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Humanitarian Observatories Series | Creating a space for Congolese to talk about issues including how widespread sexual abuse is ravaging the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s humanitarian sector

By Patrick Milabyo Kyamusugulwa and Delu Lusambya Mwenebyake 23 November 2023

Sexual abuse is widespread in the humanitarian sector of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The observatory was set up to discuss, among others, crises that plague the humanitarian sector, including sexual abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Humanitarian Observatory (HO) is a suitable space for academics, civil society, international and state actors to discuss humanitarian governance challenges so to contribute in shedding light on how to go about them sustainably.

A pervasive issue with devastating consequences

Sexual abuse has become a significant problem in the DRC’s humanitarian sector. Incidents of sexual abuse by humanitarian actors are widespread, as humanitarian activity has sharply increased. Independent news agency the New Humanitarian is one of the platforms reporting on these developments — in September last year it highlighted the stories of 34 cases of alleged sexual abuse that resulted in pregnancy. The majority of the women reported abuse from employees of United Nations agencies, others from those working for international humanitarian agencies. More recently, that the number of women reporting sexual abuse by aid workers is still growing.

The reports of purported victims of sexual abuse indicate that sexual abuse in the DRC has two main faces: (i) the sexual exploitation of aid recipients — that is, trading aid for sex, and (ii) the sexual exploitation of job applicants or colleagues lower in rank — that is, trading sex for jobs, job security, or promotions. One of the women interviewed by the New Humanitarian related that she was only 15 years old when her boss started inviting her to a hotel for sexual relations, claiming that she was to have sex with him if she wanted to keep her job. A few months later, she became pregnant, and she is now in charge of raising her young daughter at her own expense.

A space for talking about sexual abuse

One year ago, in October 2022, a group of people in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) — humanitarians, academics, civil society actors and others — got together to form a Humanitarian Observatory.[1] The observatory, one of a handful set up in different countries as part of the

At the observatory event on 15 March this year, we chose to focus the discussion on sexual abuse in the humanitarian sector in the DRC. Sexual abuse scandals in the humanitarian sector have been widely reported, but occasions where we as Congolese can talk about such issues are few and far between. The launch of the observatory therefore served as a space for us to openly discuss the issue — something that has not truly been done to date — in particular how sexual abuse comes about and what needs to be done to address the problem, especially by those working on the ground in the DRC.

Photo 1: humanitarian observatory members in group’s discussion about sexual abuse in DRC, 15 March 2023, Bukavu

Some observations

The meeting of the Humanitarian Observatory where the issue was discussed had 18 participants comprised of 10 men and 8 women. Of the 18 participants, four were humanitarian aid workers, ten were researchers, and four were civil society actors. We could therefore have a balanced discussion in which different participants highlighted different dimensions of the issue and proposed several possible measures. Below, we highlight some of the main observations that were made at the meeting.

Shame and fear drive silence

First of all, it was noted that victims are ashamed of having been sexually abused and therefore many victims prefer not to speak out in view of cultural restrictions for women; this is even more so in the case of male victims of sexual abuse. People may also be afraid to speak out because they fear retaliation from the perpetrator.

Similarly, even though most of the participants of the discussion are active in the humanitarian sector, there seemed to be an informal agreement among victims about refraining from telling personal stories about or mentioning the names of people they knew to be perpetrators. Instead, in order to keep the discussion safe, participants spoke about sexual abuse as an external phenomenon rather than as practices they are involved in or have witnessed first-hand.

Here are some other observations that participants made:

The problem is widespread. Reflecting on the problem, the participants agreed that (forced or consensual) sexual relations are rampant in the humanitarian sector. Many humanitarian male actors have condoms in their offices or while traveling for fieldwork. Moreover, it is very common that victims are invited into hotel rooms. Women are deceived with flattering words of promises of marriage, or they are just being told they need to consent if they want to keep their jobs. This may also happen to young women in need that are exploited for promises of goods or other gains. It is also rather common that humanitarian workers seek sexual relations with women engaged in small trade activities around the humanitarian compounds or women engaged in small jobs for the agencies, such as cleaning or cooking.

Men at all levels are the perpetrators. The participants to the observatory found it important to note that accusations of sexual abuse concern men at all levels of the organization, from managers and office workers (such as human resources officers) to fieldwork staff, drivers, guards, and people with odd jobs working alongside women in cleaning and cooking. This is important because these latter groups are often not aware of codes of conduct and are not being involved in awareness-raising activities.

Several context-specific factors make sexual abuse possible. A first factor is formed by the misery, poverty, and vulnerability among community members, who rely mostly on humanitarian assistance. The second factor is formed by the long-term stay of humanitarian personnel and operations of humanitarian agencies in the area, with little control or accountability of international and national non-governmental organizations working in isolated or remote zones. In these conditions, many women seeking access to aid, funding, or employment have resigned themselves to the idea that sexual relations are a largely unescapable ‘part of the deal’ and that their protests will not be heard.

Patriarchal norms help normalize sexual abuse. And above all, it was recognized that sexual abuse is related to a dominant or hegemonic Congolese masculinity based on common and informal cultures, where men behave as if they are entitled to have sex in return for favours.

Two recommendations

Reflecting on this discussion, we can ask how we can prevent and fight against the phenomenon. At the end of the observatory meeting, the participants together formulated two main recommendations for actions that can be taken:

Rethinking norms of masculinity and combating toxic masculinity are crucial. Recognizing that the problem partly stems from cultural issues, it is a priority to promote positive masculinity through different means, including the news media and social media. It is important to combat predatory sexual behaviour and rethink masculinity norms. These should draw on alternative masculinity repertoires that can also be found in the DRC, such as the caring father or breadwinner forms of masculinity. In these, men are responsible providers for their family, including for their spouses, and at the same time provide space for women’s empowerment. It is a masculinity ideal where men considerably contribute to the household, both economically and socially.

All workers in the humanitarian sector need to be made aware of behavioural norms and codes of conduct that should guide their actions. To combat sexual abuse in the humanitarian sector, awareness raising is a priority, focusing on humanitarian staff, including drivers, guards, and other male staff that are less exposed to training on codes of conduct and principles of humanitarian assistance. In addition, state actors, civil society organisations, and community members should be involved in awareness raising and following up on reported cases. It must be ensured that perpetrators are sanctioned according to legal, religious, and traditional norms of the Congolese society.

The above-mentioned actions will need to be enduring — a single, once-off intervention is insufficient given that cultural norms strongly shape the present situation, in particular by normalizing sexual abuse and providing a space for its continued existence. The Eastern Congo has become a permanent site of humanitarian assistance, and this is not likely to end soon. This means that sexual abuse will also remain an issue. This is not only a matter for the humanitarian agencies. It is important that all stakeholders, including communities, civil society, and state agencies, take responsibility to fight against sexual abuse.

[1] We acknowledge active participation of members of the Humanitarian Observatory discussions in the event of 15 March 2023 from which the current blog is written, namely Claude Iguma, Odile Bulabula, Gentil Kavusa, Denise Siwatula, Bilubi Ulengabo, Christian Namegabe, Shukuru Manegabe, Sifa Katembera, Henri Kintuntu, Wabenga Lunanga, Samuel Kyamundu, Prosper Lufungula, and Veronique Saleh.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the authors:

Patrick Milabyo Kyamusugulwa is Professor at the Institut Supérieur des Techniques Médicales de Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He is member of the DRC Humanitrian Observatory and member of the Social Science Centre for African Development-KUTAFITI.

Delu Lusambya Mwenebyake is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Delu is working on humanitarian governance in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Community-driven, accountability, and advocacy in Humanitarian Actions.

