African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate
  • Fellowship

logo

Header Banner

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • Somaliland
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • eSwatini
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
    • Climate crisis
  • Culture
  • Specials
    • From the fellows
    • Radical Activism in Africa
    • On Food Security & COVID19
    • #EndSARS
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Podcast
    • Into Africa Podcast
    • Africa Science Focus Podcast
    • Think African Podcast
  • Debating Ideas
Politics

What’s next for the DRC? Looking Ahead – By Laura E. Seay

By Uncategorised
April 12, 2012
1767
0
Share:

The future of the DRC is closely aligned with that of its President and supporters - Joseph Kabila.

In the aftermath of the 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections, which could be most charitably described as “˜chaotic,’ many Congolese voters, Diaspora members, and knowledgeable observers had hoped that the international community would react strongly to the fraud noted by most international and domestic observation missions.  While condemnation of the elections themselves and the vote-counting process was near-universal, strongly worded statements from Western donor governments had little effect beyond grabbing headlines for a few days.  In Kinshasa, President Joseph Kabila remains in power, opposition candidate í‰tienne Tshisekedi has not assumed what he believes to be his rightful position at the head of the Congoelse government, and most civilians have abandoned attempts at protesting and resumed their daily struggles to survive in one of the world’s poorest states.  Little has changed for the average Congolese.

What lies ahead for the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, its leaders, and neighbors?  As has been the case for more than fifteen years now, the primary challenge for the next five years remains that of ridding the region of non-state armed groups, getting the military under the full control of the central state, and re-establishing effective governance over the full territory.  None of these tasks are easy, and there is no clear precedent for effectively undertaking them in a situation as complex and diverse as the DRC’s post-war landscape.  Put simply, nobody really knows how to make the Congo governable again. We know what is missing, but we lack directions for building such critical institutions as the rule of law.

What is clear, however, is that the prospects for increased peace in the short term seem greatly diminished in the election’s aftermath.  Tension is very high in the Kivu provinces, where, as Jason Stearns notes, alliances and fissures between CNDP commander Bosco Ntaganda, his CNDP and ex-CNDP troops, ex-PARECO Hutu militia members, and the FARDC (the Congolese national army) are changing rapidly and may lead to more violence.  Ntaganda’s status is particularly in question; while he is under indictment by the International Criminal Court and should be arrested by the authorities in Kinshasa, instead, he operates freely as a warlord in Goma. The reasons for this are many; Ntaganda is seen by some as a lynchpin of regional stability, holding together the secret rapprochement deal reached between Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Kabila in 2009. Ntaganda’s soldiers also played a key role in helping force through Kabila’s reelection effort; there were multiple reports that CNDP/ex-CNDP soldiers made voters in the areas they control vote for Kabila. Stearns suggests that Ntaganda may be losing the support he has enjoyed for these roles under pressure from international diplomats and because Rwanda desires to be seen as not being associated with his activities in the mineral sector.  All of this could lead to increased instability in the Kivus, as could the actions of Burundi’s FNL rebels if they use South Kivu as a base for operations in Burundi.

Ituri, meanwhile, is largely at peace and has been since fighting ended there in 2008.  However, the issues that caused intercommunal conflict there – particularly land rights and the claims to land by various ethnic groups – have never been resolved to anyone’s satisfaction.  The ICC conviction of former warlord Thomas Lubanga helps to show that there will not be total impunity for those engaging in violence in the area, but it is not sufficient to fully address the root causes of the Ituri war.  Few are paying attention to this region, but tensions there are still real and significant.

