Luanda – Luanda hosted from 20 to 21 July the first meeting of the Permanent Joint Commission between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for the normalisation of relations between the two neighbouring countries.

At the end of the meeting, the two countries confirmed their determination to move together toward the efforts aimed to put an end to the climate of tension generated by the new conflict that has arisen in the east of the DRC along their common border. 

To that end, they called for greater involvement of Angolan mediation and rapid deployment in the DRC of the regional intervention force announced as part of the Nairobi process for the cessation of hostilities in eastern DR Congo. 

The meeting is the result of understandings reached at the last summit in Luanda, held on 6 July, on the initiative of the Angolan Head of State, João Lourenço, as mediator of the African Union (AU). 

President Lourenço called on his counterparts Paul Kagamé, of Rwanda, and Antoine Tshisékédi, of the DRC, to address the security situation in Central Africa, with a focus on the tension between Kigali and Kinshasa. 

This conference resulted in the unexpected announcement of an "immediate ceasefire", the second "result" of Angolan mediation in this crisis in just one month, after the release, last June, of two Rwandan soldiers captured by the DRC and of another Congolese soldier, held in Rwanda. 

The latest summit in Luanda aimed precisely at seeking a negotiated solution to the conflict which, since the end of 2021, has rocked the province of North Kivu in eastern DR Congo, through the action of the so-called Movement of 23 March (M23). 

This new M23 offensive, taking place in a border region with Rwanda, has put the two neighbouring countries on a war footing, with mutual accusations of supporting the military insurgency to destabilise one and the other. 

Kinshasa accuses Kigali of giving shelter and military aid to the M23, allegations that Rwanda categorically denies. 

In its defence, the latter justifies the resurgence of violence on Congolese territory by the "indifference" of the Kinshasa government to address the concerns of the Rwandan  population in the country, including members of the M23, whose rights are allegedly ignored. 

Kigali denounces an alleged alliance between Congolese government forces and Rwandan rebel groups to destabilise Rwanda. 

Rwanda denies any support for M23, but instead accuses the Congolese Armed Forces of fighting side by side with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (DFLR), a Rwandan rebel group created by former mentors of the 1994 genocide. 

Summit exceeds expectations 

The latest summit in Luanda was marked by the speed with which the Angolan mediation obtained the ceasefire, among other concessions, taking many observers of the situation in the neighbouring country by surprise. 

The harshness of the public pronouncements from both sides, on the eve of the meeting, hovered in the air of absolute pessimism, pointing to anything but a ceasefire and projecting a predisposition for war. 

From Rwanda, messages arrived from a President Kagame who was incredulous of a "magic solution" and declared himself "ready for the worst" in the event of a deadlock. 

Antoine Tshisékédi also proclaimed in Kinshasa his determination to do everything possible, including by military means, to "repel enemy aggression". 

The contrast became more marked at the end of the meeting, however, with the two leaders, more relaxed and after shaking hands, announcing "satisfactory results". 

They promised to do everything to restore mutual trust and normalise their political and diplomatic relations. 

Instead of being ready for war, Tshisékédi and Kagamé announced to the world that they were determined to find the best way to overcome their differences and put an end to the conflict through dialogue. 

The Luanda meeting ended up in the adoption of a roadmap, which recommends the reactivation of the Permanent Joint Commission of the two countries, after a prolonged paralysis. 

The dismantling of the "negative forces", including the M23 and the FDLR, which are said to be at the root of the tension between the two sides, is also part of the decisions taken. 

The Luanda roadmap also proposes a fierce fight against anti-Rwandan hate speech in the DRC, which has taken on alarming proportions since the resumption of rhetoric of Rwandan support for the Congolese rebellion. 

Naturally, opinions have been divided between scepticism and doubts about the seriousness of the parties to honour their commitments and expectations that give the benefit of the doubt. 

The sceptics start from the "dissonance" seen in the official post-summit versions and the fate given to previous understandings now reduced to dead letter. 

 The DRC went on to talk about withdrawal of M23 from its current positions, as one of the decisions coming out of the Angolan capital, while Rwanda referred the issue to previous agreements. 

Kigali would thus be persisting in its position that the M23 is an "internal affair", for the DRC to resolve alone. 

Some groups of the Congolese press go further, with the view that the Luanda mini-summit "did not solve the problem", but only "delayed" the beginning of the armed confrontation between Kinshasa and Kigali.  

In their opinion, everything that was achieved in Luanda to reduce the tension between the two countries is "pure hypocrisy" on the part of the Rwandan side, accused of resisting the efforts of the Tshisékédi regime for "reconciliation". 

In the opposite direction, the optimists tend to base their expectations on an analogy with the antidotes to the crisis which, in the past, opposed Rwanda to Uganda and ended in almost the same conditions, also under Angolan mediation. 

For its part, M23 has conditioned acceptance of the ceasefire agreed in Luanda on satisfaction of its demands, including the integration of its soldiers into the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC). 

Previous understandings 

The chronic tension between the two countries remains an unsolved mystery, after successive pacts and other attempts at a solution that are now almost a dead letter. 

Various agreements reached over the last ten years, with international mediation, including by Angola, have not been enough to prevent the reappearance of the crisis on the common border. 

According to the United Nations, more than 27 million people face food shortages due to the conflict and almost 5.5 million have been displaced in the east of the country. 

The number of armed groups operating in the DRC is now estimated to be several dozen, including M23, an outgrowth of a former armed rebellion formed by individuals mainly of Tutsi Rwandan origin. 

At the genesis of M23 are former members of the FARDC who defected supposedly to defend their ethnic group which was being "massacred" by the government army.    

After taking refuge in Rwanda under Laurent Nkundabatware, the same group later returned to the country, this time led by General Bosco Ntanganda, to rejoin the FARDC on 23 March, 2009. 

Three years later, the group re-emerged as an anti-government movement, adopting its current name (M23), at a time when General Bosco Ntanganda was wanted by international justice for war crimes. 

With alleged support from Rwanda and Uganda, M23 goes to war against the FARDC until 2013, when it is defeated by a joint UN and International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) force. 

The defeat imposed by the international force of about three thousand soldiers forced M23 to take refuge in Uganda. 

Since then, several rounds of negotiations were held to reintegrate the group into the FARDC, without success, until the group reappeared in late 2021 in the east of the country. 

The last attempt took place in November 2015, in Kinshasa, under mediation by Angola, in the person of the then Minister of Defence and current President João Lourenço. 

The initiative was boycotted by Uganda, which claimed to be in an election period. 

Prior to this, 11 member states of the ICGLR, including Angola, initialled the Addis Ababa Peace Mechanism on DRC on 24 February 2013, which was later joined by two other countries (Kenya and Sudan). 

Peace agreements were also signed, successively in Lusaka (1999), Pretoria and Luanda (2002), which allowed the situation to be relatively stabilised with the withdrawal of 20,000 Rwandan soldiers from eastern DRC.