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Women’s Week 2023 | From young girls to “bush wives”: Armed conflicts are traumatising girl soldiers in Africa, and post-conflict peacebuilding and rehabilitation efforts could be making it worse

By Esther Beckley 16 March 2023

As armed conflicts persist across the world, children are repeatedly recruited into armed groups as soldiers, robbing them of their childhood. While some estimates reveal that girls comprise almost half of all child soldiers, they feature less prominently in post-conflict peacebuilding and rehabilitation efforts. Esther Beckley in her research explores the disproportionate impacts of war on girl soldiers, exposes the gender blindness of post-conflict peacebuilding efforts, and calls into question the legitimacy of peacebuilding programmes.

Africa - Child Soldier - from the movie Johnny Mad Dog

“I joined the army by force in 2004. I was still a minor and married. I was harassed by the chief and it traumatised me a lot. I have a 7-year-old daughter who was born from this harassment.”

These are the words of Charlene Kahrikalembu, a young woman from Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who shared her experience with my co-researcher and I[1] about how she was forcefully recruited into the Patriotes Résistants Congolais (PARECO) armed group as a child soldier. Charlene’s narrative echoes that of the thousands of girls who are recruited across the world as fighters, chefs, sex slaves, brides, messengers, spies, and for other reasons in armed conflicts, yet remain unaccounted for during the post-conflict peacebuilding period.

Armed conflicts, wherever they occur, severely affect both people and material resources. Regrettably, the conscription of children, some as young as seven years old, into warring factions is a recurring tendency in armed conflicts, which affects their physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, and material well-being. In most situations, children are recruited to replace adults because they are vulnerable, subservient, and easily controlled.

Nonetheless, when the problem of child soldiers is examined, it is often depicted as a masculine phenomenon, i.e. the enlistment of boys. In researching this topic, I have found that this action is mostly influenced by mainstream perceptions of armed conflict as a phenomenon occurring between males who are ‘naturally’ strong and warrior-like. As Tickner (1992:2) puts it, “International Relations is a man’s world where war and power politics are special positions reserved for men”. This perception is further reinforced in the media with popular images of boys holding rifles, whereas girls are frequently deemed insignificant and rendered invisible within fighting forces. However, studies have shown that in contemporary wars, girls comprise 40% of children associated with fighting factions (Haer 2017).

More so, compared to girls not associated with fighting factions, girl soldiers are disproportionately affected by war. This is due to the lengthy period girl soldiers spend in the captivity of their respective armed groups, making them susceptible to persistent sexual violence, torture, drug use and abuse, and illness (Beckley 2021). For example, in Sierra Leone, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) led by notorious rebel leader Foday Sankoh used the taboo on women’s nakedness as a weapon of war. This was done by parading naked girls on the frontlines in an attempt to nullify the traditional ‘juju’ (voodoo) used by the Civil Defence Forces (CDF), also known as ‘Kamajors’, who should not see naked women on the frontlines (Oluwaniyi 2019).

From my conversations with female ex-combatants in Goma, eastern DRC, I learnt that girl soldiers were distributed amongst commanders of armed groups to serve as wives, which entailed constant sexual violence and forced pregnancies. This was also the case for the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) led by rebel leader Joseph Kony in northern Uganda, which I studied as part of my Master’s research. In the north-eastern part of Nigeria, girls constitute most of the suicide bombers, performing a strategic role for Boko Haram terrorists (Oluwaniyi 2019).

Despite these prominent roles played by girl soldiers in various armed conflicts, they remain marginalised in peacebuilding efforts. Peacebuilding typically comes as a disappointment to most girl soldiers, since they are faced with an identity crisis of whether they should be considered soldiers or mere sex slaves and wives of commanders. This bolsters their exclusion from peace processes like the United Nations’ Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) programmes. DDR is the very first stage of the peacebuilding process, aimed at dissolving warring factions, retrieving weapons from ex-combatants, and providing trauma healing and socio-economic opportunities to ex-soldiers to facilitate their reintegration into civilian life.

Rhetorically, gender issues are pertinent to these tasks, but in reality, this is not always the case. First, the design of DDR programmes in most countries requires ex-soldiers to present a weapon to prove their participation in the conflict before they are eligible for DDR benefits. Now,

how does a girl soldier whose body was used as a weapon of war ‘prove’ that she was a soldier?

In Liberia, for instance, commanders had to testify to a girl soldier’s participation in their armed group before she could benefit from the DDR programme.

Consequently, most girl soldiers do not benefit from the DDR procedure due to its masculinist design. They are forced to self-reintegrate into their communities with no physical, mental, social, or economic support. They return to communities where they previously killed their neighbours and relatives with no form of community reintegration, which is included in the DDR package. Hence, they are stigmatised and labelled as ‘damaged goods’, ‘bush wives’, ‘unmarriageable’, etc. It is much worse for girl mothers who return with children labelled ‘bush babies’ and are rejected by their community members.

All in all, peacebuilding efforts remain gender-blind, and one must consider whether the end goal of so-called peacebuilding ventures like the DDR is long-term peace. This raises critical unanswered questions, such as: What are the underlying knowledge and principles used to address gender issues in peacebuilding? How are the categories of difference constructed? By whom and for what purpose? What are the implications of these on girl soldiers and sustainable peace in general? Such questions need to be urgently addressed in studies aimed at investigating gender imbalances in post-conflict peacebuilding.

References

Beckley, E.M and Oluwaniyi O.O (Forthcoming). ‘The Rhetorics of Education for Girl Ex-Combatants in Sierra Leone’s DDR Programme’. Africa Spectrum: SAGE.

Beckley, E.M. 2021, “DDR and the Education of Ex-Combatant Girls in Africa” in The Palgrave Handbook of African Women’s Studies, eds. O. Yacob-Haliso & T. Falola, 1st edn, Springer Nature, Switzerland, pp. 178.

Haer, R. 2017, “The study of child soldiering: issues and consequences for DDR implementation”, Third World Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 450-466.

Oluwaniyi, O. 2019, “Women’s Roles and Positions in African Wars” in The Palgrave Handbook of African Women’s Studies, eds. O. Yacob-Haliso & T. Falola, First edn, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, Switzerland, pp. 85-105.

Tickner, J.A. 1992, Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security, Columbia University Press, United States of America.

[1] This blog article is based on research I conducted for my Master’s degree five years ago, on further research I am conducting in pursuit of a PhD on gender, conflict, and peacebuilding, as well as that of other researchers in this field.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Esther M. Beckley is a final-year PhD researcher at the University of Malta. She is also a visiting Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). Her areas of expertise include gender, conflict, child soldiers, postconflict peacebuilding and development, international interventions in conflict contexts, etc., with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

Environmental destruction and resistance: a closer look at the violent reoccupation of the DRC’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park

By Fergus Simpson and Sara Geenen 30 September 2021

The decision of the indigenous Batwa to reoccupy parts of eastern DRC’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park by force shocked many outside observers. They were further shocked when the Batwa started to ally with rebel groups, traders, and illegal timber cutters in order to exploit part of the ancestral forest they had been forced to leave decades prior. In a recently-published article in the Journal of Peasant Studies, Fergus Simpson and Sara Geenen show why the Batwa’s decision to return to the park should in fact come as anything but a surprise.

09_30_2021_Fergus — Picture taken by the first author

During the 1970s, the Congolese government forcibly displaced the Batwa people, a hunter-gatherer minority group, from eastern DRC’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park[1] (Barume 2000). In the decades following their displacement, the Batwa would secretly re-enter the park to collect firewood and food and to practice customary rituals. But after a 2018 attempt to buy them land outside the park failed, several hundred Batwa violently reoccupied parts of the park’s highland sector. Park authorities were quickly overwhelmed; a series of clashes has since claimed the lives of at least eleven Batwa, two eco-guards, and a government soldier.

