The DR Congo And Rwanda Have Finally Signed A Peace Treaty After Nearly 30 Years Of Fighting
The agreement also facilitates the safe, voluntary and dignified return of refugees and internally displaced people on both sides and ensures humanitarian access.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda have finally signed a peace deal after more than 30 years of fighting.
It came after M23, a rebel group backed by Rwanda, seized a strategic city in the DRC in January, leading to a conflict that has killed more than 7,000 people, displaced hundreds of thousands of others and raised fears of a regional war breaking out.
The latest escalation goes all the way back to the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when extremists from the majority ethnic group, known as the Hutus, slaughtered an estimated 800,000 people from the minority ethnic group, the Tutsis, in a span of just over 100 days.
However, after Tutsi rebel group put an end to the genocide and gained control of the country, many of the Hutu extremists fled to the DRC nearby and form an armed groups, which still operate today.
Since then, Rwanda has continued to claim that the Hutu groups in the DRC are threatening its security and used this to justify having a military presence in eastern DRC near their border, leaving the two countries to engage in various clashes throughout the years.
The DRC government then sought the US assistance after the latest escalation, offering access to essential minerals such as coltan, tantalum, lithium and gold —the minerals that power all sorts of electronics — in exchange for security assurances.
On Friday, June 27, the DRC and Rwanda finally signed a peace agreement in the US brokered by the US, Qatar and the African Union, marking a significant step toward ending the decades of of conflict.
Both countries agreed to respect each other’s borders and halt hostilities.
The agreement includes non-state armed groups operating in eastern DRC to disengage, disarm and conditionally integrate into the DRC security forces, as well as a plan to neutralize the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a group linked to the 1994 genocide.
A joint security coordination is to be established within 30 days to help maintain peace and prevent renewed hostilities and oversee the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from DRC territory within three months.
Both countries will also launch a regional economic framework within 90 days.
The agreement also facilitates the safe, voluntary and dignified return of refugees and internally displaced people on both sides and ensures humanitarian access.
However, there are concerns that the deal won’t hold as M23 said it hasn’t agreed to it and wasn’t included in the negotiations, making the deal only useful to the US to gain access to critical minerals from DRC needed for much of the world’s technology.
More On DRC And Rwanda
Kassy Cho
Isha Jain
