Geneva talks test whether DRC-Rwanda can break eastern Congo's cycle of conflict

The guns in eastern Congo have not stopped firing, even as diplomats gathered in Geneva this month to negotiate an end to the confrontation between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. More than a year after the two countries signed an agreement meant to halt their escalating clash, they are back at the table—but the landscape on the ground has shifted dramatically since then.

In January 2025, fighters from M23, a rebel group operating under the political banner of the Congo River Alliance, captured Goma, the largest city in the eastern DRC. They later took Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province. That seizure of territory has redrawn the entire conflict, making it nearly impossible to separate the dispute between Kinshasa and Kigali from the wider fighting consuming the region. The two countries are negotiating in separate tracks—Geneva for their bilateral dispute, Qatar for talks between the Congolese government and the M23-backed alliance—but what happens on one path inevitably shapes what is possible on the other.

At the core of the Kinshasa-Kigali standoff sits the FDLR, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda. The group emerged from the wreckage of the 1994 genocide, when members of the former Rwandan military and perpetrators of the killings fled across the border into what is now eastern DRC. Rwanda has long treated the FDLR's presence near its frontier as an existential security threat. Under the Washington framework signed between the two countries, Kinshasa agreed to a process aimed at neutralizing the group, including demobilization efforts. The Congolese government insists it is honoring those commitments. But in late August, Rwandan President Paul Kagame declared the agreement on the FDLR "insufficient." Patrick Muyaya, Congo's information minister, shot back that Kinshasa is meeting its obligations while accusing Rwanda of harboring "expansionist ambitions" in the east. The disagreement runs deeper than accounting. Rwanda wants ironclad assurances that groups hostile to it cannot operate from Congolese soil. Congo argues that Rwanda's security concerns cannot justify the presence of foreign military forces on its territory. What Kigali frames as necessary protection, Kinshasa sees as a violation of sovereignty.

For people living in Goma and the surrounding provinces, these arguments have become abstract. Josue Akuzwe Walayi, a pro-democracy activist in Kinshasa, said that after more than a year of diplomatic promises, ordinary Congolese are still waiting to see tangible improvements in their lives. "Fields continue to be ravaged in the east, and further displacement is still being reported," he told Al Jazeera. Sadiki Bitha, a Goma resident who witnessed the city's capture firsthand, is watching the Geneva talks with cautious hope but also skepticism born from repeated cycles of fighting and displacement. He wants the negotiators and their international mediators to ensure that whatever they commit to actually gets implemented. Walayi has grown more skeptical. He accuses Rwanda of using the FDLR threat as cover for military actions designed to secure Rwandan borders within Congolese territory—something he said Congo cannot accept. Rwanda denies pursuing territorial expansion.

Meanwhile, fighting continues on the ground between the DRC army, allied armed groups, and M23 fighters across North and South Kivu. In late August, the AFC-M23 alliance accused the Congolese military of attacking civilian areas and breaching the ceasefire. The same group claimed that the DRC army shot down an aircraft carrying humanitarian supplies, describing it as a civilian plane. When Al Jazeera contacted the DRC army's acting spokesperson, Mak Hazukay, he declined to comment. The incident illustrates a fundamental problem: without a trusted mechanism to verify what actually happened, disputed events become ammunition for further confrontation rather than facts that both sides can acknowledge.

Herve Amani, a civil society activist, argues that the Geneva meeting should not be dismissed simply because previous diplomatic efforts have failed. He sees it as an opportunity to reduce tensions and begin rebuilding trust, however fragile that process might be. "Dialogue remains preferable to escalation," he said. The talks will not resolve decades of mistrust between the two capitals, nor will they settle M23's territorial position or end the wider fighting in the east on their own. But they can matter if they produce commitments that are concrete, implementable, and verifiable—progress on the FDLR for Rwanda, respect for Congo's territorial integrity and Rwandan military withdrawal for Kinshasa, and alignment between the separate diplomatic tracks so that gains on one do not come at the expense of the other. For civilians caught between armies and armed groups, the measure is simpler: whether the violence finally stops. Bitha, who lived through Goma's capture, still holds out hope. "Every 21 September marks the International Day of Peace," he said. "We believe this is an opportunity for the people of Congo and Rwanda to speak with one voice and silence the guns by mutual agreement."