Once back in the land of their ancestors, the Batwa formed alliances with armed groups, traders, and Bantu peasants to exploit the park’s natural resources both for personal consumption and for commercial purposes. Interviews conducted with local conservation NGOs has shown that this has led to the loss of hundreds of hectares of forest. In addition, through the abovementioned alliances certain Batwa chiefs have been able to assert strong territorial control over parts of the park and have become wealthy as a result.

The Batwa’s decision to forcibly reoccupy the park should not come as a surprise. Rather, it can be explained by three factors: 1) the failure to secure compensation and access rights to their ancestral lands through formal and legal channels, 2) an increase in threats to the Batwa’s dignity, identity, and livelihoods over recent years, and 3) the emergence of opportunities to forge alliances with more powerful actors in a way that consolidated the group’s power and allowed it to exploit natural resources contained within the forest for commercial purposes.

Slow violence and everyday resistance

The Batwa had been the custodians of Kahuzi-Biega’s forests from time immemorial. Yet in 1970, the Congolese government introduced a decree which would invalidate the Batwa’s customary land rights, transforming their ancestral forests into a place of strict preservation, scientific research, and tourism. During the 1970s, the Congolese conservation agency (at that time the Institut Zaïrois pour la Conservation de la Nature) worked alongside the national army to evacuate people from the area without prior warning; they would simply show up and say ‘this is no longer your home’.

The Batwa fled to live in squatter camps among other communities at the park boundaries and were forced to eke out a meagre existence by stealing from their non-Batwa neighbours. Although there were occasional opportunities to do piecemeal labour on the farms of wealthy landowners, discrimination based on ethnicity hindered the Batwa’s ability to find work. Their living conditions were poor, with substandard medical care, education and inadequate housing, as well as nutritional deficiencies, poor hygiene and a high mortality rate resulting from the lack of a proper diet and the absence of water and sanitation facilities.

The Batwa were not just deprived of their means of subsistence; they were also cut off from their identity as forest dwellers and their spirituality that is linked to nature. When they were separated from the forest, they became separated from themselves. This erosion of their identity and means of livelihood through dispossession can be seen as a process of ‘slow’ violence, which Robert Nixon (2011:2) describes as ‘a violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is not viewed as violence at all’.

Unsurprisingly, the act of dispossession and subsequent slow violence did not go uncontested. Due to the presence of armed eco-guards and severe punishments for breaking park regulations, the Batwa mostly opted against risky forms of overt resistance in the decades spent outside the forest. Instead, they engaged in what James Scott (1989) calls covert ‘everyday’ resistance. Often under the cover of nightfall, they would illegally enter the park to collect food and firewood and to practice customary rituals that not only helped them survive, but also to make continued claims of their ancestral rights to the park.

All that changed in October 2018 when the Batwa decided to return to the park en masse, unleashing violent clashes and a wave of environmental destruction in the process. Based on six months of ethnographic fieldwork from August 2019 to February 2020, we tried to understand what led the Batwa to reoccupy their ancestral land.

Peaceful strategies had failed to deliver change

In the decade before the Batwa returned, Minority Rights Group worked with the local NGO Environnement Ressources Naturelles et Développement to create a lawsuit against the Congolese government. A case was brought to Bukavu’s Tribunal de Grande Instance in 2008, after which it was transferred to the Court of Appeal in 2013. It proposed that the Batwa had been expelled from the park illegally and should receive land, financial compensation, and continued access rights to the forest. The case was dismissed on the grounds that it concerned a problem of constitutionality and should therefore be resolved at the national level.

Two more cases were brought to DRC’s Supreme Court in Kinshasa in 2013 and to the African Union in 2015; both remain pending. From 2014, Forest Peoples Programme also facilitated a dialogue process between the Batwa and park authorities to agree upon appropriate compensation and identify sites inside the park for the Batwa to continue cultural and subsistence activities. But negotiations broke down after ICCN repeatedly failed to deliver on its promises.

As a result of these failures, the Batwa came to distrust the NGOs that support them, pushing them a step closer toward violent reoccupation. The level of scepticism is exemplified in the statement of one Batwa chief:

An NGO invited me in several different meetings, but this NGO lies that they are going to plead for our rights and bring projects. They swallow the money and then claim in their reports that they are pleading on behalf of the Batwa!

An increased threat

In August 2017, in a prelude to the mass reoccupation, a Batwa man and his son went into the park to collect medicinal herbs and were shot by park guards on patrol, leaving the father wounded and his son dead. This provocation led to almost instantaneous uprising. The Batwa took the boy’s body to park headquarters in protest. As the hours passed, tensions increased. Some Batwa even started waving sticks and machetes, threatening to reoccupy the park.

In the months after the killing, a representative of the Batwa in Bukavu told me how an international donor attempted to buy land for the Batwa to settle on outside the park. But the director of a local NGO who received the money on behalf of the Batwa then proceeded to buy a house and a car with the cash. It was at this point that the Batwa decided to violently retake the land of their ancestors by force, feeling that they could trust no-one and had to rely on themselves to take back what they saw was rightfully theirs.

Alliances with more powerful actors

Both before and after the national election in December 2018, the Batwa took advantage of opportunities to form strategic alliances with more powerful actors to consolidate their control over parts of the park and extract its resources. First, they allied with non-state armed groups operating in the park’s highland sector. This provided them with access to weapons and soldiers to assert control over their reoccupied territory. The Mai-Mai Cisayura is reported to have helped a group of Batwa attack a patrol post in Lemera, killing one guard in the process. On the side of these armed groups, they claimed to be ‘helping the Batwa claim their rights’ as a way to legitimate their presence in the park and extract minerals.

Second, the Batwa collaborated with businessmen and politicians from the provincial capital Bukavu who typically control the region’s trade networks. Over several months, trucks filled with bags of charcoal and planks of wood could be seen leaving the villages on the edge of the park for urban centres in Bukavu and Kavumu. These alliances enabled the Batwa to sell the resources that they were extracting from the park and led to significant deforestation, which continues up to this day.

Third, the Batwa deepened their commercial relationships with Bantu peasants to access expertise, financial capital, and technology to exploit resources. One group of Batwa even started working with Bantus who own a chainsaw to cut wood inside the park. This ensured that they had enough power to maintain the occupation and that they could more effectively exploit and sell natural resources extracted from within the park.

Fighting against slow violence

The above observations all reveal that the reoccupation of the park by the Batwa followed decades of slow violence, manifest in the gradual erosion of their group identity and sense of dignity. It also reveals that the event should not be considered surprising, as numerous related events led up to it. The sudden transition of the forest from a protected to an exploited zone raises further questions about whether the exclusion of indigenous groups from protected areas can have the perverse effect of severing their relationship with the land they once conserved, which in the case of Kahuzi-Biega National Park led to both large-scale deforestation and violent clashes.

Based on our research, we argue that a better understanding of the factors which push communities from covert resistance toward overtly violent forms of contestation against conservation could help prevent the social unrest and environmental destruction we have seen in Kahuzi-Biega over recent years from being repeated elsewhere. Such knowledge could also be used to inform a contemporary conservation movement that is more environmentally sustainable and socially just for future generations of indigenous people.

[1] The park, which extends over 600,000 hectares, is home to the endangered eastern lowland gorilla and 13 other species of primate. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site mainly because of the diverse mammal and bird species it houses.

References

Barume, Albert Kwokwo. 2000. Heading Towards Extinction?: Indigenous Rights in Africa : The Case of the Twa of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo. IWGIA.

