Seizes an
Opportunity in Congo - Rwanda, the West’s ‘Donor Darling,’ Seizes an Opportunity in Congo
A
conflict that has raged for decades reached a flashpoint this week when rebels
backed by Rwanda marched on a key Congolese city in a bid to occupy territory
and exploit minerals.
After
Rwanda-backed rebels seized the Congolese city of Goma in 2012, powerful nations
across the world registered their disapproval, announcing sanctions against Rwanda
and other measures that led to the rebels’ defeat a year later.
When
those same rebels battled to capture Goma on Sunday, several nations once again
voiced their criticism, but they have yet to apply the level of pressure on Rwanda
that eventually led the rebels to stand down more than a decade ago.
As
hundreds of thousands of civilians fled escalating violence in recent days, seeking
sanctuary in Goma, the rebel group M23 was right behind them. M23, which the United
Nations and others say is funded and armed by Rwanda, declared that it had captured
Goma early on Monday.
Now,
with the fate of the city in the balance, analysts say a conflict that could be
tamed with strong international pressure against Rwanda is, instead, spiraling out of control. Rwanda has as many as 4,000 troops
in eastern Congo supporting the M23 advance, United Nations experts say. The government
of Paul Kagame, Rwanda’s president, appears intent on rewriting Congo’s map by seizing
land, and so far, beyond issuing reproofs, Western countries have barely mustered
a response.
Mr.
Kagame has denied that Rwanda is arming M23, or that his troops are in the Democratic
Republic of Congo. He says M23 is simply defending the rights of Congo’s minority
Tutsis — Mr. Kagame’s own ethnic group, which was the principal target of Rwanda’s
1994 genocide. Most analysts say that this is a pretext to occupy Congolese territory
and plunder its vast mineral wealth.
In
a call with President Felix Tshisekedi of Congo on Monday, Secretary of State Marco
Rubio “condemned the assault on Goma by the Rwanda-backed M23 and affirmed the United
States’ respect for the sovereignty of the DRC,” according to the State Department.
The
United Kingdom and France had earlier condemned Rwanda’s presence in eastern Congo.
Antonio Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, on Monday called for the first time
for Rwandan troops to withdraw from eastern Congo.
But
Mr. Kagame’s small central African nation has spent the last decade bolstering its
reputation among Western powers, making it too useful to sanction quickly, some
analysts say. The European Union signed a strategic minerals
deal with Rwanda last year, prompting accusations from rights groups that it is
fueling the conflict.
Rwanda,
with a population of just 14 million people, currently contributes the second-highest
number of peacekeepers to the United Nations. Starting in 2021, its troops beat
back a jihadist insurgency in an area of Mozambique where a French oil giant has
a $20 billion gas project. Rwanda has also shown a willingness to take asylum seekers
from Europe, offering to help tackle an issue that has fueled
that continent’s far-right movements.
And
for years, Rwanda has been seen by Western donors as the textbook example of how
to get aid right, using the aid to leverage economic growth and development while
styling itself the Singapore of Africa.
“Powerful
Western countries have for long been reticent about punishing Rwanda, which cultivated
a reputation as a donor darling,” said Dino Mahtani, a former adviser to the U.N.
peacekeeping mission in Congo. “While some are now finally demanding Kagame pull
back support to M23, they are unlikely to take action against what they see as the
military solution against jihadis in Mozambique.”
Congo,
on the other hand, has regularly been written off as a hopeless case, a helpless
giant in Africa wracked by a series of wars, rife with corruption and suffering.
And
the suffering is overwhelming.
Holding
a tiny baby and trying to keep her other children close, Sifa
Kigugo arrived in Goma on Sunday, just before the rebel
takeover, with nowhere to go. She had given birth just five days before, but when
fighting broke out around her village, she had to run.
Millions
of Congolese like Ms. Kigugo have been forced to abandon
their homes, with several hundred thousand displaced last week alone. Bombs
have fallen on the camps meant to house them. Sexual violence, long used as a weapon
of war in Congo, has lately increased sharply, reaching record levels last year,
after M23 began its most recent push.
“When
will the international community stop turning a blind eye to the Congolese tragedy,
and accepting or tolerating systematic violations of international law and human
rights?” asked Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist who has treated
thousands of rape victims in Congo and won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.
More
than 21 million people in Congo — about one-fifth of the population — need aid.
But humanitarian workers warn that the actions of the new Trump administration could
plunge the country deeper into crisis. After taking office, President Trump issued
an executive order directing a 90-day freeze on almost all foreign aid, pending
a review. Last year 68.8 percent of all humanitarian aid in Congo came from the
United States.
It
is also Rwanda’s biggest bilateral donor, giving over $188 million to the country
in 2023. Now that aid has been paused, the U.S. may be in a weaker position to influence
Rwanda, according to some analysts.
In
2012, in the wake of M23’s first occupation of Goma, President Barack Obama called
Mr. Kagame and urged him to stop supporting the rebels.
More
recently, Western nations have taken some action against M23: In 2023, the United
States and the European Union imposed sanctions on a few Rwandan and Congolese military
commanders involved in the conflict, and the United States suspended military aid
to Rwanda last year.
On
Tuesday, Germany’s development ministry suspended aid talks with Rwandan officials.
But many Congolese, including protesters in multiple cities this week, say the E.U.
and the United States need to do more to stop Mr. Kagame.
Rwanda’s
exploitation of Congo’s rare minerals has been detailed in multiple reports from
the United Nations. Last year, M23 seized an area around the Congolese town of Rubaya that is rich in coltan, an ore used in cellphones and computers.
U.N.
experts said in December that at least 150 tons of coltan were illegally exported
to Rwanda and mixed with Rwandan production. Last month Congo filed criminal complaints
in France and Belgium against subsidiaries of Apple, accusing it of using conflict
minerals sourced in Congo.
Analysts
say M23, under Rwanda’s guidance, is looking to occupy Congo for the long term,
behaving in ways that suggest it plans to establish an administrative state, collecting
taxes and imposing fines on residents. “This seems to be a long game of territorial
acquisition,” said Mr. Mahtani, the former adviser to the U.N. peacekeeping mission.
In
Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, on Tuesday, anti-Rwanda protesters attacked several foreign
embassies and a United Nations building in an eruption of anger at Congo’s allies
for failing to stop M23’s advance. Protests also broke out in Bukavu, a larger city to Goma’s south to which some Congolese
officers are thought to have fled. Many of Bukavu’s residents
fear they are the rebels’ next target.
Some
observers see peace talks organized by nations in the region, including Angola,
as the best hope for ending the violence. Secretary Rubio said on Monday that negotiations
should restart as soon as possible. President William Ruto of Kenya said Tuesday
that Mr. Kagame and Mr. Tshisekedi had agreed to attend an emergency summit on Wednesday
to address the situation.
While
those discussions lumber on, hundreds of thousands of terrified people who took
cover in Goma have nowhere to go.
Even
those who have beds to sleep on have not slept, said Maina
King’ori, the regional humanitarian director of the agency
CARE International, who described hearing constant gunfire in the city. “They’ve
just been awake, waiting with bated breath, wondering what’s next,” he said.