After seizing Goma and Bukavu the capitals of Kivu-Nord and Kivu-Sud respectively in eastern Congo-Kinshasa the M23 and its backers in the Rwandan Defence Force have taken the military initiative and are mulling their next moves – which could further undermine the President Félix Tshisekedi in Kinshasa...
US LOBBYISTS PUSH CRITICAL MINERALS FOR SECURITY DEALS In a Central African version of the new wave of transactional politics Congolese politicians have been hiring Washington lobbyists to persuade President Donald Trump's administration to back President Félix Tshisekedi by offering access to critical minerals and the deepwater port at Banana on Congo-K's Atlantic coast (Dispatches 25/2/25 Tshisekedi inks lobbying deal to bag minerals deal with Trump)...
DISPATCHES
The SAMIDRC deployment arrived in December 2023 after Congo-K's President Félix Tshisekedi refused to extend the mandate of a Kenya-led mission from the East African Community...
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DISPATCHES
Vol 66 No 6 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
Former President Joseph Kabila has re-emerged from the political wilderness holding talks with opposition politicians about Congo-Kinshasa's political future and issuing a fierce denunciation of his successor Félix Tshisekedi's handling of the conflict in eastern Congo...
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The Alliance Fleuve Congo the civilian wing of the Rwandan-backed M23 militia Congo-Kinshasa was launched by its leader Corneille Nangaa in Nairobi in 2023 infuriating Congo-Kinshasa's President Félix Tshisekedi...
DISPATCHES
Vol 66 No 5 |
- CONGO-KINSHASA
President Félix Tshisekedi is offering the United States access to Congo-Kinshasa's critical minerals as a bargaining chip to get Washington's support to force out M23 and Rwanda from eastern Congo-Kinshasa...
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Vol 66 No 4 |
- AFRICA
- MINING
This worried former US President Joe Biden whose administration persuaded Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi to block a proposed sale of Congolese mining assets from Kazakhstan's Eurasian Resources Group to a Chinese company...
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His putative opponent in Kinshasa President Félix Tshisekedi is flailing unable to respond to his government's loss of sovereignty over its eastern provinces and accompanying humanitarian catastrophe...
One of the frontrunners for that post is Peter Pham a former US Special Envoy to the Great Lakes who knows both Rwanda's Paul Kagame and Congo's Félix Tshisekedi well...
The failure to match rhetoric with sanctions against Rwanda may have disappointed President Félix Tshisekedi but it should not have come as a surprise...
However the refusal by Congo-K's President Félix Tshisekedi to attend an emergency summit called by Ruto as the current Chair of the EAC and a regional split between support for Rwanda and Congo-K suggests that the EAC vote will fragment (AC Vol 66 No 3 After seizing Goma Kigali's rebels head south)...
He then vowed to visit his ‘big brother' Félix Tshisekedi Congo-K's president and called Rwanda's Paul Kagame his ‘uncle' and a ‘man of peace' a reference to the collapsed peace talks between the two over the Kigali-backed M23 militia's incursions in eastern Congo-K...