Since 1996, war in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has claimed millions of lives. The recurring violence is often described as a mere byproduct of regional instability or casually dismissed as “ethnic conflict,” even by elder African statesmen. These characterisations miss a crucial truth: the deliberate, long-term strategy employed by Rwanda to keep its resource-rich neighbour perpetually weak.
For nearly three decades, Rwandan autocrat Paul Kagame has masterfully played a double game: presenting his regime to the world—and particularly Western donors and institutions—as a beacon of development and stability while systematically undermining the stability and territorial integrity of Congo, its direct neighbour to the west.
Many commentators and academics have cited Congo’s poor governance and ingrained corruption as the foundational causes of both the past and present chaos. But that interpretation is only part of the story, and it misses a darker reality: Rwanda has effectively held veto power over Congo’s leadership since 1997, dating back to when the Rwandan leadership helped to install Laurent Kabila as Congo’s president.
After several years of resisting Rwanda’s growing assertiveness, he was assassinated in 2001 in a case that remains shrouded in conspiracy. His son Joseph then succeeded him, reestablishing closer ties with Kigali. This pattern of influence reached new heights in 2018, when opposition leader Martin Fayulu’s electoral victory was denied in favour of the current Congolese president, Felix Tshisekedi, through a backroom deal that Rwanda, then the chair of the African Union, helped to legitimise. (Disclosure: Fayulu, the opposition leader, is co-author Milain Fayulu’s father.)
Control over Congo’s leadership is part of a comprehensive Rwandan strategy that is widely believed to have involved creating, arming, funding, and directing rebel groups in eastern Congo, most prominently including the March 23 Movement (M23), which once again captured the city of Goma in late January with apparent ambitions to “march to Kinshasa.”
Rwanda has routinely denied that it has direct links with M23. In early February, Kagame told CNN, “There are many things I don’t know,” including whether Rwandan forces were currently in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Multiple investigations and independent reports, however, point to a long-standing and inconvenient truth: Rwandan forces have been supporting M23 and are directly involved in the fighting in Goma.
When international pressure mounts—as it did in 2012, the first time that M23 seized control of Congolese cities—these groups are typically “integrated” into Congo’s army, only to break away later under new names and auspices. It is a vicious cycle. The M23 rebels currently destabilising the region—reportedly leaving thousands of corpses, many of them civilians, in its wake—represent just the latest iteration of this well-worn playbook.
Why does Rwanda, a country smaller than the US state of Maryland, pursue such an aggressive doctrine toward a neighbour nearly 90 times its size? If one takes recent statements from Kigali at face value, it is because eastern Congo provides safe harbour to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an armed Hutu group that was founded by leaders of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Upon closer inspection, however, this alibi lacks necessary context, and it fails to justify the Rwandan government’s decadeslong aggression across the Congolese border. It is a self-fulling prophecy made both to justify the horrors that have been routinely perpetrated in eastern Congo and to create a patina of international legitimacy for Kagame’s territorial expansion.
In other words, the FDLR—largely a relic of the past and composed of mostly ageing, ill-equipped men—is relevant only insofar as Kigali needs it for propaganda purposes.
Rwanda’s real motives lie underground. Congo holds vast deposits of critical minerals such as cobalt, coltan, and gold—the same resources that are essential for the booming global tech industry.
Recent US Treasury Department reports estimate that 90% of Congo’s gold exports are illegally smuggled through Rwanda and its other autocratic neighbour, Uganda. Smuggled Congolese gold grew from comprising 1% of Rwanda’s exports in 2014 to a staggering 47% in 2020, according to the Congo Research Group. And figures from the US Geological Survey show that Rwanda’s coltan exports rose by 50% between 2022 and 2023; experts interviewed by the BBC stated that this production could not have possibly originated from Rwanda alone.
Global powers have winked at Rwanda’s predations. From 2000 to 2020, in fact, total aid and development assistance to the country increased by more than 400%, according to data from the World Bank. The United States specifically has provided hundreds of millions—although the information has now been purged from the website of the recently dismantled US Agency for International Development—of dollars in bilateral assistance over the past few years.
These foreign investments, which comprise a significant percentage of Rwanda’s state budget—around 40% in recent years—have emboldened a dictator who operates with ruthless impunity both at home and abroad.
And Rwanda’s strategy extends well beyond resource theft. By constantly invading and stirring chaos in eastern Congo—and thereby ensuring compliant leadership in Kinshasa—Kagame ensures that his giant neighbour will ultimately fail to develop the institutional strength that is needed to challenge his regional ambitions. Each time that Congo attempts to reform its military or elect independent leadership, for example, Rwanda’s network of influence—from rebel proxies such as the M23 to wielding its political clout within the African Union—undermines these domestic-led efforts.
