tensions<\/a> and violence, rooted in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.<\/p>\n\u201cThis moment has been long in coming. It will not erase the pain, but it can begin to restore what conflict has robbed many women, men and children of safety, dignity and a sense of future,\u201d said Congolese Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo now our work truly begins,\u201d she added at the signing, saying the agreement would have to be followed by \u201cdisengagement, justice, and the return of displaced families, and the return of refugees, both to the DRC and Rwanda\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose who have suffered the most are watching. They are expecting this agreement to be respected, and we cannot fail them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
M23 and FDLR<\/p>\n
Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe said that the agreement heralded a \u201cturning point\u201d.<\/p>\n
While Rwanda denies accusations it is backing M23, Kigali has demanded an end to another armed group in the DRC \u2013 the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) \u2013 which was established by Hutus linked to the killings of Tutsis in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.<\/p>\n
During the signing, he insisted on \u201can irreversible and verifiable end\u201d to the DRC\u2019s \u201csupport\u201d for the FDLR. The agreement calls for the \u201cneutralisation\u201d of the FDLR.<\/p>\n
Reporting from Goma, the capital of the DRC\u2019s North Kivu province, Al Jazeera\u2019s Alain Uaykani said the deal was a \u201cbig step\u201d, but there was \u201cconfusion\u201d on the ground over the absence of any mention of when the M23 rebels would withdraw.<\/p>\n
\u201cRwanda [is] always saying that they are not the ones who should ask M23 to leave, because this is a Congolese problem,\u201d he said, adding that the rebels were appointing governors and controlling airports in the DRC\u2019s provinces of North and South Kivu, whose capital cities they seized in January and February.<\/p>\n
Kinshasa, the United Nations and Western powers say Rwanda is supporting M23 by sending troops and arms.<\/p>\n
The deal does not explicitly address the gains of the M23 but calls for Rwanda to end \u201cdefensive measures\u201d it has taken. Rwanda has sent at least a few thousand soldiers over the border in support of M23, according to UN experts, analysts and diplomats.<\/p>\n
Critical minerals<\/p>\n
The DRC-Rwanda deal will also help the US government and American companies gain access to critical minerals like tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper and lithium needed for much of the world\u2019s technology at a time when the US and China are actively competing for influence in Africa.<\/p>\n
On Friday, US President Trump said, \u201cWe\u2019re getting, for the United States, a lot of the mineral rights from the Congo as part of it. They\u2019re so honoured to be here. They never thought they\u2019d be coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
The DRC sits on vast untapped reserves of mineral wealth, estimated to be worth around $24 trillion. It has said it is losing around $1bn worth of minerals in illegal trading facilitated by the war.<\/p>\n
The agreement was mediated through Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-American businessman and father-in-law of Trump\u2019s daughter Tiffany, who was appointed by the president as a senior advisor on Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an important moment after 30 years of war,\u201d said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who hosted the two foreign ministers at the Department of State in Washington for the signing of the agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about allowing people to live. It\u2019s about allowing people to now have dreams and hopes for a better life, for prosperity, for economic opportunity, for a family reunification, for all the things that make life worth living.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose things become impossible when there\u2019s war and when there\u2019s conflict,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Analysts<\/a> see the deal as a major turning point but do not believe it will quickly end the fighting that has killed millions of people since the 1990s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda have signed a peace deal in Washington, DC, to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7779,18296,113,18596,50,80,5201,67,72,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-19838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-armed-groups","10":"tag-conflict","11":"tag-democratic-republic-of-the-congo","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-rwanda","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-us-canada","17":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114756952118975025","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}