Ramaphosa buckles to pressure, starts talks with Kagame

President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda held a three-hour bilateral meeting in Kigali, ahead of Rwanda’s commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the genocide against the Tutsi people.

Among the contentious issues discussed was South Africa’s deployment of troops to the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as part of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) peace-building commission.

Rwanda viewed this deployment as a threat against its government, and has accused the DRC government of recruiting other countries to fight its battles for it.

South Africa received a massive trade deal with the DRC in exchange for these military commitments, a deal which now forms the cornerstone of Standard Bank’s continental investment strategy, and involves the South African Chamber of Mines in several lucrative deals in Katanga Province.

In the December presidential elections in the DRC, president Tshisikedi ran on a promise to invade Rwanda and depose its government, and has been backing local Hutu Power militia in the Kivus in a long-running conflict between Tutsi and Hutu forces in the region since the Rwandan civil war, which has occasionally spilled over into massive interstate warfare in the region over the past 30 years, costing millions of lives.

South Africa’s position as the leading military partner in the SADC coalition taking over from the UN and the East African Community has placed them in a difficult position, as the SANDF is under-equipped, and incompetently and corruptly administered, and is overstretched, managing border security for Mozambique in the Cabo Delgado conflict.

Rwanda has also deployed its soldiers in peacekeeping and defensive actions in Mozambique and the Central African Republic, and are recognised as being highly competent, and in a recent show of strength, deployed additional troops to Mozambique, even as South Africa was forced to draw down on their forces in the region to bolster their ailing troops in the DRC’s North Kivo province.

The pressure from the DRC to more proactively engage with Rwandan-backed M23 militia is placing South Africa in a difficult position, as they do not have what it takes to risk such a direct confrontation, and have lost territory to the Tutsi rebel force near Sake and Goma recently.

Another point of contention was South Africa’s visa requirements for Rwandans, which require them to apply in advance, contrasting with South Africans receiving a free 30-day visa upon arrival in Kigali.

Longstanding issues between the two countries have included assassinations of Rwandan dissidents on South African soil, causing diplomatic headaches and embarrassing South Africa on an international scale.

President Ramaphosa acknowledged the challenges in the relationship but expressed optimism, stating, “We are rekindling and rebuilding that relationship. Those wrinkles will be straightened out.” Both leaders agreed that peace and a political solution were essential for resolving conflicts in the eastern DRC.

President Kagame, in his address at the genocide commemoration, praised South Africa for its support in rebuilding Rwanda’s health system after the genocide. He also thanked other African nations for their contributions to Rwanda’s reconstruction since 1994.

The meeting between Ramaphosa and Kagame marks a significant step towards improving relations between South Africa and Rwanda, two nations crucial to Africa’s development.

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