Sawt Falasteen - Peace deal with Rwanda opens way to 'new era', says DR Congo president

Rich in natural resources, especially lucrative minerals, the vast DRC's east has been plagued by deadly violence that has ravaged the region for three decades.

Fighting intensified early this year when the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group seized territory including the key cities of Goma in late January and Bukavu several weeks later.

The lightning offensive in the east on Rwanda's border left thousands dead and deepened a humanitarian crisis for hundreds of thousands of displaced people, according to the DRC government and UN.

After a series of systematically broken truces and ceasefires in recent years and the failure of several attempts at negotiation between Kinshasa and Kigali, Congolese and Rwandan foreign ministers inked a peace deal in Washington on Friday.

A parallel, Doha-led mediation bid between the DRC government and the M23 is also ongoing.

A representative from Qatar attended Friday's signature of the agreement, described as a significant milestone towards peace by the African Union and the United Nations.

The text "opens the way to a new era of stability, cooperation and prosperity for our nation," Tshisekedi said in a speech broadcast Monday to mark the 65th anniversary of DRC's independence from Belgium.

- Won't 'sell off' interests -

Tshisekedi is due to meet his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame in Washington in the coming weeks.

The agreement outlines provisions for the "respect for territorial integrity and halting hosilities" in eastern DRC but are still to be implemented.

It calls for "a lifting of defensive measures" by Rwanda, or the withdrawal of Rwandan soldiers from the DRC.

Rwanda has denied directly supporting the M23 but has demanded an end to another armed group which it says threatens the country -- the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), which was established by ethnic Hutus linked to the massacres of Tutsis in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.

The agreement calls for the "neutralisation" of the FDLR by Kinshasa.

It also includes economic measures but has few details.

In April, the Congolese president discussed a mining agreement with Massad Boulos, a Lebanese-American businessman and father-in-law of Trump's daughter Tiffany tapped by the president as a senior advisor on Africa.

A "regional economic integration framework" aimed at greater transparency in the supply chains of critical minerals is also foreseen under the deal.

Kinshasa will not "sell off any of the DRC's interests," the Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said on the margins of an economic forum in Osaka, Japan, on Saturday.

The DRC is the world's leading producer of cobalt and has deposits of gold and other valuable minerals including coltan, a metallic ore that is vital in making phones and laptops.

"This deal is not just a document, it is a promise of peace for the people" affected by the conflict in the eastern DRC, Tshisekedi said.

The text -- negotiated through Qatar since before Trump took office -- does not explicitly address territorial gains by the M23 anti-government group.

The M23, like the pro-Kinshasa militias it is fighting, has never officially recognised previous ceasefires.

The front in eastern DRC has stabilised since February.

But conflict continues between M23 fighters and myriad local militias which carry out guerrilla tactics.

Corneille Nangaa, coordinator of the political-military Congo River Alliance to which the M23 belongs, dismissed in a statement Monday the Washington agreement as "limited" and accused Kinshasa of "systematically" undermining the Doha mediation process.

S.Abdullah--SF-PST