11th Eastern DRC Peace Summit: 'The agreement must be revitalised', participants urge

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (L) and Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye, (R) at the summit on eastern DRC, in Bujumbura, May 6, 2023. AFP - TCHANDROU NITANGA

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In Burundi, the 11th follow-up summit of the Addis Ababa Agreement for peace in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo ended in the late afternoon. A meeting marked by the presence of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, African Union President Moussa Faki and the presidents of Burundi, Congo, South Africa and Uganda, but without Rwanda's Paul Kagame and Kenya's William Ruto. The watchword of this meeting: to relaunch this agreement, the results of which are not up to expectations.

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For once, it was with a consensus that this summit devoted to the follow-up to the framework agreement signed just 10 years ago in Addis Ababa began: "the results are mixed, the results remain modest," acknowledged the various participants. Nevertheless, no desire to bury this mechanism, "it must be revitalized", this was really the leitmotif of this meeting.

After the ceremony and public speeches, there were about three hours of closed-door exchanges and discussions were somewhat tense, especially between the Congolese president and the Rwandan minister. Kinshasa accuses Kigali of supporting the M23 movement, which for more than a year has taken up arms and conquered part of North Kivu province. These accusations are supported by several reports by United Nations experts.

"Cordial, but frank and direct" exchanges

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This meeting allowed the participants to compare their reading of the situation ", confides a UN official, during exchanges that he describes as "cordial, but frank and direct".

The final communiqué has not yet been issued. It has been adopted, we are told, by all parties and sets out a roadmap for re-evaluating this framework agreement. Several steps are planned with, to start, this month, a meeting under the leadership of the African Union, then a retreat with all political and diplomatic actors, but also researchers working on this issue. The goal? Have a report to submit to the next summit of the follow-up mechanism, which will probably take place in one year in 2024.

Thirteen countries of the region were represented and several heads of state made the trip such as the Congolese Félix Tshisekedi, the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, the Ugandan Yoweri Museveni or the Central African Faustin Archange Touadéra. This summit is being held in a context of "exacerbation of tensions" that contrasts with "the optimism that prevailed, some time ago, in the region," said Moussa Faki Mahamat, current chair of the African Union. The absence of two heads of state was nevertheless noteworthy, that of Rwandan Paul Kagame and Kenyan William Ruto, who heads the East African force deployed in eastern DRC. The latter is said to have been in cold weather with Kinshasa since the replacement of the Commander-in-Chief of this Force. Rwandan and Kenyan officials are in London for the coronation of Charles III.

READ ALSO: Burundi hosts summit on eastern DRC without key players such as Rwanda and Kenya

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