Congo and Rwanda declare that there will be no peace negotiations in Angola

Hopes of an agreement to end Congo’s M23 rebel conflict, which has displaced over 1.9 million people, were dashed when the presidents of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced that their Sunday meeting would not proceed as scheduled.

In Angola, where lengthy talks have attempted to reduce tensions between the neighbors connected to the nearly three-year-old M23 insurrection, the gathering was intended to see a rare in-person meeting between the presidents of central Africa.

Anticipations of an agreement signing had stoked fears of a wider battle in Africa’s Great Lakes area akin to two catastrophic conflicts that claimed millions of lives between 1996 and 2003 and raised hopes of an end to a standoff that has further destabilized eastern Congo.

“The Rwandan delegation’s refusal to participate is the reason for the cancellation of this tripartite,” the Congo’s presidency stated in a statement.

It said that Congo rejected Rwanda’s conditional signature of a peace deal on Congo having direct negotiations with M23 rebels.

According to Rwanda’s foreign ministry, the country would not have been able to sign the deal on Sunday due to this lack of agreement.

Congo stated in a statement that delaying the meeting would give them more time to speak with M23 directly.

The proposed peace agreement called for Congo to eradicate the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu rebel organization that had attacked Tutsis in both countries, in exchange for Rwanda dismantling what it has described as its defensive measures in the conflict.

By using its own troops and weapons to back M23, an organization established to protect the interests of Congolese Tutsis, the ethnic group to which Rwandan President Paul Kagame belongs, Rwanda is accused by Congo, the UN, and others of inciting the insurgency in North Kivu region.

Rwanda disputes this, admitting only that it has resorted to defensive tactics, and charges Congo with enlisting FDLR fighters to fight alongside it.