President Paul Kagame attended a meeting aimed at highlighting the root causes of insecurity, which continue to increase in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), including poor governance and racial discrimination.
This small meeting was held on the evening of Friday, February 16, 2024, at the headquarters of the African Union, led by President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço of Angola, who is currently the coordinator for security issues in the DRC .
The Office of the Head of State, Village Urugwiro, on the X website, said “This evening at the headquarters of the African Union, President Kagame attended a small meeting led by President João Lourenço of Angola, in order to show the root causes of the growing insecurity in eastern DRC, including poor governance, ethnic discrimination and acts of violence.”
Apart from President Paul Kagame and João Lourenço who led it, other heads of state attended including Félix Antoine Tshisekedi of DRC, Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and William Ruto of Kenya President João Lourenço was appointed by the Economic Community of Southern African States and the African Union (AU) as a mediator in resolving the conflict in eastern DRC.
The Angolan newspaper ANGOP wrote that President Lourenço announced that this small meeting on the problems of insecurity in the eastern part of the DRC was aimed at discussing ways to find peace in the country’s conflict.
As for the office of President Felix Antoine Tshisekedi, in a message posted on the X website, it was announced that the meeting focused on discussions aimed at resolving the conflict between the DRC and Rwanda, as well as asking the M23 group to stop fighting.
The presidency said, “This small meeting also discussed various other issues, talks aimed at dispelling the bad atmosphere between the DRC and Rwanda, asking M23 to stop fighting without interruption, release all the areas it has occupied and programs aimed at eliminating this group.”
The problems of insecurity continue to increase, which is affecting the city of Goma, the capital of the province of North Kivu in the DRC, due to the ongoing fighting between the M23 group and the Congolese State Army, FARDC, It is also a war in which the DRC forces cooperate with armed groups, including the Wazalendo group and the FDLR, which consists of the survivors of the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo has recently invited the forces of the Southern African Cooperation Community (SADC) to contribute to the war, where these forces have come to meet the Burundian and European liberators.
President Kagame also participated in talks with Heads of State, which focused on the environment, including forests and other African plants, in order to see how to solve the problems of inequality in investments aimed at dealing with climate change in this continent.