Nixon, Rob. 2011. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt2jbsgw.

Scott, James C. 1989. ‘Everyday Forms of Resistance’. The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 4 (1): 33. https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v4i1.1765.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Fergus Simpson is a Joint-PhD student at the University of Antwerp’s Institute of Development Policy (IOB) and the ISS funded by FWO. He is also a member of the Centre d’Expertise en Gestion Minière (CEGEMI) at the Université Catholique de Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). His research focuses on the intricacies between environmental conservation, armed mobilisation and conflicts surrounding natural resources in eastern DRC’s South Kivu Province.

Sara Geenen is assistant professor in International Development, Globalization and Poverty at the Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp, Belgium. She is co-director of the Centre d’Expertise en Gestion Minière (CEGEMI) at the Université Catholique de Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Her current research interests lie in the global and local development dimensions of extractivist projects, addressing questions about more socially responsible and inclusive forms of globalization.

COVID-19 and Conflict | Economic downturn, precarity, and coping mechanisms in the Eastern DRC

By Christo Gorpudolo and Claire Akello 20 January 2021

The Kivus in the Eastern DRC do not seem to be getting a break. Besides facing a protracted armed conflict, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused an economic downturn in the region as mining activities have been limited or shut down completely. In light of this intersection of crises, the region’s inhabitants have had to find ways to cope, defying lockdown measures in the process. Yet, the social ties of the region is what is keeping it alive, write Christo Gorpudolo and Claire Akello.

01.19.2021 DRC-Covid — "TwangizaArticanalMiners" by USAID_IMAGES is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has faced a long period of protracted conflict, situated in a part of Africa that at one point in time has faced multiple conflicts or genocides, making the region highly volatile (Buscher, 2018: 194). The Kivu provinces in the Eastern DRC are facing a protracted armed conflict that has been widely reported on and has also been discussed on Bliss (see this article, this one, and this one).

As part of a research project hosted at ISS called ‘When Disaster Meets Conflict‘(Discord), we conducted a brief study of COVID-19 responses in the DRC, trying to find out what the responses were and how these were viewed and experienced on the ground. We conducted desk research and interviews with Congolese living and working in the Eastern DRC and the Kivus. We found that the intersection of the ongoing conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to great uncertainty in the region that people have sought to counter in their own ways.

Besides the prevailing economic situation as a result of violent conflict, the DRC has also experienced a new outbreak of communicable and highly infectious diseases, like its tenth Ebola outbreak in 2018, (see this WHO news article) as well as measles, yellow fever and, most recently, the outbreak of COVID-19, which occurred amidst the worst Ebola outbreak on the continent at the time (Mobula et al., 2020: 3). With the coinciding occurrence of COVID-19 and Ebola and an ongoing conflict, many Congolese families and miners feared the loss of their livelihoods and were at a greater risk of falling further into poverty due to dwindling incomes and severe health risks.

Following the recording of the first COVID-19 case (GARDAWORLD, 2020) on 10 March last year, on 24 March the DRC government announced a state of health emergency, declaring a nationwide lockdown to be observed in all of the country’s 11 provinces. Since then, the lockdown has been extended five times by the national assembly, with various forms of preventive measures introduced (Atlantic Council, 2020). The lockdown measures have immensely affected mining activities in the DRC (IPIS, 2020) a country where residents rely heavily on income from the mining sector. According to a report by the European Network for Central Africa (EurAc), insecurity in the mineral supply chain due to the outbreak of COVID-19 has had an impact on the Congolese economy in general, with the country preparing for a potential catastrophic economic downturn in the mining sector (Business and Human Rights Resource Center, 2020).

Mining activities in the Kivus and the Eastern DRC are conducted in person, with a strong reliance on human or person-to-person interaction. Thus, with the introduction of preventive measures, the livelihoods of miners and people living in Eastern DRC have been negatively impacted, as these preventive measures according to respondents run contrary to the somewhat informal practices in the DRC, particularly in the mining sector. Some prevention measures introduced by the government included the prevention of the movement of people, the closing of borders, and the limitation of legal mining activities, which forced small-scale miners to cease their operations that provided them with incomes necessary to survive.

One of the respondents participating in the research stated that with no definite time of earliest recovery in the mining sector, there is increasing anxiety and fear amongst miners and people living in the Kivus of little chance of a swift economic recovery as the situation moves from a short-term health crisis to a prolonged economic downturn.

In the Kivus, some areas such as Biholo, Nalucho and Kalehe have suspended mining activities, while in other sites artisanal miners continue to work amidst strict guidelines and awareness campaigns about the containment of COVID-19 by different civil society organizations. However, the situation is far from ideal. It was also highlighted by respondents that the closure of mining activities affects the wider population in the Kivus because many people rely on the income from the mines.

Defying lockdown measures to counter anxiety

These economic impacts have caused distress among families, miners, and people living in the Kivus. As a coping mechanism, the population in the Kivus find social gatherings important (although these gathering are not permitted) as a form of mental support. According to four of the six respondents interviewed for this study, families and residents living in Eastern DRC and the Kivus meet in what they referred to as ‘secret bars’ operating undercover. These bars usually appear closed or isolated from the outside, but are booming inside. Respondents also stated that most of the friends/or families meeting inside these ‘secret bars’ have a mutual agreement, as these gathering places remain secret to those outside the trust circles. These gatherings involve the sharing of drinks and friendly conversation. It is considered a way to handle anxiety that comes with uncertain times, including the current state of the Congolese economy.

A major risk factor posed by this form of coping mechanism is that it makes the population more vulnerable to COVID-19 and increases the risk of widespread COVID-19 transmission due to increased social interaction. Yet people felt that they had to defy lockdown measures to cope and were willing to take the risk. Consequently, social gatherings still take place, serving an important function in a time of economic precarity and great uncertainty. This form of coping may be the lifeline for many in the Eastern DRC and elsewhere, and its value should not go unrecognized.

References

Atlantic Council. 2020. “Shaping the global future together.” Accessed 25 July 2020 https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/

Büscher, K., 2018. “African cities and violent conflict: the urban dimension of conflict and post conflict dynamics in Central and Eastern Africa.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 12 (2): 193-210.

Business and Human Rights Resource Center. 2020. “Mining minister warns against the social and economic impact of mine closure during the COVID-19 pandemic.” https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/drc-mining-minister-warns-against-the-social-and-economic-impact-of-mine-closures-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

GARDAWORLD. 2020. “DRC: authorities declare state of emergency March 24/3.” https://www.garda.com/crisis24/news-alerts/326271/drc-authorities-declare-state-of-emergency-march-24-update-3

IPIS. 2020. “The impact of COVID-19 on the artisanal mining sector in Eastern DRC.” https://ipisresearch.be/publication/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-the-artisanal-mining-sector-in-eastern-drc/

World Bank. 2020. “World Population: DRC.” Accessed on 16 June 2020 https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=CG-CD

Mobula, L. M., H. Samaha, M. Yao, A. S. Gueye, B. Diallo, C. Umutoni, J. Anoko, J. P. Lokonga, L. Minikulu, M. Mossoko, and E. Bruni, 2020. “Mobilizing the COVID-19 response in the DRC.” Accessed on 23 June 2020 https://www.path.org/articles/mobilizing-covid-19-response-drc/

About the authors:

Christo Gorpudolo is a development practitioner who has been working in the development sector since 2014. She is an early career researcher with an academic interest in topics including humanitarian aid, gender, peace, and conflict. She has a Master’s of Arts Degree in Development Studies from the ISS.

Claire Akello graduated from the ISS in 2019 with a major in Human Rights, Gender and Conflict studies. She has been engaged in both media and development work for local and international organizations for over five years, focusing on issues related to health, education, and access to justice.

