Trump to Host Rwanda–DRC Presidents for Monumental White House Signing of a Long-Awaited Peace Accord
The White House has revealed that U.S. President Donald Trump will welcome the heads of state from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Thursday for a high-stakes diplomatic gathering. According to spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and DRC’s President Félix Tshisekedi are expected to endorse a “landmark peace and economic accord orchestrated” by Trump.
This milestone meeting follows months of negotiations that began after the foreign ministers of both African nations endorsed an initial peace and trade arrangement during a White House ceremony in June. Subsequent deliberations took the parties to Qatar, where in November they formalised a framework aimed at bringing an end to decades of unrest.
For more than ten years, M23 rebels have waged war against the DRC government in North Kivu, a conflict deeply rooted in the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The group—one of nearly a hundred armed factions operating in eastern Congo—consists largely of ethnic Tutsis who were historically targeted by Hutu extremists in Rwanda.
The insurgents re-emerged in 2021, allegedly bolstered by support from Rwanda—a claim Kigali has consistently rejected. Rwandan authorities insist their forces have intervened only in self-defence against the Congolese military and hostile Hutu militias along the volatile border.
The violence has claimed thousands of lives, many of them civilians, and intensified sharply earlier this year when M23 fighters captured two of the DRC’s major urban centres. Sporadic clashes have persisted despite ongoing ceasefire discussions. In July, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that at least 319 civilians were killed in North Kivu by “M23 combatants, with assistance from elements of the Rwanda Defence Force,” shortly after the initial Washington agreement.
During talks in Doha, both parties endorsed two of eight proposed implementation protocols—one establishing mechanisms for monitoring the ceasefire and another outlining procedures for prisoner exchanges.
However, several crucial components remained unsettled, including timelines for the return of displaced communities, detailed plans for humanitarian support, and broader commitments such as reasserting state governance, conducting economic reforms, integrating armed factions into public institutions, and dismantling foreign militant groups.
A spokesperson for the Congolese presidency told the Associated Press in November that any final pact must safeguard the nation’s “territorial sovereignty.”
Although many questions remain unresolved, Trump has repeatedly portrayed this mediation effort as one of multiple global conflicts he claims to have helped de-escalate since assuming office in January.
Source: Araba Sey
