M23 sent a team to Angola for peace negotiations

The AFC/M23 rebels have declared that on Tuesday, March 18, they will send a delegation of five people to Luanda, Angola, for direct talks with the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

According to M23 spokesman Lawrence Kanyuka, its delegates will leave for Luanda on Monday.

On March 11, following a meeting with his Congolese colleague Felix Tshisekedi, Angolan President João Lourenço declared that direct peace negotiations will take place between the rebels and the government of Kinshasa.

On March 13, Bertrand Bisimwa, the political leader of M23, received an invitation letter from Lourenço. The Congolese delegation to the Luanda negotiations will be led by Deputy Prime Minister Jean Pierre Bemba, according to reports from the country’s media on Monday.

Since the crisis started in November 2021, the negotiations will be the first direct interaction between the Congolese government and the M23 rebels.

Since Tshisekedi has long refused to negotiate directly with M23 rebels, who are affiliated with the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), the impending negotiations represent a critical turning point in the conflict.

Kanyuka stated, “The AFC/M23 expresses its sincere appreciation to President João Lourenço of the Republic of Angola for his unwavering efforts to find a peaceful solution to the ongoing conflict in the DRC.”

The Congolese government has been charged by M23 with aiding militias that are committing ethnic cleansing against Tutsis in the country. The FDLR, a member of the Congolese army’s coalition, is one of these organizations.

Following the rebels’ January and February capture of two key cities in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, numerous regional and international initiatives have called for negotiations.

Congolese Tutsi populations have been subjected to decades of persecution by genocidal militias like the FDLR, which is connected to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and the rebels struggle to protect them.

Additionally, they combat the corruption and poor governance that have long afflicted the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

After almost ten years of inaction, M23 rebels returned to combat in 2021. They took over Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, in January of this year, and in February they took over Bukavu in South Kivu.

João Lourenço, president of Angola, has been a mediator in the Luanda Peace Process for DR Congo since the middle of 2022. However, when the Congolese government declined to sign an agreement that would have opened the door for direct talks with M23, this initiative—which also aimed to improve relations between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—collapsed in December 2024.