Pressure is mounting on Southern African Development Community (Sadc) leaders to decide whether to withdraw forces from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) amid a diplomatic row between Rwanda and SA over a surge in fighting in the central African country.
In an extraordinary meeting summit in Harare, Zimbabwe, on Friday, the leaders will receive a report from the organisation’s troika and determine the next steps of Southern African Development Community Mission in the DRC, according to department of defence spokesperson Onnica Moloi.
Clashes with M23 rebels in Goma in the east of the DRC led to heavy losses, including the deaths of SA, Tanzanian and Malawian troops. President Cyril Ramaphosa has laid the blame for the deaths of 13 SA soldiers on M23 and the Rwanda Defence Force. Any decision to withdraw SA troops lies with Sadc because the troops were deployed as part of a region-wide mission.
International pressure is increasing on Rwanda over its alleged support for the M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a claim President Paul Kagame denies.
The DRC, UN officials and countries including the US claim Rwanda is escalating the conflict by sending thousands of troops and artillery into Congo to support the rebel group.
The conflict in that country has resulted in simmering tension between SA and Rwanda for years and first erupted in 2012 when the M23 took Goma for the first time. That prompted the two countries to recall their ambassadors and led to difficulties in obtaining visas for Rwandan citizens travelling to SA.
Though the two countries have moved to mend relations — Ramaphosa visited Rwanda in 2024 — the latest fighting in DRC and subsequent war of words is likely to put renewed strain on relations.
“We are not going to respond publicly. We shouldn’t be escalating the war of words while we are trying to broker a diplomatic solution to the conflict,” a source in Ramaphosa’s office told Business Day.
The SA soldiers are part of both a UN peacekeeping mission, known as Monusco, and the Southern African Development Community Mission in the DRC.
In a message posted on X in response to Ramaphosa demanding the withdrawal of M23 and Rwanda Defence Force troops from the region, Kagame accused Pretoria of siding with the DRC in the conflict. He added that the Southern African Development Community Mission in the DRC members “are not troops who came on a peacekeeping mission and are instead assisting the DRC government fight its own people”.
Ramaphosa and Kagame have held two phone conversations in the past five days to discuss the matter.
“What has been said about these conversations in the media by SA officials and President Ramaphosa himself contains a lot of distortion, deliberate attacks and even lies. If words can change so much from a conversation to a public statement, it says a lot about how these very important issues are being managed,” Kagame said.
Defence and security analyst Dean Wingin said peace in the region, and especially the DRC, was in SA’s best interests given that the country was a big trading partner, mainly in the mining industry and the importation of minerals.
“Rwanda has strategic interests in acquiring the mineral rich areas of the eastern DRC ... M23 is trained, supported, equipped by Rwanda, with elements of the Rwandan Defence Force in the DRC. The East African Community Regional Force (comprising troops from Burundi, Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda) were asked by the DRC to leave at the end of 2023, to be replaced by the Sadc,” Wingin said.
“There are multitudes of armed groups and the DRC is not innocent either. The DRC hosts groups such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, Allied Democratic Forces (which is opposed to Uganda), the Lord’s Resistance Army (fighting Uganda), National Forces of Liberation (against Burundi) and so on. Many of these groups have informally joined the Congolese army against M23, together with the Wazaklendo (informal armed groups),” he said.
Update: January 30 2025
This story contains additional information throughout
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