Doha hosted the first face-to-face meeting in years between Kagame and Tshisekedi in March, when the two leaders, alongside Qatar’s emir, called for an “immediate ceasefire” in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has said it was Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi – not Rwanda – who pushed to shift negotiations on the war in eastern Congo from African-led platforms to mediation in Qatar and the United States, rejecting criticism that Kigali abandoned regional peace efforts.
In an interview with Al Jazeera in Washington ahead of the signing of a new U.S.- and Qatar-backed accord with Congo, Kagame said Tshisekedi personally requested both the Doha talks and the more recent U.S.-brokered process.
Rwanda, has argued, was wrongly blamed by other African leaders for “leaving” the Nairobi and Luanda tracks.
Kagame said the direct talks in Qatar “came following my meeting with President Tshisekedi in Doha, by the way, on his own request, even with the U.S., it was his own request.”
Kagame emphasised that other African countries “were blaming Rwanda… but it was the very man, Tshisekedi… who actually initiated that.”
Doha hosted the first face-to-face meeting in years between Kagame and Tshisekedi in March, when the two leaders, alongside Qatar’s emir, called for an “immediate ceasefire” in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and opened a Qatar-mediated framework that was later endorsed by the African Union as complementary to African mechanisms.
Those efforts followed earlier African-led initiatives – notably the East African Community’s Nairobi Process and the Angola-brokered Luanda roadmap – which sought to end fighting between Congo’s army and the M23 rebellion but struggled amid ceasefire violations, mutual accusations and regional rivalries.
Kagame accused his Congolese counterpart of hoping to use the Doha and Washington tracks to tilt diplomacy in Kinshasa’s favour.
Tshisekedi, he said, believes Congo is “too great, too big, that the whole world is interested in having a portion of what they possess” and therefore thought he could “manipulate either the process in Qatar or the process in Washington, D.C., in his favour” by courting external backers.
M23
Rwanda has long denied U.N. and Western findings that it backs the M23 rebels, saying its security posture is defensive and focused on neutralising the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed group with roots in the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide.
Congo, in turn, accuses Kigali of sponsoring M23 to gain leverage over its vast mineral wealth and has demanded a full withdrawal of Rwandan forces from its territory.
The latest Washington accords – building on a June peace agreement signed in the U.S. capital under American auspices – commit Rwanda and Congo to halt support to armed groups, work towards a durable ceasefire and implement plans for the neutralisation of the FDLR, while tying security progress to economic cooperation and regional infrastructure projects.
Qatar, which helped mediate the Doha framework, joined the Dec. 4 signing ceremony as a key partner.
Kagame said Rwanda joined both the Doha and Washington tracks in good faith, telling mediators “what we thought were the facts and the fundamental issues that must be addressed if we are to look at the root causes” of the conflict, and welcomed Qatar’s role as an energetic mediator “in many other places” beyond Central Africa.
Asked whether he trusted Tshisekedi to implement the new commitments, Kagame was cautious, noting that Congo had, in the past, signed agreements “including with ourselves, and the next day after agreeing, they are saying the opposite.”
Still, he described the Washington deal and the associated Doha understandings as “first things first” – an initial step in a longer and uncertain process where “the devil is in the details.”
“I hope that both Qatar and the United States will continue to accompany this process and see what is happening for what it is,” Kagame said, adding that Kigali expected mediators to call out either side if it backtracks.
On the ground, however, fighting between M23 and Congo’s army and allied militias has continued despite the flurry of diplomacy, underscoring how fragile the latest bid to end one of the world’s deadliest conflicts remains.
