Public spat between foreign ministers reopens debate over the armed group, the Washington peace accords, and Burundi’s leadership of the African Union
A public exchange between the foreign ministers of Burundi and Rwanda has reignited debate over the role of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and over the wider regional peace process meant to end it.
The dispute began Sunday when Burundi’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Édouard Bizimana, argued on X that the FDLR is being used to obscure the real drivers of the war in eastern Congo.
“FDLR is just an alibi used to cover real motivations of the war imposed on Congolese people,” Bizimana wrote, referencing a televised discussion on the French channel Public Sénat. Any durable solution, he added in French, must take that reality into account.
Rwanda’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Olivier Nduhungirehe, responded within hours, rejecting Bizimana’s characterization of the FDLR and tying the dispute to Burundi’s current position atop the African Union.
Nduhungirehe noted that Bizimana is not only Burundi’s top diplomat but also chairs the AU’s Executive Council and argued the council itself has repeatedly condemned the FDLR and called for its disarmament and repatriation. “If he doesn’t read documents of the organisation he chairs,” Nduhungirehe wrote, he should be reminded of those resolutions.
AU records confirm Bizimana currently chairs the Executive Council, he presided over its 26th extraordinary session in Luanda on Aug. 29, which focused on strengthening the continent’s conflict-prevention and resolution mechanisms.
Nduhungirehe went on to invoke the Washington peace process between Rwanda and Congo, arguing that both the June 2025 peace agreement and the December 2025 “Accords for Peace and Prosperity” — brokered with U.S. backing — commit Kinshasa to neutralizing the FDLR. He questioned why Bizimana was disputing the group’s role given that Burundi is not a signatory to either agreement.
The Rwandan minister then broadened his criticism into an allegation not an established fact, but Rwanda’s characterization that Burundi’s own army cooperates with the FDLR in eastern Congo. “It’s appalling to note that the Chairperson of the African Union, whose army collaborates with the FDLR in eastern DRC, continues to deny the existence of a genocidal force,” he wrote, adding that the AU “should avoid, for the future, to hand over the reins of our precious organisation to people who obviously don’t have the capacity to lead it.”
A recurring confrontation
This is not the first time the two ministers have clashed publicly. In March, following a meeting between Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye and members of the Banyamulenge community in Bujumbura, Nduhungirehe questioned the legitimacy of some delegation members, according to Burundi Times. Bizimana defended the meeting, asking pointedly who was really “dividing” the Banyamulenge community. Burundi’s president, who met with members “of both sides of the aisle,” or a Rwandan government that “considers one part of the community as rogue.” He also described Nduhungirehe at the time as “a minister under pressure of a cornered regime.”
That earlier dispute centered on representation of the Banyamulenge community. The latest one shifts the argument onto the FDLR itself, the Washington accords, and the AU’s role in the conflict.
Competing narratives, same unresolved core
The exchange captures one of the central disagreements underlying the eastern Congo conflict. For Kigali, the FDLR remains an active security threat and a necessary piece of any durable settlement, a position it has pressed consistently in regional diplomacy. Bizimana’s post does not dispute the group’s existence, but argues it is being used to mask deeper political and security causes of the war.
That distinction is not merely rhetorical, a lasting settlement depends not only on agreement over which armed groups should disarm, but on agreement over the conditions that have allowed the conflict to persist in the first place.
The timing adds another layer. The dispute follows an AU Executive Council session in August, chaired by Bizimana, that was devoted to strengthening the continent’s own conflict-prevention machinery, raising the question of whether disagreements of this kind can be reconciled within the diplomatic frameworks both the AU and the Washington process are meant to provide.
For Bujumbura and Kigali, though, the clash is the latest in a broader pattern of increasingly public friction over eastern Congo, regional security, and the political stakes for communities caught in between, a pattern that shows no sign of resolving alongside the diplomacy meant to end it.