ALL Black Lives Matter in the Congo

By Helen Hintjens and Delphin Ntanyoma 11 September 202012 September 2020

On behalf of East Congo Tribune representing the Banyamulenge diaspora in the Netherlands

After decades of civil warfare, peace is the priority for the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yet the predicament of the Banyamulenge, a minority currently besieged and threatened by surrounding armed groups in South Kivu, illustrates that the poisonous legacies of colonial theories of ‘race’ are alive and well in people’s minds. This threatens prospects for peace in the DRC and the wider Great Lakes region. Belgium’s King Philippe recently issued a public apology for the cruelty of colonialism in the Congo, and following Black Lives Matter protests, a Parliamentary ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ commission has been set up in Belgium. Yet its findings will not come soon enough to help the Banyamulenge. Helen Hintjens and Delphin Ntanyoma call for urgent intervention to protect the civilian Banyamulenge who are facing genocide. They call for mental decolonisation from race theories to ensure that ALL Black Lives Matter in the Congo.

Race Theories and the Colonial Present

Following Black Lives Matter protests in Belgium that toppled statues of King Leopold II, King Philippe expressed his ‘deepest regrets’ for ‘violence’ and ‘suffering’ imposed on Congolese people under Belgian colonial rule. Leopold’s cruel reign sacrificed an estimated 10 million Congolese lives in pursuit of profit. Since 1994, another 5 to 12 million Congolese died in wars to benefit mostly non-Congolese. Belgian colonial rule also left behind toxic ideas about race differences that now underpin violence against minorities like the Banyamulenge.

Their targeting as a minority living mainly in the eastern part of the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) has intensified as armed conflict in South Kivu has continued, leading to fears of a slow genocide as world’s focus is elsewhere. Due to their ‘Tutsi’ ancestry, Banyamulenge civilians are labeled ‘Hamitic’ invaders, oppressors, and even vermin. For decades they have been victims of pogroms and violence.

Map of attacks on Banyamulenge villages and civilians.
Source: Delphin Ntanyoma (Eastern Congo Tribune) 8.9.2020.

This map shows a red circle, an area of less than 10 km², where over 150,000 civilian Banyamulenge have fled seeking shelter after more than 3,500 square kilometres of land have been seized and 300 Banyamulenge villages burned and completely demolished (see Photo 2). They have no humanitarian assistance, apart from a few private fundraisers. The villages (marked X in green) have been attacked by Mai-Mai rebels and by FARDC (the national army) in early September 2020. For four successive days, 2-5 September, Gahwera and Kahwela villages were attacked. On 8 September, Runundu and Rutigita were attacked. In Kahwela, six were reported injured and two dead. Fighting is going on around southwest Minembwe town as we go to press. The A in purple indicates deployment of FARDC troops— 6,000 in total. Local information on 8 September indicates a row broke out among FARDC officers in Minembwe. Some were opposed to FARDC allying itself with Mai-Mai attacks on unarmed Banyamulenge civilians. Whereas in the past massacres took the form of pogroms, today the killings and military operations seem designed to wipe the Banyamulenge out completely. As Kivu Security Tracker (KST) has reported, as Mai-Mai ‘self-defence forces’ attack Banyamulenge villages, they force more and more civilians to flee for protection to a few tiny areas in Minembwe in South Kivu.

Photo 2: A demolished Bayamulenge home; one of thousands since 2017

Mai-Mai rebels were joined in recent years by Rwandan-backed Burundian opposition rebel groups (Red Tabara, FOREBU and FNL) and civilian Banyamulenge stuck in Minembwe since March 2019 are now completely surrounded. There are an estimated 125,000 to 150,000 people in tiny ‘safe areas’. They are now starving. All humanitarian agencies have left Minembwe, even MSF, claiming it is unsafe to work there. With local roads almost impassable, almost everything has to be flown in. The Rector of the local Eben Ezer University, Lazare Sebitereko, suggest aid organizations are afraid to help Banyamulenge civilians despite their evident vulnerability because of the stigma against this group as ‘Hamitic’ or ‘Tutsi’ outsiders, among the majority communities in Eastern Congo, who define themselves as ‘Bantu’ or indigenous.

Banyamulenge exiles and leaders are calling for international action before it is too late. In April 2020, in an open letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, they called on the UN to “avert another genocide in the region, with the international community as bystanders”. Several petitions are circulating. Yet as in Rwanda in 1994, no-one wants to use the ‘g’-word. Everyone wants to avoid the obligation to protect. However, the international community has been warned – indeed warned repeatedly – of the possibility of genocide. Pre-conditions for genocide are now in place, including discrimination, dehumanization, polarization, persecution and denial.

Editor of the Eastern Congo Tribune, Rukumbuzi Delphin Ntanyoma explains: “As a Munyamulenge from South Kivu, completing my Doctorate in Development Economics at the Erasmus University’s International Institute of Social Studies in the Netherlands, I am tracking the misfortunes of my community in Minembwe every day.” As a blog, the Eastern Congo Tribune has been an especially important source of information during the COVID-19 lockdown, when journalists and researchers could not enter DRC for months. The blog makes for grim reading, detailing armed violence against Banyamulenge civilians who have been horribly attacked, raped and killed, simply trying to find food. When the Banyamulenge’s precious cattle were looted, the proceeds were used to buy more weapons. MONUSCO is nearby, and there are an estimated 6,000 FARDC troops, and they are not protecting the Banyamulenge; on the contrary.

According to Ngugi wa Thiong’o, mutual understanding and peace require the “broken roots of African civilization” to be mended. As an example, the predicament of the Banyamulenge in South Kivu illustrates that colonial theories of ‘Hamites’ and ‘Bantu’ races continue to sow hatred and persecution today. The hope is still that in the longer run racism and violence against all Congolese people, including minorities like the Banyamulenge, can be ended by seeking out the truth behind Belgian colonial history.

However, the threat in Minembwe to civilians cannot wait for that process. The need for protection and humanitarian relief needs to be addressed right away. Otherwise this minority community will become another page in the history book of genocide in the Great Lakes region of the African continent in the former Belgian colonies. Time is running out to heal the wounds of colonial divide-and-rule theories of race, and to finally ensure that all Black Lives Matter in the Congo.

This article draws on two publications by Rukumbuzi Delphin Ntanyoma, one a Genocide Warning published on the Genocide Watch website (2020), and a related Working Paper, published by ISS (2019).

About the authors:

Helen Hintjens is Assistant Professor in Development and Social Justice at the ISS, working in the field of migration.

Delphin Ntanyoma is a PhD candidate at the ISS. His research falls within Conflict Economics and is part of the Economics of Development & Emerging Markets (EDEM) Program. With a background of Economics and Masters’ of Art in Economics of Development from ISS, the researcher runs an online blog that shares personal views on socio-economic and political landscape of the Democratic Republic of Congo but also that of the African Great Lakes Region. The Eastern Congo Tribune Blog can be found on the following link: www.easterncongotribune.com.

“Whose responsibility is it anyway”? Questioning the role of UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO in stabilizing the eastern DRC by Delphin Ntanyoma

By Admin 24 February 202016 May 2020

In the highly volatile eastern DRC, where over the past decades violent conflict and political instability have claimed the lives of thousands of civilians, UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO has intervened to help security services including the national army and the police regain control of the region. After twenty years of intervention, MONUSCO is blamed for what should be the DRC government’s responsibility—the failure to de-escalate the situation and find long-term solutions that will bring peace. What role can and should it play in eastern DRC, then? As Delphin Ntanyoma explains, the power and responsibility to enact real and long-lasting change lies with the DRC government.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in Beni[1] in the eastern DRC since 2014, when a jihadist-oriented group known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) first occupied the region. Recent statistics indicate that between early November 2019 and mid-February 2020, approximately 350 civilians have been brutally killed in Beni by ADF militants[2]. Countless attacks have been carried out by ADF in different villages, where local populations have been slaughtered with guns and machetes. Since 2014, military operations have been executed in an attempt to halt these attacks, but it is not known when the situation will stabilise.

