Prospects for Sustained Peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Ernest Wamba dia Wamba)

1. Since the creation of the Congo, at the Berlin Conference
(1884-1885) as a result of the resolution of the conflict opposing
imperial Africa conquering powers, the struggle for or against the
Congo has always been international, roughly opposing two camps: the
pro-Congolese people camp and the Congolese people
ignoring/marginalizing/repressing camp. The identity of the various
actors in each camp is very complex and situational. In the 1960’s,
President Kwame Nkrumah, in his Challenge of the Congo (1967), gave an
interesting indication of some of the then actors.

2. The camps are not distinguished along the lines of the
distinction, internal (domestic) vs. external (foreign) forces. At
times, during the epoch of the Congo Free State for example, external
forces such as the Morel Movement seemed more pro-Congolese people than
domestic ones. Even today, a great part of the Congolese “political
class” seems to be compradorian. The status of domestic forces, in each
camp, is decisive for the outcome of the struggle. The weakest the
position of the pro-Congolese people domestic forces leads to the
defeat of the Congolese people; i.e., the outcome is less favorable to
them.

3. The Congo has always been at the center of the globalization
process since the beginning. For a long time, the very hot Cold War, in
all its various phases (peaceful coexistence, rivalry, détente, new
rivalry, the end) shaped the struggle for or against the Congo. The
secessions (first balkanization of the country), the assassinations of
P.E. Lumumba and other nationalists and the dismantling of the
nationalist regime were explained with reference to the Cold War.

4. The history of the Congo has been marked by a process of a never-
ending crisis. The Congo Free State was marked by what Adam Hochschild
(King Leopold’s Ghost, 1998) has called an ignored holocaust, the
result of a brutal way of organizing the looting of the country’s
natural resources (Red rubber). The Morel led international conflict
resolution gave rise to Belgian Congo whose Colonial Charter’s
application was crisis bound. Prophetist (Kimbangu) and trade-unionist
uprisings were violently repressed. Starting with the crisis of
Independence, on and off, the Congo has gone through wars since 1960,
the one being ended is the eleventh. Or rather the war of emancipation
(?) is in its eleventh phase. 1960-1963, the conflict led to the first
balkanization of the country as a result of the Western dismantling of
the nationalist regime ( with the assassination of Lumumba and other
nationalist leaders), Katanga and Kasai mining companies and settlers
organized secessions and the proclamation of the Stanleyville Peoples
Republic. 1963-1967 and beyond: the defeat of the Second Independence
armed struggle and Mobutu’s Coup d’Etat (1965) led to the reunification
of the country under the banner of repression as policy by a
clientelist and discriminatory State.

1967-1985: wars against mercenary (Jean Schramme) led rebellion and
maquis resistance in eastern Congo and the so-called Shaba wars
(1977-1978) took place. 1989-1997: with the end of the Cold War (on the
basis of the collapse of the State-Party formations), the West nearly
abandoned the Western friendly tyran, Mobutu, and supported the SNC
movement of democratization based on a restored multipartyism. The
truth based national reconciliation was not achieved and this led to a
non-ending transition to democracy. Refusing to be replaced or
significantly reformed, Mobutu’s regime resorted to a destructive
policy of regionalism, ethnic cleansing, State repression of Tutsi
Congolese minority and regional destabilization: through involvement in
supporting genocidaire Rwandese regime and Angolan UNITA, for examples.
This gave the occasion to the region, with the USA conniving, to
militarily and diplomatically intervening on the side of the Congolese
people to overthrow Mobutu’s regime. Countries involved included:
Tanzania, South Africa, Rwanda, Uganda, Erytrea, Angola. The AFDL
regime failed to go into the roots of the never-ending crisis: no truth
based national reconciliation was contemplated, no resumption of the
democratization process, as Congolese people have hoped, its governance
fell very quickly into Mobutuist-like solitary exercise of power and
repression covered by an anti-Western phobic Lumumbist sounding
discourse and a resumption of regional destabilization policy starting
with the humiliation of some of its former allies and military backers.
This made the re-building of the decomposed State more difficult.
Military and political dissidence arose and received regional backing.
This led to the so-called ” African First World War” ( Madeleine
Albright), the second balkanization of the country into five
“administrations” (Kinshasa, Goma, Gbadolite, Bunia and Isiro), and an
estimated human cost of 3 million people dead.

5. So far, each phase has ended without having resolved the basic
underlining fundamental problems generating protracted armed conflicts.
Each phase has been also marked by direct involvement of external
forces through an “alignment” with some clientelist internal forces.
The strategic position of the country in Africa (if not the world), its
rich natural resources potential (strategic resources for the
succeeding capitalist phases: from tropical agriculture experienced
slaves, rubber, copper, cobalt/uranium, oil, coltan, biodiversity and
soon, water; without neglecting the money laundering diamond) and the
relative absence of strong national pro-Congo leadership institutions
make the country a continuous prey for protracted external
interventions and easy target for continuous people exploitation and
pauperization. People resistance, passive and active, makes the country
a war zone. The Congo has never had a sustained peace.

