Rwanda has announced plans to withdraw from the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), highlighting growing diplomatic tensions in the region triggered by a military offensive earlier this year by M23 rebels, widely believed to be backed by Kigali.
Kigali had anticipated assuming the rotating chairmanship of the 11-member bloc during a summit on Saturday in Equatorial Guinea. Instead, ECCAS chose to retain Equatorial Guinea in the position — a move Rwanda’s foreign ministry condemned as a violation of its legitimate rights.
In a strongly worded statement, Rwanda accused the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of “instrumentalizing” the bloc and said it saw “no justification for remaining in an organization whose current functioning runs counter to its founding principles.”
It remains unclear whether Rwanda’s departure from ECCAS will take immediate effect.
The office of DRC President Félix Tshisekedi welcomed the development, stating that ECCAS members had “acknowledged the aggression against the Democratic Republic of Congo by Rwanda and ordered the aggressor country to withdraw its troops from Congolese soil.”
Earlier this year, the M23 rebel group captured two of eastern Congo’s largest cities, resulting in thousands of deaths and fears of an escalating regional war. Multiple efforts led by African leaders, alongside the U.S. and Qatar, are underway to negotiate a peace settlement.
The DRC government, the United Nations, and several Western powers have accused Rwanda of supporting M23 by supplying arms and troops. Rwanda has consistently denied these allegations, asserting that its involvement is a defensive measure against Congo’s army and allied ethnic Hutu militias, some of whom are linked to the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that claimed approximately 1 million lives, mostly ethnic Tutsis.
Amid the ongoing crisis, the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump is reportedly working to broker a peace agreement between Rwanda and Congo, which would pave the way for billions in Western investments in the mineral-rich region. Congo holds vast deposits of critical resources like tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper, and lithium — essential to global supply chains.
Established in the 1980s, ECCAS was founded to promote regional integration, peace, and economic cooperation among Central African nations.