Despite ‘assurances’ from the Congolese government, the national army and UN peacekeeping mission MONUSCO, doubts remain about how the ongoing tragedy created by the ADF will be addressed. A few weeks ago, local populations across DRC and in Beni in particular demonstrated against the killing of civilians, desperately marching across cities with the hope that their plea to end the ongoing conflict and violence against civilians would be heard. More specifically, demonstrators protested against MONUSCO’s inability to protect civilians, as Chapter VII of the UN Charter compels it to do. Whilst avoiding pointing a finger directly at the national army, demonstrators have largely blamed MONUSCO for its failure to protect civilians.

Amid these tensions, the UN Under-Secretary General for Peace Operations Jean Pierre Lacroix visited the DRC between 30 November and 2 December last year to assess the situation. During his visit to Beni, Goma and Kinshasa to show support for the UN peacekeeping mission and discuss the situation with officials, Lacroix claimed that demonstrations against MONUSCO were likely manipulated and funded from ‘somewhere’[3]. This statement is hardly verifiable, but an independent observer would unlikely rule out this possibility due to ongoing debates on the UN’s role in creating stability in eastern DRC; some Congolese political figures have openly called for the UN to end its peacekeeping mission or to provide a plan for its gradual withdrawal.

The question thus arises from this debate: why is MONUSCO in a ‘hot seat’ for something that is essentially the responsibility of the state? Why is MONUSCO being held responsible by Congolese civilians for the killings taking place in Beni instead of the army and police, who are particularly responsible for preventing this? Therefore, the essentiality of MONUSCO’s presence in the region should be better examined: is the UN peacekeeping mission technically constrained in executing its mandate to protect civilians, or are there other reasons for its perceived inaction? And at what point will the mission be considered successful and finally withdraw from the DRC?

Besides some challenges related to its internal functioning (heavy bureaucracies, unlikely familiar with complexities and diversities of local contexts, culturally limited for some military forces, missions operating in the mostly inaccessible eastern Congo), MONUSCO has been only slightly involved during the preparation of military operations in Beni. Hence, its success seems to be challenged by institutions such as the security sector that are unwilling to tackle structural challenges. Meanwhile, MONUSCO is obliged to work with them while having limited power to influence their decisions.

In Beni, for instance, MONUSCO has expressed concerns over the national army launching unilateral military operations without sufficiently engaging the UN peacekeeping. The reasons for the army’s decision to operate unilaterally remain unclear. Under the name of sovereignty or the national army’s unwillingness to co-operate, military operations against ADF were carried out with limited support of the UN peacekeeping mission. Hence, these military operations were largely ineffective due to lacking strong coordination among main stakeholders. Moreover, grounded reports indicate that some military commanders have directly or remotely been supporting local armed groups and foreign militias[4]. In addition, one of the main sources of misery in Congo is the level of embezzlement and corruption within the public arena (including the army and police), which in turn affects the delivery of public services and goods. Consequently, state’s authority is largely absent in remote regions of the eastern Congo, creating a security vacuum exploited by armed groups to perpetuate violence.

These are some of the challenges linked to the extended conflict that MONUSCO cannot address. These and other internal and external challenges facing MONUSCO call for the redefinition of its mandate in relation to local contexts. Failing to do so, it may spend another decade trying, but failing to contribute to long-lasting peace and a corresponding shift of attention toward the development in the region.

[1] From Ituri to Maniema via North-Kivu and South-Kivu provinces, extreme violence has re-emerged. Although similar contexts characterize Djugu (Ituri), Masisi-Rutshuru (North-Kivu), Minembwe-Itombwe (South-Kivu) and Kabambale (Maniema), the blog post takes Beni’s tragedy as an illustration.

[2] See for instance one of the Radio Télévision Belge Francophone : https://www.rtbf.be/info/monde/detail_rdc-huit-morts-et-plusieurs-disparu-apres-un-nouveau-massacre-a-beni?id=10427684

[3] For details on Jean Pierre Lacroix’s declarations, see: https://monusco.unmissions.org/en/jean-pierre-lacroix-everyone-should-learn-lessons-what-has-happened; and Kivu Security Tracker: https://blog.kivusecurity.org/fr/. Jean-Pierre Lacroix points a finger to those undermining MONUSCO efforts to support local population.

[4] Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (2019) “Assessing the Effectiveness of the United Nations Mission in the DRC – MONUSCO” https://www.ssrc.org/publications/view/assessing-the-effectiveness-of-the-united-nations-mission-in-the-drc-monusco/

About the author:

Delphin Ntanyoma is a PhD candidate at the ISS. His research falls within Conflict Economics and is part of the Economics of Development & Emerging Markets (EDEM) Program. With a background of Economics and Masters’ of Art in Economics of Development from ISS, the researcher runs an online blog that shares personal views on socio-economic and political landscape of the Democratic Republic of Congo but also that of the African Great Lakes Region. The Eastern Congo Tribune Blog can be found on the following link: www.easterncongotribune.com.

Image Credit: MONUSCO Photos on Flickr.

Complexity of Micro-level Violent Conflict: An ‘Urban Bias’ lenses of a Native Researcher? by Delphin Ntanyoma

By Admin 15 July 201916 May 2020

Micro-level violent conflict is complex, and the triggers of violence are unpredictable. Building on long-seated unresolved grievances coupled with the presence of foreign armed groups in Eastern Congo, the South-Kivu province is facing a barely noticed humanitarian crisis whose understanding can even puzzle a native researcher. In such a context, can a ‘native researcher’ with lenses affected with ‘urban bias’ understand complex contours of micro-level violent conflict?

This blog post tries to raise awareness on complexity of micro-level layers of recurring violent conflict. It builds on Kalyvas’s (2006) understanding of ‘urban bias’[1]. He states that urban bias refers to lack of information on countryside violence but also the tendency to paint gunmen involved in violence as primitive and criminals. Though Kalyvas stresses on reporting and accounting on civil-war violence, this blog post considers that ‘urban bias’ is widely embedded in understanding the local context while little attention is paid to those painted as ‘criminals’.

In March 2019, I visited Minembwe in the South-Kivu province, the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It was amid tense violent confrontation between opposing local armed groups largely affiliated to ethnic communities in the region. The MaiMai groups are affiliated to Babembe, Banyindu and Bafuliro communities against Gumino, while Twirwaneho are linked to Banyamulenge community. However, local armed groups are currently being supported by foreign groups from Rwanda and Burundi, the two DRC’s neighboring countries. The reasons for my visit to this region were twofold. One, I had to use this opportunity to teach two courses at undergraduate level within Eben-Ezer University of Minembwe. Two, this is a region I had to visit as part of my fieldwork. Although I am a native of this region, however, this time, I came back as a researcher in conflict economics studies.

The background of Eastern Congo violent conflict is complex with different layers. The region I visited has been under regular clashes between communities – due to mutual contestation, confrontation around ‘autochthony’ versus ‘immigrants’, misunderstanding between farmers and cattle herders as well as other dynamic motives. Community clashes have been going on for decades. Recently, Burundian and Rwandan rebels have been involved in clashes that are supported by local groups. Burundian and Rwandan groups are respectively supported by Kigali and Bujumbura with aims of overthrowing regimes in their countries. They are meddling into local problems with an intent of creating an unoccupied space for further military plans.