BASIC UNRESOLVED PROBLEMS AT THE ROOT OF THE CRISIS.

6. The capacities of the national leadership at independence were
not sufficient to start tackling correctly the problems of the country
in the World divided by Cold War, given the country’s strategic
position. In fact, very soon the leadership that fought for
independence and had some sense of its significance was replaced as a
presumed solution to the crisis of independence. The resulting troubled
Congolese history made it difficult to develop those necessary
capacities. Western dependency mentality, on the part of
would-be-leaders, has increased than decreased: each time the country
faces a problem the call is made for outside help. To the extent that
Western direct involvement tends to be a problem, basic problems remain
unresolved. The impression given by the nature of help which comes is
that the Congo is seen as ‘ a sick person that must be kept alive in an
intensive care unit, but not allowed to be totally cured.” There has
been no real vision to guide the transformation of a conquered and
colonized territory, freed with precipitation, into a self-reliant
Nation, responding positively to the basic interests of the Congolese
majority of people. The Congolese people have, thus, had no confidence
in the existing institutions and their actors. The latter have failed
to develop mutual trust with each other, and each actor, in the main,
has had no self-confidence. And while occupying a strategic position,
the country’s public consciousness has never reached the level required
by that position.

7. Crucial problems have not been mastered. The country, so large,
has not been even physically sufficiently integrated. Surrounded by 9
bordering countries, the country’s well understood national interest
can only be articulated with some consideration of its relation to
those of the neighboring countries. 6 out of the 9 countries have had
or are still undergoing civil wars: which, due to the decomposition of
our State, have been slipping over the DRC, making it easier for
external interventions into the country. The international dimension of
the country has not been mastered. The nature of the post-colonial
State, as a colonial legacy, i.e., a State created through conquest and
non-responsive to the basic needs of the conquered peoples, has not
been problematized and transformed to make it responsive to the needs
of all Congolese. The economy, dominated by a problematic of extraction
of natural resources whose markets are outside of the country,
entertains violent forced labor relations of production and a dynamics
of looting. This makes it unresponsive to the basic needs of
impoverished masses of people. The centuries’ history of the Congo’s
foreign capital investment and wealth creation based on resource
extraction has been a complete and total failure in terms of human and
socioeconomic conditions of the Congolese society. In the absence of a
true middle class and a patriotic political class, it is difficult to
achieve and sustain the necessary structural break from the existing
political economic structure. This break, if accomplished, would allow
both foreign investors and Congolese society conceptualize, define and
articulate their respective interests, requirements and needs as equal
stakeholders in mutual beneficial partnership based relationships. The
primary sources of conflict, in the Congo, are political and
socioeconomic structural problems. They have national, regional and
global dimensions.

8. The protracted crisis has always had concrete symptomatic forms
of expression in each situation. Presently, we are facing principally a
major political crisis, whose symptoms are as follows: a) an absence of
legitimate political institutions serving openly all the Congolese and
responding positively to their basic needs and aspirations and in which
they have confidence and trust; b) an absence of a democratically
rooted constitutionalism, since the 1965 coup d’Etat,
constitution-making has been devoted to underwrite and justify
dictatorial powers; c) the incumbent President, in a state of emergency
it is true, was designated by a small circle with no constitutional
known powers and endorsed by a parliament appointed by a
self-proclaimed President, the late L.D. Kabila; d) an absence of a
relatively independent, self-reliant and truly patriotic national
political leadership mobilizing the population to keep at bay
interventionist forces and tendencies; e) an insufficient national
consciousness among the people; f) a de facto balkanization of the
country; g) a continuous militarization of the politico-administrative
structure; being closer to or having recourse to arms as a way of
getting to or keeping power is seen as a good thing and warlords seen
as heroes awarded with the title of ‘leader’; h) an absence, especially
within the structures and institutions of leadership, of political
ethics ( public morality, respect for the res publica, active
opposition to corruption and other negative values, the will to truth,
active pursuit of a healthy interethnic conviviality, ultimate concern
for human life, respect for political adversaries or dissidents, etc.);
i) the debasing of Congolese intellectuals, devoting their intellectual
work to the celebration of dictators, to spreading fear in the
population or in gravitating around mediocrity; k) with the lapsing of
the political model of ‘liberation movements’ and the crisis of Party
form, the existing numerous Parties (close to 400 registered) function
as NGO’s almost the same way as civil society NGO’s with no clear
vision or organized people mobilization; l) even after the end of the
Cold War and the overthrow of Mobutu’s one-Party State kleptocratic
‘dictatorship’, a transition to democratic rule has been indefinite:
the country giving the impression of having embarked on a
self-destructive course and a real possibility of partition.

