It’s the kind of drama East Africa has grown all too familiar with—a simmering feud between neighbours, flaring into public accusations, heated rhetoric, and closed borders. But beneath the surface of the latest tensions between Rwanda and Burundi lies a thornier issue that stretches beyond bilateral irritation: the shadow of the M23 rebel group and the tangled web of alliances and rivalries playing out in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The current row erupted earlier this year when Burundian officials accused Rwanda of harbouring and supporting rebels from the RED-Tabara movement, a Burundian armed group blamed for launching attacks from Rwandan territory. Kigali, unsurprisingly, denied the charges, pointing instead to its own security concerns stemming from what it describes as destabilizing forces operating near its western border. The accusations would have remained part of the usual diplomatic tit-for-tat if it weren’t for Burundi’s bold move: it shut its border with Rwanda in January 2024, effectively freezing already icy relations.
But here’s where things get even messier. Burundi’s claims have dovetailed with a broader narrative emerging in the Great Lakes region, particularly regarding Rwanda’s alleged support for the M23 rebel movement in eastern DRC. Kinshasa has repeatedly accused Rwanda of backing M23—a charge supported by UN reports and echoed by several Western governments. M23, or the March 23 Movement, is a Tutsi-led rebel group that has been active intermittently since 2012. Its resurgence in late 2021 reignited conflict in North Kivu province, displacing hundreds of thousands and straining regional alliances.
Burundi’s alignment with the DRC on the M23 issue is not incidental. Bujumbura has sent troops to eastern Congo under the banner of the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF), ostensibly to help quell M23 and other armed groups wreaking havoc in the region. These deployments haven’t been purely symbolic. Burundian soldiers have seen combat, and sources suggest they’ve clashed with M23 fighters, adding another layer to the already complex political geometry of the Great Lakes.
This triangular tension—Burundi vs. Rwanda, DRC vs. M23, and M23 vs. almost everyone—has turned eastern Congo into a chessboard where local grievances, ethnic loyalties, and national ambitions intersect. While Rwanda insists it has no ties to M23 and portrays itself as unfairly scapegoated, its critics argue that Kigali is playing a long game: backing M23 to secure its interests in the resource-rich eastern Congo, while using plausible deniability to deflect international backlash.
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Burundi, meanwhile, appears to be repositioning itself as a key regional player, eager to prove its stability and cooperation with Congo as part of its post-isolation diplomatic resurgence. President Évariste Ndayishimiye has been keen to shake off the pariah status Burundi held under his predecessor, and what better way than to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Congo in its fight against M23—especially when the alleged puppet master is his most irksome neighbour?
The irony, of course, is that both Rwanda and Burundi have long histories of meddling in eastern Congo. Each has supported rebel groups at different times, sometimes to combat insurgents at home, other times to secure lucrative minerals or leverage political capital. The real novelty today is not the interference itself, but the regional dynamics. Uganda, which once openly backed rebels in Congo, now tries to play peacekeeper; Tanzania, the quiet giant, remains diplomatically cautious; and Kenya’s former President Uhuru Kenyatta continues his mediation efforts under the EAC peace initiative, albeit with mixed results.
Western governments have expressed concern, but their leverage is limited. Sanctions have been imposed on some Rwandan officials, and France, Belgium, and the U.S. have all called for a de-escalation. Yet without a regional consensus—or pressure from within African institutions—the stalemate persists.
For ordinary citizens caught in this web of regional animosities and rebel violence, the geopolitical game offers little comfort. Congolese civilians continue to flee clashes in North Kivu. Burundians living near the border with Rwanda face economic hardships due to closed trade routes. And Rwandan officials bristle at what they see as an orchestrated campaign to undermine their international reputation. Ultimately, the Rwanda-Burundi tiff is not just a neighbourhood squabble. It’s a microcosm of the larger dysfunction in the Great Lakes region, where history, identity, and ambition mix in dangerous proportions. As long as proxy forces like M23 are allowed to flourish in the shadows, the region’s search for peace will remain a moving target—and the cheeky headlines will keep writing themselves.
