Sawt Falasteen - Trump hosts Rwanda, DR Congo accord signing even as violence rages

Trump welcomed Paul Kagame, the longtime president of Rwanda, whose allies have taken a decisive edge on the ground against his country's turbulent neighbor, and Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi at the White House.

They will all then move to the newly renamed Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace in Washington to sign a peace accord, more than five months after the countries' foreign ministers also met Trump and announced another deal to end the conflict.

Trump hopes the agreement will pave the way for the United States to gain access to critical minerals in eastern DRC, a violence-torn region that has reserves of many of the key ingredients in modern technologies such as electric cars.

But even on the day of Trump's latest meeting, intense fighting raged in eastern DRC, where the M23 armed group -- which the UN says is backed by Rwanda -- has been gaining ground in recent weeks against Kinshasa's forces.

- Violence shadows treaty -

An AFP journalist at the scene heard weapon fire ring out Thursday on the outskirts of Kamanyola, an M23-controlled town in South Kivu province near the borders with Rwanda and Burundi.

"Many houses have been bombed, and there are many dead," said Rene Chubaka Kalembire, an administrative official in Kaziba, a town also under M23 control, on the eve of the signing.

The long-simmering conflict exploded in late January as the M23 captured the major cities of Goma and Bukavu.

After the June agreement, the M23 -- which denies links to Rwanda -- and the Kinshasa government pledged a ceasefire following mediation by US partner Qatar, but both sides have since accused the other of violations.

Trump has boasted that the eastern DRC conflict, where hundreds of thousands of people have died over several decades, is among eight wars he has ended since he returned to office in January.

The US president has made no secret of his desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize, underscored by the renaming of the peace institute where Thursday's deal will be signed.

But as with many of the conflicts he claims to have solved, the reality on the ground in the DRC is at odds with what the White House this week called a "historic peace and economic agreement."

After several days of clashes around Kaziba, fighter jets bombarded the town again on Thursday morning, a local civil society representative who requested anonymity told AFP.

Explosions could also be heard coming from the Bugarama border post in Rwanda across the border in neighbouring Burundi, with Rwandan police temporarily shutting the frontier post on Thursday.

AFP was unable to obtain a verifiable toll from the fighting from independent sources.

Local sources reported a massive build-up of M23 reinforcements, accompanied by armored cars, in the high plateau of South Kivu.

Passage through the mountainous region would allow its troops to encircle Uvira, the last major town in South Kivu to evade the M23's capture.

- 'Defensive measures' -

Trump has voiced hope that the United States can exploit minerals in the country that otherwise could head to China.

The DRC is home to the majority of the world's cobalt, a critical mineral in batteries for electric vehicles, as well as other key minerals such as copper.

The Congolese government said the agreement with Trump would include a peace deal, regional economic integration framework and a "strategic partnership" on natural resources.

But Kinshasa insists peace must be achieved on the ground before proceeding to a second stage of economic development.

Rwanda has made the end of its "defensive measures" contingent on Kinshasa neutralizing the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), an ethnic Hutu group with links to the 1994 genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda.

Kagame last week publicly accused the DRC of delaying the signing of an agreement.

Both countries have been in talks with the US administration on its priority of taking in migrants as Trump carries out a sweeping deportation drive.

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A.AbuSaada--SF-PST