In this episode of Hold Your Fire!, Richard is joined by Murithi Mutiga, Crisis Group’s Africa program director, to discuss the DR Congo-Rwanda deal, U.S. peacemaking in Africa and elsewhere, and how revisionist leadership could impact the continent. They unpack the U.S. and Qatar-brokered peace deal, its minerals component and the pitfalls in the Trump administration’s mediation style, also looking at diplomacy in other hotspots. They also discuss Sudan’s civil war and whether Trump’s illiberal dealmaking might offer a way out. They examine simmering tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea and what renewed war between them would mean for an already tumultuous region. Finally, they look at how revisionist leaders in Africa may be emboldened by a broader global trend of achieving goals through force, how Africans view Trump’s second term policy so far and how it compares to Chinese engagement in Africa.
More content from this blog
- Resisting Local Authoritarianism and Multipolar Imperialisms in Georgia. A Deeper Look into the Protests – 11 December 2024
- The Student Revolt in Serbia: Vučić’s Nemesis?, by Ivaylo Dinev – 29 January 2025
- The RSF’s Capture of El Fasher, Sudan: A Roundup, by Alex Thurston – 29 October 2025
- The Israeli Embassy Murders as a Rorschach Test, by Alexander Reid Ross – 3 June 2025
- Thomas Sankara and the Revolutionary Birth of Burkina Faso, by Mamadou Diallo – 1 February 2018