SOME CONFLICT RESOLUTION PROBLEMS IN DEALING WITH THE CONGOLESE CRISIS.

9. SADC sponsored search for peace in the DRC– leading to the Lusaka
Cease-Fire Accord– and the long lasting Inter-Congolese political
negotiations: leading to the Global and Inclusive Accord– have singled
out the end of war, peace, the re-unification of the country and a
transition towards a new political dispensation as their targets. The
complexity of the problem, the shaky determination of the African
leadership and its relative financial and material poverty allowed the
international community to take over the active “sponsorship” of the
overall process. The SADC group was particularly sidelined.

10. Political problems aside, peace negotiations have suffered from
conceptual confusions. When the people are not at the center of the
search for peace, situations of conflict are not correctly grasped:
what makes peace impossible in each situation is grasped through
generalities drawn from a context-free conceptual framework model which
guides the peace negotiations. The silencing of weapons seems to be the
end-result target. The so-called realist politics, centered around the
notion of might is right, or the idea of the ’strong man’ coupled with
the notion of a zero-sum game provide for the conceptual apparatus to
deal with peace negotiations. ” How and by whom are people represented
in peace negotiations?” This question is often not contemplated.
Negotiations are centered around warlords i.e., anyone posing a visible
threat to peace has more consideration, not the most victimized. In a
situation where we refuse to think on our own, refuse to take our
history seriously or to see things from a long perspective, we don’t
start from a rational sum-up of past outcomes of conflict resolutions:
the lessons of the failures and/or successes of the 1993 Arusha Peace
Agreement for Rwanda, the 1994 Peace Protocols for Angola, the Namibia
Accords, etc. The ICD lasted so long and cost so much because it was
badly organized and too much groping in the dark. This allowed pandora
boxes to be drawn in and be open.

11. The long and frustrating process of inter-Congolese negotiations
eventually led to the Global and Inclusive Accord, now being
implemented. Due to the nature of the Congolese “political class” and
the mediation methodology, no real dialogue over the Congolese crisis
really took place. Negotiations were subordinated to the imperatives of
power sharing: you must get a State post or chair or die! The mediation
team was composed of representatives of the UN (the UNSG’s Special
Envoy, Moustapha Niasse) and the South African government. It followed
a strategy which, while making it possible to reach the result faster,
did not facilitate confidence building and trust among the Congolese
parties. From the beginning to the end, no point of agreement was
reached between Congolese themselves without outside pressure. Informal
consultations and discussions were used and only results were presented
in the plenary meetings. Questions of procedure were entirely handled
by the moderation, with no room for organized input from the Congolese
parties. The mediation paid more attention to negotiations with the
components referred to as ‘big belligerents’: Kinshasa Government, MLC
and RCD-Goma. The other components and entities (Civil Society,
Non-armed Political Opposition, RCD-ML, RCD-N and Mai Mai) were more or
less called upon to endorse points of agreement reached by the big
belligerents. The exchanges between delegates were indirect, passing
through mediators. At no time, almost, did any of the delegates meet
and discuss, face to face, to defend each other’s positions. No real
palaver took place. The pressure was permanent on the delegates; thus
avoiding a situation where certain parties could behave as if they had
a veto right. And yet, the so-called ‘big belligerents’ knew they
counted more than the other parties. As a consequence, the other
parties, especially the Non-armed Political Opposition and Civil
Society, lost their relative autonomy. Each organization of those
components felt obliged to align itself with one or the other big armed
component in the hope to have access to important posts in the
transitional institutions. Almost all groups developed a strong
tendency to seek more posts in the State institutions rather than
lowering their demands for them, at the expense of national
reconciliation. The armed groups continue to seek to implant themselves
politically throughout the whole country through the acquired posts in
the transition. Instead of focusing primarily on resolving the current
Congolese crisis, they are more concerned with how to win elections
through the use of their positions in State structures. Briefly, the
logic of negotiations was predicated on the realist politics of ‘might
is right’. It did contradict the very thrust of the Accord which puts
emphasis on inclusiveness, consensus, working/moving/winning together
and not at the expense of some. For the big armed groups, inclusiveness
meant trying everything to get their members and perhaps their allies
or clients in as many important posts of the transitional institutions
as possible. There was no attempt to make sure that nobody felt being
excluded; and the issue of how to regenerate the Congolese people’s
confidence in the transitional institutions and officials was never
raised.

TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY AS A SOLUTION TO THE CONFLICT.

