The Democratic Republic of Congo government’s recent protocol with the FDLR has intensified questions over Kinshasa’s commitment to implementing the Washington peace framework, with Rwanda maintaining that the Congolese authorities should neutralize the armed group rather than negotiate additional conditions with its leadership.
Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Olivier J.P. Nduhungirehe, sharply criticized the initiative, describing the protocol as a delaying tactic by Kinshasa. “The recent ‘protocol’ signed between the FDLR genocidal force and the DRC Government is just political manoeuvres and delaying tactics by Kinshasa,” Nduhungirehe wrote in a public statement. He stressed that the FDLR is not a negotiating party to the Washington Accords but rather the armed group whose neutralization is addressed by the framework.
“FDLR should be neutralized as per Washington Accords,” the minister said in remarks highlighted by Rwanda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Nduhungirehe’s intervention strengthens Kigali’s rejection of Kinshasa’s attempt to portray its separate arrangement with the FDLR as implementation of the Washington commitments. Rwanda’s position is that the existing framework already establishes what should happen to the FDLR and that opening another negotiating process risks replacing measurable security action with an indefinite political exercise.
The protocol, announced in late July 2026, has consequently drawn scrutiny over what Rwanda views as a fundamental contradiction: the DRC was expected to participate in neutralizing the FDLR, yet Kinshasa has instead entered into a protocol under which the group is seeking security guarantees, relocation arrangements and other conditions before disarmament.
The controversy is particularly significant because the FDLR traces its origins in part to forces and individuals associated with the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Kigali has long considered the group and its ideology a serious national security threat and has repeatedly called for its complete neutralization.
The agreement between Kinshasa and the FDLR has no publicly disclosed implementation timetable against which progress can independently be measured. Cure Ngoma, the FDLR’s political spokesperson, acknowledged that the process had not yet reached that stage, explaining that the organization had submitted requests and was awaiting responses.
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“What we signed was a protocol, meaning that another stage will follow,” Ngoma said. He maintained that the FDLR regarded its demands as reasonable and expected them to be addressed as implementation progressed.
Among those demands are reportedly guarantees that FDLR members will be assembled in secure locations where they cannot be attacked and provisions allowing those unwilling to return to Rwanda to be transferred to third countries. Such conditions have raised additional questions over whether the protocol could effectively allow the organization to negotiate the terms under which it complies with an obligation that Rwanda says should already have been implemented under the Washington framework.
DRC Minister for Regional Integration Floribert Anzuluni has maintained that Kinshasa does have an operational plan. Speaking to Radio France Internationale, he said a timetable and draft budget had already been prepared but were still undergoing approval.
“We now have an operational plan. We have a timetable and a draft budget,” Anzuluni said, explaining that the government was therefore not yet disclosing the details publicly.
For Rwanda, however, the central issue is not the creation of another plan but implementation of commitments already established through Washington. The absence of publicly verifiable deadlines, benchmarks and figures makes it difficult to determine when disarmament should begin, how many combatants are expected to participate and what consequences would follow if the process fails.
The protocol reportedly followed a letter sent by FDLR President Victor Byiringiro to DRC President Félix Tshisekedi on May 30, 2026. The sequence has reinforced concerns in Kigali that direct negotiations could provide the FDLR with political space instead of bringing about its neutralization.
Another major concern is the continuing secrecy surrounding the number of FDLR fighters. Various estimates have circulated, and a United Nations experts’ report released in late June 2026 cited claims by the FDLR of considerably higher numbers while estimating its actual strength at approximately 3,500 to 4,500 combatants.
The FDLR itself has declined to disclose its current numbers publicly. Ngoma described the information as a leadership secret, saying figures concerning the group’s strength were not something to be announced through radio stations or social media.
That secrecy presents a basic accountability problem. Without knowing how many fighters existed when the process began, independently establishing how many ultimately surrendered their weapons—and whether significant armed structures remained intact—would be difficult.
Ngoma said “those who are authorized” would eventually be informed about the number of fighters during implementation, but he did not publicly identify those parties. He also expressed confidence that FDLR combatants would follow decisions made by their leadership, citing the organization’s command structure.