What about the rest of the world? Western advocacy groups chose attacking the conflict minerals crisis as their primary strategy for promoting peace in the DRC, based on the belief that it was an area in which the international community could have leverage and effect change.  Advocates in the United States succeeded in passing legislation requiring corporations to follow Securities and Exchange Commission-issued disclosure requirements, while the OECD is very involved with promoting due diligence procedures to promote the avoidance of Congolese conflict minerals as well.  While the SEC has yet to release its disclosure rules (despite being nearly a year behind the requirement imposed to do so by the legislation), the law has already had an effect on mining in the region: the Congolese government implemented a six-month ban on mineral sales from the Kivus and Maniema, then just as that ban expired, the major purchaser of Congolese minerals, the Malaysia Smelting Corporation, announced it would stop buying DRC minerals as it could not verify them to be conflict-free. This in turn put many Congolese miners out of work and caused others to move to the completely unregulated gold trade, and while there is anecdotal evidence that some soldiers have quit their militias altogether as a result of not having access to mineral wealth, it is evident that the de facto boycott on Congolese conflict mineral sales is likely to do little to end violence in the short-to-medium-term.  Without solid governance, armed groups can continue to operate with impunity and can rely on other lucrative sources of wealth to fund their activities.

The prospects for democracy in the DRC are also questionable. Although reaction to the obviously fraudulent 2011 elections was almost entirely negative, the international community has yet to effectively use its leverage to force real democratic change in Congo. It is unclear what will happen in the lead up to the 2016 vote. Will Kabila or his party attempt to change the constitution so he can stand for another term?   Will Tshisekedi, who is already advanced in age, be around and able to contest at the polls? Will other opposition leaders maintain their stance, or will Kabila be able to draw them into his circle with the promise of cabinet positions and other patronage?

We simply do not know. There are few reasons to be optimistic about the DRC’s next few years, but Congo is a country of surprises, with a population that is resilient and creative.  It is not an exaggeration to say that just about anything could happen – including a democratic, peaceful, sustainable future – but it will take a great deal of work to get there.

Laura Seay is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Morehouse College.

Previous Article

To John Humphreys on his trip to ...

Next Article

London elections: What’s in it for diasporans ...

Uncategorised

0 comments

  1. mm
    Theodore Trefon 12 April, 2012 at 12:23

    Hi Laura,
    Thanks for this analysis. You ask the right question up front: ‘what’s next?’.Here are some scenarios:
    1. Kabila remains in power, controls parliament, manipulates international partners … business as usual

    2. Kabila remains in power but is under pressure by international partners, opposition forces & civil society, opposition gets organized for 2016

    3. Kabila is ousted (by coup or assassination), Congo’s sovereignty erodes even further, renewed period of neo-trusteeship

  2. Laura Seay 12 April, 2012 at 15:12

    Thanks, Prof. Trefon. Which scenario do you find most likely?

  3. Whither Bosco? | Wronging Rights 12 April, 2012 at 16:17

    […] him to the ICC. However, regional actors have been reluctant to act on these demands due to their belief that Ntaganda’s cooperation is crucial to ensuring (relative) stability in the […]

Leave a reply Cancel reply

  • Politics

    Biya to stand again as Cameroon falls apart – Insiders’ Newsletter [free ed.]

  • Politics

    Sierra Leone Paper Scandal Underscores Plight of African Universities – Michael Keating

  • Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu with West African heads of state at the ECOWAS summit in June 2017. Credit: Israel Government Press Office.
    EastPoliticsWest

    Call it a comeback: Israel’s grand “return” to Africa

Subscribe to our newsletter

Click here to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and never miss a thing!

  • 81664
    Followers

Find us on Facebook

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Popular articles

  • Credit: Matt Haney/Global Press Journal.

    “Machete wielders” are terrorising parts of Uganda. But why?

  • President Cyril Ramaphosa (left) with his predecessor, former President Jacob Zuma in 2017. Credit: GCIS.

    What did we learn from South Africa’s exhaustive state capture commission?

  • Girls line up during a basketball drill in Mogadishu, Somalia. Credit: AU UN IST/Tobin Jones.

    To counter al-Shabaab, Somalia’s new govt must do something for the kids

  • Boni & Ente in Runyankole and English, with author Carol Baingana pictured in the bottom right corner.

    Can indigenous African languages help with children’s speech therapy?

  • www.quotecatalog.com/quotes/inspirational

    A year on from the Ho 21 arrests, queer Ghanaians fear more to come

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
Cleantalk Pixel
By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
African Arguments wants to hear from you!

Take 5 minutes to fill in this short reader survey and you could win three African Arguments books of your choice…as well as our eternal gratitude.