The recent attendance of President William Ruto at the African Union Peace and Security Council highlights the conundrum faced by regional states in trying to bring peace to the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The major players in the region are caught in the contradiction of negotiating peace while making war. Here are three reasons the DRC peace process remains a challenge.
Strategic and material interests of regional players have crippled peace initiatives from the Luanda, Nairobi and Bujumbura processes. Regional players such as Rwanda and Uganda are involved in the manufacture of violence in the Great Lakes Region for their own strategic and material interests.
Both benefit from the illicit mineral trade from the DRC including coltan and gold. This lucrative trade in illicit minerals brings millions of dollars to both nations. The plethora of small-scale miners that operate in militia-controlled zones complicates the matter further.
Strategically, Rwanda is concerned about DRC's support for the FDLR rebels which it counters by supporting the M23 rebels. The FDLR are remnants of Hutu genociders who escaped to the DRC after committing the 1994 massacre in Rwanda.
The M23 rebel group are Congolese Tutsi (Banyamulenge) who took up arms to fight what they claim is their marginalisation by the DRC government in Kinshasa.
Uganda for its part is concerned about the Islamist ADF rebels infiltrating Uganda from the DRC and destabilising its borders while spreading their radical Islamist agenda.
Weakness of the state in DRC is a second challenge to peace in the region. Kinshasa has limited control over the Eastern part of the DRC. Years of poor infrastructure, unpaid DRC troops and corruption in the Congolese Army make an effective counter to the M23 and Rwanda's support for it problematic.
The vastness of the DRC makes getting human and material resources to the Eastern DRC a challenge. Weak control from Kinshasa also creates an environment where the central government is unable to provide public safety to the residents of the region.
To fill this vacuum in power, a proliferation of more than 120 rebel militia groups, including the M23, provide locals with protection but also extort taxes from them while committing acts of gross human rights violations. These include mass rape and torture. The weak DRC state presence in the region hinders the peace process by not stopping this lawlessness.
Lastly, a weak and divided African Union cripples the peace process. Regional players are not negotiating in good faith. For instance, Rwanda and Uganda negotiate on one side, with the DRC on the other. However, each side wants to pursue motivations antagonistic to the peace process.
The norms of good neighbourliness and a rules-based regional order are ignored while these regional players pretend to negotiate peace.
Lastly, a lack of long-term funding for regional peacekeeping/peacemaking operations remains a challenge. While the AU's rhetoric exhorts regional players to negotiate peace, the reality on the ground does not reflect the same. This is why the DRC peace process remains a challenge.
Lecturer, City University of New York
