Signed in Washington under the aegis of Donald Trump, the agreement between Kigali and Kinshasa for peace in eastern DRC reflects less a diplomatic triumph than yet another episode of Western interference — one rooted in mining appetites and compromised sovereignty. An analysis of a deal that resembles a neocolonial pact.
A PEACE SIGNED ABROAD
There is something tragically familiar in this image captured within the hushed confines of the Oval Office: two African foreign ministers, smiling, holding a document that’s supposed to heal the wounds of a conflict that has ravaged eastern Democratic Republic of Congo for over three decades; and at the center, a white man — all-powerful, President of the United States — directing the scene like a theater director. The setting hasn’t changed — only the faces have aged.
Since the 1990s, Kivu has become the geological graveyard of peace in Central Africa. A region where war never fully ceases, fueled by ethnic rivalries inherited from colonial divisions and migratory flux, by regional power struggles, and above all, by multinational and state greed for the mineral riches of the subsoil: gold, coltan, tin, tungsten — the treasures that light up our smartphones and extinguish lives in Kivu’s hills. Added to this is the murky game played by neighboring powers — chiefly Rwanda — accused for years, even by the UN, of supporting active rebellions in eastern Congo.
And so it is in Washington, in 2025, that “peace” is signed. Why now? Why there? The answer can be summed up in one word: strategy. The Trump administration, previously disinterested in Africa, has suddenly rediscovered the map of critical resources — just as China expands its economic and diplomatic grip on the continent. In other words, this American initiative stems less from diplomatic altruism than from strategic repositioning. The DRC is seen not as a nation, but as an open-pit mine. This is not about stopping war out of ethics, but about stabilizing an extraction zone.
Meanwhile, the African Union watches silently. Proposals from João Lourenço or Faure Gnassingbé carried little weight compared to Washington’s call. As with the Linas-Marcoussis or Libreville Accords, the African voice becomes inaudible unless sanctioned by a foreign power. The Congolese tragedy was not arbitrated by its direct neighbors or by any pan-African institutional architecture, but by actors whose interests lie far beyond the fate of civilians in Kivu.
This peace, negotiated off the continent, starkly reminds us of an often-sugarcoated truth: Africa still does not control its own diplomatic sovereignty. It talks about it. It dreams of it. But it remains summoned to tables that are not its own, to sign agreements where it didn’t even set the agenda. The DRC and Rwanda — two African nations — signed a historic document… under the blessing of a foreign head of state. This is not African peace. It is a staged peace — written, directed, and filmed for Western cameras.
The symbolism is chilling: in 2025, the African continent remains the object of global politics, not its subject. Behind its promises, the Washington agreement represents yet another episode of Africa’s diplomatic erasure, and raises the troubling question: who really benefits when peace is signed far from the land that bleeds?
AMERICA ISN’T INTERESTED IN PEACE — BUT IN COLTAN
It would be political naïveté to believe that Washington has suddenly been moved by Congolese suffering. What the Trump administration presents as a diplomatic victory is, in truth, the materialization of a cold, calculated strategy centered on securing access to the continent’s critical resources. Behind the scenes, it’s not peace being negotiated — it’s control over the ground beneath.
As the global energy transition accelerates, the minerals of Kivu have become a global obsession. Coltan — the mineral that powers our smart devices — is fast becoming the “black gold” of the 21st century. Cobalt, gold, lithium, and tin are now vital raw materials. The Congo is no longer viewed as a wounded nation, but as a strategic artery of the global digital economy. And in this race, the United States refuses to let China silently spin its web across Central Africa.
That is the context for Donald Trump’s sudden intervention. Far from a humanitarian impulse, it’s a tactical shift in U.S. diplomacy aimed at securing supply lines for North American tech industries. The real priority isn’t a ceasefire — it’s the stability of mining routes and extraction zones in North and South Kivu, now deemed vital to the global economy.
What is sold to the public as a “remarkable diplomatic breakthrough” is, for Washington’s strategists, a logistical milestone. The goal: establish a “monitored peace” — stable enough for industrial exploitation, but never so enduring as to challenge foreign oversight. A useful peace. A profitable peace.
And in this game, the DRC is negotiating from a position of weakness. Worn down by decades of war, corruption, internal divisions, and debt, Kinshasa stands little chance against the Washington–Kigali tandem. President Félix Tshisekedi’s government, under domestic pressure, is forced to accept a lopsided deal or risk diplomatic isolation. Sovereignty, once again, becomes the price of admission to the international stage.
This configuration is not new. Colonial history repeats itself, simply dressed in new vocabulary: development, regional security, economic cooperation. But behind these words, extractive logics endure. U.S. intervention in Kivu fits into a long history of powers using African violence as leverage for presence — never as a tragedy to be truly resolved.
The Washington agreement reveals that, in Africa, peace is not a goal in itself; it is a precondition for exploitation. Peace negotiated not for people, but for markets. That is precisely what makes it an illusion.
A LOPSIDED AGREEMENT: KINSHASA HUMILIATED, KIGALI STRENGTHENED
The document signed on June 27 in Washington quietly confirms a difficult truth for defenders of Congolese sovereignty: Rwanda emerged as the winner in the negotiation. Behind the handshakes, smiles, and polished statements, the agreement exposes an asymmetrical power dynamic in which Kinshasa appears to have conceded far more than it gained.
