Thursday, March 13, is D-day for the Southern African Development Community, as leaders of the regional bloc will hold an extraordinary summit to decide on the course of action to take in addressing the crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo). The extraordinary summit of Heads of State and Government will discuss the escalating security situation in the eastern DR Congo and deliberate on recommendations from the virtual Extraordinary Organ Troika Summit held on March 6. The leaders are meeting amid reports that the Troika, in its virtual meeting on March 6, agreed that the SADC mission in the DR Congo is no longer attainable and the bloc should withdraw its troops and pursue a political solution to solve the crisis. The SADC leaders are meeting amid mounting pressure from the rapid advancement of the M23 rebels which has seized key territories from the DR Congo army and its military coalition and has threatened to march to the citadel of power, Kinshasa. The coalition which unsuccessfully sought to bolster the Congolese army comprises troops from the SADC mission, Burundi, European mercenaries, the genocidal terrorist group, FDLR which is made up of perpetrators of the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and armed militia groups known as Wazalendo. There is mounting home pressure on SADC troop-contributing countries South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi to withdraw amid recorded casualties of soldiers from the three countries. In addition, there is also a realisation that the SADC troops in the eastern DR Congo are no longer effective as they are surrounded by the M23 rebels in Sake and Goma following their negotiated surrender in January. The M23 rebels have entrenched themselves in territories they have seized notably in Goma, the capital of North Kivu and Bukavu, the provincial capital of South Kivu where they have established new administrative structures and brought law and order to the once chaotic territories. The popularity of the M23 rebels in these territories has also dazzled SADC leaders who were probably oblivious of the real situation on the ground. The SADC leaders, when they made the decision to deploy troops to reinforce the DR Congo army and its coalition, were likely not aware that the elephant in the room is that a genocide against the Congolese Tutsi community was underway in the eastern DR Congo and that the M23 was born as a self-defense mechanism by the targeted communities. There was perhaps a scant understanding on the part of the SADC leaders that the Kinshasa regime is rejecting to recognize Rwandaphones whose territories were apportioned to the DR Congo as far as 1884 and that the rights of these communities are not being protected. The genocidal terrorist group, FDLR with the aid of the Congolese army is decimating these communities in the eastern DR Congo. However, it is clear that SADC leaders now understand that the conflict in the eastern DR Congo is an internal struggle which requires local solutions through dialogue involving belligerent parties. SADC leaders also now understand that the genocidal FDLR threatens the security of Rwanda as it seeks to distablise and oust the government in Kigali. The SADC leaders are now aware of the reality that the FDLR is spreading the genocide ideology in its pursuit to re-ignite the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and to oust the government of Rwanda with the direct aid of the DR Congo. As SADC leaders meet on Thursday, they now fully appreciate that the DR Congo should not be hosting and aiding the FDLR to fulfil its satanic agenda. It must have now dawned on the SADC Heads of State and Government that the other elephant in the room is the absence of sound governance systems which have resulted in the breakdown of social order in the DR Congo. But, one big lesson, which SADC leaders should introspect on as they meet virtually is how their ill-informed military intervention flew in the face of regional diplomacy and etiquette. At the behest of Tshisekedi, SADC gullibly deployed its troops in December 2023 to replace the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) whose mandate was to oversee the withdrawal of armed groups – including M23 – from areas in eastern DRC and ensure that a ceasefire negotiated in December 2022 was observed and implemented. The EACRF had managed to register successes as the M23 had, in compliance with the peace agreement, withdrawn from much of the territory that it had seized from the Congolese army. But Tshisekedi, unhappy with the EACRF for insisting on being neutral in order to effectively carry out its mandate, derisively expelled the mission and sought Plan B. He courted SADC leaders who wittingly deployed its troops to undertake Tshisekedi’s mission thereby undermining the successes that had been achieved by the EACRF. In all this, one big question that will trouble the people of South Africa, Tanzania, Malawi and indeed the wider SADC populations, is did it have to take the deaths of their soldiers for their leaders to comprehend the real issues bedeviling the eastern DR Congo? As SADC leaders convene on Thursday, their heads will surely be hanging low in shame. But to atone for their maladroitness in siding with tyranny, the SADC leaders should immediately negotiate the withdrawal of their stranded troops in the eastern DR Congo. They should strongly admonish DR Congo President Felix Tshisekedi for misleading them and for arrogantly negating dialogue with his fellow Congolese to address the grievances that culminated in the birth of the M23. The SADC leaders should on Thursday move to implement a key resolution passed at the historic Joint East African Community and SADC summit for the neutralisation of the genocidal FDLR. The roadmap set by the EAC/SADC summit in Tanzania is the panacea to the crisis unfolding in the eastern DR Congo. It is also the remaining practical solution available for Tshisekedi, otherwise any further acts of egotism on his part will see the M23 rebels march into Kinshasa. His Plan B has completely failed. At their 21 February meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, defence chiefs drawn from the EAC and SADC agreed that any short, medium, and long term steps to resolve the crisis in the eastern DR Congo is dependent on a successful political engagement. Additionally, the defence chiefs were in agreement that the mandate of the SADC mission is in dilemma and untenable. This formed part of the recommendations by the security chiefs from EAC/SADC countries – Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan Uganda, Angola, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The EAC/SADC summit roadmap has the firm support of the Africa Union through its Peace and Security Council which stressed at its 1261st meeting held on February 14, 2025 that there is no military solution to the conflict and called upon the belligerent parties to prioritize diplomatic and political engagement. In doing so, it called for the immediate resumption of negotiations and dialogue with all state and non-state parties (military and non- military) including the M23 under the frameworks of the Luanda and Nairobi Processes. This is the best chance for ending the conflict in the DR Congo through an African led process and shame the West which is seeking to undermine African solutions through apportioning blame to victims such as Rwanda. By punishing Rwanda, a victim of Tshisekedi’s perpetual acts of aggression, the West has demonstrated its unwillingness to have the intra-Congolese conflict resolved.
