The negotiation process toward a peace deal between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda – mediated by the United States – is still shrouded in secrecy. 

On Friday, May 2, exactly one week after Kinshasa and Kigali had signed a “declaration of principles” in Washington, each capital was supposed to deliver the elements of a draft framework built around six pillars: territorial sovereignty, the fight against armed groups, the mineral trade, the return of displaced people and refugees, regional cooperation and the role of international forces.

The draft, however, is yet to materialize. The package under discussion – with a final peace treaty projected for June – also contains two bilateral economic deals with the U.S. One would channel multi-billion-dollar American investments into Congolese mines and related infrastructure. The other would reward Rwanda – long the sponsor of the AFC/M23 militia now lording it over eastern Congo – with development of its facilities to process, refine, and market minerals extracted in the DRC, legally funnelled through Rwanda and then exported to the United States. In short, Washington is giving its blessing to Kigali’s well-known triangulation approach.

However, Congolese civil society is refusing to stay silent. In a series of open letters addressed to international actors, it warns that, after 30 years of war, it will not accept that the crimes committed against the population should be forgotten, nor agree to the fire-sale of the DRC’s national resources as the price of a Kinshasa-Kigali accord.

Dozens of activists, scholars, jurists, researchers and doctors – among them Nobel Peace laureate Denis Mukwege – have written to President Félix Tshisekedi: “Ten million of our compatriots survive today in the grip of armed violence and the terror of famine under the yoke of the occupying Rwandan army and its allies, the AFC/M23,” a tragedy “for which neighbouring states’ expansionist ambitions and Congo’s own failures of governance bear joint responsibility.”

Hence their plea that the head of state “must not sell off the country’s natural resources to the Kigali regime within the framework of regional economic integration promoted under the aegis of its U.S. patron.” They stress that “any agreement that strips the nation of its natural wealth would constitute the crime of pillage.” While they agree that “peace is the only perspective”, underground riches and natural resources can contribute to that goal only in a context of fairness. Under the Congolese Constitution, sovereignty rests with the people: before signing anything, Tshisekedi must consult the country’s “living forces,” parliament and civil society.

For its part, the South Kivu Civil Society Coordination Office has also written to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk demanding “truth and justice” as the path to peace and reconciliation under the rule of law. Since the AFC/M23 seized Bukavu and other areas “under the powerless gaze of the Congolese government,” murders, kidnappings, rapes and thefts have multiplied, all with impunity. Jobs have vanished, along with even the bare minimum of security. Backed by the Italian network Insieme per la Pace in Congo, the activists ask Türk to “send investigators from other countries to Bukavu to work with us, the protagonists of civil society” to tamp down abuses, and to set in motion a path toward an international criminal tribunal for the DRC, along with specialized mixed chambers within Congolese courts.

A coalition of NGOs from eastern Congo has also written to Donald Trump: “The Congolese people will be legitimately entitled to oppose – by every lawful and factual means – any mineral deal that fails to involve them directly and through their representatives in parliament and civil society.”

Meanwhile, business-first diplomacy continues in Qatar, where Kinshasa is negotiating both with the M23 and with Kigali. So much for the mantra of “African solutions to African problems.”

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