The armed group M23 has declared a humanitarian "ceasefire" starting this Tuesday in the volatile eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, while a crisis meeting between Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame is also being arranged for Friday.
M23 is a member of the political-military coalition known as the Alliance Fleuve Congo (River Congo Alliance). In a statement released late on Monday, the group announced it would implement a ceasefire from Tuesday "for humanitarian reasons."
It further stated that it had "no intention of taking control of Bukavu or other localities," despite having declared last week its intention to "continue the march" towards the Congolese capital, Kinshasa.
M23 began attacking Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, last week, with the support of some Rwandan troops.
While fighting has ceased in the city, home to over a million people, clashes have spread to the neighbouring province of South Kivu, raising concerns of an M23 advance towards its capital, Bukavu.
Over the past four years of conflict, half a dozen ceasefires and truces have been declared, all of which have been systematically violated.
M23 rebels advance towards second DR Congo regional capital
Call for truce
The DRC's Communications Minister, Patrick Muyaya, told RFI that Rwanda’s claims of non-involvement are not credible, accusing President Paul Kagame of lying.
"Who could fail to recognise that just a few days ago, he mobilised nearly a third of his army - 10,000 men - at the gates of a city full of civilians, where crimes and massacres were then committed, with his services deployed to cover up the bodies from his own camp? His people are not allowed to know that their children have died in a senseless war," Muyaya stated.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday morning, a UN spokesperson announced that the DRC has requested an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council to address the situation in Goma.
Congo has requested that the session take place on 7 February in Geneva, though this is still subject to approval.
In South Africa, one of the DRC’s allies, President Cyril Ramaphosa stated, "A ceasefire is a necessary precondition for peace talks that must include all parties to the conflict, whether state or non-state actors, Congolese or non-Congolese."
He also pledged on Monday to continue supporting President Tshisekedi.
Pretoria had sent troops to North Kivu as part of an armed force deployed to eastern DRC in 2023 by the SADC bloc, but 14 South African soldiers were killed in the recent fighting.
"Diplomacy is the most sustainable path to achieving lasting peace for the DRC and its people," Ramaphosa added.
Difficulties setting talks
The Kenyan presidency announced on Monday that Tshisekedi and Kagame would attend a joint extraordinary summit of the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam on Saturday.
Amid fears of a regional conflagration, the 16 member countries of the southern African regional organisation had called for "a joint summit" with the eight countries of the EAC, of which Rwanda is a member.
Nairobi currently holds the presidency of the EAC, and hopes to get the authorities of the DRC to finally talk face to face to their counterparts in Rwanda, accused of supporting the M23 rebellion.
"Given the race against time following the verbal and military escalation, the fact that it has been announced so quickly is a positive sign," Onesphore Sematumba, an analyst for the Great Lakes region at the NGO International Crisis Group, told RFI.
Disagreements
The aim of the new talks is to "reignite diplomacy and bring an end to the cycle of clashes" in eastern DRC, Sematumba added.
Participants are expected to include regional leaders, such as the presidents of Uganda, Somalia, and South Africa.
However, the two groups hold differing views on how to resolve the conflict.
The East African Community (EAC) advocates for direct negotiations between the Congolese government and the M23, a solution that Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi has thus far refused to consider.
This disagreement led him to replace the EAC’s peacekeeping force in the DRC with that of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which is calling for Rwanda to first withdraw from Congolese territory, as the government in Kinshasa demands.
"We should not have too high expectations," said an analyst to RFI, adding that simply holding this summit with all the announced participants would already be "a diplomatic success" in itself.
In Kigali, Paul Kagame’s participation has already been confirmed, so he will be attending the meeting in Dar es Salaam on Saturday. However, a source close to the Congolese presidency stated that Félix Tshisekedi has yet to decide whether to attend in person or join remotely.
A UN expert report last year indicated that Rwanda had up to 4,000 troops in the DRC, seeking to profit from mineral mining, and that Kigali has "de facto" control over the M23.
Eastern DRC is rich in deposits of coltan, a crucial metal for the production of phones and laptops, as well as gold and other valuable minerals.
DRC takes on Apple: can conflict mineral mining be stopped?
Rwanda has however never admitted to military involvement in support of the M23 group. It alleges on the contrary that the DRC supports and shelters the FDLR, an armed group created by ethnic Hutus who massacred Tutsis during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
(With newswires)
