In a historic U.S.-brokered deal, D.R. Congo and Rwanda have signed a peace agreement in Washington, witnessed by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump hailed it as a “glorious triumph,” though critics argue it may serve U.S. interests in Congo’s mineral-rich east. The deal includes a trade framework for critical minerals, but M23 rebels reject its legitimacy. With thousands killed and millions displaced, experts warn that without inclusive enforcement and reforms, peace may remain elusive in the volatile Great Lakes region.
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00:00The signing of a historic peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Rwanda.
00:08The Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda on Friday signed a peace deal aimed at ending a decades-long blood conflict between the two Central African neighbours.
00:33The peace deal brokered by the United States was signed by the DRC's Foreign Minister Theresa Wagner and her Rwandan counterpart Oliver Nduhun-ki-Rehe at the U.S. State Department's Treaty Room in the presence of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
00:53Overseeing the agreement was Donald Trump who later hosted the concerned parties at his Oval Office for a media interaction.
01:08In his own unabashed style, Trump called the agreement a glorious triumph to bring an end to the conflict in a region which had a lot of war, a lot of fighting and a lot of debt.
01:21So we're here today to celebrate a glorious triumph and that's what it is for the cause of peace.
01:28And this is a long time waiting.
01:31The signing of a historic peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Rwanda.
01:40The conflict has continued and it's been going on for many, many years.
01:46It's been going from, I guess, they say 30 years, the Great Lakes region of Africa for a long time and maybe even a time before that.
01:56How is the Great Lakes region? It must be beautiful, right? Beautiful.
01:59Beautiful region, but they had a lot of war, a lot of fighting, a lot of death.
02:04It's displaced countless people and claimed the lives of thousands and thousands.
02:09But today the violence and destruction comes to an end and the entire region begins a new chapter of hope and opportunity, harmony, prosperity and peace.
02:20Now, exactly a week before this treaty was signed on June 20th, Trump, who touts himself as a peacemaker, had posted on Social Truth,
02:30I won't get a Nobel Prize for this.
02:34Critiques, however, point out to the possibility that the U.S. could leverage this deal for gaining a greater access to crucial minerals found in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
02:50Now, while the signed peace agreement does not specifically forfeit any mineral rights to the U.S.,
02:56the document does include a framework to expand foreign trade and investment derived from regional critical mineral supply chains to link both countries with the U.S. government and U.S. investors.
03:11Now, analysts say that the U.S. government's commitment to ensuring the implementation of the peace deal might depend on how much access it has to the minerals being discussed
03:29and the separate negotiations between the American and the Congolese governments.
03:34Critiques also warn that such a scenario could cause a replay of the violence of the past decades when Congo's minerals have been a major draw for interfering of the foreign governments.
03:49There are also fears that the peace deal may completely fail in bringing peace to the war-torn region after all.
03:57Now, this is because the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group, which is the most prominent armed group in the conflict, has said that the agreement is not binding on them.
04:08More than 7,000 people have been killed and another 1 million displaced since January of this year when the M23 militia waged a fresh offensive against the Congolese army seizing control of the two largest cities in the country's east.
04:33Now, there are also big question marks over the credibility of the governance and justice system in Congo, a country which has historically seen corrupt officials and perpetrators of injustice go scot-free.
04:54Tensions also surround the discrimination that Congolese Tutsis say they face in Congo in the form of ethnic killings and workplace discrimination.
05:06The Tutsis group is largely associated with the Rwanda and the M23 group claims to be fighting for the Tutsis, although critiques say that it is just a pretext to justify its own violence.
05:19Now, there is still hope, even though little, that this peace deal brokered by the US could bring to the Congo-Rwanda conflict to the end, which dates back to the Rwandan genocides of the Tutsis and the centrist Hutus from 1994, i.e. more than three decades.
05:46That's what we have been given.
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