Kigali was not surprised by DR Congo’s move to expel Rwandan military officers who were working at the East African Community regional force headquarters in the Congolese city of Goma.

Speaking to The New Times on Tuesday, Brig Gen Ronald Rwivanga, spokesperson of the Rwanda Defence Force, said the officers had already arrived in Rwanda.

The Congolese armed forces’ spokesperson, Maj Gen Sylvain Ekenge, said in a statement on Monday, January 30, that Kinshasa asked the regional force to repatriate Rwandan officers from Congolese territory due to "security reasons.”

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"They were based in Goma and they have been recalled back,” Rwivanga said, adding that Rwanda was "not surprised” by their expulsion.

Citing other incidents like the expulsion of the Rwandan ambassador in Kinshasa in October 2022, Rwivanga said it was normal for DR Congo to expel people.

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The EAC regional force was deployed in November 2022, with some 900 troops from Kenya, and tasked to facilitate regional efforts to restore peace in eastern DR Congo. Kinshasa did not allow Rwandan troops into the regional force but had accepted only two Rwandan officers in the regional force’s headquarters in Goma.

Commenting on the expulsion, Amb. Macharia Kamau, Kenya’s former Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said it was "hugely unfortunate.”

"This is not consistent with the aspirations of the Nairobi and Luanda peace processes,” Kamau tweeted.

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Ekenge said Rwanda recalled its soldiers serving under the Expanded Joint Verification Mechanism (EJVM), another Goma-based mechanism tasked to investigate cross-border security incidents under the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR).

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The EJVM was launched in 2012 and had military experts from the ICGLR’s 12 member states.

Rwivanga said that there was no statement to the effect that Rwandan officers serving under the EJVM were also asked to leave. He said they were still in Goma.

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Kinshasa accuses Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebels in eastern DR Congo, allegations Kigali dismisses. Rwanda has, for several months, denounced the cooperation of the Congolese army with the genocidal FDLR militia based in eastern DR Congo near the Rwandan border.

President Paul Kagame recently said that "the presence of genocidal forces on our borders is a serious matter of national security.”

Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s former president and facilitator of the East African Community-led peace process for DR Congo, on Tuesday, January 31, convened an urgent meeting with the bloc’s technical team to review the worsening situation in the country’s east.

The meeting was necessitated by the "deteriorating security situation in eastern DR Congo, particularly in Ituri and North Kivu provinces, where serious escalation of fighting and targeted killings is reported to be taking place,” Kenyatta’s office said in a statement.

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Kenyatta "expressed deep concern to the serious violation of the Nairobi Principles and the Luanda Agreement” that was signed in November 2022. He also called for "urgent return to dialogue and consultation in order to promote trust and confidence among the parties to the conflict and alleviate suffering of people.”

While the M23 rebels started implementing the resolutions of the Luanda summit by withdrawing from some of their positions, Kinshasa totally ignored the regional peace efforts.

The biggest roadblock to peace in the region is Kinshasa’s refusal to implement existing roadmaps. The latter, which include the Luanda roadmap and the Nairobi process, demand that DR Congo disarm all armed groups and engage in dialogue toward a sustainable solution.

Besides Kinshasa aligning itself with FDLR – a Rwandan genocidal militia formed by remnants of the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi – it also continued to alienate the M23 rebels, thereby reducing the prospects for peace. The FDLR which is now integrated in the Congolese army poses an existential security threat to Rwanda and the region.

In October 2022, Human Rights Watch reported that between May and August 2022, the Congolese army with a coalition of Congolese militia as well as the FDLR fought against the M23 rebels in North Kivu province.

Human Rights Watch received credible information that the Congolese army provided more than a dozen boxes of ammunition to FDLR fighters in Kazaroho, one of their strongholds in the Virunga National Park, on July 21.

One FDLR fighter told Human Rights Watch that he witnessed four transfers of ammunition. "It’s the government [troops] that would always provide us with ammunition,” he said. "They also gave us uniforms and boots.”