The Government of Rwanda has officially withdrawn from the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), accusing the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of hijacking the bloc’s processes with support from certain member states, and undermining its founding principles.
In a strongly worded statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Rwanda denounced what it called the “instrumentalization” of ECCAS by the DRC to serve its own political ends. This, Rwanda said, was once again demonstrated during the 26th Ordinary Summit in Malabo, where Kigali’s right to assume the rotating chairmanship — as stipulated in Article 6 of the ECCAS Treaty — was deliberately ignored to accommodate DRC’s influence.
“Rwanda sees no justification for remaining in an organization whose current functioning runs counter to its founding principles and intended purpose,” the statement read.
Rwanda had previously raised concerns in a letter to the Chairperson of the African Union following its exclusion from the 22nd ECCAS Summit in Kinshasa in 2023, when the DRC held the presidency. The Rwandan government noted that the failure of the organization to address that illegal exclusion and the continued silence from other member states only confirmed ECCAS’s inability to uphold its own rules.
Foreign Affairs Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe reinforced Rwanda’s position, criticizing the DRC’s contradictory behavior on regional and international stages. “It’s unbelievable and unacceptable that while President Tshisekedi met President Kagame in a fruitful meeting in Doha on March 18, and while our two countries signed a Declaration of Principles in Washington on April 25, the DRC continues to run around international organizations accusing Rwanda of its own failures,” he said.
Minister Nduhungirehe added that Rwanda remains fully committed to ongoing peace efforts under the AU, EAC-SADC, Washington, and Doha frameworks. However, he condemned the DRC’s attempts to manipulate ECCAS — a body he stressed has no mandate over the eastern Congo conflict, which is already under the mediation of AU-mandated President Faure Gnassingbé of Togo.
“Rwanda will never accept the manipulation, by a reckless and hopeless DRC, of regional economic communities like ECCAS,” Nduhungirehe said.
The decision to withdraw from ECCAS signals a significant shift in Rwanda’s regional diplomacy and raises questions about the effectiveness and neutrality of multilateral institutions when member states pursue parallel agendas.