Subsequent to recent clashes, roughly 150 villages (including my parents’ village) were burnt down between 2018-2019. It has led to approximately 200,000 internally displaced people. Most of these have been concentrated in Minembwe facing high risks of hunger and diseases. Hundreds are estimated to have died during this period. Existing schools and health facilities have been destroyed. Moreover, due to limited access to transport infrastructures and media, the tragedy happening in this region remains unnoticed to a large extent.

Despite efforts deployed by the local opinion leaders, the neighborhood of my village named Kidasi, part of Minembwe region, was attacked on 13^th June 2019 due to a shooting of one person; and a revenge that killed tens. Local population have fled towards Minembwe due to an incident that could have been prevented, if there have been a presence of committed security services. Such incidents build on collective sense of victimization and popular prejudice. Nevertheless, a ‘mundane incident’ can spread widely to hundreds of kilometers. Guns are used to settle family issues as was done in my village’s neighborhood wherein driven by hatred and jealousy, one sibling killed another.

However, when visiting my own village during the fieldwork, I appreciated regular dialogue between ethnic communities. For example, the local opinion leaders managed to save the life of a local chief who was arrested by a group of gunmen. The local chief was released following their interventions. During this visit, I managed to learn also from some members of a committee in charge of reconciliation and dialogue. It was impressive to hear testimonies and efforts of ethnic communities regarding their cohabitation. One could hope that this would be a local model of trust among communities.

My impression was that these local initiatives aiming to sustain peace needed some support. I thought my intervention could be oriented in exchanging ideas with primary and secondary school teachers. We discussed possibilities of re-constructing my primary school made up of woods and straws. Due to poverty and inaccessibility in terms of transport infrastructure, the local population cannot afford costs of a decent building. Moreover, parents are also burdened by remunerating schools’ teachers. Children from these schools drop out due to their inability to pay school fees. My discussion with teachers focused mainly on these features of having a school reconstructed and possibilities to support vulnerable parents.

We had a fruitful exchange and looked forward to support the education of the vulnerable. Together, we introduced a request within a local NGO to see their possibility to help building a school. We shared information about channels through which we can involve state authorities. Beyond that, we discussed negative effects of violent confrontation. We had many old and recent references about how violence can hardly spare any of these ethnic communities. Their role as members of the ‘literate’ class was touched.

Though these were likely minor efforts on my side, I was more oriented on normative ideas to find urgent solutions to the challenges presented in these schools. I seem to have concentrated on ‘literate’ class alone and missed to talk to someone who could just shoot (un) intentionally in the air; and will kill all efforts. As a matter of fact, the shooting by unknown assailants of a member of Babembe ethnic community, has drawn wide retaliation by (counter) attacking and ‘revenge’ on Banyamulenge ethnic community. After leaving my village, I was told that I should have met Mutamba[2]. Why? Was the view I had of the local context be interpreted as an ‘urban bias’?

Regardless of Mutamba’s literacy level, his influence relies on manipulating young people to express themselves by ‘shooting bullets in the air’. I am not yet sure if meeting Mutamba (whom I called later on phone) could have prevented my neighborhood to fall into clashes. However, I argue that in such volatile context coupled with collective victimization guns have more power than anything else. As I question Kalyvas (2006), I felt that, meeting teachers was sufficient. However, I certainly had no clue and clear information on Mutamba. I wish that I could have met many of such people if this would have spared this region.

[1] This is a given name of the guy whom I was indicated he could, by shooting in the air or target someone for his own interests, pull the neighborhood into intractable clashes.

[2] See Kalyvas, Stathis N. (2006:38-48) in “The Logic of Violence in Civil War”. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

About the author:

Delphin Ntanyoma is a PhD candidate at the ISS. His research falls within Conflict Economics and is part of the Economics of Development & Emerging Markets (EDEM) Program. With a background of Economics and Masters’ of Art in Economics of Development from ISS, the researcher runs an online blog that shares personal views on socio-economic and political landscape of the Democratic Republic of Congo but also that of the African Great Lakes Region. The Eastern Congo Tribune Blog can be found on the following link: www.easterncongotribune.com.

Kidnapping in the Eastern Congo: ‘Grievance-oriented’ struggles and criminality? by Delphin Ntanyoma

By Admin 6 March 201918 May 2020

From August to November last year, 83 cases of kidnapping were reported in Ruzizi Plain alone, part of Uvira territory in the Eastern Congo. While kidnapping can be viewed as a major problem in the DRC, Delphin Ntanyoma argues that it’s important to consider that violence in the Congo is deeply embedded in the demands for better living conditions coupled with other socio-political loopholes that have been created since the colonial era.

Late last year, in November, I visited Uvira, one of the largest cities in the South Kivu region, Eastern Congo. The city constitutes an administrative center of Uvira Territory, having both the same name. For practical and security reasons, some passengers travelling from Bukavu, the capital city of the South Kivu Province, to Uvira pass through Rwanda and/or Burundi—two countries that border on the DRC. The choice of taking the Rwanda-Burundi route is not only linked to safety concerns, it is also connected to hazardous transport and road conditions. From Bukavu to Kamanyola, one must pass Ngomo escarpments[1]. What makes one think twice before undertaking the journey is the way in which you can, at any time, fall into the hands of kidnappers. Kidnappers are currently active in the Ruzizi Plain—from Kamanyola up to Uvira.

Though thoroughly criminal, kidnapping has become another form of violence in the Eastern Congo region. It has recently been practiced in the neighboring province of North Kivu, mainly in Rutshuru Territory to the extent one can guess that this practice has been imported in Uvira territory from the neighboring province.

Violence in the Congo is deeply embedded in the demands for better living conditions coupled with other socio-political loopholes that have been created since the colonial era. Following the country’s independence from Belgium, the public had had high expectations regarding the improvement of their standards of living. Rebel groups started to be formed, demanding an increase in living standards that many thought is unlikely to be achieved. Recently, the proliferation of and reliance on armed maneuvers has entered an era of unprecedented crises currently involving kidnapping.

From August up to late November 2018, more than 83 kidnapping cases had occurred only in the Ruzizi Plain region[2]. The kidnapping nightmare culminates in the paying of ransoms that average around $150-200. These incidents of kidnapping are widely spread in the vast region that borders on Burundi and Rwanda. However, localities of Ruzizi Plain such as Lemera, Kigoma, Luberizi, and Kabunambo are considered epicenters of these incidents. In most cases, these localities are targeted due to the way in which power confrontation occurs here at the local level. In addition, kidnappers exploit an absence of the national army in order to operate freely.

Kidnapping targets single persons to groups of people, and in Ruzizi Plain more men than women have been targeted: Out of the 83 reported cases, 71% of those kidnapped were men. In addition, kidnappers target individuals who may be able to pay. These are generally schools’ headmasters and teachers, villages’ chiefs, traders, motorcycle drivers, but also others targeted by their opponents settling accounts through arranged kidnappings. That is, armed groups can benefit from a clash between two parties, as they could then turn to them for revenge through arranged kidnapping. Kidnapping also targets village chiefs suspected of siding with the national army in their efforts to contain armed men. Some are targeted for having played the dubious role of pleasing both sides. The complexity and dynamics around armed mobilisation in the region explains decisions behind targeted kidnapping. However, one needs to recognise that even commuters are sometimes rounded up by these armed men desperately seeking to diversify their funding sources.

