YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – A claim by U.S. President Donald Trump that he has stopped the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been dismissed by the Director of the Denis Hurley Peace Institute of the Southern Africa Bishops’ Conference, Johan Viljoen.

In June, the Trump administration brokered a peace agreement between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda designed to bring an end to decades of fighting in eastern DRC.

Rwanda has for long been accused of supporting the M23 rebels-one of the major armed groups fighting for the control of minerals and territory in Eastern DRC.

The rebel group rejected the U.S.-brokered peace deal, asking for direct negotiations with Kinshasa to address what it called unresolved political grievances.

That didn’t stop Trump from taking a victory lap, claiming that he had ended the conflict and several others, even as he described the DRC as the “darkest, deepest” part of Africa. He further claimed that nine million people had been “killed with machetes” in the DRC’s decades-long war and insisted that “I stopped it.”

Viljoen now says Trump was exaggerating, telling Crux that a peace deal couldn’t be negotiated in the absence of the rebel movements.

“Of course he was exaggerating,” he said of Trump’s claim about stopping the war.

“If you look at the so-called agreement that he signed-he had the government of Rwanda and the government of DRC. M23 wasn’t there, AFD wasn’t there. None of the rebel groups or insurgents was there,” he said.

“So the violence continues,” he said, citing a UN report that indicates at least 52 civilians were killed in eastern Congo this month, with the DRC army and the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group accusing each other of violating the US-mediated ceasefire deal.

The UN said that ADF violence was “accompanied by kidnappings, looting, the burning of houses, vehicles, and motorcycles, as well as the destruction of property belonging to populations already facing a precarious humanitarian situation.”

“It’s just a repeat of what has always been happening, and there isn’t any prospect for peace. So I am not hopeful that peace will return anytime soon to the DRC, and I certainly don’t think that Donald Trump is the person who will produce it,” Viljoen told Crux.

Trump’s peace for minerals approach

Trump seems to be obsessed with rare minerals, and has been leveraging American military and economic might to negotiate peace deals in exchange for minerals. He has already signed such a deal with Ukraine and has turned to the DRC – conditioning the peace agreement between Rwanda and the DRC on the U.S. exploiting the enormous mineral resources of the country.

It’s an approach Catholic Bishops in the Central African country aren’t very comfortable with, expressing skepticism that the US-brokered peace negotiations have been overly transactional and not focused on genuine dialogue.

‘We must talk to everyone,” said Monsignor Donatien Nshole, secretary general of Episcopal Conference of the DRC (CENCO), an apparent critique of the absence of key rebel leaders at the talks.

The archbishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, blasted Trump for his transactional approach to politics, and recalled that the DRC as most of Africa has suffered from “centuries of extractivism, slavery and exploitation.”

The Congolese cardinal questioned the wisdom of a peace for minerals approach, noting that the war in the east of the Congo is one caused by minerals in the first place.

“Congolese and Rwandans, you are at war with each other over minerals, and I, the great Trump, will come and reconcile you, and you will give me the minerals,” Ambongo said, by way of a caricature.

“He tried this solution in Ukraine, and it didn’t work. And here, everyone is running around, everyone is afraid of Trump. Enough of these false decisions,” the Congolese cardinal warned.

However, Congolese authorities are supportive of the American approach and want the effort to succeed.

Peace attainable through Church initiative

For Catholic and Protestant Churches in the DRC though, the path to sustainable peace lies in the implementation of the “Social Pact for Peace and Harmonious Coexistence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Great Lakes.”

It is a roadmap that seeks to rally citizens, religious communities, and political leaders around a shared goal: That of ending violence and fostering peaceful coexistence and social cohesion.

“The activities and behaviors of politicians in the Democratic Republic of Congo clearly prove that the ‘Social Pact for Peace and Harmonious Coexistence’ remains the best solution in resolving the security and sociopolitical crises in the country,” said Father Aurélien Kambale Rukwata, Director of the Diocesan Commission for Justice and Peace (CDJP) of the country’s Catholic Diocese of Butembo-Beni.

He said the Churches’ initiative “is a citizen-based republican approach. It is not a partisan or political initiative.”

“That is why politicians must leave their narrow frameworks and join the Republic — putting the interest of the nation above the interest of political parties,” he said.