On Friday, June 27, in Washington, D.C., the foreign ministers of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda are set to sign the Critical Minerals for Security and Peace Deal, a United States–brokered agreement aimed at calming tensions in a region affected by violence and exploitation. Framed as a landmark accord to reduce tensions and stabilize the eastern DRC, the agreement is the product of months of quiet diplomacy led by Massad Boulos, the U.S. special adviser for Africa. Its objective is to facilitate cooperation over the extraction and trade of rare earth minerals in exchange for security to offset China’s dominance in this sector.
Initiated by Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi, this agreement comes amid renewed insecurity caused by the resurgence of the March 23 Movement (M23) militia, which since 2022 has seized significant territory in North and South Kivu provinces, including strategic cities such as Goma and Bukavu. These provinces are not only home to millions of civilians but also hold some of the world’s richest deposits of rare earth minerals—essential for everything from electric vehicles to smartphones.
Yet, for all its diplomatic fanfare, the deal rests on shaky foundations. While mineral wealth is a driver of the conflict, it is not the root cause of the violence. For decades, violence in the eastern DRC has been fueled by a combination of regional power struggles, historical grievances, poor governance, land and citizenship disputes, and competition for resources.
Both President Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, will be conspicuously absent from the signing ceremony. The two leaders will meet with President Donald Trump at a later date.
The Shadow of M23, Rwanda’s Militias, and Rwanda’s Shaggy Diplomacy
Rwanda’s long-standing support for armed groups in the region—including the Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie (RCD), Congrès national pour la défense du peuple (CNDP), and now the second iteration of M23—has contributed to a proliferation of armed groups. According to a 2023 UN Group of Experts report, Rwanda has provided direct military support to M23, including troops and weapons, despite repeated denials from Kigali. These actions have further destabilized border regions and inflamed tensions with and within Kinyarwanda-speaking communities in the DRC, some of whom are accused of loyalty to Rwanda and denied citizenship rights, deepening the cycle of marginalization and rebellion. Caught between regional ambitions of Rwanda, which has co-opted them as an extension of its grand vision, and compatriots who question their citizenship and patriotism, Congolese Kinyarwanda-speakers are the biggest losers of the conflict.
In 2020, while addressing a diaspora meeting in London, United Kingdom, Tshisekedi declared unequivocally that Banyamulenge, who hail from a Kinyarwanda-speaking community from South Kivu, were Congolese. He was jeered but stayed firm and called for unity and fellowship between Congolese and cited the example of his own Luba-Kasai community that suffered ethnic cleansing in Katanga in the 1990s and early 2000s. The issue of citizenship should have been resolved permanently.
Rwanda has consistently missed key opportunities to make lasting and sustainable peace with the DRC, often choosing strategic ambiguity and proxy warfare over direct diplomacy. President Paul Kagame is the Great Lakes region’s second most senior leader and one of Africa’s eight long-serving presidents. He wields a great influence, captures the attention of prominent global leaders, and is frequently acknowledged in high-profile venues, including the World Economic Forum. Under Kagame’s leadership, Rwanda has shown great strategic thinking and engagement that has served the country well diplomatically and economically in far-flung corners of the world, from Haiti and the Central African Republic to Mozambique.
However, over the past 30 years, Rwanda has failed to translate that same strategic thinking and engagement to the DRC. Instead, Rwanda’s approach to the DRC seems to be driven by an obsession and a spirit of revenge over historical grievances, including the DRC’s (then Zaire’s) military operation against the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in the 1990s. These military interventions under the late General Mahele Lieko inflicted great losses on the RPF elements and delayed their advance on Kigali. In Kigali, where ambitions of grandeur rule, size matters, and some leaders dream of a bigger Rwanda, which fuels an irredentist school of thought that envisions the country’s borders extending into the DRC, Uganda, and Burundi.
While Rwanda has made peace with France despite grievances dating back to the 1990s, which include the genocide, it has been unable to do so with the DRC, a country whose populations share closer cultural, historical, and economic ties with Rwandans.
Except for the case against Kivu-based Rwandan rebels of the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda, who espouse an anti-Tutsi ideology and seek to overthrow the Rwandan government, over time, arguments for Rwanda’s military interventions in the DRC have become incoherent, and the operations counterproductive. It is time to end the DRC differently and give peace a chance.
In 2022, the year that the M23 reemerged, the DRC was Rwanda’s largest trading partner for exports, with a $734.7 million trade balance. Rwanda has maintained a trade surplus with the DRC over the past two decades. Border crossing posts between the two countries in Goma and Gisenyi are among the world’s busiest, and Rwandan and Congolese border agents work side by side in the same building. However, Rwanda has not shown the same leadership and strategic thinking in the DRC as it has elsewhere. Instead, Rwanda chooses to antagonize its partners, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, over its support of armed groups in the DRC. Kigali has done so through a diplomacy of denial that echoes the lyrics of the famous song “It Wasn’t Me” by Jamaican American musician Shaggy. The mantra is simple: deny, deny, deny. As an Israeli diplomat shared with the author, “It is hard to negotiate peace when one party denies everything.”
