Allies Belgium and the DRC face a grim reality. The Congolese army is in disarray, losing every battle against the AFC/M23 rebels and ceding territory in the process.
But even as well-meaning actors pin their hopes on Qatar’s facilitation and the EAC-SADC-led process, Brussels and Kinshasa have a different priority: to buy time, halt the rebels’ advance and rebuild a combat-capable Congolese army.
Both are lobbying for more sanctions against Rwanda, which is blamed for the disaster that is the governance of the Congo. They are in a hole – with Brussels struggling to maintain influence in its former colonies and Tshisekedi fighting for his political survival – and the temptation is to keep digging.
Predictable deadlock and a tried and failed strategy
The DRC’s self-inflicted troubles stem from a willful misrepresentation of the current conflict as one between an aggressor, Rwanda, and its victim, the DRC. It was always naive to expect that a misdiagnosed crisis, which has been metastasising for over a decade, would be easily resolved. Yet the belief that the conflict’s root causes could be externalised by blaming and sanctioning Rwanda while rearming the FDLR, and that Congolese Tutsis could be repressed while their grievances were ignored, dates back to 2012. At that time, Rwanda was the force that arrested Nkunda and persuaded former CNDP, now M23, commanders to negotiate peace with the Congolese government. It made Kigali the de facto guarantor of the March 2009 agreement. In 2012, it turned out to be easier for Kinshasa and its Western backers to blame Rwanda for the resumption of the conflict than to acknowledge the DRC’s failure to implement yet another peace agreement as the real cause of the enduring crises. Predictably, with the root causes unaddressed, the conflict resumed a decade later, at the end of 2021.
Belgium’s endless list of blunders
Today, Belgium seems determined to mirror France’s ‘exit strategy’ from West Africa. Brussels’ crusade against Rwanda, attempting to apply the same “cure” as in 2012-2013, is clearly misguided. Nevertheless, the former colonial power persists in following the path of confrontation, seemingly inviting its own eviction from the region, much like France in West Africa. The same arrogance, the same deafness, and the same self-righteous rhetoric about human rights are on display, while Belgium is simultaneously supporting a genocidal government in the DRC and fuelling a conflict that could have been avoided had the Tshisekedi administration honoured the commitments it made in 2020. That year, Kinshasa invited M23’s leaders for 14 months of negotiations, renewed their amnesty deal, and freed from prison some of the very officers now commanding the rebels.
“Rwanda is the problem,” Brussels insists, repeating this mantra to anyone willing to listen without questioning the logic of the claim. However, reality is finally setting in: Kigali is prepared to resist external pressure until the world recognises the simple truth that the DRC, whoever has been in power from Mobutu to Tshisekedi, has been incapable of honouring agreements and is therefore primarily responsible for the multiple conflicts within its own borders. The time for babysitting the DRC is over; the giant infant – as its nannies seem to see it – must be held accountable and grow into a responsible adult whose behavior does not threaten its neighbours.
This misrepresentation of the conflict has led to yet another blunder. Belgium, alongside other Western actors, the UN’s experts, and mainstream Western media, have become entangled in their own propaganda, mindlessly repeating the phrase “Rwanda-backed M23” and citing questionable estimates of the number of Rwandan troops supporting the rebels. In so doing they have failed to notice the metamorphosis of M23 into a powerful force as the AFC coalition to which it now belongs goes publicly recruiting non-Rwandophone Congolese and growing its numbers. Conservative estimates put M23’s strength at 10,000 fighters. The group’s leadership merely smile when asked how many troops they have after recruiting for the past three years, thereby opening the door to speculation. Meanwhile, reports emerged this week that a further 3,500 troops have joined the rebel ranks after months of training.
To make matters worse, the amount of weaponry captured by M23 has exceeded even the rebels’ own expectations. The bottom line is this: this is not a force that will disappear simply because Rwanda has been sanctioned. Even if Rwanda were to withdraw whatever troops it may have sent into the DRC as demanded by the FDLR’s closest backers in Brussels and elsewhere, Kinshasa simply lacks the firepower to confront what is now a more formidable foe than it faced in 2012/13.
Tshisekedi scrambles to salvage alliances
Despite agreeing to direct peace talks with the AFC/M23, Tshisekedi is not done scheming his way to an elusive military victory. One need only listen to his various interviews as he asks the U.S. to help him crush the rebellion, describes the rebels as mere puppets of Kigali interested only in destruction, and vows to carry out a second reform of the Congolese army after six years in power, which he sees as a mix of heteroclite rebel groups with no cohesion or esprit de corps.
Tshisekedi knows he has no army to speak of and is desperate for allies, and here too things are a little complicated.
SADC countries have decided to withdraw their forces, despite South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s proposal for a new defense budget to sustain his country’s military involvement in the DRC. His personal plea for a renewal of the SAMIDRC mandate has been in vain. Now stripped of its regional legitimacy, South Africa’s secretive military deployments in Katanga pose a political risk for Ramaphosa, especially if more South African troops were to perish in combat on Congolese soil.
The inept and deeply corrupt MONUSCO has moved its headquarters to Beni, away from the strategically vital Goma International Airport. It remains uncertain how long it will maintain its bases in North Kivu’s capital, given its increasingly tense relationship with the rebels.
The Burundian army has been trying to halt the rebels’ advance on Uvira, another major town in South Kivu, but it is gradually losing the battle for control of the highlands and midlands surrounding the Rusizi Plain and the town itself. This means that Uvira could soon find itself completely cut off from the rest of the country, much like Goma was before it was captured, leaving the M23 to deliver the final blow at a time of its own choosing.
Recognising the dire situation, Brussels has stepped in to assist. Breaking ranks with the EU, which had severed ties with Burundi over gross human rights violations, Belgium has resumed economic and military cooperation with the country, further undermining its claims of concern for human rights. It has also reportedly sent more ‘instructors’, ostensibly to train the FARDC, the force responsible for most of the human rights violations in the DRC.
Kinshasa, for its part, has a straightforward strategy: pretend to negotiate, stabilize the front lines and buy as much time as possible, while Brussels continues its campaign of sanctions against what it considers to be its greatest enemy, Rwanda. But again, the diagnosis is wrong and so is the plan. Whether the Belgian and Congolese governments are prepared to accept it or not, the M23 remains the X factor in the equation and their main adversary on the ground.
Most importantly, it should come as no surprise if the actions of Brussels and Kinshasa lead to the collapse of the Qatari facilitation and the EAC-SADC-led peace process.
