Leaders from eastern and southern Africa on Saturday called for an immediate ceasefire in eastern Congo, where rebels are threatening to overthrow the Congolese government, but also urged Congo’s president to directly negotiate with them.
Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, who attended the summit in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam via videoconference, has previously said he would never talk to the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels he sees as driven to exploit his country’s vast mineral wealth.
A communiqué at the end of talks urged the resumption of “direct negotiations and dialogue with all state and non-state parties,” including M23. The rebels seized Goma, the biggest city in eastern Congo, following fighting that left nearly 3,000 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced, according to the U.N.
The unprecedented joint summit included leaders from the East African Community bloc, of which both Rwanda and Congo are members, and those from the Southern African Development Community, or SADC, which includes countries ranging from Congo to South Africa.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame attended the summit along with his South African counterpart, Cyril Ramaphosa, who has angered the Rwandans by deploying South African troops in eastern Congo under the banner of SADC to fight M23.
The rebels are backed by some 4,000 troops from neighbouring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, while Congolese government forces are backed by regional peacekeepers, U.N. forces, allied militias, and troops from neighbouring Burundi.
The M23 rebellion stems partly from Rwanda’s decades-long concern that rebels opposed to Kagame’s government have been allowed by Congo’s military to be active in largely lawless parts of eastern Congo. Kagame also charges that Tshisekedi has overlooked the concerns of Tutsis who face discrimination.
Some regional analysts fear that the rebels’ latest offensive is more potent because they are linking their fight to wider agitation for better governance and have vowed to go all the way to the capital, Kinshasa, 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) west of Goma.
The Congo River Alliance, a coalition of rebel groups including M23, said they are fighting a Congolese regime that “flouted republican norms” and is “becoming an appalling danger for the Congolese people.”
The letter, signed by Corneille Nangaa, a leader of the rebel alliance, said the group was “open for a direct dialogue” with the Congolese government.
A meeting in Equatorial Guinea on Friday of another regional bloc, the Economic Community of Central African States, also called for the immediate withdrawal of Rwandan troops from Congo as well as the airport’s reopening to facilitate access to humanitarian aid.