This Shaggy diplomacy may serve Rwanda’s interests in the short term and has bought the country time as it has effectively emasculated international institutions that could help resolve the problem, including the United Nations and regional organizations. The consequence is a 30-year conflict that threatens Rwanda’s security, spawns a deepening humanitarian crisis, and the erosion of trust between populations on both sides of the border.
Despite Rwanda’s economic gains, its involvement in DRC affairs has undercut its international image and led to strained regional relations.
The DRC’s Political Undercurrents and Joseph Kabila’s Ghost
Compounding insecurity is the fragmented nature of DRC politics. One may argue that the DRC’s political class is the main driver of the instability and insecurity that grip and stifle the emergence of a functioning DRC capable of regional leadership. The DRC’s political landscape is not shaped by ideologies or economic programs, but rather by the interests of self-absorbed career politicians who have lived off the state for years, reinventing themselves to fit the needs of successive regimes.
These politicians often equate informal agreements with constitutional authority and join rebellions when they do not get their way. So long as the conflict makes them relevant, it serves as a potential leverage for negotiation for the next appointment in the government, a seat in parliament, a parastatal organization, or an ambassadorship. This political class sees itself either as above the state or as the state.
Consider the case of Corneille Nangaa, the former chief of the DRC’s Independent National Electoral Commission. He ran the controversial 2018 elections that brought Félix Tshisekedi to power. He never published polling station tallies but insisted that Tshisekedi had won convincingly amidst the push-back from civil society organizations, including the Catholic Church and election observation missions. He now says that Tshisekedi became president through a republican deal with incumbent Joseph Kabila. He accuses Tshisekedi of reneging on the deal. For the Congolese people, however, the vote is the only binding deal.
In 2019, the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned Nangaa over his mismanagement of the elections and corruption.
Today, Nangaa is chair of the Alliance Fleuve Congo politico-military rebel organization that includes the M23. He has recanted his previous validation of Tshisekedi’s 2018 election win, casting doubt on the legitimacy of the current government. He claims to have joined the rebellion to fix the mess he created and end what he calls the Tshisekedi dictatorship.
Tshisekedi, who has faced strong criticism and great public discontent over his leadership, poor governance across the country, ethnic favoritism allegations, and recurrent financial scandals involving his associates, was reelected in 2023.
Former President Joseph Kabila, who ruled the country for 18 years, is another case study. The constitution makes him a lifelong senator and an elder statesman. Kabila—who once celebrated the peaceful transfer of power to Tshisekedi as a historic moment after he refused to step down as mandated by the constitution and overstayed his second term for two years—now backs the M23’s grievances, fueling suspicions of his ambitions to reclaim power. Kabila’s ongoing political ambitions injected another layer of uncertainty into Kinshasa’s stability. In May 2025, the Senate conducted a secret ballot with an outcome of 88 votes to 5 and removed Kabila’s immunity amidst accusations of treason, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
Political opportunism undermines national unity and subordinates the Congolese population to elite rivalries at a great cost to the country.
For President Félix Tshisekedi, the minerals deal is a bold strategy and appears to be a desperate move to regain control amid an escalating M23 crisis. Experts and citizens alike, however, view Tshisekedi’s overture to the United States with skepticism, given the opacity around the deal.
A Deal Driven by Minerals, Not Justice
While the Critical Minerals for Security and Peace Deal promises access to vital resources like cobalt and tantalum for global supply chains—particularly for the United States—it risks reducing peace to a transactional exchange. Minerals are only one driver of conflict. Ethnic tensions, land disputes, and unresolved citizenship claims—especially concerning Kinyarwanda-speaking communities whose legal status in the DRC remains mired in confusion—are deeply embedded in the region’s crisis.
A key issue often overlooked is the fate of Congolese refugees in neighboring countries, many of whom have lived in exile for decades. Their return should be central to any peace process. But such a return should be initiated and monitored by the UN High Commission for Refugees in consultation with the DRC government.
The deal has sidelined justice mechanisms such as truth, reconciliation, and reparations—instruments that have been pivotal in post-conflict recovery in Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and South Africa.
These initiatives, supported by international partners, have demonstrated that peace is impossible without justice.
To that end, the United States and its allies must support a robust legal and reconciliation framework, including reparations for victims, disarmament and reintegration programs, and accountability for war crimes. Without these elements, the deal risks being another in a long line of unfulfilled promises.
The Role of the United States and the Fragility of Commitment
The Washington deal builds on the Luanda and Doha processes. President Donald Trump has supported and touted it as “a significant step for peace and prosperity in Africa.” Trump’s statement emphasized the economic and strategic stakes in stabilizing mineral-rich regions.
However, the absence of Presidents Tshisekedi and Kagame at the signing ceremony dampens the moment.
More worryingly, U.S. resources and focus are stretched thin. With attention diverted to Ukraine, Gaza, and tensions between Israel and Iran, it is unclear whether Washington can sustain the long-term diplomatic and financial support necessary to shepherd real peace.
