By mid-September, a plan to neutralise the FDLR, a DR Congo-based militia based linked to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, had been finalised and waited the final approval by the ministers of foreign affairs of Rwanda, DR Congo and Angola. But at a ministerial meeting held in the Angolan capital Luanda on September 14, the Congolese foreign minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner made a last-minute U-turn that surprised her counterparts and intelligence officials from the three countries, who had developed the plan. ALSO READ: Rwanda not responsible for DR Congo’s 250 armed groups, says envoy Kayikwamba refused to sign the final harmonised plan, which had been endorsed by the head of the Congolese military intelligence. “[The] agenda of the meeting of September 14, 2024 in Luanda was simple,” says Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Olivier Nduhungirehe. The ministers were in the Angolan capital to “adopt the harmonized plan for the neutralization of the FDLR and the lifting of Rwandan defence measures, as adopted by the Angolan, Congolese and Rwandan [intelligence] experts on August 30, 2024 in Rubavu, [Rwanda].” ALSO READ: Rwanda raises concerns over DR Congo arming FDLR, indigenous armed groups “While we were moving towards a simple and quick meeting in Luanda, as the meeting of experts had taken place in a good-natured atmosphere (according to the Head of the Angolan experts), Minister Kayikwamba, on telephone instructions from her President [Felix Tshisekedi], suddenly and categorically refused to adopt this plan, before the stunned eyes of her two colleagues, and even some of her own experts,” Nduhungirehe said in a Wednesday post on X. “This harmonized plan, which was accompanied by a precise timetable, had nevertheless been negotiated and signed by Major General Christian Ndaywel, Head of Military Intelligence of the FARDC, on August 30, 2024,” Nduhungirehe said, adding that the military official “reaffirmed his support for the plan” on September 14 during the ministerial meeting. The FDLR, a UN-sanctioned terrorist group that has launched attacks on Rwanda since its founding in 2000, is at the heart of diplomatic tensions between Rwanda and DR Congo. The FDLR has been integrated into the Congolese armed forces. The plan to neutralise the FDLR was initially developed by the Congolese government. It was submitted to Tete Antonio, the foreign minister of Angola, whose president mediates the Rwandan and Congolese negotiations aimed at the normalisation of their strained diplomatic relations. ALSO READ: Second Luanda meeting calls for ceasefire in eastern DR Congo The proposed plan for its neutralisation was submitted to the mediator on April 26 after the first Luanda ministerial meeting, and the Rwandan government shared its analysis and observation on it on May 6. Angola worked on the observation and shared the plan with Rwandan and Congolese authorities. ALSO READ: US envoy urges DR Congo to uphold Luanda process The intelligence experts from the three countries met more than once to develop the harmonised plan, which they approved on August 30 at a meeting in western Rwanda, as noted earlier by Minister Nduhungirehe. The experts had to submit the plan to the ministers for the final signing. After refusing to sign the plan, the Congolese minister even blocked another meeting of the experts which would have addressed concerns raised by any of the parties, the Rwandan minister said. “Minister Kayikwamba Wagner did not even stop there, as she also opposed the holding of a new meeting of experts which was scheduled for September 30 and October 1, 2024 in Luanda to develop the concept of operations (CONOPS) of this harmonized plan, which could have responded to certain Congolese concerns,” Nduhungirehe said. During a UN Security Council briefing on DR Congo on Tuesday, October 8, Kayikwamba said that Rwanda did not support a peace agreement. In the Wednesday post, Nduhungirehe said that due to pressure from the United States government and other partners, the Congolese minister was “clearly seeking to justify herself in order to mask the fact that it was her, and her alone, who blocked the last ministerial meeting in Luanda.” “If the DRC government wants to oppose peace in eastern DRC, let it at least do so with honesty and dignity,” he said.
