Peace in DRC Won’t Come From a Signature
The Washington Agreement, presented with great ceremony as a turning point for peace in eastern Congo, unravelled almost instantly. Within hours of the signatures drying, fighting resumed across the region. The M23/AFC rebels—backed by Rwanda and not party to the agreement—accused government forces of launching new offensives. Kinshasa, in turn, reported fresh Rwandan bombardments of Congolese positions. The fanfare in Washington did nothing to alter facts on the ground.
What the event did achieve was political theatre. The deal served primarily to bolster Donald Trump’s image as a peacemaker, echoing—deliberately or not—the misguided confidence of Neville Chamberlain in 1938, when he sought to secure peace by conceding Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. Like Chamberlain, Trump appears to believe that conflict can be contained with well-timed handshakes and generous rhetoric. Reality has already contradicted him.
Yet buried within the diplomatic spectacle lies one idea with real potential: the Regional Economic Integration Framework between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. Unlike the rest of the agreement, this component could influence the long-term drivers of war. But it demands something rare in Central African politics—economic interdependence based on transparency, oversight, and shared gain.
Postwar Europe offers the clearest precedent. After 1945, France and Germany—bitter enemies through two catastrophic wars—embraced an American-inspired model that placed coal and steel under a shared supranational authority. The European Coal and Steel Community neutralised the materials of war and bound the two countries so tightly that renewed conflict became irrational. What started as a pragmatic economic compact evolved into the European Union, one of history’s most successful peace projects.
Eastern Congo presents a similar logic. Its minerals—coltan, gold, cassiterite—are indispensable to global industry but have long financed militias, corruption and cross-border smuggling. Rwanda has repeatedly been accused of benefiting from illicit extraction, a reality that has poisoned relations between Kigali and Kinshasa for more than two decades. War persists because war pays.
The framework announced in Washington seeks to redesign those incentives. By creating shared infrastructure, harmonising trade rules, and encouraging joint investment, it aims to turn extraction into a cooperative enterprise rather than a source of conflict. In theory, shared prosperity could achieve what diplomacy alone has never delivered.
But the gulf between theory and practice is enormous. Trust between the two countries is minimal. Armed groups continue to move freely across borders. State institutions remain fragile, and corruption flourishes at every level. Without robust oversight and enforceable obligations, economic integration risks becoming a sophisticated cover for continued exploitation.
A durable peace requires concrete foundations:
• Cross-border transport and trade infrastructure that channels resources into legal, monitored supply chains.
• Transparent revenue-sharing mechanisms that demonstrate clear benefits to both Rwanda and Congo.
• A regional authority with real enforcement power, mirroring the role once played by the High Authority of the ECSC.
• Meaningful inclusion of local communities, whose livelihoods must reflect the dividends of peace.
Absent these elements, the initiative could easily devolve into yet another international arrangement that legitimises what is already happening on the ground: Rwanda—and perhaps certain U.S. companies—profiting from Congolese minerals under the guise of cooperation, while conflict continues to devastate villages and displace millions.
The United States faces a crucial test. If Washington intends to be more than a stage for diplomatic choreography, it must commit resources, technical expertise, and political pressure to ensure compliance. It must be willing to challenge both Kigali and Kinshasa when commitments are ignored. Anything less will confirm that the ceremony in Washington was, at best, a public-relations exercise and, at worst, a distraction from the violence still unfolding.
Peace in eastern Congo will not emerge from signatures or smiles. It will come only when economic interdependence makes conflict self-defeating and when the region’s vast mineral wealth becomes a shared engine of prosperity instead of a catalyst for war.
Until then, agreements—no matter how elaborate—remain paper shields against a conflict that demands far more than gestures.