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Political Deadlock in the Democratic Republic of Congo

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By Dimitrios Michail Perdikoulis

President Joseph Kabila of Congo. Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Associated Press

On 17 May 2017, over 4000 inmates escaped from Makala prison in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while 70 convicts fled from another prison in south-western DRC a few days later. In the preceding months, the European Union (EU) and the United States (USA) have imposed targeted sanctions and travel restrictions while freezing assets of senior Congolese security and intelligence officials after government violence against civilian protests. An additional nine Congolese officials were then sanctioned in May 2017 for obstructing elections and for human rights violations. This current political deadlock in the Democratic Republic of Congo could develop into a number of ways. With prison breaks, government violence, kidnappings, mass atrocities, a powder keg of disgruntled citizens and suspicions that the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) may have been involved in the killing of two United Nations (UN) investigators in March, it is not surprising that current and prospective investors are fearful of how the situation in the country might develop. The analysis looks at four potential scenarios and how the business climate has been severely affected.

Instability in the DRC has become the norm. Recent insecurity has centered on delayed elections – which were due to take place in November 2016 – following President Joseph Kabila’s unwillingness to step down after reaching the constitutional term limit. The current episodes of unrest are merely the latest in a country which remains plagued by political, economic and social instability since achieving independence in 1960. GlobalEDGE places the country in the lowest quartile of their country risk rating, with an even lower ranking for business climate.

Political impasse

President Kabila’s unwillingness to step down has laid the foundations for protests, political manipulation and massive social unrest while continued outbursts of violence in the East threaten to spill over into Kinshasa. These concerns play a significant role in the country’s political landscape as ‘Anti-Kabila sentiment in the eastern Kivu provinces will be exacerbated by the president’s attempts to remain in power, escalating the risk of small-arms attacks by militant groups on mining and cargo assets’ (JLT). Furthermore, over 500 casualties have been reported in central Kasai over the past five months with a high risk of further atrocities. The relative weakness of the national government and its inability to assert control over cities in the East such as Masisi, has resulted in continued instability. Yet, such developments are not new as the DRC has experienced similar tensions time and time again.

Source: Council of Foreign Relations

Although the 2006 elections were considered to be a turning point towards democracy, Kabila was re-elected in 2011, amidst opposition to the nature of his re-election. Social unrest soon followed with citizens rejecting the results and legitimacy of the proceedings. The situation that developed after 2011 is similar to the one currently taking place – the only difference now being that Kabila cannot stand for a third term. While the African Union, the EU, the UN and the International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF) have pressured Kabila to abide by the constitution, another political impasse has developed.

Potential scenarios

The situation in the DRC could develop in a number of different ways. Some directions are more likely to lead to a peaceful transition, while other scenarios will most certainly pave the way for heightened instability. As things stand, an escalation of violence and a drop in UN and foreign donor support are likely. The importance of donor support should not be underestimated as such aid helps Kabila remain in power. In this scenario, Kabila is expected to step down and elections will eventually take place once logistical obstacles are circumvented. It is not possible to assess how quickly the escalation of violence will force Kabila to cede power as he may continue to fight back. Hence, a series of protests could lead to widespread fighting and then ultimately to a civil war. Business Monitor International (BMI) argues that despite the escalation of violence, this outcome would provide a better macroeconomic future as donors will resume their support once a new government is elected. Furthermore, a more ‘business-friendly’ leader will increase the likelihood of investment in the country. If a peaceful transition is to occur like the one in 2006, political consensus needs to be reached and Kabila should refrain from making any further attempts to alter the constitution.

A military coup followed by an election remains another possibility, although there are complexities associated with any power-sharing agreements as the military would attempt to consolidate its control over the country. Despite the fragility of the Kabila regime, government forces have been able to suppress protests. Moreover, a coup is unlikely to take place because of how strong Kabila’s Republican Guard is and because of its loyalty and allegiance to the President. Furthermore, the DRC’s violent past indicates that a coup would bring about even greater instability, as was the case when Mobutu Sese Seko came to power in 1965 which led to widespread atrocities and very poor standards of living for 30 years.

If Kabila stays in power, that would be contingent on whether he manages to maintain his networks – primarily those influencing the mining regions. Even with reduced donor support, countries like China could become more involved in exchange for greater access to resource-rich areas. Kabila will likely militarise his administration in order to stay in power and will block any decentralisation processes so as to put an end to the political dialogue. Further, with conflicts in North and South Kivu and recent instability in Burundi, a reaction by a notorious neighbour could develop into outright fighting as in the Second Congo War. Yet, this remains unlikely.

An end in sight?

While Kabila focuses on delaying the election, the people of the DRC face low salaries, high taxes, rampant corruption and predatory institutions. In fact, it is estimated that there have been more refugees leaving the DRC than any other country, including Iraq or Syria. Making a living has become increasingly difficult and providing for one’s family continues to be a daily struggle for the majority of the population that would eventually result in mass protests. President Kabila’s moves are under heavy scrutiny, and as the international community looks on, the next few months will either help make or break the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This article was originally published for PGW Global Risk Management.

