Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: PRESIDENT Donald Trump praised the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda for their courage as they signed onto a deal on December 5 aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Congo and opening the region’s critical mineral reserves to the U.S. government and American companies.
The moment offered Trump, who has repeatedly boasted of brokering peace in some of the world’s most entrenched conflicts, another chance to tout himself as a dealmaker extraordinaire on the global stage. “It’s a great day for Africa, a great day for the world,” Trump said shortly before the leaders signed the pact. He added, “Today, we’re succeeding where so many others have failed.”
Trump welcomed Presidents Felix Tshisekedi of Congo and Paul Kagame of Rwanda, as well as several officials from other African nations who traveled to Washington to witness the signing. Lauded by the White House as a “historic” agreement brokered by Trump, the pact between Tshisekedi and Kagame follows m o n t h s l o n g peace efforts by the U.S. and partners, including the African Union and Qatar, and finalizes a deal signed in June.
But the Trump-brokered peace is precarious. The Central African nation of Congo has been battered by decadeslong fighting with more than 100 armed groups, the most potent being the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels. The conflict escalated this year, with M23 seizing the region’s main cities of Goma and Bukavu in an unprecedented advance, worsening a humanitarian crisis that was already one of the world’s largest, with millions of people displaced.
Fighting, meanwhile, continued this week in the conflict-battered region with pockets of clashes reported between the rebels and Congolese soldiers, together with their allied forces. Kagame and Tshisekedi offered a hopeful tone as they signed on to the agreement.
“No one was asking President Trump to take up this task. Our region is far from the headlines,” Kagame said. “But when the president saw the opportunity to contribute to peace, he immediately took it.”