The first clue lies in the very wording of the text. It highlights the need to “neutralize the FDLR” (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), a Hutu rebel group based in Congolese territory and hostile to Kigali. Rwanda has long branded the FDLR as a security threat to justify its military incursions into eastern Congo. The agreement thus implicitly validates Rwanda’s right of pursuit — under the pretext of self-defense. In short, Kagame gains international approval to maintain military pressure in Kivu.
Conversely, the M23 is never explicitly mentioned in connection with Rwanda. This rebel group — directly supported by Kigali, according to UN reports — is reframed as a “Congolese issue.” This diplomatic sleight of hand erases Rwanda’s responsibility in Congo’s destabilization and repositions the conflict as a strictly internal affair. It is a major strategic victory for Kagame — and a silent humiliation for Tshisekedi.
Parallel negotiations in Doha, where Qatar plays a growing role as regional mediator, follow the same line: talks are held with M23 without formally implicating Rwanda. As if militias had taken over Goma and Bukavu by spontaneous generation. As if the history of arms, funding, and complicity could be erased with a few carefully chosen words.
This silence carries consequences. By absolving Kigali of ties to M23, the agreement grants Rwanda dual legitimacy — as a victim (of the FDLR) and as a mediator (in the peace process). The perpetrator becomes the judge. The accused becomes the savior. At this point, the Washington agreement veers into dangerous political fiction.
As for Kinshasa, its maneuvering room is virtually nonexistent. The Congolese state — already weakened militarily, diplomatically, and institutionally — is expected to implement an agreement that ignores on-the-ground realities and even forces it to negotiate from a position of weakness with groups occupying its own cities. Goma and Bukavu, two provincial capitals, are effectively run by rebels. Yet Kinshasa is asked to show “flexibility,” “political will,” “maturity.”
Ultimately, the agreement rewrites the narrative: Congo is made responsible for its own fragmentation, while Rwanda is portrayed as a stabilizing force. This reversal is not only unjust — it is deeply dangerous. It legitimizes impunity, encourages interference, and perpetuates the idea that Central Africa is a territory to be administered, not respected.
TOWARDS VARIABLE GEOMETRY SOVEREIGNTY?
The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the largest countries in the world. Blessed with an immeasurable wealth of natural resources, it should be a pillar of continental power. Yet the image that emerges from this agreement is one of a weakened state — diplomatically sidelined and militarily surrounded. Facing Rwanda, facing rebel groups, facing the United States — Congolese sovereignty appears today more symbolic than real.
This paradox isn’t new: postcolonial Africa proclaims its independence but struggles to exercise the fundamentals of sovereignty. Sovereignty — understood as a state’s ability to determine its own strategic, security, and economic choices — here becomes variable. It is invoked in speeches, but diluted in actions. Through repeated concessions, diplomatic dependencies, and short-term calculations, a façade of sovereignty emerges: decorative, not directive.
Yet Africa’s youth continues to call for a reckoning. In the streets, on social media, through pan-Africanist movements, the word “sovereignty” has become a rallying cry — a cry against foreign military bases, exploitative economic agreements, and a diplomacy hijacked by foreign powers deciding African futures off-continent. But that cry runs into the wall of realpolitik.
Why? Because Africa continues to speak in fragmented voices. In response to the Washington agreement, neither the African Union, nor SADC, nor CIRGL managed (or dared) to impose a united front. Angola, Togo, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda — each a potential actor, each with diverging agendas. The continent fails to act as a unified player on its own vital issues. Into that breach step external powers.
This vacuum of regional leadership creates an open field for non-African powers. Without strong African counterweights, negotiations are held where the resources are decided: in Doha, Washington, Brussels. And each time, the same logic applies — negotiate peace without addressing the root causes of conflict, without acknowledging historical responsibilities, without ensuring the autonomy of the people concerned.
In this theater of the absurd, African sovereignty becomes a variable to be adjusted. It is exercised when convenient for the powerful, and silenced when it threatens their interests. In Kinshasa, President Tshisekedi may speak of national dignity in his speeches — but in practice, the DRC has been asked to accept a deal crafted elsewhere, for objectives beyond its control.
This reality does not concern Congo alone. It questions the very structure of Africa’s political order. Can we still speak of sovereignty without military strength, economic autonomy, or diplomatic unity? Or must we invent new forms of sovereignty — rooted in regional integration, popular resistance, and a rupture from the logics inherited from the colonial pact?
These are the questions raised — between the lines — by the Washington agreement. And as long as they remain unanswered, Africa will remain a continent at peace… on condition that it remains obedient.
DOHA, THE NEW TROPICAL CROWN?
While the world’s attention was focused on the agreement signed in Washington, another diplomatic scene played out — quieter, more discreet, but just as decisive: Doha, capital of Qatar. It is here, between the Gulf’s skyscrapers and the emirate’s gilded salons, that the so-called “complementary” negotiations between Kinshasa and the rebel M23 group are taking place. And in this parallel diplomacy, another actor is weaving its web: Qatar, which in just a few years has become a key middleman in African conflicts.
