{"id":52934,"date":"2025-02-11T09:10:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T09:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/minister-nduhungirehe-exposes-drc-s-lies-about-absence-from-joint-eac-sadc\/"},"modified":"2025-02-13T09:15:46","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T09:15:46","slug":"minister-nduhungirehe-exposes-drc-s-lies-about-absence-from-joint-eac-sadc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/minister-nduhungirehe-exposes-drc-s-lies-about-absence-from-joint-eac-sadc\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister Nduhungirehe exposes DRC\u2019s lies about absence from joint EAC-SADC summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

On January 29, 2025, EAC ministers convened virtually to address the security crisis in eastern DRC. The meeting came just two days after the armed group M23 seized Goma, the capital of North Kivu province. <\/p>\n

While the DRC\u2019s Minister of Regional Cooperation was expected to participate, he was notably absent, despite the meeting\u2019s critical relevance to his country\u2019s ongoing conflict.<\/p>\n

Minister Nduhungirehe revealed that the official explanation for the absence was a technical mishap.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason that was given to us is that the DRC Minister of Regional Cooperation, who had previously confirmed his attendance, eventually connected…. to the wrong link!\u201d he posted on X.<\/p>\n

A second high-level meeting was held on February 7, 2025, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. <\/p>\n

This gathering, bringing together ministers from the EAC and the Southern African Development Community (SADC), was a preparatory session for a summit of regional heads of state focused on resolving the DRC crisis.<\/p>\n

According to Nduhungirehe, 14 ministers from six EAC countries, six SADC nations, and two states belonging to both blocs (DRC and Tanzania) were invited. While 13 ministers attended, DRC\u2019s Foreign Minister, Th\u00e9r\u00e8se Kayikwamba Wagner, was absent and was instead represented by the country\u2019s ambassador to Botswana.<\/p>\n

“Here again, we were given an excuse…even two! At the beginning of the meeting, we were informed, by the DRC Ambassador to Botswana, that the DRC Foreign Minister was \u2018on her way,\u2019 but an hour later, the version had changed: she had in fact a \u2018technical problem with her plane\u2019!” Nduhungirehe said.<\/p>\n

He further revealed that, despite these explanations, it was later confirmed that Minister Kayikwamba was in Europe at the time, lobbying for sanctions against Rwanda.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we now know that the Foreign Minister of DRC was all this time in Europe, begging for sanctions against Rwanda,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Rwanda and the DRC have endured strained relations for the past three years. France, Turkey, and Qatar have attempted to mediate between the two countries, but Kinshasa rejected these initiatives, insisting that the conflict should be resolved by Africans.<\/p>\n

Nduhungirehe criticized the DRC\u2019s stance, questioning how its officials could reject African mediation while seeking intervention from European nations such as Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

He also reiterated that the security crisis in eastern DRC is not caused by Rwanda and argued that it is unfair to hold Rwanda accountable for conflicts fueled by Congolese actors.<\/p>\n

During the extraordinary summit of EAC and SADC heads of state on February 8, 2025, regional leaders called on the DRC government to engage in political dialogue with all conflicting parties, including M23, to establish lasting peace.<\/p>\n

The resolution emphasized that Kinshasa\u2019s military approach would not yield results. Instead, leaders urged the DRC to acknowledge and address the underlying issues that led M23 to take up arms.<\/p>\n

\"Minister<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rwanda\u2019s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Ambassador Olivier Nduhungirehe, has accused the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of deliberately preventing its ministers from attending key East African Community (EAC) meetings, using misleading excuses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":2000081477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72,75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-52934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured-news-home","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000081477,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/ndhu-3dd8e-2.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/ndhu-3dd8e-2.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/ndhu-3dd8e-2.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/ndhu-3dd8e-2.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/ndhu-3dd8e-2.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/ndhu-3dd8e-2.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000081477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52934"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=52934"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=52934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}