DRC and Rwanda agree to accelerate talks to end the conflict around the M23

Nov. 6 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Foreign Ministers of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, with the mediation of their Ugandan counterpart, have agreed this weekend to accelerate as much as possible the agreement to ease bilateral tension around the activity of the rebel group M23 in northeastern Congo, which according to Kinshasa would be supported by Rwanda.

Rwanda has denied the accusations and accused the Congolese government of assisting the rebel movement of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), in a crisis fueled by a great advance of the M23 in the territories of North Kivu that culminated in the last week with the expulsion of the Rwandan ambassador to the DRC, Vincent Karenga.

In a joint statement published by the Rwandan newspaper ‘The New Times’, the DRC foreign ministers, Christophe Lutundula, Téte António of Angola and Vincent Biruta of Rwanda agreed this past Saturday to continue dialogue “as a priority to resolve the political crisis between the two sister countries” and define “a calendar to accelerate” the de-escalation roadmap signed in July.

The tension, however, still persists. This past Saturday, the spokesman for the Congolese Army, General Sylvain Ekenge, assured that more than 2,000 young people had heeded the call for “total mobilization” made the day before by the country’s president, Félix Tshisekedi.

The new recruits will be trained in military centers in the country as a possible reinforcement for operations against the M23 in North Kivu, the spokesman added in comments collected by Radio Okapi, and at a time when Kenyan troops have moved to the east of the DRC to control the multiple fronts of violence both from the M23 and from other groups such as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) –which swore allegiance to the Islamic State– or the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda themselves.

The president gave this mobilization order after verifying the lack of diplomatic progress such as the one that finally occurred this weekend. “No one but us is going to come to save our nation. The war that our neighbors have imposed on us demands sacrifices from each one of us and it is time to silence our political differences to defend our homeland together,” he proclaimed in his speech, collected by the Congolese news portal Actualité.