In a statement released this Thursday, the Congo River Alliance, known by its French name Aliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), congratulated all those involved in seeking a peaceful resolution to the crisis in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, following the announcement of a ceasefire between Rwanda and the DR Congo mediated by Angola, but stressed that it is not "automatically bound by the conclusions of meetings to which it was not invited".
The decision was taken on Tuesday in Luanda, within the framework of the second ministerial meeting between the two countries, which was attended by the Minister of State and Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Francophonie of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), Théresé Wagner, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Rwanda, Olivier Nduhungirehe.
According to AFC/M23, "the coalition forces of the Kinshasa government have become accustomed to using the various truces and cessations of hostilities to reorganise themselves and continue their ethnic cleansing and attacks against the martyred people and their defenders".
The movement stresses that it declared a unilateral ceasefire on 7 March 2023 "to provide an opportunity for a peaceful solution to the crisis" and has only reacted to attacks by Congolese forces "within the framework of legitimate self-defence", offering to react positively to a "change of stance".
In the statement, it reiterates that the only way to achieve a peaceful resolution of the conflict is "direct political dialogue with Kinshasa", which addresses the "root causes of the recurring conflicts" in eastern DR Congo.
"Regional processes offer an appropriate framework that must be explored without delay to prevent our populations from suffering even more", it states.
Since 1998, eastern DR Congo has been mired in conflict fuelled by rebel militias and the army, despite the presence of the UN peacekeeping mission (MONUSCO).
Last week, the US State Department imposed sanctions on the Congo River Alliance and its affiliates for provoking violent conflicts and displacement of civilians in DR Congo.
On 26 July, the European Council also imposed restrictive measures against nine individuals and one entity "responsible for acts constituting serious violations and abuses of human rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and for fuelling armed conflict, instability and insecurity" in the east of the country.
These include leaders of the March 23 Movement/Congolese Revolutionary Army (M23/ARC), a non-governmental armed group operating in eastern DR Congo, and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR-FOCA).
The EU also listed a commander of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) "due to the extreme level of violence against civilians perpetrated by this armed group", the spokesperson and a commander of the Collectif des Mouvements pour le Changement-Forces de Défense du Peuple (CMC-FDP), an armed group active in eastern DR Congo and part of the so-called Wazalendo or Volontaires pour la Défense de la Patrie (VDP) coalition, and a colonel of the Rwandan Defence Forces (RDF).
The AFC, a movement created in Kenya but operating in eastern DR Congo and openly associated with several non-governmental armed groups, is the entity targeted by the sanctions, as is its political leader, Corneille Nangaa Yobeluo.
EU restrictive measures related to human rights violations and obstruction of the electoral process in the DR Congo now apply to 31 individuals, subject to travel bans and asset freezes, and one entity.
The M23 is a predominantly Tutsi rebellion that, with support from Rwanda, has seized large swathes of territory in the eastern DR Congo province of North Kivu since late 2021.
