Rwanda quites ECCAS over DRC biased

Rwanda Withdraws from ECCAS, Citing Institutional Bias and Rule Violations

The Government of Rwanda has officially announced its withdrawal from the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS), accusing the organization of being manipulated by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with the support of certain member states.

In a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Rwanda strongly criticized the recent proceedings of the 26th Ordinary Summit held in Malabo, where its legal right to assume the rotating chairmanship, as outlined in Article 6 of the ECCAS Treaty, was allegedly bypassed to impose the will of the DRC.

“This distortion of the organization’s purpose was once again evident… where Rwanda’s right to assume the rotating Chairmanship… was deliberately ignored,” the statement read.

Rwanda pointed out that this was not an isolated incident. It recalled its illegal exclusion from the 22nd Summit in 2023, hosted in Kinshasa under the DRC’s presidency, which it had already protested in a letter to the Chairperson of the African Union. The government emphasized that the silence and inaction of ECCAS in addressing the violation indicated a failure to uphold its own rules.

“The silence and inaction that followed confirm the organization’s failure to enforce its own rules,” the statement declared.

Citing a consistent violation of its rights and a departure from ECCAS’s founding principles, Rwanda concluded that it could no longer justify its membership in an organization “whose current functioning runs counter to its intended purpose.”

The withdrawal marks a significant diplomatic move by Rwanda and signals growing tensions within the regional bloc. No immediate response has been issued by ECCAS or the DRC at the time of this report.