| M23 rebels stand with their weapons, in Kibumba, DRC, Dec. 23, 2022 (AP photo by Moses Sawasawa). |
| Human Rights Watch just published a new report documenting the mass killings last month of at least 140 civilians in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo by Rwanda-backed M23 rebels. HRW cited “eyewitness accounts, the U.N., and military sources” indicating that the Rwandan military was also involved in the summary executions, which targeted mainly ethnic Hutus. |
| The atrocities—some of the worst since M23’s resurgence in 2021—were committed despite peace talks brokered by the U.S. and Qatar to end the conflict. Recall that Trump brought together the foreign ministers of Congo and Rwanda to sign a peace agreement in the Oval Office in June. That deal—which was not a formal treaty to end the war—appears to have had no impact. |
| That did not stop Trump this week from citing the conflict in Central Africa as one of the seven “wars" he supposedly ended. Indeed, the president and his supporters have dubbed him the “peacemaker-in-chief” as Trump vies for a Nobel Peace Prize. |
| Of course, no world leader should face criticism for trying to seek peace—far from it. But many of Trump’s efforts have suffered from a lack of coherence and sustained attention. |
| Following the White House signing ceremony between Congo and Rwanda, Trump’s envoy, Massad Boulos, participated in peace talks between Congo and the M23 in Doha, which did yield a preliminary declaration of principles toward a permanent ceasefire. But that did not stop the raging violence, nor has there been any high-level follow-through from senior levels of the Trump administration, as Trump himself moved on to other crises. This week, the future of the Congo-M23 talks in Doha was thrown into uncertainty as negotiators missed a deadline to reach a durable agreement. |
| Some of Trump’s other efforts seem to have been similarly designed more for making headlines than for securing lasting peace. When the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a joint peace declaration at the White House earlier this month, it deservedly won praise for advancing peace in a region that has seen on-again-off-again conflict for decades. But it later emerged that the deal had only been initialed by the two countries’ foreign ministers, with Azerbaijan stating it would only be formally signed once Armenia had agreed to further conditions, including an amendment to its constitution. |
| Moreover, that deal can still be undermined by opposition from neighboring Iran, which objects to a provision in the agreement calling for a strategic transit corridor to connect Azerbaijan with its exclave within Armenian territory. By the terms of the deal, the U.S. would hold development rights over the corridor, which happens to be along Armenia’s border with Iran. |
| It is also worth noting that this peace declaration came two years after Azerbaijan used military force to seize the contested territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, after having first used a blockade to starve the population of some 150,000 ethnic Armenian inhabitants there. The entire population subsequently fled in the face of the invasion—a textbook case of ethnic cleansing. |
| As Laurence Broers wrote for WPR at the time, Azerbaijan’s approach to the conflict fits the mold of what scholars call authoritarian conflict management: “an approach to conflict that uses a variety of coercive methods to suppress grievances, impose stability and uphold power verticals.” In other words, before this year’s Trump-brokered declaration, peace had already been enforced upon the region at the barrel of a gun. And while Trump does not use military force to push through his “peace” deals, his approach otherwise bears a close resemblance to Broers’ description of authoritarian conflict management. |
| With three and a half years left in his administration, the full story of Trump’s efforts to end the many conflicts raging around the world is yet to be written. But at least so far, the picture is, unsurprisingly, far more complicated than he and his supporters make it seem. |