A meeting between the presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo will not take place as planned on Sunday, both countries said, dashing hopes of a deal to curb Congo’s M23 rebel conflict that has displaced more than 1.9 million people.
The event was meant to see a rare face-to-face meeting between the central African leaders in Angola, where long-running negotiations have sought to ease tensions between the neighbours linked to the almost three-year M23 insurgency.
Expectations that a deal would be signed had raised hopes of an end to a standoff that has further destabilised eastern Congo and fanned fears of a broader conflict in Africa’s Great Lakes region akin to two devastating wars between 1996 and 2003 that cost millions of lives.
“The cancellation of this tripartite is caused by the refusal of the Rwandan delegation to take part,” Congo’s presidency said in a statement.
It said on Saturday Rwanda had made the signing of a peace agreement conditional on Congo holding direct talks with M23 rebels, which Congo rejected.
Rwanda’s foreign ministry said this lack of consensus meant it would not have been possible for it to sign Sunday’s agreement.
Postponing the meeting would allow Congo time to engage directly with M23, it said in a statement.
The peace plan that was set to be signed envisaged Rwanda dismantling what it has called its defensive measures in the conflict in exchange for Congo eliminating a Hutu rebel group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which had attacked Tutsis in both countries.
Congo, the United Nations, and others accuse Rwanda of fuelling the rebellion in North Kivu province by deploying its own troops and weapons to support M23, a group formed to defend the interests of Congolese Tutsis, the ethnic group to which Rwandan President Paul Kagame belongs.
Rwanda denies this, acknowledging only that it has taken defensive measures, and accuses Congo of recruiting FDLR militants to fight on its side.
There were 3,000-4,000 Rwandan troops in Congo with “de facto control” over M23 operations, U.N. experts said this year.
The international community needs to do more to push Rwanda to back down, said Congo expert Jason Stearns at Canada’s Simon Fraser University.
“There’s very little pressure, especially as the country putting the most pressure on Rwanda so far is the United States, which is going through a transition of its own,” he said.