Dimitrios grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Mozambique, spending a total of 15 years in Africa between 1992 and 2008. He then completed his Bachelor of Arts in Amsterdam in 2015, with a focus on International Relations, and then his Master of Arts in International Conflict Studies at King’s College London in 2016.

Feature image:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FARDC-Kibumba-04_(7936378798).jpg

Britain, Rwanda, and the DRC: Using aid for diplomatic aims.

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By Katie Cornish

In July, the UN released an interim report alleging Rwandan government support to the M23 rebels
in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UK, Rwanda’s largest bilateral donor, withheld scheduled
budget support, with Prime Minister Cameron setting out conditions for resumed aid. A few months
later, Andrew Mitchell released the funds on his final day as international development secretary, a
decision sparking much controversy. Two months later, Mitchell’s successor, Justine Greening, has
again suspended direct budget support to the Rwandan government.

On the surface, withholding aid from a government backing a rebel group guilty of raping women,
pillaging villages, and recruiting child soldiers seems obvious. If the Rwandan government has
resources to finance war in the DRC, then it must not need the UK’s budget support. But the decision
to withhold budget support may pack more than it appears, and relying on aid as a political carrot or
stick has the potential to be quite problematic for the aid effectiveness agenda.

In 2005, donors and recipient countries met in Paris to discuss aid effectiveness. The result was
the Paris Declaration, which highlighted five principles of ownership, alignment, harmonisation,
managing for results, and mutual accountability. The Paris Declaration was later followed up by
the 2008 Accra Agenda for Action, which renewed donor and recipient commitments to the Paris
Principles. At both forums, donors committed to using recipient government systems to deliver aid
wherever possible, directly supporting recipient development strategies and priorities.

So what does this have to do with Britain’s decision to withhold budget support from Rwanda?
There are a few key elements of the aid effectiveness agenda that the decision contradicts. First and
foremost is a commitment to mutual accountability. Under the Paris Declaration, donors commit to
“provide timely, transparent and comprehensive information on aid flows so as to enable partner
authorities to present comprehensive budget reports to their legislatures and citizens.” Not only did
the British government provide very little notice that aid would be withheld, in a matter of months
that decision was both retracted and reinstated. Treating aid like a tap that can be turned on and off
poses obvious challenges for effective budgeting and planning.

Secondly, the decision contradicts principles of alignment. Under the Paris Declaration, donors
agree to “draw conditions, whenever possible, from a partner’s national development strategy or
its annual review of progress in implementing this strategy.” Alongside this, additional conditions
require sound justification and should be coordinated amongst donors to the extent possible. Using
aid as a political bargaining chip contradicts commitment to agreed-upon conditions, risking an aid
culture where recipients must cater to ever-changing donor conditions. Furthermore, using aid as a
political stick may very well be ineffective when there is a lack of consensus amongst donors, as is
the case with the response to Rwanda.

Finally, the decision challenges the principle of ownership, whereby donors agree to “respect
partner country leadership and help strengthen their capacity to exercise it.” Principles of aid
effectiveness suggest that development should not be imposed by the West, but rather that
developing countries should own their development process. Once an agreement has been made
between donors and a recipient country, the recipient’s obligations are limited to the likes of demonstrating accountability for donor funds, establishing sound development strategies, and
working to strengthen institutions. If donors are truly committed to this value, than these should
be the only conditions imposed and donors should refrain from using aid to interfere in national or
regional politics.

This entry does not intend to condone the actions of the Rwandan government, but rather highlight
the dilemmas that policy makers are confronted with when it comes to the delivery of effective
aid. If one believes that aid should be completely benevolent and separate from politics, then they
must be prepared for these types of contradictions. On the one hand, donors face pressure to
achieve sustainable development results and good value for money through aid effectiveness. On
the other hand, they are encouraged by constituents and rights groups to use aid to send highly
political messages to support peace. But the reality is the two cannot often coexist. Aid cannot be a
bargaining chip for diplomacy and an effective tool for sustainable development.

At the end of the day, donors will have to make tough decisions regarding the use of aid. Should aid
be used as a diplomatic tool for peace in the DRC, at the risk of disrupting services and development
for the poor in Rwanda? Politicizing aid inherently requires donors to take chances. Should the
Rwandan government respond positively to pressures from the UK and others, it may yield positive
results for Rwandans and Congolese alike. Should it fail, the poor and vulnerable in Rwanda and
DRC may suffer. Donors can either approach aid with as much neutrality as possible, or take
responsibility for the short and long term consequences of politicizing aid. With a basket of both
hard and soft diplomatic tools available to donor governments, does aid have to be one of them?

The invisible men: wartime sexual violence against males

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By Justyna Maciejczak
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In January 2009 Jean Paul – son of a wealthy Congolese businessman – was abducted by one of many
rebel groups operating in the territory of DRC. On the first night of his captivity he was raped 11
times. The rapes continued over the next few days. On the ninth day Jean Paul managed to escape
his oppressors and shared his dreadful story with the rest of the world (for more on this story, read
the article ‘The Rape of Men’, The Guardian, 17 July 2011).

