Good afternoon. Is the Rwandan government going to pull its troops out of northern Mozambique? Probably not for now is the short answer; but it is still determined to make people believe that this is a credible threat. That is the explanation for Rwandan president Paul Kagame’s interview last week with the magazine Jeune Afrique, where he went further than before in discussing the cost of the Rwandan military mission. This mission sees 6,300 soldiers and police, according to newly disclosed Rwandan figures, help to fight the Islamic State-backed insurgents in the north. According to Kagame, the mission has cost Rwanda four to five times the funding that the European Union (EU) has provided for it in each of its funding packages. The EU has provided two funding packages, in 2022 and 2024, of €20m (about $23m) each; that implies that the Rwandan government is spending around $92-115m a year out of its own pocket.
Kagame’s interview comes in the wake of media reports saying that the EU will not renew the funding it has been providing for the Rwandan mission via the European Peace Facility. According to a recent article in French newspaper Le Monde, the reason is not really United States sanctions on the Rwandan armed forces, but more likely opposition from some EU member states due to Rwandan military support for the M23 rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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As Le Monde’s sources in Brussels point out, the end of EU funding would not be catastrophic for the Rwandans, since it represents a minority of the cost of the mission anyway. So that in itself does not explain this tough new negotiating line from the Kagame regime. What it cares about most is probably the US sanctions. As this newsletter noted recently, the sanctions applied to the Rwanda Defence Force and some of its commanders risk damaging Rwanda’s reputation as a provider of peacekeeping forces and its ability to continue carrying out that role across Africa, something very important to Kagame. It may be that securing external support for the Rwandan mission in Mozambique, as well as being financially welcome, would also help to restore its credibility internationally.
