11 12 12 Congo's Weak Peace Process

The M23
Congolese rebel group (Guardian), widely thought to be backed by the Rwandan
government, has been making significant gains in eastern Democratic Republic of
Congo in recent weeks. The rebels occupied the vital city of Goma for ten days
in late November, but withdrew this past weekend amid mounting international
pressure. The rebels were largely disenfranchised by the internationally
mediated peace process following Congo's 1996 – 2003 war, and their interests in
eastern Congo relate both to economics and security, explains Jason Stearns of the Rift Valley
Institute. The M23 pulled out from Goma because they needed a "PR boost," says
Stearns. But, he warns, the distrust between the Congolese government and the
rebels make potential negotiations difficult. "The prospects for a comprehensive
deal that would lead to a demobilization and reintegration of the rebels are
probably still slim," Stearns says.

Who are the M23 rebels and what are their goals in eastern
Congo?

The M23 rebellion was born out of a similar rebellion called the CNDP
[National Congress for the Defense of the People]. Both of these rebellions need
to be seen within the context of a failed peace process in the Congo. The big
picture here is that the Congo was intermittently at war between 1996 and 2003,
a war in which nine African countries participated and which split the country
into at least five parts. There was an internationally mediated peace process
that brought about an end to that war, unified the country in 2003, created a
transitional government, and then organized elections in 2006. While there are
many causes for the ensuing rebellion, first among them was that the peace
process was deeply disadvantageous to the Rwandan-backed RCD [Congolese Rally
for Democracy] rebels who controlled almost a third of the country. They were
deeply unpopular and stood to be decimated at the ballot box and, in fact, when
elections did happen in 2006, they went from controlling a third of the country
to controlling only several percent in national institutions. Their presidential
candidate won 1 percent of the total vote. So it wasn't entirely surprising to
see the elites in the east of the country—and the Rwandan government—back an
armed alternative.

This new armed group, the CNDP, emerged in the eastern highlands as a way to
protect the interests both of local elites as well as those of the Rwandan
government—these included economic investments, but also physical security,
which neither the local Tutsi community nor the neighboring Rwandan government
[also ethnic Tutsis] felt Kinshasa [Congolese capital] could guarantee. Thus the
CNDP was born, fighting the national government between 2004 and 2009. The
rebellion concluded with a peace deal between the Congolese government and the
Rwandan government, which integrated the CNDP into the national
army.

This peace deal was a very shaky and volatile one in the sense that it
allowed the CNDP to maintain an army within an army in the east. Ex-CNDP
officers had separate chains of command, and in some cases, entire units that
only obeyed their hierarchy. Most egregious for local communities and other
officers, the ex-CNDP had preferential access to lucrative mining areas and
smuggling routes, making many of them rich. It was just a matter of time before
this peace deal would collapse. The Congolese government didn't like it—on
several occasions, it tried to dismantle these parallel structures and deploy
ex-CNDP officers elsewhere—and the CNDP knew that this was only a short-term
arrangement. So the M23 rebellion is really the result of the collapse of the
2009 deal and the result of the failure of the main peace process that ended in
2006. The M23 was a reaction to Kinshasa moving to break apart the CNDP parallel
command structures.

Can you expand on Rwanda's role in backing these rebels and what is
at stake for the Rwandan government?

Rwanda has, more or less, controlled or maintained influence over areas in
the eastern Congo, in particular the eastern highlands around the trade hub of
Goma, since 1996. The dismantlement of the CNDP posed a threat to Rwanda, as it
undermined its sphere of influence in the Congo. The eastern Congo is important
to Rwanda for various reasons. It has economic [interests] there; it stood to
lose a lot in terms of business networks and investments. But you can't reduce
it to economics. The main security challenges the Rwandan government has faced
in the past eighteen years since it came to power have come from the eastern
Congo. After the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, the army and militias that
orchestrated the massacres fled into the eastern Congo; they have continued
their campaign against the government since then. Today the group, the FDLR
[Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, an ethnically Hutu group],
probably only includes a small number of people who participated in the genocide
and is much diminished. However, it symbolically still grabs Rwanda's collective
imagination in the sense that it includes a few of the members who committed the
genocide.

The government in Kigali [capital of Rwanda], the RPF ruling party [Rwandan
Patriotic Front], is a former rebel movement itself. There is still a culture of
control, especially in terms of its internal threats, which sometimes reaches
into the Congo. This culture of control has allowed for a very efficient
development machinery, allowing for great strides into terms of social services,
but has also resulted in a very aggressive stance toward the neighboring
government in the Congo, which many Rwandans think is in complete shambles. They
[the Rwandan government] have no trust whatsoever in this [Congolese]
government, and they feel the only way they can ensure their own interests is by
supporting an armed rebellion.

