U.S. President Donald Trump gathered the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda to sign a peace deal in Washington on Thursday even as fighting continued in their war-scarred region.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix Tshisekedi affirmed their commitment to an economic integration compact already agreed to last month, as well as a U.S.-brokered peace deal reached in June that has yet to be implemented.
Their countries are also signing agreements on critical minerals, security and economic partnerships, according to a White House official.
The signing handed Trump the latest in a series of made-for-television diplomatic victories, in this case one at odds with the bloody situation on the ground. Washington is keen to secure better access to a spectrum of natural resources in Congo and has been scrambling globally to counter Chinese dominance in critical minerals.
"We're settling a war that's been going on for decades," Trump said. "They spent a lot of time killing each other and now they're going to spend a lot of time hugging, holding hands and taking advantage of the United States of America economically, like every other country does."
Sitting before a "Delivering Peace" backdrop at a peace institute that the Trump administration unofficially renamed after Trump, the African leaders signed and exchanged documents with the U.S. president.
"Thank you for putting a certain name on that building," Trump told Secretary of State Marco Rubio, adding that it was a "great honor."
As the leaders signed the agreement, clashes between Rwanda-backed M23 rebels and the Congolese army were reported in several areas of South Kivu province. A spokesperson for M23 accused government troops of bombing several civilian areas.
The M23 rebel group, supported by Rwanda, seized the two largest cities in eastern Congo earlier this year in a lightning advance that raised fears of a wider war. Analysts say U.S. diplomacy has paused the escalation of fighting in eastern Congo but has failed to resolve core issues.
A White House official said the deal signing "recommits the parties to the peace process" and reflected "months of intensive diplomacy led by President Trump, who made it clear to both the DRC and Rwanda that the status quo was unacceptable."
The Republican U.S. president has been eager to burnish his diplomatic credentials. Since Trump returned to office in January, his administration has intervened in conflicts from the Middle East to Ukraine and beyond, delivering splashy deal-signing ceremonies from Kuala Lumpur to Sharm el-Sheikh.
Those efforts have brought mixed results: a Gaza deal, but also criticism that he should focus on domestic, cost-of-living concerns instead. Voters give him low marks on his handling of the economy.
Ahead of the signing on Thursday, the president's name was added to a sign outside the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, a government-founded nonprofit his administration tried to seize control of earlier this year.
The agreement, however, may not change the humanitarian crisis on the ground. As fighting continued, a spokesperson for M23 accused government troops of bombing several civilian areas.
Congo's army and M23 rebels have accused each other of violating existing ceasefire agreements that were renewed last month. At a news conference in Washington on Wednesday, Congolese official Patrick Muyaya blamed M23 for recent fighting and said it was "proof that Rwanda doesn't want peace."
M23 is not attending the meeting in Washington. It is also not bound by the terms of any Congo-Rwanda agreement.
Denis Mukwege, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018 for his response to sexual violence in Congo, said the deals were driven more by the scramble for strategic minerals than by a genuine effort to end bloodshed. He said the peace deal would do little to support victims.
"For me, it is clear that this is not a peace agreement," he told Reuters in an interview in Paris. "The proof: this morning, in my native village, people were burying the dead while a peace agreement was being signed. The M23 continues to seize territory."
Rwanda denies backing M23. Kigali has said its own forces have acted in self-defense against ethnic Hutu militiamen linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when more than 1 million people were killed. A group of United Nations experts said in a July report that Rwanda exercises command and control over the rebels.
M23 says it is fighting to protect ethnic Tutsi communities in eastern Congo. The rebel group's advances mark the latest episode in ethnic rivalry in Congo's eastern borderlands with Rwanda, the source of conflict for three decades.
Two devastating wars in the African Great Lakes region between 1996 and 2003 cost millions of lives. The latest cycle of fighting has killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands more.
The Trump administration has discussed facilitating billions of dollars of Western investment in a region rich in tantalum, tin, tungsten, gold, cobalt, copper, lithium and other minerals.
Under the Trump-backed agreement, Congo would need to crack down on an armed group opposed to M23, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). Rwanda would need to withdraw its forces from Congo. Little apparent progress has been made toward either pledge since June.
"We hope that, after the signing, we will see improvement on the ground," Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday.
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