When You Try to Be the Regional Peacemaker but Everyone’s Fighting

Ghosted by Rebels, Unbothered

In the surreal world of Central African diplomacy, earlier this year, Angola found itself hosting peace talks in Central Africa that became farcical when one side simply never showed up. The goal was ambitious: get the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the rebel group M23 in the same room for direct dialogue. Both parties initially agreed. Delegates were named. Luanda prepared the venue.

And then, at the eleventh hour, M23 ghosted. No delegation, no explanation. Angola’s response? Business as usual. “All conditions for the talks to begin as planned are in place,” the government insisted—like someone insisting the party’s still on while vacuuming around a pile of unopened RSVP envelopes.

Who’s M23 and Why Does This Matter?

The M23, short for “March 23 Movement,” is a rebel group active in eastern Congo. Formed by former Congolese army officers, it claims to protect the interests of Tutsi communities, but it's widely seen as a proxy force for Rwanda. It briefly seized Goma in 2012 and resurfaced in recent years with fresh firepower, displacing over a million people and reigniting a deadly regional conflict. The group is now one of dozens involved in a humanitarian disaster the UN calls one of the world’s worst.

Why Angola Cares So Much

This latest round of talks—called by Angola—was meant to de-escalate the violence and restore at least some framework for dialogue. Angola, with its long border with the DRC, isn’t just playing regional therapist. It has skin in the game. Instability next door means refugee flows, armed spillover, and disruption to trade in provinces like Lunda Norte and Cabinda. And for a country still rebuilding from decades of civil war, the last thing Angola wants is chaos creeping back in through the front yard.

The Group Project from Hell

Diplomacy, it seems, is stuck in group project mode—everyone wants peace, no one wants to show up. While Angola laid out the chairs, regional bodies like the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) kept drawing up frameworks for military stabilization as if the war could be willed away by PowerPoint.

M23 blamed their no-show on a new round of EU sanctions targeting top Rwandan generals—their alleged backers. Rwanda, in turn, responded by cutting diplomatic ties with Belgium, its former colonial ruler. Angola, caught in the middle, tried to keep things civil and regional, hoping to keep the door open before the entire building collapsed.

Meanwhile on TikTok: The “Vape Revolution”

And here’s where the disconnect grows into absurdity: while diplomats argue over empty chairs, war rages on. And on the other side of the planet, Gen Z TikTokers are pledging to quit vaping… for Congo.

Seriously.

A wave of videos has emerged under hashtags like #QuitVapingForCongo. Young creators, mostly in the U.S. and UK, are tossing their e-cigarettes and announcing that they’re done with nicotine—not for health reasons, but because of cobalt. Cobalt, after all, is a key mineral in lithium-ion batteries that power phones, EVs, and yes, vapes. And about 70% of the world’s supply comes from the DRC, often mined under horrific conditions: child labor, forced evictions, collapsing shafts.

Good Intentions, Bad Narratives

This so-called “vape revolution” is well-meaning but also deeply emblematic of our short-circuited global attention span. Christoph Vogel, UN expert and author of Conflict Minerals, Inc., warns that while digital activism can spotlight urgent issues, it often collapses complexity into feel-good gestures. “There are widespread human rights violations, including child labour, in the context of cobalt mining,” he told the BBC. “But this is common to mining in general. To isolate cobalt as the problem is misleading.”

And then there’s the savior complex. Western outrage, amplified via viral posts, often drowns out local voices. The people suffering most—from displacement, exploitation, or bombardment—rarely have the same access to global platforms. Even well-intentioned activism can end up recentering privilege while invisibilizing the very communities it aims to support.

Back to the Battlefield

Meanwhile, back in Luanda, Angola's carefully staged peace talks carried on without participants. M23 later claimed their delegates would have been assassinated if they’d shown up—an excuse so grim and baroque it sounded less like a negotiation breakdown and more like a scene from a political thriller. But no one’s laughing. More than 6.9 million people are displaced inside the DRC. Humanitarian agencies are stretched thin. The war isn't slowing down—it's metastasizing.

Empty Chairs, Full Guns

And still, the contradictions multiply. Peace talks without rebels. Anti-vape crusades for anti-imperialism. Social media movements trying to fill a vacuum left by failed diplomacy.

So what might meaningful action actually look like? Probably not just quitting your vape. It means holding tech companies accountable for their supply chains. It means supporting Congolese-led organizations, not just Western-led outrage. And yes, it means real diplomacy that doesn’t collapse at the first sign of bad press or political inconvenience.

For now, Angola keeps the door open. But inside, the chairs are still empty—and across the border, the guns haven’t gone quiet.