Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka delivered two landmark bills to the National Assembly and Senate on Saturday, formally launching the parliamentary ratification of the DRC–Rwanda peace accord and the strategic partnership with the United States.
KINSHASA / GOMA — The Democratic Republic of Congo’s government took a significant constitutional step on Saturday, March 7, formally submitting to Parliament two ratification bills covering the peace agreement signed with Rwanda and the strategic partnership concluded with the United States. The move launches the legislative process that will determine whether these landmark accords, negotiated under intense American diplomatic pressure and widely seen as defining commitments for the future of eastern DRC, acquire full legal force under Congolese law.
Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka personally delivered the two bills to the presidents of both chambers of Parliament. The documents were received by National Assembly President Aimé Boji Sangara and Senate President Jean-Michel Sama Lukonde, in the presence of the leadership of both houses.
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The Prime Minister was accompanied by several senior members of the government, including Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Jacquemain Shabani Lukoo, Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Noëlla Ayeganagato Nakwipone, and Minister of Communication and Media Patrick Muyaya Katembwe.
Suminwa Tuluka described the submission as a constitutional obligation, citing Article 214 of the DRC’s Constitution, which requires parliamentary approval for international treaties engaging the state’s finances, sovereignty, or requiring changes to domestic law. “I came to fulfil a constitutional duty,” she said, adding that the move was designed to ensure that elected representatives could fully acquaint themselves with the content of agreements concluded in the country’s name.
The timing of the submission during the parliamentary recess was deliberate. The executive moved to complete all necessary procedural steps before the next legislative session begins, ensuring the bills are formally in the hands of Parliament when lawmakers return.
The DRC–Rwanda Peace Agreement. Signed in Washington on June 27, 2025, and supplemented by an annex on regional economic integration concluded in December 2025, this accord represents the centrepiece of U.S.-mediated diplomacy between Kinshasa and Kigali. It commits both parties to the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from eastern DRC within 90 days of its entry into force, the establishment of a joint security coordination mechanism within 30 days, and the “irreversible and verifiable” end of state support for the FDLR, the Hutu militia active in eastern DRC linked to perpetrators of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide as well as for M23. It also includes provisions for the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, and guarantees of humanitarian access.
The DRC–U.S. Strategic Partnership Agreement. Concluded in November 2025 and modelled in part on a minerals deal previously arranged between the United States and Ukraine, this agreement establishes a long-term strategic partnership between Washington and Kinshasa. Its core pillars include defence and security cooperation to protect DRC’s territorial integrity and critical mineral reserves; economic cooperation, with U.S. companies granted a right of first offer on strategic asset projects through a newly created Strategic Asset Reserve (SAR); scientific, technological, and educational collaboration; and institutional and governance reform support, covering judicial reform and anti-corruption measures. The DRC’s vast deposits of critical minerals, including cobalt, coltan, and lithium, sit at the heart of U.S. strategic interest in the partnership.
Under DRC constitutional law, international agreements touching on state finances, sovereignty, or domestic legislation must pass through Parliament before they can take binding legal effect. The June 2025 peace deal with Rwanda was signed without prior parliamentary approval, a procedural controversy that drew criticism from legal scholars, who argued that both the DRC and Rwanda had bypassed their respective constitutional ratification requirements. Saturday’s submission marks the government’s formal effort to close that gap and anchor both agreements in domestic law.
For the accords to enter into legal force domestically, both the National Assembly and the Senate must examine, debate, and vote to ratify them. The process will require lawmakers to scrutinise the specific obligations the DRC is taking on, including the strategic mining concessions to U.S. investors, the security coordination commitments with Rwanda, and the timeline for troop withdrawal. These are provisions with profound implications for national sovereignty and for the lives of millions of people in eastern Congo.
Prime Minister Suminwa emphasised that both agreements were concluded in the interest of the Congolese people, with the primary objective of achieving a lasting return to peace in the east. “These commitments were made with the interest of the Congolese people in mind,” she said, calling on parliamentarians to thoroughly familiarise themselves with the texts before the legislature resumes.
The submission comes at a particularly fraught moment. Just five days earlier, on March 2, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Rwanda’s Defence Force and four of its top generals for continuing to support M23 in eastern DRC, a move that Washington described as a response to Rwanda’s violation of the Washington Accords. The sanctions signal growing American frustration with the pace of implementation and are the sharpest U.S. rebuke of Kigali in years.
The combination of U.S. sanctions on Rwanda and the submission of ratification bills to the DRC Parliament on the same day as the 25th EAC Summit, from which both Kagame and Tshisekedi were conspicuously absent, reflects a peace process that is simultaneously advancing on paper and unravelling on the ground. M23 continues to hold Goma and Bukavu. Fighting persists on multiple fronts in the Kivus. And the Rwandan military, now formally sanctioned by Washington, has shown no sign of withdrawing.
For the people of eastern DRC, the ratification process now unfolding in Kinshasa is one more chapter in a diplomatic story that has repeatedly produced agreements without peace. The bills tabled on Saturday represent a constitutional milestone. Whether Parliament will ratify them, on what timeline, and under what conditions remains to be seen. And whether the accords they enshrine will translate into a ceasefire, troop withdrawal, and durable stability in North and South Kivu remains the question that matters most to those who have lived through decades of conflict in the Kivus.
Source: Actualite cd