This Thursday, in Washington, Paul Kagame and Félix Tshisekedi finally signed the historic agreement that had been announced for weeks, putting an end to more than twenty-five years of war in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This event marks a new major diplomatic success for Donald Trump, who is already imposing for history a new style of international mediation, based on bilateral effectiveness and strategic pressure. But behind this highly publicized sequence, a group of less visible actors made possible a rapprochement that many still considered unrealistic a few months ago and an agreement that was more than fragile at the time.
Washington has only sealed a process initiated in another center of diplomatic gravity: Qatar, which has maintained good relations with the belligerents for many years and which, as in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for example, led part of the negotiations upstream to enable the agreement to be reached. One more point in the rapprochement between Washington and Doha, after the endangerment of the petromonarchy last September with the Israeli attack and the obsessive feeling of having at the time definitively lost the American umbrella.
A 25-year-old structural war finally ended
The conflict between the DRC and Rwanda is rooted in the consequences of the 1994 genocide. Kigali still considered the FDLR, the Hutu armed group present in eastern DRC, as a threat, while Kinshasa accused Rwanda of supporting the M23, a Tutsi group particularly active in North Kivu and responsible for massive violence. Several United Nations reports had confirmed Rwandan involvement, despite official denials.
In the African theater, the region has become an issue of intersecting interests where political rivalries, ethnic tensions and considerable economic issues combine, particularly around strategic minerals such as coltan, gold and cobalt, essential to global technological industries. Neither the initiatives of the African Union, nor the presence of MONUSCO, the UN force, nor the previous classic multilateral approaches had allowed lasting de-escalation. The agreement signed in Washington on December 4 thus constitutes an unprecedented turning point: for the first time, the two leaders are engaging together in a binding political process under direct supervision of the United States.
Qatar’s decisive role: hidden diplomatic engineering
If the image that will remain in the long term is that of the signing in Washington, the real foundations of this agreement were laid in Doha. From January 2025, Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani opened a unique mediation channel between the two belligerents. On March 18, Tshisekedi and Kagame met for the first time since the escalation of the January conflict, and issued a joint call for an immediate ceasefire. This founding moment was followed by a series of discreet meetings organized by Qatari diplomats. Basically, Doha was able to capitalize on its long-standing relationship with Kigali and on expanding economic ties with Kinshasa. He was also able to strengthen his relationship with Washington which was still threatened last September after the Israeli attack on Doha.
“ Conflicts are now resolved in hybrid spaces where global powers and Gulf platform states combine. »
The withdrawal of the M23 from Walikale, in eastern Congo, a decisive gesture observed on the ground, was not the result of chance: it was part of a dynamic of trust negotiated behind the scenes. In this matter, and faced with the chronic impotence of the United Nations, Qatar has replaced the increasingly weakened multilateral mechanisms. With his experience of mediation in Afghanistan, in the Horn of Africa or in the Israeli-Palestinian issue, he offered a neutral platform, a flexible political framework and a logistical capacity allowing progress where traditional institutions fail. This is what allows Trump today to arrive with a new peace agreement, in a conflict for which he had no responsibility, other than crucial economic interests.
The reinforced Trump style: assumed bilateralism and strategic monetization of peace
Donald Trump’s intervention finally made a deal happen and he was probably the only one who could make it happen. Faithful to his diplomatic doctrine, he established a clear transactional logic: peace in exchange for strategic alignment. To the Congolese authorities, Washington guarantees reinforced diplomatic support and investments in critical minerals; in Rwanda, the United States promises the continuation of the security partnership and a recognized role in regional stabilization. Rwanda could in the future become a good mediator of crises on the continent, with the dubbing of Washington. One after the other, Trump thus transforms each ceasefire agreement into a lever of influence, consolidating the American presence in the heart of a region coveted by China and Russia.
This approach, far from classic multilateral processes, is based on an informal but effective coalition: Doha prepares the ground, Washington concludes the agreement and redistributes the political, security and economic advantages. This model which emerges conflict after conflict reveals a new architecture of international mediations. The most complex conflicts are no longer resolved in New York, Geneva, Paris or Addis Ababa, but in hybrid spaces where global powers and Gulf platform states combine. The agreement which ended twenty-five years of war in the Great Lakes bears witness to this shift. It recognizes both American bilateral activism and Qatar’s niche diplomacy, which has now become essential.
*Sébastien Boussois is a doctor in political science, media consultant, researcher in international relations associated with the CNAM Paris (Defense Security Team) and the Geostrategic Observatory of Geneva (Switzerland) and director of the European Geopolitical Institute (IGE).
