East African Community woes: Expanding bloc struggles to pacify members
East African Community (EAC) Chairman Salva Kiir (C), Secretary-General Peter Mathuki (3rd left), and other officials in Kigali, Rwanda where they met with President Paul Kagame on February 22, 2024. PHOTO | KAGAME FLICKR
What you need to know:
- The EAC Regional Force was deployed for a year before Kinshasa asked it to leave, accusing it of refusing to engage M23 rebels.
- EAC watchers are concerned that the recent exchange of bitter words between the presidents of Rwanda, DRC, and Burundi does not augur well for the community.
- Burundi cut relations and closed its border with Rwanda because Kigali is allegedly supporting the Red Tabara rebels.
- In Eastern DRC, there are more than 120 militias, each controlling an economic interest.
Leaders of the African Union (AU) ended their annual summit in Addis Ababa last week without succeeding in ending the wars in East Africa, especially the deadly one in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which the continental body admits could stall its agenda.
But then the AU said something else that pointed to the factors at play in the Congo: While it vouches for a “reasonable pathway” to resolve differences that have led to the war, there are significant external forces fuelling the violence.
“The chairperson of the AU Commission (Moussa Faki Mahamat) repeats forcefully that there will not be any military solution to problems and disagreements within the African family.”
He calls upon all foreign powers to completely abstain from all interference in the internal affairs of all African countries, notably those of the Great Lakes Region,” said a statement from the AU Commission.
Mr Faki was referring to the tension between Rwanda and the DRC, who accuse each other of fomenting rebellion against their administrations, and hence the indirect involvement in the Congo conflict.
For the past 30 years, the conflict in Eastern DRC has evolved, pitting different players with similar grievances, but which has also fronted an arena for foreign entities to play in it.
The recent escalation in the violence has cast the spotlight on the East African Community (EAC), especially its apparent inability to get the protagonists to the table and institute a permanent ceasefire.
It has not helped that EAC partners, DRC, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda are involved in one way or another, and both Kinshasa and Gitega have severed diplomatic relations with Kigali over its alleged involvement in the crises within their borders. The bickering has gone on without a reprimand from the EAC.
So, it was rather late when the EAC leaders, Summit chair, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir, and Secretary-General Peter Mathuki on Thursday started a whirlwind tour of the Great Lakes region, starting in Rwanda to, according to a dispatch, discuss regional peace and security.
“The goal is to get leaders to discuss ways of ending growing tensions among EAC member states,” South Sudan’s presidency said.
Dr Mathuki, while in Kigali, said that Presidents Kiir and Kagame called for the support of the EAC-led Nairobi Process and the Luanda Process, “to avert the unfolding dire security situation in eastern DRC, which risks spill over into neighboring partner states.”
The EAC leaders also met with Burundi President Evariste Ndayishimiye and DRC’s Felix Tshisekedi in efforts to find a common ground to defuse the tensions in the region.
South Sudan, already facing internal troubles, took over the EAC chair last November, its biggest test yet on regional integration.
President Kiir hadn’t spoken on the Congo war, but his country was among those who deployed troops under East African Community Regional Force. The outcome of the visit was not clear by press time.
The African Union suggests that external entities have made a solution difficult to find.
Ngovi Kitau, a retired Kenyan diplomat, said those external interests attach themselves to various local players because the DRC is rich in resources needed abroad.
He cited the Lobito Corridor linking DRC, Zambia and Angola being built with assistance from the US and the African Development Bank to help trade among these countries from the mineral belts to Angola, from where they will be shipped.
This is not interference per se, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken himself has been vocal about ceasefire and visited DRC and Angola and phoned regional leaders about the need to stop the war. Yet this could still have soft power connotations.
“This interference will attract the wrath of China and Russia, who have also invested heavily. Russia will release the newly rebranded Wagner Group (Expeditionary Corps),” Kitau, a former ambassador to South Korea, warned on Thursday.
“So far, for DRC, the problem is external, a fight over natural resources.”
At a virtual press briefing on Wednesday, the US said it was “committed to the idea and the principle that there is no military solution to the crisis in eastern DRC.”
Molly Phee, US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs, said she had discussed the Congo conflict with leaders on the margins of the African Union Summit last week and offered to help.
“What I took away from our meetings in Addis about this discussion – and, as you heard, we talked with the leadership of Angola and Kenya and Zambia, as well as President Tshisekedi -- we understand that everyone is ready to do their part to try and reduce tensions, fighting, and provide relief to the people of Eastern DRC, who have suffered so much and for so long.
So, again, we are trying to provide our unique resources and capabilities in monitoring actions in that part of the world to contribute towards confidence and legitimacy processes to resolve the tensions,” she said.
Many Congolese point a finger at the enduring bad cycle of foreign military interventions that haven’t helped. The UN Mission, known as Monusco, is beginning its exit, having been around in different names for the past two decades.
