Hope for peace as Angola brokers fresh truce in Eastern DRC

The Luanda process has brokered a truce between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, kicking off an open-ended ceasefire in Eastern DRC that comes into force on Sunday at midnight.

This was announced on Wednesday evening following the end of the second ministerial meeting between DRC and Rwanda hosted by Angolan President Joao Lourenco at the Presidential Palace in the capital, Luanda.

"The 2nd ministerial meeting between DR Congo and Rwanda, held today in Luanda under the mediation of Angola, agreed on the establishment of a ceasefire which comes into effect on August 4, 2024, at midnight," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which hosted the meeting on Tuesday announced.

The truce will be supervised by a reinforced Angolan Ad Hoc Verification Mechanism.

The Luanda meeting is part of the African Union-endorsed Luanda process, one of the two mechanisms established to ease tensions and facilitate talks between DRC and Rwanda, which is blamed for the continual conflict in Eastern DRC.

Kinshasa accuses Kigali of facilitating the most dominant armed group in Eastern DRC, a claim Rwanda has consistently denied.

The other mechanism is the East African Community endorsed Nairobi Peace Process led by former President Uhuru Kenyatta.

It focuses on easing internal tensions between the DRC government and the local armed groups.

The two processes have been on hold since last year, before the exit of the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) and the arrival of the Southern African Development Community Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (SAMIDRC).

In recent weeks, the region has been calling for a resumption of the peace talks to halt lingering tensions and conflict in Eastern Congo, which has worsened with the occupation of key locations near Goma by M23 rebels.

Last week, DRC President Félix Tshisekedi opened a fresh can of worms by accusing President William Ruto of "mismanaging" the Nairobi process, revealing that the country had consequently been forced to depend on the Luanda process.

"There are two processes. There was the Nairobi process driven by Uhuru Kenyatta which, unfortunately, was subsequently managed by the new President William Ruto. He managed it very badly. The process is almost dead, apart from the fact that the designated facilitator, Uhuru Kenyatta, has stayed on. President Ruto has taken up Rwanda's cause," Tshisekedi told a panel discussion on the state of DRC organized by the Brookings Africa Security Initiative and Africa Growth Initiative.

The fresh truce comes days before the end of another extended humanitarian truce brokered by the US government in July.