kivu provinces.

The diplomatic initiative required to remove many of the underlying pressures that prolong the rebel violence, is two fold, a joint Summit of SADC and the East African Community (EAC) and the commissioning of the SADC Organ Troika on Politics, Defence and Security Co-operation to engage all state and non-state actors involved in the conflict to negotiate a ceasefire, protect civilian lives and facilitate the smooth delivery of humanitarian aid to affected communities.

The other set of decisions at the Friday Summit called by SADC Chairperson President Mnangagwa involve the immediate dispatch to the DRC of SADC Defence Ministers and their professional military advisors, the defence forces chiefs, to the DRC to assess the security situation and ensure the safety of the continuing SADC Mission in the DRC, SAMIDRC.

The joint SADC-EAC Summit of 22 countries, with DRC and Tanzania belonging to both groups, has already been agreed by both, the EAC in its extraordinary Summit on Wednesday and SADC on Friday. President Mnangagwa and EAC Chairperson Kenyan President William Ruto now simply have to work out the logistics, the date and venue, and thus it is likely the meeting will be very soon.

The SADC Troika is chaired by Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan, particularly well suited for engaging all state and non-state actors since Tanzania borders DRC and Rwanda, the main state actors, and even borders South Kivu and is only a short hop from North Kivu.

The visit by the Defence Ministers and defence chiefs can obviously make the political and professional security assessments, which are likely to include the requirements of the DRC military, which has had to absorb a number of former rebel movements in recent years and quite possibly needs assistance in its present process of conversion to a more professional and unified force.

Behind all these efforts, it is important to see who are the most important people involved: the people of the DRC in general and the people of the eastern provinces in particular, as they have had to cope with rebel movements and frequent violence for far too many years. They need the peace and security of an end to violence, full integration into the DRC government services and full participation in the now flourishing DRC democracy and growing DRC economy.

There are hundreds of thousands of displaced people, and the occupation of the large city of Goma by the M23 rebel movement has seriously disrupted the major humanitarian efforts needed to look after them, since Goma was the base, as well as creating more displacements and placing far more people at serious risk of starvation and disease.

The Kivu provinces are even by the high standards of the DRC, one of Africa's most resource rich countries, potentially exceptionally wealthy. It has been fairly well established that some mineral wealth has been smuggled out of areas under rebel control or at least open to rebel raids, and among other measures this use of "conflict minerals" needs to be ended.

Once the priority of those affected by the violence has been accepted, the concerns of others can be addressed and proper and lasting solutions found.

The DRC itself simply wants normal control over its own territory. It has, since the end of the military autocracy of Mobuto Sese Seko, prolonged because of his manoeuvring in the Cold War, been dealing with assorted rebel movements, usually through negotiation and absorbing them into the general body politic and the numerous fighting forces into its military.

The Kivu rebel movements have been more resistant to this process, and many of them and especially M23, bring in tribalism, self-identifying as Tutsi. That is a relic of the Belgian colonialism of DRC, Rwanda and Burundi which insisted on tribal classifications of what were by late pre-colonial times far more an economic classification of people who spoke the common indigenous language of what is now Rwanda, Burundi and some neighbouring communities in eastern DRC. Cattle-owning Tutsi were considered less inferior than crop farmers in this weird colonial set up.

The other major state player in the dispute is Rwanda, which has made it clear that it has security concerns after a large number of those directly involved in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 crossed into the then eastern Zaire with its then exceptionally poor administration. Rwanda has interfered in eastern DRC to ensure that these criminal elements and refugees were neutralised.

There is a lot of sympathy for Rwanda as it moved out of the genocide era, and has within its own borders done a lot to unify the population, starting with the destruction of those evil Belgian-era ID cards that recorded tribal affiliation and replaced them with cards that record citizens.

But it is important for Rwanda not only to cease whatever support it is giving to opposition movements next door, and Rwanda and DRC differ on just how much is given, but to also actively assist the peace process by ensuring normal relations with the DRC and preventing any movement of arms into DRC and any smuggling of conflict minerals out of DRC, regardless of the sources of arms and minerals.

It is fairly clear that a permanent solution to the crisis in the DRC must involve a secure border, to satisfy security concerns of both countries, and that might mean external neutral monitors. With that in place then the standard conversion of rebel movements into political parties can be pushed forward with confidence that this is the only path.

Displaced people can then be helped to return home and the DRC citizens who live in the eastern provinces can get on with their lives, their mineral and other resources being developed to give them a decent living.

Read the original article on The Herald.