Tshisekedi Defends U.S. Mineral Pact Amid Mukwege’s “Neo-Colonialism” Warning

Kinshasa: President Félix Tshisekedi used the occasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s 65th Independence Day to strongly defend his administration’s resource policy and regional diplomacy, pushing back against intensifying criticism from Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege, who last week decried the recent DRC-Rwanda peace accord and mineral agreements as “a neocolonial betrayal.”

Addressing the nation in a solemn televised speech, Tshisekedi acknowledged Congo’s tumultuous history but firmly drew a line against foreign exploitation of the country’s mineral wealth.

“However, I would like to clearly reaffirm the red lines of my action: the DRC’s resources will never be sold out or left to obscure interests,” the President declared, in a pointed remark interpreted as a rebuttal to accusations that Kinshasa had surrendered its economic sovereignty under foreign pressure.

This comes just days after Dr. Mukwege, speaking in Brussels, denounced the U.S.-brokered peace accord with Rwanda as a “scandalous surrender of sovereignty” and warned that the mineral co-management provisions enshrined in the deal amounted to a “logic of extractive neocolonialism.” Mukwege accused the Tshisekedi administration of allowing Congolese raw materials to be diverted to Rwanda for profit, bypassing local beneficiation and undermining the Constitution.

“Our country is not truly independent,” Mukwege said. “The Congolese people are being asked to accept the pillaging of their resources and the whitewashing of an aggressor state in the name of peace.”

Tshisekedi, however, offered a different vision of partnership—one rooted, he said, in transparency, fairness, and strategic autonomy.

“To our partners in the United States, China, Europe, the Gulf countries, the African continent and the whole world, I solemnly say: the DRC is back, ready to establish strategic, reliable, transparent, and above all win-win partnerships.”

While he did not address Mukwege by name, the President’s tone suggested a growing rift between his administration and civil society leaders alarmed by the DRC’s current trajectory.

The mineral agreement, signed in parallel with a peace deal involving Rwanda and facilitated by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, aims to stabilize eastern Congo and formalize trade in strategic minerals like cobalt and lithium—resources critical to the global green energy transition.

Critics such as Mukwege warn that the bilateral nature of the agreements undermines regional diplomacy and lacks meaningful guarantees of justice.

“Peace in the Great Lakes cannot be built on bilateral accords that ignore the regional dimension of the crisis and the presence of multiple foreign armies on Congolese soil,” Mukwege said, calling instead for the revival of the 2013 Addis Ababa Framework and the enforcement of UN Security Council Resolution 2773.

Tshisekedi, for his part, hailed the agreement as a diplomatic breakthrough.

“We are not only aiming for the end of the war: we want a true peace that will be the basis of a vast project to rebuild a more inclusive, supportive and prosperous society.”

He praised international actors including former U.S. President Donald Trump, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Angolan President João Lourenço for helping broker the peace deal, and portrayed the accord as the beginning of a new era for the Great Lakes region.

Domestically, Tshisekedi also emphasized the need for unity, citing his recent meeting with opposition leader Martin Fayulu as a symbol of political maturity and reconciliation.

“It is time to transcend our divisions… Our unity is not an option: it is a survival condition.”

But as Mukwege rallies civil society under the banner of justice and sovereignty—and hints at mass mobilization if constitutional safeguards are ignored—the debate over Congo’s path forward is intensifying