By the time leaders of the East African Community gather at a virtual table on Wednesday to discuss the crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, President William Ruto will probably have known the mood.
As chairman of the East African Community Heads of State Summit, Ruto already knows Kinshasa’s scorn for the bloc – skipping important meetings and its politicians speaking ill of the eight-member community it joined in 2023.
Yet the Congo crisis is both a banana skin for Ruto, just as it is an obligation to find for a permanent solution to the problem he says has festered for 30 to 40 years.
A banana skin because it has caused him several diplomatic missteps before. As Deputy President and while seeking the presidency back in 2022, he angered the Congolese public after deriding their alleged inability to rear cows, and their penchant to wear high-waist trousers -- depicted in music videos. It took an official apology from Kenya’s then Ambassador to Kinshasa Dr John Masafu to appease them.
But the Congolese have never forgotten that. As President, he appointed Col Shem Amadi to replace Dr Masafu in Kinshasa but President Felix Tshisekedi has kept the ambassador waiting on the queue to present credentials since November 2023, so the embassy has been without a head for more than a year.
That is a paradox, especially since the Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to be Kenya’s most important trading partner.
The problem? The Congolese political class perceive Dr Ruto and the EAC as interfering in their affairs.
Congolese politician Francin Muyumba Nkanga says it in no uncertain terms: “Mr President William Ruto, (The EAC) @jumuiya has failed and can never be honest on these issues,” she wrote when President Ruto announced the meeting on X on Monday. “Kenya has been leading this process since and what are the results? The region need the truth far from hypocrisy to handle this chaotic situation I think.”
Francin, who calls herself a “patriotic citizen,” is part of a team of Congolese who patrol online platforms to respond to those attacking her country’s polity.
She was there when Ruto made the gaffe about cows and she was there this week when he spoke of seeking a solution for the current crisis.
But the problem for President Ruto is more about how to solve the crisis and keep his relations with Tshisekedi intact.
Kinshasa’s refusal to receive the credentials of the Kenyan envoy can be seen as more of a revenge than about Col Amadi’s capabilities.
Kinshasa had demanded that Kenya deport political leaders affiliated to the M23 rebel movement and their coalition known as the Congo River Alliance (Alliance Flueve Congo -- AFC).
Nairobi declined even after they held a press conference in Nairobi and promised to march on Kinshasa. At the time, Ruto cited freedom of speech. Kinshasa has since sentenced some of the AFC leaders to death, in absentia.
As Chair of the EAC, however, personal differences should be the last hurdle, because he is expected to cultivate peace among member states.
“The escalating deteriorating peace and security situation in the DRC is of grave concern. The humanitarian crisis is being exacerbated by ongoing military actions, including the closure of airspace in Goma,” he said on Monday.
“As chair of the EAC, I call on the parties to the Luanda process and my brothers, President Félix Tshisekedi and President Paul Kagame, both of whom I have spoken to this evening, to heed the call for peace from the people of our region and the international community. After consulting the Heads of State of EAC Member States, we will convene an Extraordinary Summit in the next 48 hours to chart the way forward.”
The EAC, he added, is ready to “forge stronger collaboration” with the African Union, Southern Africa Development Community and the international community in general to encourage dialogue.
On Tuesday, however, the embassies of three EAC partners, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, as well as those of South Africa, France and the US, were besieged by mobs seeking to break in, accusing these countries of interfering in the Congo crisis.
The attackers looted the Kenyan embassy, forcing staff there to scamper for safety.
Musalia Mudavadi, Kenya’s Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs said Kenya had demanded compensation from the Congolese government.
“It is deeply concerning that these attacks occurred in the presence of security forces without intervention,” he said.
“We expect immediate steps to ensure the security of our embassy and its staff.”
Later, Kinshasa offered a general ‘regret’ to all diplomatic missions, promising tighter security.
For Ruto, however, seeking a solution in the Congo is both a battle to change perception about him, just as a desire to be accepted by both sides of the war.
His initial steps to seek consensus on dialogue involving consulting wide. He spoke with Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State. He also spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron, the latter of whom elicited some online criticisms.
While France offered to support efforts to peace, some critics say France’s recent rejection in some African countries like Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger means it was a problematic country to be involved.
Ahmednassir Abdullahi, a prominent lawyer in Nairobi, questioned why France was important.
“Mr President, who is Macron in the scheme of things in Goma and the greater DRC? We are not discussing ethnic and religious riots in Paris and Marseille, for Allah's sake, to consult little Macron,” he posted on X.
In the thinking of mediators, however, these countries may have some influence one way or another on the warring factions.
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