DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi made a personal appeal to Rwanda’s Paul Kagame to stop supporting insurgents in DRC and work together for “peace”, at a Brussels event attended by both leaders Thursday.
Tshisekedi, 62, issued the call as he took the podium after Kagame at the Global Gateway Forum, an investment conference organised by the European Union in the Belgian capital.
“I call this forum as witness, and through it the entire world, to reach out my hand to you, Mr President, so that we may make peace,” Tshisekedi said.
“This requires you to order the M23 troops supported by your country to stop this escalation, which has already caused enough deaths,” he said.
“Let us simply have the courage to look ourselves in the eye, say what is wrong and take the right decisions for our people,” he added.
Kagame had not addressed the conflict directly in his speech. But he did briefly reference an earlier statement by South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, who said he could “feel the energy for making peace” upon seeing the Rwandan and DR Congo leaders.
“Some of us also felt the same. We felt the positive energy about business, investment, peace,” Kagame said.
– Africa ‘needs to move on’ –
The eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a region bordering Rwanda with abundant natural resources but plagued by non-state armed groups, has suffered extreme violence for more than three decades.
The M23 armed group, which resumed fighting at the end of 2021, has with Rwanda’s backing seized swathes of land in the region, triggering a spiralling humanitarian crisis.
A fresh surge of unrest broke out early this year in which the M23 captured the key cities of Goma and Bukavu, setting up their own administrations.
According to the United Nations, clashes since January have caused thousands of deaths and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
The Congolese government and the M23 signed a declaration of principles on July 19 in Qatar that included a “permanent ceasefire” aimed at halting the conflict.
It followed a separate US-brokered peace deal between the Congolese and Rwandan governments signed in Washington in June.
But that has proved slow to take effect on the ground, as the M23 consolidateds its political and economic hold in the region it controls.
“Africa needs to move on, President Paul Kagame, and we are capable of doing so,” Tshisekedi said, adding he would shelve a call for international sanctions on Rwanda to give talks a chance.
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