Massad Boulos, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser for Africa policy, told Reuters on Thursday that the administration wants the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda to sign a peace treaty with each other — and then sign Ukraine-style minerals deals with the United States.
Boulos predicted a minerals deal with the DRC would be signed on the same day as the Congo-Rwanda peace accords, “and then a similar package, but of a different size, will be signed on that day with Rwanda.”
That day, according to Boulos, should come sometime in the next two months. At a meeting in Washington last week, the DRC and Rwanda agreed to an ambitious timetable that included both of them submitting drafts of their half of the peace treaty on May 2. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to preside over another meeting in Washington to finalize the peace treaty by mid-May.
Rwanda’s side of the deal included a pledge to stop supporting M23 and other insurgent groups that have been rampaging through the eastern Congo. The insurgents captured several key cities in the DRC at the beginning of the year, and when they marched through the gates of their captured towns, Rwandan troops marched right alongside them.
In return for Rwanda pulling out its troops and halting support for the insurgents, the DRC will promise to take Rwanda’s security concerns seriously, including action against a Rwandan insurgent group that operates in the Congo, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
The FDLR is one of more than a hundred armed groups operating in the eastern Congo. It is of particular concern to Rwanda because its members are mostly members of the Hutu tribe and they are determined to overthrow the government of Rwanda, which is largely controlled by the Tutsi tribe at present. The Hutus attempted to exterminate the Tutsis in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Hellbound and Down 