12. No transition, so far has succeeded in the Congo. A new attempt
has taken off, with the formation of the transitional government. The
transition, starting with the end of the first balkanization, to a
federal democracy was stopped by the 1965 coup d’Etat. The SNC
organized transition was resisted by the refusal of Mobutu’s regime to
give up and eventually ended with the overthrow of that regime by AFDL
led armed struggle supported by a regional unified effort. The AFDL
proclaimed plan of transition never even took off. Will this transition
succeed? Of course, the crisis of legitimacy has been at the center of
the Congolese political crisis, not size of the country, ethnicity or
the mere presence of the ‘fabulous’ potential of natural resources.
Transition to democracy aims at dealing precisely with the legitimacy
question. Forces (domestic and external), opposed to democracy, have
made democratic transition in the Congo almost impossible.

13. To assess the chances of success of this new attempt, two
questions need to be addressed separately: what is ending and what is
starting? Basic principles which guide the process of transition have
been arrived at on the basis of a formal consensus between Congolese
parties reached and sustained under foreign pressure. Mistrust between
Congolese actors still prevails. The profound pauperization of the
population at large, the absence of people political mobilization and
the absence of political will on the part of ‘leaders’ to deal with
crucial issues of the crisis make the people at large uninterested and
politically powerless to exercise pressure for the transition to be
non-conflict bound and successful. While we have been lucky to have had
both dictators, Mobutu and L.D. Kabila, and we should now know what not
to do, even if we may not know what to do differently, would-be leaders
are behaving as if nothing has been learned. Mobutist legacy weighs
heavily on the leaders’ and the people’s minds and behaviors. External
actors do not seem to have drawn any positive lessons from the
dictators’ political catastrophes either. The overall powerful and
mostly negative external influence on the course of events shows that
the national question remains unresolved and more bloody future
historical episodes are likely. The very way the transitional
institutions are being put in place, with the re-activation of
so-called anti-valeurs (clientelism, regionalism, ethnicism or
tribalism, corruption, etc.) makes their sustainability precarious.
Democratic values are spoken about only with the strong desire on each
party to mend the process to win the elections, not to act positively
according to those values. The adversary pluralist cohabitation (with 4
Vice-Presidents), in the presidential political space, does not help
eradicate mistrust at all. Rumors of possibilities of a coup d’Etat are
already being heard. Neo-Mobutism haunts the political scene; this is a
Mobutism that has not self-criticized and likely to be revengeful. Are
we headed towards one more tragedy or a farce? Did we need to sacrifice
close to 3 millions Congolese to reach this result?

14. So, what is ending? People want the war and balkanization to end
as a way also of ending the State decomposition and collapsing. The
reconstructed State is supposed to transform the conditions of
existence of the protracted Congolese crisis. Foremost, it is supposed
to organize credible, free and fair elections to lay to rest the
problem of legitimacy. With the warlike Presidential collegiality, the
spectre of the “strong man” or “providential man” politics seems to
have diminished. Perhaps, such as a situation may end the destruction
of the relative autonomy of State by the past dictators. Even if there
is no debate, and thus clarity, on what type of State is going to be
reconstructed. The people want it to be the one responsive to their
needs; this will need to be struggled for. While party politics are
still conceived within the horizon of State-party as a party-form,
party pluralism is now inscribed within the State institutions and may
enhance pluralism. The only worry is that even the armed forces seem to
be marked by such adversary pluralism making their unity, apolitical,
professional and republican characters precarious.

15. And what is starting? Pluralism is creating a real possibility
of debates on national issues. Political battles are likely to be
conducted on the basis of ‘policy against policy’ (politique contre
politique) and battles may be more focused on points of public
consciousness. With this, different forms of political organization of
politics are likely. The question of what kind of relationship to power
is possible for power to be openly serving the Congolese people is
going to be raised and confronted more consciously. If institutions of
democratic empowerment are allowed to function relatively
independently, transition will be more focused on bringing about
credible, free and fair elections. These possibilities will be very
much constrained by the everlasting weight of external forces opposed
to the transformation of the structural socio-economic conditions of
the Congolese crisis. The result of the now being planned international
conference on the Great Lakes region will be the test of the political
will of the regional political leadership and the international
community to opt for sustained regional peace, equity, representative
democracy, social justice, mutual trust based pursuit of regional
security and pro-people developmentalist regional cooperation. It is a
big challenge; it requires stronger and more open and trustworthy types
of political leaderships within each country and in the region.

CONCLUSION:

16. I tried, in a very condensed form, to provide basic elements to
grasp the Congolese precarious history of bloody conflicts. I could not
deal with all the cases that needed to be discussed. The Ituri
situation alone would require a full paper and so would require the
Kivu focalized Rwanda-Congo relations. I wanted to provide a broader
picture which may help the understanding of specific crucial issues. If
time allows it, I will entertain questions on issues not dealt with.

Kinshasa, July 26, 2003.