by Xinhua writer Shi Yu

KINSHASA, March 19 (Xinhua) -- In a dramatic twist amid escalating tensions, the presidents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda held an informal yet surprise meeting in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday. The meeting was made public just minutes after the planned peace negotiation between Kinshasa and the March 23 Movement (M23) rebel group in Luanda, the capital of Angola, was confirmed to have been aborted.

With past cease-fire deals left unfulfilled and ongoing regional mediation efforts under dispute, peace restoration still hangs in the balance even after the facedown in Doha.

SURPRISE MEETING

On Tuesday, DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame met in Doha for the first time since the M23, a rebel group accused of being supported by Kigali, seized the major DRC city of Goma in early 2025.

The meeting, informal yet surprising, was mediated by Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

According to Kagame in a recent interview, before the Doha sit-down, the last time the two presidents spoke was in September 2022, as the M23 sprung up in late 2021.

The tripartite statement said the leaders reaffirmed their commitment to an "immediate and unconditional" cease-fire, as agreed upon by African regional blocs -- the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC) -- at a February summit in Tanzania's port city of Dar es Salaam. The statement also emphasized the need to continue discussions initiated in Doha to establish a solid foundation for lasting peace.

The Qatari emir has mediated or overseen Qatar's involvement in several high-profile diplomatic efforts, including the 2020 Doha Agreement, which led to the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.

However, the DRC and Rwanda, whose relations have been on thin ice, gave their own interpretation of the meeting's outcomes. Kinshasa called the agreement the "first step" toward long-lasting regional peace. Kigali, however, pointed out that the solutions to the root cause lie in the "direct political negotiation with the M23," a red line for Kinshasa, while calling to address the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) "genocidal forces."

The DRC has accused Rwanda of backing the M23 rebels, a charge Kigali denies. Rwanda has accused the DRC army of supporting remnants of the FDLR, a group allegedly responsible for the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.

In February, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2773, calling on Rwanda to cease its support for the M23 and to withdraw its troops from the DRC without preconditions, while urging the DRC to end support for specific armed groups, notably the FDLR.

The DRC and Rwanda signed in November 2024 a "concept of operations" for the neutralization of the FDLR, said Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe in an interview released on Wednesday. "But the problem is the lack of good faith and political will of the Kinshasa to do that."

A SLAP IN FACE

Minutes before the tripartite meeting in Doha was made public, Angola finally confirmed the cancellation of the peace negotiation between the DRC and the M23 delegations, which was planned for the same day, due to "force majeure."

"First and foremost, it is a slap in the face for Angolan President Joao Lourenco," said Christophe Rigaud, a French journalist and analyst specializing in the DRC.

The Angolan president, a key player in the Luanda Process, a peace mechanism backed by the African Union (AU), brokered the negotiation planned on Tuesday.

The M23 announced late Monday that it had withdrawn from the peace talks that "have become impracticable," blaming the sanctions announced by the European Union on Monday against certain M23 leaders and Rwandan military commanders, including M23 political leader Bertrand Bisimwa.

Angola initially insisted that the talks proceed "as scheduled" despite the M23's earlier withdrawal. Luanda waited until late Tuesday to give the final words on the negotiation's cancellation, reaffirming dialogue as the only path to lasting peace.

Luanda confirmed the arrival of the DRC delegation, but there were no further details on bilateral exchanges.

The M23 earlier urged Tshisekedi to make an unequivocal public declaration committing to direct negotiations, as the DRC government has consistently considered it a red line to sit at the same negotiation table with the rebels, who have seized large chunks of land in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu.

The aborted peace negotiation feels like a deja vu of the peace summit in Luanda last December, which Lourenco also brokered. Tshisekedi and Kagame were supposed to reach a peace deal at the summit, but preliminary discussions hit a deadlock, and the negotiations were called off.

Rwanda urged the DRC to hold direct discussions with the M23 as a prerequisite for any agreement, which the DRC government declined, designating the M23 as a terrorist group.

HANGING IN THE BALANCE

With past cease-fire deals left unfulfilled and ongoing regional mediation efforts under dispute, peace restoration still hangs in the balance even after the facedown in Doha.

Throughout 2024, several cease-fire agreements were declared between the DRC and Rwanda under regional and international mediation, but they have not been fully honored.

In July 2024, the DRC military accused the M23 of violating a humanitarian truce and denounced their "legendary belligerent attitude" of wanting to keep displaced populations in atrocious conditions by depriving them of humanitarian aid. The following truce in August 2024, mediated by Lourenco, was also broken, with the belligerents involved in the cease-fire not specified.

In early February, the M23 declared a unilateral cease-fire. The DRC government expressed skepticism about the cease-fire, labeling it a tactic to regroup and strengthen the rebel group's positions.

On Monday, the SADC and the EAC convened a ministerial meeting in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, to find ways for a permanent cease-fire. The ministers agreed to take confidence-building measures at the political and military levels within the merged Luanda and Nairobi processes in the next few months to realize a permanent cease-fire.

At a joint EAC-SADC summit in February, several African leaders agreed to merge the two peace initiatives into a single framework called the "Luanda/Nairobi Process."

However, the DRC government and its regional partners remain divided on the future direction of the Nairobi and Luanda peace processes. The DRC has pushed for a formal "alignment" to ensure that both processes, which are viewed as complementary, are elevated to the same organizational level.

"The two processes involve different targets and different stakeholders," noted Therese Kayikwamba Wagner, foreign minister of the DRC, in early March. She stressed that the Nairobi Process should also come under the auspices of the AU.

Kinshasa, the SADC, and the EAC also have different opinions on the nomination of further facilitators of the "Luanda/Nairobi Process" and proposed respectively different names, according to an outcome paper of the EAC Foreign Affairs/Defense Ministers Consultative Meeting held last Saturday, which was seen by Xinhua.

The merger of the Luanda and Nairobi processes and the nomination of additional facilitators of the future process should be finalized by the end of March, said Nduhungirehe in an interview released on Wednesday. "We hope this will finally pave the way for meaningful political dialogue." Enditem

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)