Leaders schedule another EAC-SADC meeting over Congo crisis
Leaders from the regional blocs of Southern African Development Community (SADC) and East African Community (EAC) pose for a photograph before attending a joint summit to discuss the conflict in eastern DR Congo in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on February 8, 2025.
What you need to know:
- To date, none of the conditions that the EAC-SADC gave out on 8th in Dar es Salaam have been implemented
Leaders from two blocs of the Great Lakes region are scheduled for a meeting on Sunday, and Monday, for the second time in a month, to attempt a permanent solution to the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The ministers from the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) represent two blocs to which the DRC belongs. They have both attempted military means and it wasn’t successful to end the war between M23 rebels and Congolese forces.
On Thursday, a Summit of SADC leaders decided to pull the plug on its military mission in the Congo (SAMIDRC), coming after a year of losses including deaths of soldiers. The EAC mission (EACRF) had folded earlier in December 2023, after running into popularity problems in Kinshasa.
Now both blocs say a political solution should be supported. The Sunday meeting, of ministers responsible for regional affairs will precede a summit of leaders from the two blocs on Monday. Both meetings are due in Harare in Zimbabwe.
“We are set for a meeting on Sunday/Monday later this week to discuss the eastern Congo crisis. The meeting will be held in Harare,” said Musalia Mudavadi, Kenya’s Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs who is also the joint chair of the joint EAC-SADC council of ministers.
The joint EAC-SADC meeting of Ministers will be co-chaired by Prof Amon Murwira, minister for foreign affairs and international trade of Zimbabwe, also the chairperson of the SADC council of ministers, and Mudavadi, head of the EAC delegation to the ministerial session.
Ahead of the Sunday joint EAC-SADC summit, SADC held an Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government on March 13, 2025 in a virtual format to discuss the security situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
These meetings are also coming as Angolan President Joao Lourenco, the African Union’s chairperson and peace mediator for the conflict in Congo, is pushing for direct talks between Kinshasa and the M23 rebel group.
“Following the diligence carried out by the Angolan mediation in the conflict affecting the east of the DRC, the government of Angola makes public that the delegations of the DRC and the M23 will begin direct peace negotiations on March 18 in the city of Luanda,” the Angolan presidency president’s office said in a statement soon after President Tshisekedi held discussions with president Lourenço on Tuesday in Luanda.
Tina Salama, the DRC presidential spokesperson, said they had received the invitation but said it was “an approach by Angolan mediation," adding the DRC was "waiting to see the implementation.”
“Dialogue with the M23; we acknowledge and look forward to the implementation of this Angolan mediation initiative. We also recall that there is a pre-established framework, the Nairobi process, and we reaffirm our commitment to Resolution 2773,” she wrote on her X account.
The meetings come at a time when Leaders from both blocs gave themselves 30 days to reassemble and hear back from EAC and SADC chiefs of defense on a ceasefire.
To date, none of the conditions that the EAC-SADC gave out on 8th in Dar es Salaam have been implemented.
The Dar es Salaam summit sought to bridge regional differences by bringing the two blocs together. It called for an immediate ceasefire, direct talks with the M23 and other non-state actors, and a plan to disengage Rwandan forces by harmonising efforts to neutralise the FDLR, a rebel group that morphed from perpetrators of genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and fled into the Congo.
They also called for the re-opening of the Goma Airport that has since been seized by M23 but to date the airport is still inactive.
On Saturday, the Angolan presidency called no warring factions to cease fire ahead of the meeting.
“The ceasefire must include all possible hostile actions against the civilian population of new positions in the conflict zone, with the expectation that these and other initiatives will lead to the creation of a conducive climate that favours the beginning of peace talks to be held shortly in Luanda,” it said.
