By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The United States is promoting a deal that would require Rwanda to pull out its troops from eastern Congo before the two sides sign a peace agreement, sources say.
U.S. President Donald Trump has initiated talks to end fighting between the two sides in eastern Congo, where Washington is hoping to mine high-valued mineral resources including tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper and lithium.
Last month, Trump’s senior adviser for Africa, Massad Boulos, told Reuters news agency that Washington wanted a peace agreement finalised “within about two months”, an ambitious timeline for resolving a conflict which has its root in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
A draft peace agreement says a condition for signing the treaty is that Rwanda withdraws troops from DRC, along with its weapons and equipment, a Reuters report says.
The authenticity of the document, which is undated, was confirmed by four diplomatic sources, who said it was written by U.S. officials.
That document said the two sides would address any security concerns in a manner that respected each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Rwanda had sent between 7,000 and 12,000 soldiers to eastern Congo to support M23 rebels, analysts and diplomats said earlier this year, after the rebel group seized the region’s two largest cities in a lightning advance.
Rwanda has long denied providing arms and troops to M23, saying its forces are acting in self-defence against Congo’s army and ethnic Hutu militiamen linked to the 1994 genocide that killed around 1 million people, mostly ethnic Tutsis.
The draft agreement produced by Washington also calls for a “Joint Security Coordination Mechanism” that could include Rwandan and “foreign military observer personnel” to deal with security issues, including the continued presence in Congo of Rwandan Hutu militias.
It also proposes that Congo would commit to allowing M23 to participate in a national dialogue “on equal footing with other DRC non-state armed groups” – a major concession for Kinshasa, which sees M23 as a terrorist group and Rwandan proxy.
A senior official in the office of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi accused Rwanda of “dragging their feet” on the draft and said Rwanda’s withdrawal was necessary for the peace process to move forward.
