The Congo River Alliance, a coalition that includes the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, has challenged the neutrality of the Trump administration’s mediation effort in the long-running eastern Congo conflict. In a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio seen by The Associated Press, alliance leader Corneille Nangaa wrote that Washington’s recent sanctions decisions have tilted the scales against the rebels while leaving the Congolese government untouched.
“Your administration has neither imposed any sanctions nor issued even a simple warning to the leaders in Kinshasa, whose intransigent and arrogant attitude calls into question the impartiality and neutrality of the American Facilitator/Mediator,” the letter said. The alliance warned that absent “clearly identifiable corrective measures,” questions would persist over “the facilitation’s ability to preserve, over time, the requirements of impartiality and neutrality that are essential to its credibility.”
The letter specifically pointed to U.S. sanctions imposed last week on former Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who American officials have accused of funding and supporting the rebels. That action followed earlier sanctions on Rwanda’s military and four senior officials for backing M23, the most powerful of more than 100 armed groups operating in eastern Congo. No comparable measures have been announced against the current administration of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, a point the rebel letter seized on.
Congo and Rwanda agreed last year to a U.S.-mediated peace framework that was intended to end years of violence, define terms of economic partnership among the three nations, and unlock access to the region’s vast reserves of rare-earth minerals. Trump praised the two presidents, Felix Tshisekedi of Congo and Paul Kagame of Rwanda, and has since cited the deal as a major achievement. Yet fighting persists on the ground, with both rebel and government forces accusing each other of violating the terms.
Kristof Titeca, a University of Antwerp professor specializing in governance and conflict in Central Africa, told the AP that the U.S. mediation has helped cool regional tensions but has not stopped the escalating violence. “While U.S. mediation has helped cool regional tension, it has not stopped the escalating fighting on the ground,” he said.
The United Nations estimates that M23 has grown from a few hundred members in 2021 to around 6,500 fighters, and in early 2025 the group seized the strategic city of Goma amid a major offensive. The conflict, which has displaced millions over decades, is increasingly intertwined with the global competition for critical minerals used in electronics and clean-energy technologies — a reality that has drawn Washington deeper into a mediator role that the rebel alliance now claims it has forfeited.