The EAC Regional Force was deployed for a year before Kinshasa asked it to leave, accusing it of refusing to engage M23 rebels. From last month, troops from Tanzania, Malawi, Burundi and South Africa reported under the Southern Africa Development Community Mission in the DRC.
When they asked for support from Monusco, Rwanda opposed the idea, warning that it could expose the mission as taking sides. But we understand the US, which also opposed UN funding for EACRF, is against pumping money into a mission whose goal may not be met and has no guarantees of protecting civilians.
The geopolitical push-and-pull also means the EAC has struggled to pacify the region.
Mr Kitau told The EastAfrican that the problem is not the EAC as an organisation, but its members.
“There are two reasons why it is not happening: One is destabilisers in each country. There are those who benefit from the conflicts in DRC, South Sudan, Somalia, etc. Then we have the external beneficiaries -- US, Russia… These conflicts give them an easy option to steal,” he said.
Yet, even within the EAC, Rwanda’s tiff with Burundi and the DRC means there is little possibility of open channels of communication.
There are fears that armies of four partner states could face off after the deployment of the SADC force in eastern DRC. Tanzania, Burundi and DRC belong to the two blocs.
SADC has deployed 2,900 troops from Malawi, South Africa, and Tanzania to work with the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC). This could pit Tanzania and DRC against Rwanda, which has continuously denied Kinshasa, UN and US claims of supporting M23.
EAC watchers are concerned that the recent exchange of bitter words between the presidents of Rwanda, DRC, and Burundi does not augur well for the community. It also reflects the pitfalls of belonging to multiple overlapping blocs.
“The EAC needs to do more and ramp up its efforts in solving conflicts among member states.
The EAC foray into conflict resolution has run into headwinds, compared to its economic integration agenda,” argued Nasong’o Muliro, a foreign policy and security specialist at the Global Centre for Policy and Strategy in Nairobi.
According to him, security today is a relevant need for countries seeking trade, which means that the EAC must start focusing on peace, stability and security as relevant pillars of economics.
“The challenge is that several members of EAC have multiple membership to regional organisations, thus affecting their commitments to the EAC. Tanzania adopted a quiet neutrality when EAC, which is headquartered in Arusha, deployed in DRC, but it has become very active when SADC deployed.
“DRC itself oscillates between experiments with EAC peace initiatives and SADC interventions. So, we have the Nairobi Process and the Luanda one.”
Before the escalation of the war in the east, President Tshisekedi declared that he was ready to go to war with Rwanda. His Rwandan counterpart responded by saying he knows about war more than anyone and could teach warmongers a lesson.
Burundi, on the other hand, cut relations and closed its border with Rwanda because Kigali is allegedly supporting the Red Tabara rebels.
Burundi’s Interior Minister Martin Niteretse described President Kagame as a “bad neighbour harbouring criminals, who are destabilising Burundi.” Kigali rejected the allegations.
All these could point to a possible implosion within EAC based on personality and ideological clashes, as the community is at the cusp of a vicious fallout as dynamics shift due to the rapid expansion that has imported some of the bilateral differences into the bloc.
David Monda, professor of political science at City University of New York, told The EastAfrican, that EAC’s inability to deal with regional conflicts is political, economic and historical.
“Rwanda and Uganda have been involved in the politics of overthrowing (DRC’s then President) Mobutu Sese Seko through the first and second Congo wars. The first removed Mobutu and installed Kabila with the backing of both Rwanda and Uganda. In the second Congo war, Rwanda and Uganda could not agree on a unified force to remove Kabila from power, as he became more assertive and rejected dictates from Kigali and Kampala. Kabila also got significant aid from Namibia, Zimbabwe Zambia and Angola,” Prof Monda explained.
In Eastern DRC, there are more than 120 militias, each controlling an economic interest.
“These militias are invested in the manufacture of violence to continue to benefit from the extraction of rare minerals, cobalt, coltan and gold from the region that are then exported through Uganda and Rwanda abroad.
The militias such as the M23 are also supported by foreign actors. In the case of the M23, they act as a buffer to protect Rwanda from another militia, the FDLR. The FDLR is comprised of radical genocidaires responsible for the 1994 massacres in Rwanda and hope to one-day return to topple Kagame. It is therefore in Rwanda’s strategic and economic interests to continue supporting the M23.”
And though regional leaders, especially in Kenya and Angola, have been pushing for dialogue, Prof Monda says that also created opportunity to complicate demands, besides creating confusion on which bloc is leading the peace bid.
There is also a historical bit. Congolese Tutsis (Banyamulenge), he argues, have a historical axe to grind with Kinshasa over perceived marginalisation.
This group also suffers threats from the FDLR.
“Historical ethnic competition between tribes in the area over land, forest, mineral and water resources has worsened the situation. So, it’s a very fluid and complicated situation that is not made any easier by the removal of UN peacekeepers and the size of the DRC,” he said.