Questions have similarly emerged over what will happen to FDLR members who refuse repatriation to Rwanda. Anzuluni has said an African country has already agreed to receive some of them and that discussions are continuing with potential host countries. He has not publicly identified the country, although he said its name would eventually be announced.
The proposal raises a broader security question for Rwanda: whether transferring FDLR members outside Congolese territory constitutes genuine neutralization if their military structures, leadership networks or extremist ideology remain intact.
That concern is particularly relevant in light of statements attributed to senior FDLR figures. Gen. (Rtd.) James Kabarebe, Rwanda’s former Chief of Defence Staff, has previously recounted a conversation with FDLR military commander Pacifique Ntawunguka, commonly known as Gen. Omega, in which Kabarebe said he encouraged him to return peacefully to Rwanda.
According to Kabarebe’s account, Gen. Omega rejected the proposal and made an explicitly anti-Tutsi statement, saying he would return only when there was “not a single Tutsi left” in Rwanda. If accurately recounted, such rhetoric illustrates why Rwanda regards the FDLR question as extending beyond the physical presence of armed fighters in eastern DRC to the extremist ideology associated with the organization.
Nduhungirehe has also rejected another element of Kinshasa’s political narrative surrounding the eastern DRC conflict: the term “genocost,” which Congolese authorities have used in their discourse about violence in the country.
“The so-called ‘genocost’ is just a cynical political construct by Kinshasa, without any legal basis,” Nduhungirehe wrote. In remarks shared by Rwanda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he questioned the concept’s standing under international law and referenced the 1948 Genocide Convention.
His comments reflect the widening disagreement between Kigali and Kinshasa not only over security policy but also over the terminology and historical narratives being used to explain the conflict in eastern DRC.
The FDLR controversy has also become connected to Kinshasa’s position toward AFC/M23. Rwanda and the DRC negotiated their interstate security commitments through the Washington process, while AFC/M23 and the Congolese government have pursued a separate negotiating track in Doha, Qatar, addressing their political and security conflict.
Kinshasa is now seeking to connect aspects of those processes by maintaining that AFC/M23 forces must leave certain territories before operations against FDLR units located there can proceed.
Anzuluni has said the FDLR operates in six zones, including five in North Kivu that he described as being under AFC/M23 control and another in South Kivu under Congolese government control.
AFC/M23 rejects attempts to make its territorial positions a precondition for Kinshasa’s implementation of separate commitments concerning the FDLR. The movement maintains that it is not a party to the Washington agreement and that its outstanding political and security issues with the Congolese government belong to the Doha negotiations.
From that perspective, requiring AFC/M23 to withdraw before Kinshasa fulfills its Washington obligations risks shifting responsibility from the Congolese government to a movement that did not negotiate or sign the Washington agreement. AFC/M23 has maintained that the two diplomatic tracks should remain separate.
The distinction is also consistent with Rwanda’s position that the FDLR is the subject of the Washington security commitments rather than an additional party entitled to renegotiate them. As Nduhungirehe emphasized, Rwanda expects the group to be neutralized according to the Washington framework.
Kinshasa, meanwhile, has sought regional and international support for its FDLR initiative. In July, Anzuluni traveled to Uganda, Burundi, France, Belgium, Togo, Tanzania and South Africa, presenting officials with copies of the protocol and promoting the initiative as a pathway toward resolving the FDLR question.
Yet fundamental questions remain unanswered. There is still no publicly verifiable timetable, the number of FDLR combatants remains undisclosed, arrangements are being discussed for fighters who refuse to return to Rwanda, and Kinshasa is seeking to connect FDLR neutralization with AFC/M23’s territorial presence.
For Rwanda, these uncertainties reinforce concerns that the protocol could become another mechanism for postponing implementation rather than dismantling the FDLR. For AFC/M23, the effort to merge Washington obligations with the Doha negotiations risks placing responsibility for Kinshasa’s separate commitments on a Congolese movement that was never a party to the Washington agreement.
The dispute therefore increasingly centers on a straightforward question: whether Kinshasa will implement the commitments already established under the Washington framework or continue pursuing additional arrangements that Rwanda says provide political maneuvering space and delay the neutralization of the FDLR.
