Ruto ‘mismanaged’ Nairobi peace process, DRC President Tshisekedi says

DR Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi speaks during a press conference in Paris, France on April 30, 2024. PHOTO | REUTERS

Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi says his Kenya counterpart William Ruto has “mismanaged” the Nairobi Process on peace in his country. 

He said the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is only depending on the Luanda Process, which is led by Angolan President João Lourenço. 

Speaking in a panel discussion on the state of DRC organised by the Brookings Africa Security Initiative and Africa Growth Initiative, President Tshisekedi said: "There are two processes. There was the Nairobi Process driven by Uhuru Kenyatta which, unfortunately, was subsequently managed by the new president William Ruto. He managed it very badly. The process is almost dead, apart from the fact that the designated facilitator, Uhuru Kenyatta, has stayed on. President Ruto has taken up Rwanda's cause."

He did not elaborate the Rwanda cause claim, but he seemed to have been referring to an interview President Ruto gave to the pan-African magazines Jeune Afrique and The Africa Report in May in which he commented on the war in Eastern Congo thus: “As heads of state, we asked in a meeting, are the M23 Rwandan or Congolese? And the DRC said they were Congolese. End of debate. If they are Congolese, how does it become Rwanda's problem?”

In response, the DRC recalled its ambassadors to Kenya and the East African Community (EAC). 

The Congolese president is now relying on the Luanda Process to deliver peace in the restive Eastern Congo.

But, while Kinshasa officials say it is the only framework for discussing peace in the east of the DRC, it also seems to have stalled.

The relationship between President Ruto and his counterpart has oscillated between cold and lukewarm, and so have the relations between the two EAC partners states. 

Things took a bad turn mid-April, when DRC intelligence officers arrested and detained two Kenya Airways staff allegedly because of missing customs documentation on some valuable cargo.

But the tensions had been simmering since December 2023, when former DRC electoral commission chair Corneille Nangaa launched in Nairobi the Congo River Alliance, a political formation allied with the M23 rebels fighting the government forces in Eastern Congo. 

In May, President Ruto sent Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi to Kinshasa to deliver a special message to his Congolese counterpart and relations seemed to thaw.

In Kinshasa, Mr Mudavadu said: "We are partners, countries within the EAC. We want to continue to work together in a cordial and much closer way. We are interested in growing trade and business between our countries.”

It didn’t take long before Dr Ruto rubbed Kinshasa the wrong way. 

The same May, the Kenyan leader spoke to Jeune Afrique and The Africa Report, triggering another diplomatic row. 

It is these rocky relations that have impacted the Nairobi Process.