African leaders work to contain intensified conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and ensure it won’t spread to neighboring nations.

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After a period of relative calm, a simmering conflict involving both government and rebel forces in the mineral-rich eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) near Lake Kivu has boiled over again in recent weeks. 

The powerful M23 rebel group took control of DRC’s eastern capital of Goma last week, with thousands killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.

The big question now is whether and when African leaders can calm these troubled waters again and usher in a much-needed period of prolonged peace, security and rebuilding.

“We have a historic opportunity as the broader neighborhood of the DRC to mobilize our collective will into a fused, single and coherent initiative towards the resolution of this complex crisis,” said President William Ruto, who co-chaired an extraordinary summit of the leaders of the DRC, the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community in Dar es Salaam on 8 February.

To build on what President Ruto said, this is a highly complicated and chaotic situation that traces its roots back at least 140 years to the Berlin Conference that unleashed the European powers’ desperate “Scramble for Africa” over the following 30 years.

This included Belgium’s unprincipled and often brutal colonization of what is now DRC and its harsh rule of Rwanda that eventually led to the Genocide against Rwandan Tutsis in 1994 when nearly a million people were massacred in three months.

Critics abroad and in Congo accuse DRC president Tshisekedi and his government of being distant, corrupt and ineffective and continually failing to meet promises or even talk to the rebels. 

“I am exhausted with Tshisekedi’s governance,” said one Congolese citizen.

There have been strong and repeated accusations by the United Nations and others that the M23, which is now part of the broader Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), receives both funding and tangible support from Rwanda and its army, that it has been responsible for excessive violence — including reports of rape in a Goma prison last week — and that it has benefited from the increasing control of lucrative mineral mines in the region.  

A multinational push for peace

The actual truth is much more complex, nuanced and difficult to distinguish, especially given the direct involvement of national army soldiers on the ground, not just from the DRC and Rwanda but from other countries, such as Burundi, South Africa and Tanzania. 

There are also about 14,000 UN peacekeeping forces in the region, as well as more than 100 other militia groups and even mercenaries from Eastern Europe. Rwanda recently ensured the safe repatriation of 300 of them back to Romania.

And then there are powerful political and business leaders in the United States, Europe, Russia and China who somewhat cynically want to ensure the continued supply of precious minerals — such as cobalt, coltan and tantalum — for their cars, cellphones and computers. 

On a more personal level, I live with my Rwandan wife and young son in a newly-built house just south of Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali, which lies only 150 kilometres away from the current conflict zone and which has been repeatedly threatened by DRC president Tshisekedi and leading government officials.

Just last week, Rwanda’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, James Ngango, accused the DRC of amassing a stockpile of weapons — including rockets, kamikaze drones and heavy artillery guns — that are pointed straight at Rwanda.

Fears that violence will cross borders

My wife Merveille — whose father and three brothers may well have been murdered by some of the current FDLR militia fighters in eastern DRC — still has nightmares about them possibly attacking or even taking back Rwanda.

A Rwanda security expert texted me that the threat to “attack Rwanda immediately” was real before the M23 rebels took over Goma and there are still concerns about large weapon stockpiles in South Kivu province. He added that if the M23 can now secure the regional capital of Bukavu and the nearby Kavumu airport “all security risks against Rwanda will be reduced/mitigated.”

This will allay our personal concerns but we are still worried about the security of some close friends in Goma, who fell silent for five whole days after the M23 rebels took control of their city in late January but thankfully got back in contact right after power and WiFi service were restored.

Daily life in Goma has returned to something like normal over the last week or so but the nighttime is different.

One of our friends texted me on Tuesday: “Safety in Goma is degrading day in, day out. Getting armed looters at night. From this night alone we register more than seven deaths. A friend was visited as well. He let them in and his life was spared and his family. He said this morning that it was hard to determine their identity because they had no military uniforms but we all suspect they are they are the Wazalendo or prisoners who escaped from Munzenze prison. They come in to steal, rape and kill who ever shows resistance.”

The Wazalendo — meaning “patriots” or “nationalists” — are a group of irregular fighters in North Kivu province, who are allied with the Congolese army and opposed to the M23.

Our friend in Goma said that he still has enough security in his house but when asked about the potentially revitalised multilateral peace process, he said: “I am actually speechless right now, I don’t know what to think about all this. So much has happened.” 

The weekend summit’s joint communiqué did call for an immediate end to the violence and for defense ministers to come up with concrete plans for sustainable peace measures, such as the resumption of “direct negotiations and dialogue with all state and non-state parties,” including the M23 that DRC president Tshisekedi has long tried to resist.

Observers see this as a positive sign and there are renewed hopes — along with lingering doubts after so many earlier failed initiatives — that this unusual and timely degree of coordinated Africa-based action and support at the highest levels could mean that the fighting, killing and disruption may wane soon and a long-lasting, peaceful solution can be reached.

In the words of the sadly-departed Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks of the UK: “The greatest single antidote to violence is conversation, speaking our fears, listening to the fears of others, and in that sharing of vulnerabilities, discovering a genesis of hope.”

Three questions to consider:

1. Why is the situation in Eastern DRC so difficult to sort out?
2. Think of a time when you, someone you knew or someone you respected used “direct negotiations and dialogue” to achieve a positive outcome to a challenging problem.
3. What would you say or do if you were one of the regional African leaders trying to achieve a sustainable, non-violent solution to the Eastern DRC crisis?

Jeremy Solomons is a global leadership coach and facilitator, based in Kigali, Rwanda, where he writes regular “Leading Rwanda” and "Letter from Kigali" columns for the New Times newspaper. In the past, he was a Reuters financial reporter in Hong Kong and New York City and then a foreign correspondent in Frankfurt. He was also a farmer in Israel, factory worker and teacher in France, banker in England and Switzerland and entrepreneur in Italy.