Despite the ridiculous demands the genocidal militia is making, the international community has been reduced to chanting them along

The Washington Accords were intended to address one of the most persistent security challenges in the Great Lakes region being the neutralization of the genocidal FDLR in eastern DRC.

Yet Kinshasa’s approach to the group’s disarmament revolves around conditions acceptable to the FDLR rather than the commitments already undertaken under the Trump peace deal.

This raises several questions. The first is whether the FDLR should be allowed to determine the terms under which it will be neutralized. The answer is obviously no. Under the terms of the peace deal, members of this genocidal group have two choices, either surrender without preconditions or be neutralized.

The question is particularly relevant as DRC Minister Floribert Anzuluni Isiloketshi has undertaken diplomatic tours of regional capitals to mobilize support for the voluntary disarmament of the FDLR, accompanied by the group’s preconditions for its future participation in Rwanda’s politics. This is simply unacceptable to Rwanda. For Kigali, there is no place for a genocidal group in the country’s politics.

In any case, the Washington framework places FDLR neutralization within a broader set of security commitments between Rwanda and the DRC. The objective is not simply to encourage individual combatants to surrender voluntarily. It is to ensure that the FDLR can no longer operate as an organized armed force.

Consequently, the ultimate measure of success cannot simply be the announcement of a surrender initiative, or the completion of diplomatic consultations. The decisive question is whether the FDLR’s military structures, weapons, and capacity to operate as an armed organization have actually been dismantled.

This is where Kinshasa’s diplomatic campaign surrounding the FDLR issue deserves scrutiny. If the process shifts from asking, “How and when will the FDLR be neutralized?” to asking, “Under what conditions will the FDLR agree to surrender?”, the peace deal collapses. Diplomacy should facilitate the implementation of an existing agreement, not become a vehicle for redefining Kinshasa’s obligations.

Lest we forget, the FDLR is not an organization emerging from a conventional political dispute. It emerged from the forces responsible for the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and subsequently established itself in eastern DRC. Its history and continued armed presence have remained central to Rwanda’s security concerns and to international discussions about armed groups operating in the region.

That history is one reason the international community has repeatedly called for the organization to be disarmed and neutralized. The Washington Accords must therefore be understood within this broader security context.

Most importantly, responsibility for implementing the Washington Accords rests with the parties that signed them, not with the armed groups whose activities the agreement seeks to dismantle. Kinshasa therefore faces a straightforward test.

The regional diplomatic efforts surrounding the FDLR should ultimately be judged by what they produce on the ground. Anzuluni can tour capitals. Governments can issue statements. Protocols can be negotiated. But none of these actions, by themselves, neutralizes an armed organization.

The international community should therefore focus on measurable outcomes, where are the FDLR combatants? Where are their weapons? What has happened to their command structures? What mechanisms are in place to prevent regrouping?

But under no circumstances can the FDLR be allowed to dictate the terms of its own dismantling, if the President Trump peace deal is to survive contact with reality on the ground.