By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of “lying” and “distorting” talks between the two statesmen about the ongoing conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The mineral-rich east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been dogged by conflict for more than 30 years, since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Numerous armed groups have competed with the central authorities for power and control of the potential fortune in this vast nation.
The instability has sucked in neighbouring countries to devastating effect – notoriously in the 1990s when two huge conflicts, dubbed Africa’s World Wars, resulted in the deaths of millions of people.
After a rapid advance in the region, fighters from the M23 rebel group have taken control of most of Goma – a major city of more than a million people in the east of DR Congo.
The M23 are led by ethnic Tutsis, who say they needed to take up arms to protect the rights of the minority group.
Neighbouring Rwanda has in the past consistently denied that it supported the M23, but ever since 2012 UN experts have accused it of providing weapons, logistical support and even ultimately commanding the rebels.
DR Congo’s government, as well as the US and France, have also identified Rwanda as backing the group. Last year, a UN experts report said that up to 4,000 Rwandan troops were fighting alongside the M23.
What has been said about [the conversations I had with Ramaphosa this week] in the media by South African officials and Ramaphosa himself contains a lot of distortion, deliberate attacks, and even lies.
“If words can change so much from a conversation to a public statement, it says a lot about how these very important issues are being managed,” Kagame said in a post on his X account, in reply to Ramaphosa’s posted statement.
In his statement, Ramaphosa said the fighting was “the result of an escalation by the rebel group M23 and Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) militia engaging the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC) and attacking peacekeepers from the Sadc Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SAMIDRC).”
Ramaphosa’s statement followed the death of 13 South African soldiers deployed as part of the Southern African Development Community Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SAMIDRC).
The death of the South African soldiers has intensified political and military scrutiny in Pretoria, forcing the government to justify its intervention in the decades-long conflict while navigating increasingly strained ties with Rwanda.
South African officials have blamed the escalating violence on the M23 rebel group and the Rwandan Defence Force.
Kagame dismissed South Africa’s involvement in the peacekeeping, saying that SAMIDRC was not a peacekeeping mission but a “belligerent force” supporting the Congolese government.
He accused SAMIDRC of working alongside the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), a militia with historical ties to perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
FDLR targeted Rwanda, Kagame said, “while also threatening to take the war to Rwanda itself”.
He accused SAMIDRC of replacing the East African Community Regional Force, which he characterised as the only legitimate peacekeeping operation in the region.
He claimed instead that Ramaphosa had requested logistical assistance to ensure that South African troops had electricity, food, and water, which Rwanda would help facilitate.
Kagame said Ramaphosa had personally acknowledged that M23 was not responsible for the deaths of South African soldiers, but rather the Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC).
“If South Africa wants to contribute to peaceful solutions, that is well and good, but South Africa is in no position to take on the role of a peacemaker or mediator. And if South Africa prefers confrontation, Rwanda will deal with the matter in that context any day.”
In response, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) has said lines remain open between Pretoria and Kigali amid social media exchange between Rampahosa and Kagame.
A UN peacekeeping mission has been in place since 1999. The current force – known as Monusco – is made up of more than 10,000 troops.
However, of these, only the Force Intervention Brigade is allowed to carry out offensive operations against armed groups. It was this force that helped defeat the M23 in 2013.
Monusco has been the target of anger from ordinary Congolese who see it as failing to do its job. President Félix Tshisekedi, deeming the mission a failure, had asked it to leave by the end of last year.
But the departure was delayed and in December the mission was extended for another year.
The Southern African Development Community (Sadc), a regional grouping of 16 countries, has also deployed a military force to eastern DR Congo, but it has been unable to halt the rebels.