The European Union sanctioned three Rwandan military commanders and its mining agency chief Monday over support for armed fighters in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a day before planned peace talks.
Rwanda at the same time announced that it had severed diplomatic ties with Belgium, saying the former colonial power had “consistently undermined” it.
The Rwanda-backed M23 armed group swept through the mineral-rich east of the DRC earlier this year, taking two major cities, leaving thousands feared dead although figures are hard to confirm.
The EU also imposed sanctions Monday on senior members of the M23, including its head, Bertrand Bisimwa.
The armed group earlier announced it was sending a delegation to Angola for peace talks with the DRC government.
The talks are scheduled to start on Tuesday in Luanda, where Angolan President Joao Lourenco has been appointed by the African Union to mediate in the conflict.
Belgium has spearheaded the push to punish Rwanda over the violence, including calls to block a minerals deal, suspend development aid and cut support for Rwandan peacekeepers in Mozambique.
Those sanctioned by the EU included Rwandan special forces commander Ruki Karusisi and two army commanders, Eugene Nkubito and Pascal Muhizi, as well as the head of the Rwanda Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board, Francis Kamanzi.
The sanctions announcement said the Rwandan defence forces’ “unauthorised” presence in the DRC “constitutes a violation of that country’s territorial integrity and sustains the armed conflict, instability and insecurity in the region”.
“Revenues from the illegal extraction and trafficking of natural resources from eastern DRC are being used to fund, inter alia, the M23 armed group and its operations, and are thereby contributing to the escalation of the conflict,” according to the text.
A United Nations report said last year that Kigali effectively controls the M23 and has around 4,000 troops in the country.
The DRC has accused Rwanda of backing the group to seize valuable minerals in the east.
Rwanda stops short of admitting its direct involvement in the conflict but says its own security concerns — related to a Rwandan armed group with roots in the 1994 genocide and based in the DRC — are ignored by the West.
“Belgium has clearly taken sides in a regional conflict and continues to systematically mobilise against Rwanda in different forums, using lies and manipulation to secure an unjustified hostile opinion of Rwanda, in an attempt to destabilise both Rwanda and the region,” the foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.
All Belgian diplomats in Rwanda would be required to leave within 48 hours, the statement added.
Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe posted on X that its embassy in Brussels would close immediately and all its diplomats would also be recalled within 48 hours.
‘Kill us more’
Brussels hit back against Kigali’s “disproportionate” move and said it, too, would consider Rwandan diplomats persona non grata.
It comes after President Paul Kagame delivered a fiery speech against Brussels over the weekend.
“One of the biggest problems we faced is that we were colonised by a small country like Belgium, which cut our country up so it can be small like it,” he said Sunday.
“Belgium has killed us throughout history and keeps coming back to kill us more.”
The fighting in recent weeks has raised fears of a repeat of the Second Congo War, from 1998 to 2003, which drew in numerous African countries and resulted in millions of deaths from violence, disease and starvation.
