The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has accused the EU of “an obvious double standard” for maintaining a minerals deal with Rwanda to supply Europe’s high-tech industries when it deployed a far-wider sanctions regime in response to the war in Ukraine.
Congolese Minister of Foreign Affairs Therese Kayikwamba Wagner urged the EU to levy much stronger sanctions against Rwanda, which has fueled the conflict in the eastern DR Congo, describing the bloc’s response to breaches of the DR Congo’s territory as “very timid.”
Referencing the EU’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she said: “It is an obvious double standard — I want to be constructive here — that makes us curious and inquisitive about understanding why the EU again struggles so much to take action.”
Photo: AP
The DR Congo and Rwanda signed a peace deal in June, brokered by the US and Qatar, aiming to end the decades-old conflict, which escalated early this year when the
The Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group seized swathes of DR Congo territory, including two key cities. However, deadly attacks on civilians have continued, and a deadline to reach a peace agreement was missed in August.
Last year, UN experts said up to 4,000 Rwandan troops were fighting alongside M23 and that the Rwandan military was in “de facto control of M23 operations.”
Rwanda has long denied backing M23 and says its forces act in self-defense.
Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi on Thursday appealed to his Rwandan counterpart, Paul Kagame, to stop supporting militants in the DR Congo at a Brussels event attended by both leaders.
Saying he was stretching out his hand to make peace, Tshisekedi told Kagame: “This requires you to order the M23 troops supported by your country to stop this escalation, which has already caused enough deaths.”
Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Olivier Nduhungirehe on X said Tshisekedi was “completely mistaken,” adding that he abused the platform at the Brussels event.
Speaking before the meeting, Wagner drew parallels between Rwanda’s violation of DR Congo territory and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The EU had adopted a catalogue of sanctions against Russia, but made only “very timid progress” over the conflict in eastern DR Congo, she said.
The eastern DR Congo, a region bordering Rwanda with abundant natural resources, but plagued by non-state armed groups, has experienced extreme violence for more than three decades.
The EU has placed sanctions on 32 people and two entities — a militant group and a Rwandan gold refiner dealing in illegal supplies of the metal — for their role in fuelling the conflict.
Setting out justifications for these sanctions, the EU said the Rwandan Defence Force in eastern DR Congo had violated the DRC’s territory and “sustains the armed conflict ... [and is] also responsible for serious human rights abuses, including collective punishment.”
Despite this finding of human rights abuses by the Rwandan army in the DR Congo, the European Commission has brushed off calls to suspend a minerals deal with Kigali it signed last year, which is intended to boost the supply of raw materials to power Europe’s electric car batteries and microchips.
Wagner was in Brussels to take part in a conference on the “Global Gateway,” Europe’s lower-budget answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to finance infrastructure projects around the world.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen opened the conference on Thursday, saying the EU wanted “partnerships based on common interests and respect for sovereignty.”
She highlighted the Lobito corridor — rail, road and water transport links — connecting the mineral heartlands of the DR Congo and Zambia to Angola’s Atlantic coast.
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