By Benjamin Fox

 

NAIROBI, 10 March. - (ANA) - The EU is under growing pressure to join the United States in imposing sanctions against the Rwandan army, including its top commanders, as well as scrapping millions of euros in planned financing for a Rwandan military mission in Mozambique.

 

The US treasury department imposed the sanctions under its Global Magnitsky Act in the wake of the Rwandan army and the M23 militia group capturing the city of Ulvira in the South Kivu province of eastern DR Congo on 10 December, just days after the Rwandan and Congolese presidents signed a US-brokered peace agreement in Washington.

 

The entire Rwandan army has been sanctioned, and accused of “actively supporting, training, and fighting alongside the [M23],” while the top brass to be sanctioned by the US include major general Vincent Nyakarundi, the Rwandan army chief of staff, and general Mubarakh Muganga, the chief of defence staff.

 

Kinshasa’s communications minister Patrick Muyaya is offering interviews to the Brussels press corps to push for the European Union to match Washington’s move.

 

In an email to journalists, Muyaya’s PR advisor said that the minister hopes to highlight the “inconsistencies in the EU’s approach, and why some member states may now be reassessing their position following Washington’s lead.”

 

In particular, Kinshasa wants the EU sanctions to match the US and for Brussels to suspend its controversial ‘cash for minerals access’ deal with Rwanda, which Congolese officials say has been used for Rwanda to sell on coltan, cobalt and other minerals that have been smuggled across the Congolese border.

 

They also want the EU to cancel the planned disbursement of millions of euros in the bloc’s European Peace Facility that had been earmarked to pay for the Rwanda Defence Force’s mission in Mozambique to protect an LNG facility operated by French oil and gas major Total Energies in Cabo Delgado province.

 

In fact, should the EU pay out the remaining funds to the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) that could put it at loggerheads with the US Treasury, which stated that “financial institutions and other persons may risk exposure to sanctions for engaging in certain transactions or activities involving designated or otherwise blocked persons.”  

 

Last March, the EU sanctioned several M23 leaders and Rwandan army officials, as well as the head of Rwanda’s mines, petroleum and gas board, and a gold company suspected of being involved in smuggling minerals out of DR Congo.

 

But Therese Wagner and other officials in DRC’s president Felix Tshisekedi’s government have repeatedly expressed frustration at the EU’s failure to move further.

 

For its part, Rwanda still denies that it supports M23, despite the militia group’s leader Bernard Bisimwa, stating as much last month. Kigali also accused the US of bias.

 

The dispute between Rwanda and DR Congo will also spill into the elections for the next secretary general of the International Organisation of the Francophonie, which will be held at a summit in Cambodia later this year.

 

DR Congo has nominated Juliana Lumumba, daughter of the country’s first-elected prime minister Patrice Lumumba, who was murdered in a joint CIA/Belgian mission in 1961, which led to the collapse of Congo’s nascent democracy.

 

Lumumba will challenge Rwanda’s incumbent, former foreign minister Louise Mushikiwabo. - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/10 March 2026 - - -