Congo and Rwanda Sign a Peace Accord in Washington

WASHINGTON—Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed a U.S.-brokered peace deal, aiming to end one of the world’s most pernicious conflicts and open their shared stretch of East African mineral wealth to U.S. investment.

Rwanda and Congo on Friday agreed to “immediately and unconditionally cease any state support to nonstate armed groups” in eastern Congo, and to work for their “disengagement, disarmament, and integration.” 

The agreement, mediated by the U.S. and Qatar and signed in Washington, promises new cooperation between the erstwhile foes, including respecting each other’s territorial integrity and the prohibition of aggression along their shared border. 

“It’s displaced countless people and claimed the lives of thousands and thousands, but today the violence and destruction comes to an end and the entire region begins a new chapter of hope and opportunity,” President Trump said. 

The pact could open the way for billions of dollars in investments by Western companies and give the U.S. access to Congo’s critical minerals, analysts said. Integration efforts focused on critical-mineral supply chains will “link both countries, in partnership, as appropriate, with the U.S. government and U.S. investors,” according to the deal. 

“Rwanda and the Congo, I’m a little out of my league with that one, because I didn’t know too much about it,” Trump said. “I knew one thing, they were going at it for many years with machetes.”

The decadeslong conflict has its roots in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which more than a million people—mainly ethnic Tutsis—were killed by ethnic Hutus, according to the U.N. Rwanda and M23 say they are fighting to protect Tutsis in Congo from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a Hutu-affiliated militia group comprised of remnants of Rwanda’s former army who fled across the border following the genocide. Rwanda, which denies backing M23, accuses the Congolese government of backing the Hutu militias. Congo says it doesn’t.

Rwanda will withdraw its troops from eastern Congo under the deal, diplomats said. Last year, Rwanda sent more than 4,000 troops across the border in support of M23 rebels, according to United Nations investigators. The U.N. said Rwandan troops were armed with advanced weaponry, including surface-to-air missiles, guided mortars, and antitank weapons, giving M23 a battlefield edge to overrun eastern Congo’s two largest cities and swaths of mineral-rich areas. More than 7,000 people have been killed and more than half a million displaced this year in deadly battles between M23 rebels and Congo’s United Nations-backed army.

Following a string of battlefield losses, Congo’s President Félix Tshisekedi turned to Trump for help. Tshisekedi offered mining opportunities for the U.S. Sovereign Wealth Fund in exchange for a security pact to defeat the M23 rebels, according to a Feb. 8 letter seen by The Wall Street Journal.

The truce might be tentative because local leaders and affected groups didn’t help negotiate it, said Vianney Dong, country director for the charity group Women for Women International. “The focus appears to be more on Congo’s mineral wealth and less on the victims of the decadeslong conflict,” she said.

The Trump administration was mediating the peace deal at the same time it was negotiating separate deals with both countries. The U.S. has been in talks with Rwanda to take in migrants expelled from the U.S. who aren’t its citizens. Rwanda has already accepted one Iraqi man deported by the administration.

Trump’s special envoy to Africa, Massad Boulos, has also led negotiations for “multibillion-dollar investments” as part of a minerals deal between the U.S. and Congo. 

“We’re talking about a win-win proposition,” he told reporters in April. 

“For the U.S., the equation is clearer: stability in Congo is essential to unlocking critical minerals and countering China’s dominance in global supply chains,” said Jervin Naidoo, an analyst with Oxford Economics Africa.

Write to Nicholas Bariyo at nicholas.bariyo@wsj.com, Natalie Andrews at natalie.andrews@wsj.com and Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com