President William Ruto will on Friday co-chair a joint summit of EAC-SADC on the eastern Congo amidst war of words among the presidents of South Africa, Rwanda and the DRC.
The Southern African Development Community and the East African Community meeting is set for Saturday in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and will be preceded by a ministerial meeting on Friday.
Ruto on Monday said Tanzania President Samia Suluhu Hassan had agreed to host, while DRC President Felix Tshisekedi, who missed the EAC meeting, and his Rwanda counterpart Paul Kagame confirming attendance.
The summit was proposed by the EAC leaders chaired by President William Ruto and corroborated by SADC under the chairship of Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
President Ruto also said he had engaged South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, and Hassan Mohamud of Somalia, who all confirmed participation. Burundi President Evariste Ndayishimiye will miss as he will be on a trip to the US.
As the preparations for the meeting get underway, three of the key participants — Ramaphosa, Kagame and Tshisekedi — have been involved in a bitter war of words over the escalating security situation in DRC.
VERBAL FIREWORKS
There is no love lost between Tshisekedi and Kagame, with the former accusing the latter of backing M23 rebels, who took over the city of Goma on Monday.
Kagame, on the other hand, has accused Tshisekedi of failing to offer leadership and waging war against his people, the Congolese Tutsis.
Addressing diplomats in Kigali on January 16, President Kagame went full throttle on Tshisekedi and called him an idiot.
“If you are a leader and an idiot, it’s an absolute disaster. It is even worse, even more dangerous, if the very people who hold the power in their hands decide that they will be manipulated and played around for some interest by idiots.” President Kagame said.
He went on to claim that Tshisekedi is responsible for the insecurity in the eastern DRC and that he wasn’t elected to office.
“People tell us they want democracy everywhere, they encourage elections, [yet] the person who is causing problems in this situation I am talking about between Rwanda and DRC, has never twice been elected. And you know it.” President Kagame told the envoys.
Martin Fayulu, who lost to Tshisekedi in 2018, petitioned the election result.
At the envoy’s meeting, Kagame accused Tshisekedi of harbouring genocidaires [FDLR] responsible for the 1994 genocide.
“The very people who murdered people here in Rwanda, those who carried out the Genocide, still exist, are still armed, are still practicing the ideology of genocide in our neighbourhood, in eastern Congo. Supported by government, supported by leaders in that place, on the watch of this international community that talks about values, that talks about interests,” he said.
Tshisekedi hit back, saying elections in Rwanda “resemble a pre-written scenario, with opponents carefully chosen in advance for unchanged results”.
“In the DRC, we have made the irreversible choice to banish dictatorship and build a truly inclusive democracy,” he said.
The DRC leader snubbed the virtual EAC summit, but Kagame was present, using the platform to sustain his criticism of Tshisekedi, Burundi and the regional leadership.
“Even now as we are talking the person or the country we are talking about is not represented as we are discussing and the country is supposed to be part of the EAC. But nowhere to be represented.
“So, I am not sure what bearing what we are discussing has on what happens in the process of finding a solution in this country,” a visibly angry Kagame told the EAC heads of state.
Agnes Gitau, a geopolitical analyst, opined that Tshisekedi’s absence raised serious diplomatic concerns and signaled a widening rift between the DRC and the EAC, with Kinshasa seeking closer alignment with SADC.
“It signals not only strained relations within the regional bloc but also highlights the growing fragmentation of efforts to resolve the crisis in eastern DRC,” she said.
There is also no love lost between Kagame and Ramaphosa, whom they have exchanged harsh words with in the past week.
Kagame was infuriated by a statement by Ramaphosa in which he said the fighting was as a result of an escalation by the rebel group M23 and Rwanda Defence Force militia engaging DRC forces and attacking peacekeepers from SAMIDRC.
South African forces are leading the Southern African Development Community Mission in the DRC (SAMIDRC).
In response, Kagame said the statement contained “a lot of distortion, deliberate attacks, and even lies”, and took issues with the reference of RDF as a militia.
He added that SAMIDRC is not a peacekeeping force, and has no place in the situation, further accusing it of benefiting from DRC minerals. SAMIDRC succeeded EACRF mission, which Tshisekedi expelled in December 2023.
Rwanda and South Africa have dared each other to a war.
KAGAME FACES TSHISEKEDI
It is amidst these hostilities that the EAC-SADC joint summit will be held, as Kagame, Ramaphosa and Tshisekedi come face to face in Dar es Salam.
Elvis Ng’andwe, executive secretary at the Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network and an expert in peace studies, opined that Kagame is to blame for the crisis.
‘Kagame says South Africa is stealing minerals from the DRC. But it is the DRC that has invited South Africa. It is Rwanda that is not invited. What does that mean? He posed.
Despite the hostilities, however, Ng’andwe said that through diplomacy there is going to be a way out because there is the risk of the conflict spreading on the continent.
“In diplomacy, something has to give,” he said.
Dr Kizito Sabala who teaches at UoN’s Department of Diplomacy and International Studies, concurs, noting that the summit is likely to have a way forward if it focusses on the issues, chief among them cooling the temperatures between Kagame and Ramaphosa.
Second, Dr Sabala notes, is if the summit supports the Luanda process, which Kagame walked away from, thirdly is if it outrightly tells the Rwandan leader to stop supporting M23 and fourth, if EAC provides political support to SADC mission.
Kagame told CNN on Monday that he doesn’t know if there are Rwandan troops in the DRC.
He however warned that it would result in to failure if another peace process is recommended.
President Ruto said Monday that he was happy the SADC-EAC leadership had agreed to jointly caucus on the conflict in the eastern DRC.
“Peace and security are critical ingredients for trade and investment in our region…Through our collective effort, we will ensure security reigns in our continent,” Ruto said.