What else is at stake in Goma and the larger eastern Congo with
regards to resources?

The eastern Congo is vastly rich, but those riches are tied up in artisanal
mines, pick-and-shovel operations in riverbeds and mountainsides. There are vast
amounts of gold, tin, tantalum, and tungsten, but there's almost no industrial
exploitation. So the way the armed groups benefit is by taxing these mines and
trade routes. The government in Rwanda may benefit, but in a more indirect
fashion. There are minerals that are from the Congo that are exported by local
companies that have links to the Rwandan government, and some of these minerals
are smuggled into Rwanda and exported onto the world market as Rwandan minerals;
it's significant but it's not a large percentage of Rwanda's total production.
Economics explains part of it, but it doesn't go the whole way. This is about
geopolitics as much as it is about economics.

Why did the M23 rebels recently withdraw from Goma, as news reports
in early December said, and are they likely to stay out of the
city?

We don't know exactly why the rebels retreated from Goma, and that decision
was fraught with contradictions within the armed group, in the sense that the
military wing said one thing, the political wing another. But eventually they
did withdraw. But it was clear that they needed a PR boost to look like they
were part of the solution and not part of the problem in the eastern Congo. They
were getting pummeled by the international media, not only for the support from
Rwanda, but just for the fact that they were seen as the driving cause of
instability in the region and displacement. They look like they're acting in
good faith, that they want to negotiate, and that they're not aggressors. That
was the main way of regaining the moral upper hand in the
conflict.

Rwanda has also come under significant pressure: $220 million in foreign aid
has now been suspended, around 12 percent of their total budget. It would not
surprise me if Rwanda also played a significant role in telling M23 to withdraw
so the pressure would be released, at least in the short term.

Despite this retreat, however, the prospects for a comprehensive deal that
would lead to a demobilization and reintegration of the rebels are probably
still slim. The Congolese government thinks that they can strike another deal
like the one in 2009, which would be essentially a sharing-the-pie deal—the M23
would get a couple ministers, have some positions in the army, and then
demobilize and reintegrate. Whereas if you talk to the M23, they want political
reforms and a much more comprehensive deal. There is very little faith in the
Congolese government living up to its commitments.

What has the role of the international community been in this crisis,
and, specifically, what should be U.S. policy in the
region?

This crisis has brought about a shift in international donor policy for the
region, in particular criticism and financial sanctions against Rwanda, which is
something that's new. However, using aid as leverage only makes sense in the
context of a larger political process. Bashing Rwanda just for the sake of
bashing Rwanda is not a solution. There needs to be a comprehensive political
process into which that kind of pressure can be funneled and channeled. But
there is no such process at the moment. What you have are talks mediated by a
regional body—the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region
(ICGLR)—that has the irony of being presided over by Uganda, which is itself
playing a role in the conflict by supporting the M23. These talks have been
largely limited to an evaluation of the March 23, 2009 peace deal, and the
potential formation of a regional military force to deal with the FDLR and M23.
But the causes of the crisis run much deeper and involve the failure of local
governance, the weakness of the Congolese army, and the persistent meddling of
neighboring countries in Congolese affairs.

Since 2006, we have not had a peace process in the Congo with strong
international mediation. That year marked the end of the official peace process
in the Congo, culminating in the first truly democratic elections in forty
years. But the war was not over—violence has escalated in the east since then,
but the Congolese government has maintained the fiction that this conflict is an
entirely law-and-order problem, that they can deal with by policing and
repression, and through backroom deals with Kigali. What you need to have is a
comprehensive peace process that deals with the underlying issues, in particular
reform of local government structures, justice, administration—that can restore
faith in the state. This is not just Rwanda meddling in the eastern Congo, but
the decrepitude of the Congolese state.

The international community should, therefore, play a greater role in
facilitating that comprehensive peace process?

Yes. There's already the mention of a UN special envoy; that's exactly what
needs to happen. A UN special envoy with a very hefty mandate to look at not
just short-term fixes and how to broker a deal with the M23, but really getting
at the long-term problems and maintaining a focus on the region for the next
five years. There needs to be a deep peace process to build and strengthen
Congolese institutions, prevent meddling in the eastern Congo, and a strong
international mediation team with a very high-profile lead mediator to be able
to push this process.