Pressure points: How Europeans could help avert a Third Congo War

Three days after Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, Rwanda-backed M23 rebels stormed the city of Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now, as the fog of war lifts from the lakeside city, the full scale of the atrocities committed is becoming apparent—and the world is on the cusp of seeing a Third Congo War.

By early February, the United Nations estimated that the fighting had killed nearly 3,000 men, women and children. Heavy artillery has been fired into densely packed urban areas, UN peacekeepers were gunned down, and more than a million people are now fleeing for their lives. Hospitals and morgues are collapsing and, in the chaos, well over 100 female prisoners were reportedly raped and burned alive by escaping male prisoners.

 While reporters on the ground have valiantly tried to cover the crisis, it has barely registered as a blip on international screens as events around the world overwhelm the news cycle. But observers should harbour no illusions—after the events of the last few weeks, the likelihood of a Third Congo War is only intensifying. This threatens not only the Congolese people, but the nine countries that Congo borders.

And if Sudan—one of the great tragedies of our age—is anything to judge by, a glut of middle powers are hovering nearby to intervene and feast.

Europe’s narrow self-interest

Aside from Europe’s moral imperative to stop the fighting, it is also in its narrow self-interest to pay attention. Congo is the largest country in sub-Saharan Africa, with immense quantities of critical minerals needed for the green energy transition, a booming French-speaking population and vast untapped renewable energy supplies. Serious European investments, such as the Lobito Corridor, could also be under threat if the conflict expands throughout the country.

Similarly, Rwanda is an important partner for Europe across several key files, such as regional intelligence gathering, security around the $20bn Mozambique LNG Project, development cooperation and climate change talks. It has even secured critical mineral deals with Europe despite having no substantial reserves; it is dangling a solution to Europe’s migration crisis, in the same way it did to the UK’s previous Conservative government.

President Paul Kagame has calculated that with Europe weak and the US lost in its own maze, Rwanda can press ahead with this land grab without serious international consequences. European officials will be worried about losing a highly effective local partner or, indeed, entrenching Rwanda on its current warpath. But, to preserve the safety and sovereignty of Congo, they must find a way for both countries to come to the negotiating table.

All roads lead to Kigali

The path to the current crisis leads southeast from Goma, 100 miles along a pristine European-funded highway, to the Western-backed presidential offices in the Rwandan capital of Kigali. M23 is Central Africa’s equivalent of the Russian “little green men” who took Crimea in 2014.

Kagame has been a darling of the West, which has showered international aid and development money onto his country, for almost three decades. While many other projects around the world floundered, Rwanda has worked wonders with international development. This has led to a self-fulfilling cycle where development ministries eager for results often overlook Rwanda’s actions in the eastern Congo.

Rwanda’s intelligence services and military are probably the most capable south of the Sahara. As such, Western leaders have also begun to rely on Rwanda for security around the continent, most notably in Mozambique and the Central African Republic: partly under the now-cliched mantra of ‘Africa solutions to African problems’ and partly out of convenience as crises multiply around the world.

Rwanda has many legitimate reasons for being deeply troubled by events in Congo. Up until 2009, the Congolese leadership supported Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a militia group whose leaders participated in the 1994 Rwandan genocide as a proxy to control key mining areas in North Kivu and South Kivu. But today it is clear that FDLR is more of a convenient casus belli than a genuine military danger.

Kigali’s true goals include gaining access to Congolese land to alleviate demographic pressures, resolving unresolved refugee issues, creating a buffer against regional security concerns and securing mineral wealth

Kigali’s true goals include gaining access to Congolese land to alleviate demographic pressures, resolving unresolved refugee issues, creating a buffer against regional security concerns and securing mineral wealth. Indeed, everything indicates that Rwanda is preparing to control or even annex vast swathes of Congo’s north and south Kivu regions, which are rich in coltan, gold, tin, diamonds and tungsten.

M23 is now advancing toward Bukavu, South Kivu’s regional capital, on the lake’s southern edge. Rwanda is reinforcing the rebels by water—they have threatened to march all the way to Kinshasa if necessary. The Congolese Army, hopelessly ill-equipped by kleptocratic elites and demoralised by repeated defeats, is unlikely to hold them off for long.

At the same time, Burundi and Rwanda have been fighting a proxy war in Congo for the last two years. Burundi has reinforced its positions around Bukavu, meaning this could very well spill over into a wider regional conflict. Worse still, opposition groups are strong in the cobalt- and copper-rich Haute Katanga and Lualaba provinces. If South Kivu falls, it is not unthinkable that these groups could rally to M23 or launch their own armed movements. To add insult to a bleeding injury, Ugandan troops are also moving north around the Ituri region to secure their interests.

The spectre of the First and Second Congo Wars, where more than a dozen states fighting over the future and resources of one of the world’s largest nations left upwards of six million dead, hangs heavy. As Trump rattles sabres against old allies, North Korean troops fight on Europe’s border, and Gaza and Khartoum lie in ruins, the restraints—real or imagined—on expansionist ambitions are collapsing.

If Europe does not step in to try and halt the conflict, such a crisis is likely to return. In this case, all Europe’s investments and hopes of a stable supply of minerals for its green transition will go up in smoke.

European options

Rwanda has backed M23 as a proxy to secure its interests in eastern Congo before. In 2012, coordinated financial pressure from the US and Britain ensured the group’s swift withdrawal. But the situation is vastly different today. First, Rwanda has diversified its friendship group: as its forces stormed Goma, Kagame shook hands with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) president Muhammed bin Zayed in a clear signal that, if Europe and the US push too hard, Rwanda can find support elsewhere.

Second, Kigali has played a strategic hand, and Europe must acknowledge from the outset that options are limited as it has become highly dependent on Kigali. That the EU’s GDP is an estimated one-thousand times bigger than Rwanda’s seems to matter less than might be expected in this geopolitical equation.

However, if Europe is serious about maintaining the integrity of Congo, standing up for the sovereignty of a nation in much the same way it did in Ukraine and securing its own not insignificant investments in the region, it still has options to pressure parties to a negotiating table.

Europe and the UK could quietly prepare a battering ram of targeted policies and sanctions against Rwanda, including but not limited to:

• payments under the European Peace Facility to Rwanda for work in Mozambique;
• all ongoing security cooperation between Rwanda and member states;
• mineral agreements with Kigali;
• the continuation of any arms deals, such as with Poland and Slovakia;
• flight paths from Rwanda to Europe;
• continued sponsorship of Arsenal, Bayern Munich and PSG football clubs;
• continued commercial agreements with European pharmaceutical and car manufacturers like Volkswagen;
• all development and aid, including €900m of Global Gateway funding;
• and, if necessary, additional measures to restrict aid from supporting any organisation or individual participating in conferences or activities in Rwanda.

Should Europe and the UK fire off these sanctions prematurely, they would likely put Rwanda on a course of no return and leave Congo to suffer even more. For the threat of these sanctions to be effective, the EU should coordinate at a high level with the UAE to make its intentions clear and get them onside. Between them, they could yet force Rwanda and Congo to negotiate and avert disaster. If M23 continue their rampage despite opportunities to end this madness, Europe must hold the line.

Rwanda’s developmental success is remarkable. But that does not grant Kigali the right to carve up its neighbour’s territory, with immense humanitarian, economic, and security consequences for years to come. The world needs a highly functioning, well-organised Rwanda; but it also needs Congo to succeed. The two things are not mutually exclusive—and it is in Europe’s narrow self-interest to maintain this.