Kidnapping in Rutshuru and around the Volcanoes-Virunga Park is widely multifaceted. But behind the scenes, the same armed groups belonging to Maimai[3] are specifically cited among those engaged in the kidnapping of civilians. Engaging in such criminal activity is yet another expression of the failure to sustain their struggles. In Ruzizi Plain specifically, kidnappers are young militants and armed groups’ leaders who have at some point been reluctant to engage in reintegration or demobilisation processes. Whenever defeated or fallen into internal dissidence, these groups find shelter in remote regions where their strongholds are hardly attacked by the national army. By being unable to sustain conventional military wars, disconnected to sources of funds, armed groups resort to all means to survive. By getting involved in such criminal activities, observers tend to overlook the relevance of struggles that generally aimed to express anger over wide social and economic inequalities.

Though not yet deeply researched, it seems that kidnapping needs to immediately be contained and all means deployed for the sake of protecting the local population. However, the socio-political and economic conditions of the region and specifically that of the youth must constitute a primary concern. Hundreds of desperate young men mull around on the sidewalks, with no hope for their future, justifying the choice of relying on risky means to air their grievances. Moreover, a better understanding of kidnapping in the Congo could help to understand the meaning of urban violence that is mushrooming across some of the country’s cities.

[1] The Ngomo escarpment is the hazardous route that links Bukavu City to Uvira via Kamanyola. Kamanyola is a growing agglomeration on the side of Congo bordering on Ruzizi Plain and Rwanda-Burundi countries. The escarpment is constituted by steep hills coupled with muddy conditions of the road that cause many accidents. For years, these conditions have ensured that passengers rather choose to go through Rwanda to reach Kamanyola.

[2] I am indebted to Oscar Dunia, a local researcher who keeps an eye on this tragic issue in the region. Oscar has helped to gather the data and provided some insights on the ways kidnapping is organized, and also about motives behind the kidnappings.

[3] Maimai are local armed groups falling under the ‘Autochthonous’ and nationalist fighters. The group is differently spelled into the literature to the extent that they are either called Mai Mai, Mayimayi or simply Mai. Maimai is a Swahili word meaning ‘water’ and expresses historical beliefs in the power of witchcraft to turn bullets into water.

About the author:

Delphin Ntanyoma is a PhD candidateat the ISS. His research falls within Conflict Economics and is part of the Economics of Development & Emerging Markets (EDEM) Program. With a background of Economics and Masters’ of Art in Economics of Development from ISS, the researcher runs an online blog that shares personal views on socio-economic and political landscape of the Democratic Republic of Congo but also that of the African Great Lakes Region. The Eastern Congo Tribune Blog can be found on the following link: www.easterncongotribune.com.

Elections in the DRC: Compromises, surprises and the ‘game of gambling’ by Delphin Ntanyoma

By Admin 17 January 201918 May 2020

The results of the general elections recently held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) after being delayed for two years show interesting developments. The opposition remained weak despite rallying together, and the Catholic Church came to play a pivotal role. This post explores the ‘gambling game’ through which these elections have been compromised by surprises. The far-fetched results of the presidential elections will unlikely contribute to the DRC’s long-term stability.

The recent elections held in the DRC were characterised by the high number of candidates running for vacant positions: 23 presidential candidates (of whom 21 finally contended for this position), and about 15,000 candidates vying for 500 seats in the national assembly. At the provincial level, more than 19,000 candidates competed for 780 seats.

But the debates and the media’s coverage of the elections that took place at the national and provincial levels focused mostly on the presidential elections, as this is the center of Congolese politics and power struggles. Whoever controls this position will certainly have an upper hand. Based on the provisional results announced at the beginning of this year, Felix Tshisekedi Tshilombo, one of three contenders, has been declared the winner, beating Martin Fayulu Madidi and Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a candidate of the ruling coalition (Front Commun pour le Congo). The latter is widely described as the ‘dauphin’ of departing president Joseph Kabila.

Kabila’s departure

Many observers were surprised by Joseph Kabila’s decision not to run for a third term, even though the DRC’s Constitution does not allow for the extension of presidential rule beyond a second term. Many thought and predicted that Kabila would maneuver to extend his period of rule. Though he had not publicly announced this intent, he made many moves that hinted at attempts to contend again.

But in early November last year, nearly two years after Kabila’s second term ended in December 2016, he expressed willingness to cede power by nominating his ‘heir’, Ramazani Shadary. Few had predicted this scenario. Understanding this choice of Kabila of not running for the third term, one however cannot rule out the pressure and leverage of the international community but also that of regional organisations such as SADC and the African Union.

The persisting weakness of the opposition

While uncertainties were surfacing around elections, the Congolese opposition parties had been struggling to establish a strong scheme through which they could work together, with all of them rallying behind Fayulu as a united candidate. However, Felix Tshisekedi and Vital Kamerhe decided to break away from the agreement, opening a breach to a rift within these opposition political parties. As this withdrawal expressed once again weaknesses within the Congolese opposition, observers could predict a breach through which the ruling coalition could easily influence the electoral process, hence declaring their candidate as the winner.

Since the Peace agreement in DRC in 2002, there seems to be a bunch of surprises and compromises in Congolese politics. Nonetheless, the announcement of Felix Tshisekedi as the new president is seemingly the compromising ‘gambling game’ for the short-term future.

The Catholic Church as saving grace

The delayed electoral process was saved through the intense involvement of the Catholic Church in December 2016, when the elections were originally intended to take place. Via the Congo National Episcopal Conference (Conférence Episcopale Nationale du Congo: CENCO), the failure to organise elections had been ameliorated by reaching an agreement led by Catholic Bishops in Kinshasa. The Catholic Church managed to bring on board opposition parties that had dismissed previous consultations. Moreover, the agreement helped to set up an agreed electoral calendar and eased tensions. Though widely interpreted, the agreement advocated finding a compromise over ‘political prisoners’ and those under prosecution for likely politically oriented motives.

The Catholic Church is among the few institutions and organisations whose actions in the DRC are influential, with the Church wielding power countrywide. The Church is among the few providers of public services in a fragile state setting. It deployed approximately 40,000 observers during the recent elections. And being largely embedded in local communities, it has much leverage and influence to gather information from the polling vote.

Problems with the voting procedure

The voting procedure also reveals the struggle for true representation of the Congolese people. Since 2011, the general election would be won by achieving a simple majority instead of an absolute majority. Among the top three, the announced elected president won 7,051,013 votes (38.57%), while the second on the list, Martin Fayulu, obtained 6,366,732 votes (34.83%)—a difference of 1.7%. Moreover, the participation rate in this election has been estimated to be around 47.56%, meaning that 52.44% of the population did not vote. Winning this presidential election by such a small margin facilitates a discussion on how excluded territories could have been a ‘game changer’.

A ‘gambling game’

Remarkable about the Congolese elections is the role of the church. While the government blocked all international involvement and did not allow observers, the churches have been the binding factor that enabled the election and organised the observers. It shows the relative strength of civil society in the country that is characterised by a severely fragile state. Even though this has probably helped to avert large-scale violent conflict (at least until now), it has not resulted in an uncontested outcome. Instead, one could suspect that the announced results are a ‘gambling game’ that characterises the elite class in the DRC. In most cases, these types of ‘gambling games’ end up with elites making deals to access large shares of the pie to the detriment of its citizens. Notwithstanding all the challenges presented above, these developments could lead to more violence in the future.

Image Credit: MONUSCO Photos/R56A9909

About the author:

Delphin Ntanyoma is a PhD Researcher in Conflict Economics at the ISS. On his blog www.easterncongotribune.com, he writes about developments in the Eastern DRC.

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[1] This is a given name of the guy whom I was indicated he could, by shooting in the air or target someone for his own interests, pull the neighborhood into intractable clashes.

[2] See Kalyvas, Stathis N. (2006:38-48) in “The Logic of Violence in Civil War”. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.