The recent agreement between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda has raised hopes that a wider war in the Great Lakes region can be averted. The conflict in the eastern DRC—in which an estimated 7,000 people have been killed and more than a million people have been displaced since the start of the year—has captivated attention across the continent. Memories remain fresh of the devastating Congo Wars of the late 1990s and early 2000s, in which seven African militaries intervened, and an estimated 5.4 million Congolese died.
Rwanda is widely believed to be backing the rebellion waged by the March 23 (M23) movement. It currently controls large swaths of North and South Kivu, where M23 has also imposed a rudimentary administration and formed an alliance with 17 political parties, known as the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), and several armed groups outside North and South Kivu. M23 has also absorbed some of the defeated government forces and militias into its ranks.
Notably, M23 is larger, better armed and trained, and more sophisticated than it was the last time it briefly held Goma in November 2012 before its official disbandment. Unlike in 2012, the M23 has recruited from outside its traditional base of Congolese citizens of Rwandan (and Burundian) descent, known as Banyamulenge and Banyamasisi (those who hail from the Mulenge and Masisi regions in the Kivus). Successive Congolese governments have questioned the Congolese nationality of these communities, at times rendering them stateless. They, in turn, have been at the center of all major rebellions in the country, which have always ignited in Goma, Bukavu, Ituri, and Kisangani.
Given this complex history, further African leadership will be required to link the recently signed agreement to ongoing African mediation efforts that are attempting to tackle the root causes of the conflict, involve all the belligerents, and address the vital issues of justice and accountability in a country where over 120 armed groups remain active in North and South Kivu.
The first and most pressing issue is the need for a comprehensive ceasefire between M23 and the Congolese government that also extends to their allied fighting forces. This should be anchored in a larger Inter Congolese Dialogue (ICD) that includes the broadest section of Congolese society to address the fundamental problems facing their country and find solutions that are locally owned, sustainable, and comprehensive.
The starting point for a broader ICD is an understanding that Congo’s problems are fundamentally internal. These are exploited by external factors such as military intervention by DRC’s neighbors in the east, namely Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, as well as in the south, involving countries from the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This larger pattern of external involvement has been a key feature of all major crises in Congo dating back to the late 1990s.
Recognizing this complexity, the East African Community (EAC) and SADC merged their respective peace initiatives into a single negotiating mechanism on February 8, 2025, replacing the Luanda and Nairobi peace processes. To facilitate this mediation, troops from Malawi, South Africa, and Tanzania that were deployed to fight M23 began withdrawing in mid-February. The African Union (AU) appointed a panel of five former presidents from Central, South, and East Africa: Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Kgalema Motlanthe of South Africa, Sahle-Work Zewde of Ethiopia, and Central African Republic’s Catherine Samba-Panza. The AU nominated Togolese President Faure Gnassingbé to coordinate the process. The strategic logic underlying this effort was the need to create a platform to address the external and internal dimensions of the crisis simultaneously and comprehensively, without preconditions.
This builds on lessons from the first ICD a comprehensive national dialogue held in Sun City, South Africa, from 2001 to 2002 to end the Second Congo War. This Dialogue was organized along three tracks:
- A multilateral track that negotiated a ceasefire among the external actors, namely, Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe.
- A bilateral track that negotiated a ceasefire between Rwanda and the DRC.
- The ICD process itself, which assembled Congolese stakeholders from the government, armed and unarmed opposition, civil society, and the “Forces Vives” (representing influential professional organizations and personalities).
These representatives identified the persistent crisis of legitimacy in the DRC as the fundamental problem underlying the instability. Governance was highly personalized, resorted to violence against citizens, stifled independent institutions, and manipulated electoral processes. The parties concluded that the crisis of legitimacy also applied to the armed rebel groups, who were not the best representatives of the grievances the rebels instrumentalized to mobilize and recruit. These grievances include the thorny issues of contested citizenship of the Banyamulenge and Banyamasisi communities, insecurity of minority groups, misuse and gross mismanagement of the country’s vast mineral resources, fragmented and in many cases nonexistent state authority and presence, and meddling by regional actors and foreign mercenaries.
To augment the internal process, the ICD systematically addressed these grievances in a series of articles written into the Sun City Accords. These were, in turn, written into a new Constitution in 2005 that gave Congo its first election since independence, a more democratic institutional structure, and the launching of a comprehensive security sector reform process. Unfortunately, these efforts were not sustained as regional and international attention to uphold the agreements began to wane.
The challenge now, as then, will be to ensure the implementation and ongoing commitment by the principal political actors. This might be overcome by stronger modalities of oversight, engagement, and longer term monitoring by guarantors. The road ahead will be tough and there will be setbacks. But with stamina, persistence, and resoluteness, a second Inter-Congolese Dialogue can give Congolese—and the region—a way out.
For further information on the Africa Center’s work on the DRC, please see our DRC “In-Focus” page. Any alumni who are interested in offering their perspectives and insights about the conflict in the DRC and its implications for the region and the world are welcome to send their comments to the Africa Center Engagement Team or to share ideas with the alumni community chapter in their country.
Paul Nantulya is a Research Associate with the Africa Center for Strategic Studies and was a participant-observer at the preparatory talks of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue, the Dialogue at Sun City, and subsequent engagements.