This growing role is no coincidence. Doha is methodically investing in international mediation — not out of philanthropy, but to bolster its stature as a nimble global power at the crossroads of the Arab, African, and Western worlds. After Darfur, Mali, Libya, and even Afghanistan, Congo is the latest act in Qatar’s soft power strategy, built on silent influence, religious networks, and targeted funding.
Qatar’s involvement in the Congolese file reveals the fragmentation of the peace process. Washington handles the states. Doha handles the militias. Africa watches, divided. The White House agreement says nothing about the territories occupied by M23, nothing about the thousands of displaced civilians, nothing about the atrocities committed. A second text is therefore needed — more technical, more flexible, but especially more opaque. And it’s in Doha that it is to be drafted.
Here again, the power dynamics do not favor Kinshasa. According to multiple observers, the M23 is now in a position of unprecedented strength. It controls vast areas, governs entire cities like Goma and Bukavu, collects taxes, recruits, and becomes entrenched. The movement is no longer just a guerrilla — it is a de facto authority that international diplomats now seem ready to tacitly recognize as a legitimate interlocutor. Doha thus becomes the stage for a negotiation not between a state and war criminals, but between two competing powers.
The diplomatic silence around Rwanda’s support for M23 only reinforces this shift. Despite repeated UN documentation of Kigali’s involvement, there has been no sanction, no formal condemnation. Worse still: in Doha’s diplomatic circles, the narrative is clear — Rwanda is a stabilizing actor, M23 is a consequence, and Kinshasa is too unstable to be trusted as the sole decision-maker.
Behind Doha’s luxury, a new map of African legitimacy is being drawn — one where armed groups, backed by states and validated by foreign powers, impose their presence without any democratic process. A peace without justice. A peace without memory. A peace that asks the Congolese people to forgive without identifying their executioners.
Qatar’s role in all this is not trivial. It positions itself as Central Africa’s new indispensable mediator — not to restore peace, but to become its unofficial manager. A contracted peace. An outsourced peace.
And so the African continent becomes a subcontracted diplomatic arena: the U.S. directs the theater of nations, Qatar referees the armed conflicts, and Africans are left to negotiate their future without control over the set or the script.
CAN THERE BE PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE?
A peace agreement is not just a diplomatic document. It should be a moral commitment to victims, a recognition of suffering, and a genuine break from predatory logic. Yet the June 27 accord between Rwanda and the DRC (as negotiated and presented) bypasses this essential demand: justice.
Not a single line mentions the civilians massacred in Kishishe.
No reference to the children forcibly conscripted into militias in North Kivu.
No acknowledgment of the women raped in territories occupied by M23.
No clear attribution of responsibility. Just a vague, non-binding promise of military withdrawal.
How can one speak of peace when criminals are excused by omission, victims ignored, and aggressors rewarded with positions or concessions? African history is filled with such agreements: hastily celebrated, quickly broken, always at odds with popular memory. Peace without justice is merely a truce. It is not reconciliation.
What’s at stake goes beyond the Congo. It’s about African dignity. A continent cannot continue making peace in foreign capitals, on terms dictated by powers whose interests are often divergent — if not hostile — to African emancipation. True peace is not built on imposed power relations, but on truth-based foundations.
Without justice, there is no collective memory.
Without memory, there can be no healing.
And without healing, there is only repetition.
War will return — perhaps under a different name, with different actors — but it will return, because the roots of the conflict haven’t been removed, only disguised.
So the central question becomes:
Must we accept any peace, at any cost?
Should we normalize the recognition of militias as political entities?
Should Congolese people, once again, be made to bow in the name of a regional balance that excludes them?
This is not merely a strategic error — it is a historic betrayal. And it is not committed solely by foreign powers. It is enabled by African elites themselves, who too often choose international approval over local justice. Paul Kagame and Félix Tshisekedi had the opportunity to write a new chapter of dignity for Central Africa. Instead, they chose a photo-op in the Oval Office.
Peace is not declared in Washington or Doha. It is built on the ground that bleeds, with the people who mourn, and in respect for those who resist. As long as that truth is ignored, as long as sovereignty is a hollow word, as long as African powers yield to external dictates, peace will remain a mirage — a soulless geopolitical arrangement, a diplomatic lie resting on the backs of a people who have suffered enough.
So no — peace cannot exist without justice. And without justice, there will be no peace.
SOURCES
- Nzongola-Ntalaja, Georges. The Congo: From Leopold to Kabila – A People’s History, Zed Books, 2002.
- United Nations Group of Experts on the DRC. Final Report, United Nations Security Council, 2022–2024.
Table of Contents
- A PEACE SIGNED ABROAD
- AMERICA ISN’T INTERESTED IN PEACE — BUT IN COLTAN
- A LOPSIDED AGREEMENT: KINSHASA HUMILIATED, KIGALI STRENGTHENED
- TOWARDS VARIABLE GEOMETRY SOVEREIGNTY?
- DOHA, THE NEW TROPICAL CROWN?
- CAN THERE BE PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE?
- SOURCES
