DRC/M23 Peace Talks A Waste Of Time.

This was meant to have been a week of peace talks between the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the M23 rebels who are occupying expanses of the country’s east. Instead, M23 seized another key town: Walikale,
home to the biggest tin mine in the world. The Rwanda-backed fighters took Walikale just a day after the presidents of the DRC and Rwanda finally met in Doha to talk peace. They had called for an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire”. The surprise meeting, hosted by the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, was the first time that President Félix Tshisekedi and President Paul Kagame had met in years. In December, Kagame pulled out of a planned meeting in Luanda. Just before the Doha meeting, M23 had withdrawn from separate peace talks led by Angola. The group blamed new sanctions by the European Union against some of its members for its withdrawal. The group’s political leader, Corneille Nangaa, later told Reuters that what the two presidents had discussed and agreed on Tuesday Doha was not M23’s concern. M23’s seizure of Walikale was not unexpected by the local population. The tin mine, Bisie, closed operations last week in anticipation of the development. Control of Walikale is hotly contested, with DRC troops among the dozens of armed groups operating in the area.
Whoever controls the mines there standsto collect up to $100,000 a month in fees. Such fees have been one of the ways M23 funds its war. The UN said last December that the group was collecting $300,000 a month in production fees from coltan-rich Rubaya, which fell under its control long before Goma, Bukavu and now Walikale.