With our correspondent in Kinshasa, Patient Ligodi

The FARDC explain this decision by the will of the region's heads of state to effectively combat insecurity, an obstacle to the economic integration of countries in the zone. According to the Congolese army, contacts have been established. They should result in the development of strategies.

Joint plan

For now, only Rwanda and the DRC are very advanced on the question. Mid-March, the chief of staff general of the Rwandan armed forces was received in Kinshasa. A joint plan was drawn up. No information has nevertheless emerged about this plan.

Among elected officials and civil society, there are concerns that these maneuvers will lead to joint military operations in the East of the country, already ravaged. In December 2020, the United Nations group of experts on the DRC had reported that military operations had been carried out by the Rwandan army in North Kivu between the end of 2019 and the beginning of October 2020. Something that Kigali has always denied.

Unanswered question

Deputy Juvenal Munubo had even submitted in January an oral question on the possibility of the presence of Rwandan military personnel on Congolese soil to the Defence Minister, but the question remained unanswered in the National Assembly. On the Monusco side, there is awareness of the sub-regional dimension of the problem. But it is emphasized that contacts between general staffs of countries in the region are of a bilateral nature and Monusco is not involved.

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