A weekend Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit discussed peace and security updates in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Mozambique, reaffirming support for lasting peace.

Eleven of the sixteen SADC member countries attended the summit: Angola, Botswana, DRC, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The summit received updates on the missions in both countries, commending the troop-contributing countries. The summit reaffirmed commitment to the SADC Mutual Defence Pact, emphasizing that an armed attack against one member is a threat to regional peace.

This mutual security pact creates great risks, as the DRC President Tshisikedi has dedicated himself in his prior election campaign to a war with Rwanda, over the Rwandan proxy forces operating in the east of the country.

But there may be difficulty achieving consensus in the bloc, as South African troops are having to be withdrawn from the Mozambique mission due to overstretched resources which will need to be moved to the Congolese conflict.

This leaves Mozambique increasingly reliant on Rwandan troops as Mozambique still relies on the Rwandan forces for its own physical security in the north, where Islamist forces have disrupted gas drilling operations and play a key role in the east coast smuggling routes.

This lack of clarity on the future of SADC Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM), became a focal point during the regional summit, with Mozambique citing financial difficulties.

Mozambique's Foreign Minister Veronica Macamo mentioned that SAMIM will depart in July due to funding issues. The country's priority is to secure support for its mission in the DRC: “SAMIM is facing some financial problems. We also have to take care of our own troops, and we would have difficulty paying for SAMIM. Our countries are not managing to raise the necessary money […] For Mozambique, if other countries continue to support us with material, including lethal material, we can effectively overcome terrorism.”

With SADC struggling to fund its mission in Cabo Delgado, and Rwandan troops making up the bulk of the effective fighting force, Mozambique cannot afford to support a fully fledged assault on Rwandan forces in the Congo.

This split within the SADC camp could explain President Tshisekedi’s recent announcement that he will meet with Rwandan President Kagame to discuss peace efforts, despite recent mutual accusations and belligerent rhetoric.

Rwanda is also facing tensions with longtime allies Uganda, whose presidents were lifetime personal friends and allies from a young age when they emerged from their exile in northern Kenya to seize power from Milton Obote in the early 1980s, before Kagame left amid a popular anti-immigrant uprising with huge numbers of ethnically Tutsi Ugandan troops to march into Rwanda and reclaim their birthright.

This means that both sides of the Congolese conflict are facing weaknesses within their own regional support systems. With SADC having overstretched and incompetent military support, and the EAC seeing tensions between Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi (Burundi being Hutu-run, and Rwanda being Tutsi-run), the parties are operating under neutral African mediation.

The AU, SADC, and EAC aim to revive talks between the leaders and rebels, as previous dialogues have stalled. This places the two regional blocs under the observation of the AU, which this year is chaired by the president of Mauritania, a fortunately unaligned party. Angola's President Lourenço will be heading mediation.

Kagame accuses Kinshasa and SADC forces of aiding genocidal rebels, while Tshisikedi accuses Rwanda of operating an occupying force. This is because the Hutu and Tutsi brigades in the Kivu region are being pitted against each other by the respective national powers, competing for coltan mines and household-goods trade routes.

The US has pushed for a neutral position, criticising both the the DRC’s support for FDLR's Hutu forces and Rwandan support for the Tutsi M23, calling for an exit of both groups from the contested region.

While South Africa stands to make a killing out of the trade and mining deals struck in exchange for military support in the Congo, Kagame has proven himself to be an excellent strategic thinker.

His position in Mozambique has created a backstop against decisive action by his rivals in the neighbouring trade bloc, and the historic allegiance with the American government will create negative pressure on war hawks.

The quality of Rwandan troops mean that the likelihood of direct confrontation will rest on the ability of the SADC bloc to consolidate a united front. While the DRC’s alignment with Russia and China would have created a global polar alignment, Tshisikedi’s recent cosying up to American capital has led him to cancel deals with the Russian PMC Wagner, and pull out from major mining and investment deals with China.

This marbled pattern of regional and global allegiances will likely save the Congo from being dragged into another one of the hot wars which claimed so many millions of lives in the past 30 years.

However if Rwanda manages to patch up its old friendship with Uganda, it might make the consolidation of control of the Kivus easier, and move the DRC to greater aggression.

The balance of peace is delicate.

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