We live in a time when international law is being torn to shreds. After multiple rounds of sanctions, Western leaders had little impact on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Sympathy for Israel undermined any decisive action against the devastation of Gaza. In the catastrophic wars in Sudan and Myanmar, other players – the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia for the former, China for the latter – sabotaged peace processes. Thucydides' maxim that "the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must," sounds tragically appropriate.
We could add the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to this list. On Sunday, February 16, the Rwandan army and its rebel allies of the Mouvement du 23-Mars (M23) took control of Bukavu, a city of more than a million inhabitants on the shores of Lake Kivu. Having conquered Goma two weeks ago, they now control the region's two largest cities and threaten to destabilize the governments of Kinshasa and Bujumbura. The situation is grim: the conflict has displaced more than 700,000 people since the beginning of the year – imagine the whole city of Lyon on the run – adding to the 6 million who have already fled their homes.
And yet, the DRC is different. This is not a Greek tragedy in which liberal Western countries are passive, unhappy spectators. Rwanda, which invaded the DRC, is deeply dependent on aid, business and tourism from Europe and North America. Currently, it receives around $1.3 billion (€1.2 billion) in aid, while the country's total budget is just over $4 billion. It was expected to earn $660 million from tourism in 2024, and has positioned itself as a major conference center, hosting more than 150 conferences in 2023, which brought in $91 million in revenue.
Donors have used this leverage in the past. In 2012, when the M23 threatened the city of Goma, the United States, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the Netherlands and even the generally apolitical World Bank suspended $240 million in aid to Rwanda. In response, Kigali withdrew its support for the rebels, who then collapsed.
This time, there's little outrage and even less action. Three and a half years after the start of the rebellion, donors have increased their funding to Rwanda. In 2022, budget support grants grew 48% on the previous year. In 2023, the EU announced investments of €900 million in Rwanda through the Global Gateway, which is supposed to be based on the principles of democratic values, good governance and security, among others. In the midst of the Rwandan Defense Forces' (RDF) support for the M23, the EU awarded them two new grants, totaling $43 million, for their operations in Mozambique.
In 2022, the UK announced a policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. As part of this agreement, the UK government contributed £290 million (€350 million) to Rwanda's Economic Transformation and Integration Fund between 2022 and 2024 – a sum that Kigali has kept, despite the denunciation of the agreement by the new government in power in the UK.
The situation could get even worse, spreading to the whole region. On Saturday, the head of the Ugandan army – and son of the president – Muhoozi Kainerugaba, issued a 24-hour ultimatum to "all forces" present in Bunia, a Congolese town north of the M23-controlled zone, to surrender their weapons. He claimed that "his people" were under attack there, suggesting that Uganda might join the M23 offensive.
These rebels have now turned their gaze southwards, towards the Ruzizi plain, which could be considered an existential red line by the Burundian government, although talks appear to be under way with Rwanda to the north. Meanwhile, attacks on embassies and suspicions of treason have rocked the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. This conflict is beginning to resemble the Congo wars of 1996-1997 and 1998-2003, which dragged nine African countries in their wake and left millions dead.
This is our war, not some distant and irrational outbreak of violence in Africa. Since the M23 took Goma, diplomats have been holding crisis meetings, raising hopes that something might be done. "We can't carry on as if nothing has happened," many of them told me.
And yet, nothing seems to be changing. Three weeks have passed since the fall of Goma, with no reaction other than lukewarm condemnation. Within the EU, where decisions to suspend aid require consensus, a few narrow interests have blocked action. Rwanda deployed troops to northern Mozambique, where they repelled Islamist militants, protecting a $20 billion oil project owned by TotalEnergies. This has made France – as well as Portugal, which has close ties with Mozambique – reluctant to put pressure on Rwanda. Since the crisis began in 2021, the Elysée has played a key role in supporting increased funding to Kigali.
In the US, the most senior positions in Africa have yet to be filled, slowing down action. Among African countries, a lack of leadership, coupled with Kigali's diplomatic effectiveness, has prevented any explicit mention of Rwanda's presence in the DRC in official statements by regional bodies. The African Union summit of February 15-16 ended with nothing more than a catch-all formula urging "an immediate ceasefire" and calling "all parties to the negotiating table".
It feels like the end of an era. For years, Congolese respondents have expressed favorable opinions of Western donors, which is striking given the sordid colonial and post-colonial legacies of Belgium, the US and France in the region. This is probably explained, among other things, by the role they played in the various peace processes that culminated in the new constitution in 2006, marking the beginning of democratic institutions and reunifying the country. By 2023, however, the M23 rebellion, corruption scandals and Covid lockdowns had taken their toll: favorable opinions of the three countries had plummeted.
What's the most popular foreign country today? Russia, which has virtually no political or economic presence in the country. The M23 crisis is a further sign of the geopolitical changes in the world. China, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Turkey are booming in Africa, while the US, which now seems determined to dismantle the world's largest humanitarian organization, and Europe are turning in on themselves, falling prey to nativism and populism.
As the Italian political scientist Antonio Gramsci said of the transformations of the early twentieth century: "The old world is dying, the new world is slow in appearing, and in this chiaroscuro monsters arise." It doesn't have to be this way. In places like the Congo, France and other like-minded countries carry a lot of weight. Will they act?
Jason K. Stearns is a professor at Simon Fraser University (Canada) and founder of the Congo Study Group.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.