What happened to Jean Paul constitutes a part of a bigger picture depicting the problem of sexual
abuses committed against men during war. The actual scale of this phenomenon remains unknown.
As Sandesh Sivakumaran notes:

“Although the evidence is largely anecdotal, it is likely that male sexual abuse in armed conflict is
more prevalent than we currently think, for the lack of hard numbers is due to the under-reporting of
the practice and the fact that it is not picked up by others rather than because the practice itself does
not exist.”

What we know about the sexual violence targeting men is that it is relatively widespread, as it occurs
in numerous conflicts taking place in different parts of the world. Chile, Guatemala, Argentina,
Greece, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Turkey, Iraq, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Sudan, the Central
African Republic, Burundi, Uganda , Rwanda – these are only some of the countries where the sexual
abuses against men took place. One study revealed that in the former Yugoslavia 80% of males held at the concentration camp in Sarajevo reported that they had been raped during their confinement.

According to the survey conducted in the 1980s in El Salvador, 76% of male political prisoners had
been victims of sexual torture. One of the recent studies conducted in Eastern DRC, which was
published in August 2010, sheds light on the scale of sexual abuses taking place in this region. The
rate of sexual violence reported by men was nearly 24%. These numbers, however, show us only a
small part of the problem as the vast majority of abuses remains unreported.

The male victims prefer to hide their secret from the world for various reasons. In many societies
admitting to being raped equals to social stigma. A man who was a victim of sexual abuse loses his
honour and masculinity in the eyes of his family and neighbours. He is no longer a respected member
of community, as he proved to be weak. If he cannot defend himself, how will he protect his family,
let alone the village? Many men, who decide to reveal their dark secret, may face dire consequences
of their confession. They risk being left by their wives and families, rejected by community or even
persecuted as homosexuals. There are not many incentives to encourage men to come forward and
tell their stories.

More importantly, even if men want to seek help, there are too many obstacles blocking their way
to full rehabilitation. In fact, it seems that no one is really interested in their plight. Local doctors
often ignore physical and mental symptoms which indicate that a patient had been a victim of sexual
abuse. Sometimes, even if the truth is revealed, there is no medical and psychological support
offered for male victims, as many rehabilitation programmes, run by medical institutions and NGO’s,
deny victim status to men. These institutions recognize women and girls as victims of sexual violence
and offer them treatment and therapy. Meanwhile, men, branded as perpetrators, but hardly ever as
victims, are being left on their own.

This one-sided approach towards conflict-related sexual violence, which draws a clear-cut lines
between victims (females) and perpetrators (males), does harm and injustice to both men and
women. As Lara Stemple points out:

“Ignoring male rape not only neglects men, it also harms women by reinforcing a viewpoint that
equates ‘female’ with ‘victim’, thus hampering our ability to see women as strong and empowered.
In the same way, silence about male victims reinforces unhealthy expectations about men and their
supposed invulnerability.”

In Eastern DRC 41% women and 10% of men who were victims of sexual violence said that the
perpetrators were females. This finding challenges our traditional perception concerning the
relationship between sexual violence and gender. At some point the victim has become the
oppressor and the oppressor turned into victim.

Breaking news: M23 Rebels capture Goma

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By Fred Robarts

For the past few days, I have been glued to Twitter  for updates on the situation in Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu in eastern Congo. According to the latest reports, the Congolese national army has now retreated from the city, leaving it in the hands of the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group.  An M23-associated twitter feed has just claimed “the city is safe, population should return home, shops should be open, activities back to normal, let’s wait”. Journalists on the spot say M23 commanders have been parading in Goma before crowds of supporters.

The news has sparked student-led demonstrations against the UN in Kinshasa and Kisangani: the peacekeeping force had long promised to defend Goma, and the Security Council has been unable to do more than issue a press release and apply targeted sanctions to one of the M23 leaders. That these events take place in the shadow of the crisis in Gaza may be no coincidence. It has certainly limited news coverage and diplomatic attention.

Meanwhile, countless displaced people have nowhere to go, faced with the double threat of victorious rebels and (arguably more problematic) humiliated army troops. (Oxfam have just released a report on the plight of civilians in eastern Congo generally.)

On 1st January 2013, Rwanda will take up its seat on the Security Council. Having broken just about every rule in the UN Charter by directly backing a rebellion in a neighbouring country, and not for the first time, this represents a great failure of diplomacy and does not bode well for next year’s deliberations on Congo in New York.

Here in the UK, Andrew Mitchell’s decision to overrule his officials’ objections by providing budgetary support to Rwanda is looking worse than ill-judged. Let’s hope his successor Justine Greening will recognise that UK taxpayers won’t stand for subsidising proxy wars.

Fred Robarts was the Coordinator of last year’s UN Group of Experts on the DRC