Financial and legal resources for long-term peace remain uncertain. Without serious investment in governance reforms, refugee repatriation, and transitional justice, the deal risks becoming another failed accord.
The Digital Frontlines of War
This conflict has also unfolded on social media, where misinformation, ethnic incitement, and propaganda flourish. Platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook have become battlegrounds for narrative warfare, with influencers, diaspora groups, and even state actors shaping perceptions in real time. This virtual theater of conflict further polarizes communities and complicates peacebuilding efforts.
Dangerous Distractions: Mbeki and Lumumba
This unfolding situation is complex and complicated. There are no easy solutions and quick fixes. Policymakers and analysts must accept this reality and proceed accordingly. Unhelpful comments by figures like former South African President Thabo Mbeki and Kenyan academic and activist Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba—who have at times echoed narratives that miss critical nuances of DRC politics and history and downplay the negative role and impact of foreign-backed militias on the region—have muddied the discourse. Their commentaries tend to legitimize questionable grievances that prioritize violence over dialogue.
None of M23’s grievances justify a war.
The High Cost of Conflict
The cost of this prolonged conflict is staggering. Over 6 million lives have been lost since the 1990s, due to preventable war-related causes like hunger and disease, making it the deadliest conflict since World War II. The eastern provinces, home to more than 120 active armed groups, have experienced continuous conflict for 30 years, with civilians facing sexual violence, forced displacement, and chronic poverty.
The instability has hindered regional integration, stifled economic growth, and kept millions in poverty despite the region’s immense mineral wealth. The Great Lakes region is home to some of the world’s poorest countries, including Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda, which remains a low-income country despite the strong brand it strives to project.
Infrastructure projects, cross-border trade, and regional cooperation remain stalled, with the East African Community and African Continental Free Trade Area unable to make meaningful progress without peace in the eastern DRC.
Potential Benefits of the Peace Deal
The Critical Minerals for Security and Peace Deal offers significant opportunities for fostering stability and economic growth in the region. Among the potential benefits are:
- Sustained Peace: The agreement could provide a framework to diminish militia activities and promote lasting peace between the DRC and Rwanda.
- Economic Collaboration: The deal aims to enhance cross-border trade and cooperation, leveraging critical mineral resources for mutual benefits.
- Global Interest: By addressing security concerns tied to critical minerals, the deal may attract international investments and bolster resource extraction industries.
- Environmental Monitoring: International oversight could ensure sustainable mining practices in the mineral-rich regions.
Pitfalls and Risks
Despite its promise, the deal carries substantial risks that could exacerbate underlying tensions rather than resolve them:
- Failure to Address Root Causes: While aiming for short-term peace, the agreement does not adequately address the drivers of the conflict, including militia proliferation and long-standing ethnic grievances.
- Strengthen the DRC State: The dysfunction of the DRC contributes to instability and conflict and requires urgent attention and resolution.
- Rwanda’s Role: Rwanda’s historical support of militias such as RCD, CNDP, and M23 continues to destabilize the region and sows distrust.
- Irredentism: Disputes regarding claims of certain Kinyarwanda-speaking communities fuel ethnic and territorial unrest.
- Political Ambitions: Former President Joseph Kabila’s alleged desire to regain power adds another layer of political instability.
- S. Resource Constraints: The United States’ capacity to provide sustained engagement in the region might be limited, given simultaneous geopolitical pressures, including conflicts in Ukraine, Palestine, and tensions involving Iran and Israel.
The Path Forward
To ensure the success of the Critical Minerals for Security and Peace Deal, the following measures must be considered:
- Inclusive Dialogue: Both nations must engage community leaders and grassroots organizations to address ethnic and territorial disputes.
- Strengthened Oversight: An independent international body should oversee the implementation of the agreement to ensure compliance and transparency.
- Safeguards Against Corruption: Ensure that the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative best practices serve as the standards for investors and mining operators to curb corruption.
- Long-term Commitment: The United States and other global stakeholders must invest in sustained peacebuilding efforts rather than short-term fixes.
- Economic Diversification: The DRC and Rwanda should explore alternative economic avenues to reduce reliance on critical minerals and foster balanced growth.
Conclusion: Peace Requires More Than a Signature
The Critical Minerals for Security and Peace Deal may mark a diplomatic milestone, but its success hinges on tackling the root causes of the conflict: political opportunism, regional interference, unresolved refugee and citizenship issues, and impunity for war crimes. For peace to take root, the deal must be comprehensive, inclusive, and justice centered. The United States should remain engaged—not just as a broker of resource access but as a guarantor of peace, justice, and development.
If the United States truly seeks a legacy in the region, it must commit to sustained diplomatic, financial, and legal support—not just mineral extraction. A robust transitional justice process is essential to ensure victims’ voices are heard and the region can begin to heal.
Unless the core issues are addressed, the region may continue to experience violence despite any agreements signed in Washington.
Mvemba Phezo Dizolele is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
