Leaders from the Great Lakes Region are hoping to quell the new violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by taking advantage of the African Union Summit in Ethiopia Last weekend.
Amid troubling deaths and displacements in Eastern DRC, Angola President Joao Lourenço, who leads the Luanda Process, a dialogue bid for Rwanda and the DRC, has organized a sideline meeting that brings together leaders from the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR), a regional platform promoting peace in the Congo.
On Friday, DRC President Felix Tshisekedi arrived in Addis Ababa for the African Union’s 37th regular session, his first big travel outside the nation since his re-election in December.
According to a despatch from his office, he will meet with Great Lakes and East African leaders.
It is believed that he will meet with his regional counterparts participating in the hunt for peace in Congo, but the exceptional meeting may also include Rwandan leaders, who will meet for the first time since October of last year before their relations deteriorated.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame is also in Addis Ababa, but his administration has merely stated that the leader will attend the African Union Assembly session and various sideline meetings, but has not specifically mentioned the DRC crisis.
Given the deterioration of the conflict situation in North Kivu, it is uncertain whether Congolese and Rwandans will agree to meet around a table in Addis Ababa.
The Congolese army and M23 rebels have intensified the fighting. Kinshasa accuses Kigali 9 of helping M23, which Rwanda denies.
Troops from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have initiated action support for the Congolese army, but their first deaths occurred on Wednesday when two South African soldiers were killed in mortar fire whose provenance was not immediately confirmed.
