The civil war in Congo is the deadliest conflict since
World War II, and it created the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. DR
Congo is a vast country with immense economic resources and, until recently,
has been at the centre of what some observers call "Africa's world
war", with widespread civilian suffering the result.
The people of the DRC have endured more than two decades of
civil war, and conflict has claimed as many as 6 million lives, 4.6m people
displaced, 13 million desperate for aid, and 1 in 10 children will not live
until 5years old, Average life expectancy at birth is 48 years, and close to 80
percent of the population survives on less than $2 per day. Various armed
groups, including the Congolese army, are committing horrific human rights
violations, especially in the eastern part of the country.
The situation in Congo keeps deteriorating even though its
civil war has officially been over for years and the United Nations’ second-largest
peacekeeping mission is based there. The international community has failed to
help Congo achieve peace and security because it fundamentally misunderstands
the causes of the violence.
Women and children are often most affected by the conflict, as
is the case with many crises. More than 2 million children suffer from severe
acute malnutrition. One in 10 women and girls experienced sexual violence in
2016. In some cases, women and their children have no choice but to flee the
violence and hunger. Women often leave their homes with very little but their
children and the clothes they were wearing. Men too are frightened of being
killed or forced to join armed groups.
Africa and Western diplomats, along with U.N. officials,
actively supervised negotiations to end the war in 2002, they brokered a peace
deal, and in 2006 they organized the first democratic elections in Congo’s
history. To this day, the peacekeeping
mission they set up is the only force capable of protecting the population from
the ongoing violence.
Bottom of Form
International programs have since emphasized three
priorities: regulating the trade of minerals, providing care to victims of
sexual violence and helping the central government extend its authority. This
approach has provided a simple narrative that was easy to sell to audiences and
donors in the West.
It has also backfired. Perversely, attempts to regulate the
trade of minerals — like Section 1502 of the U.S. 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and a
temporary mining ban imposed by the Congolese government from September 2010 to
March 2011 — have enabled armed groups to strengthen their control over mines.
These measures focused on stopping the illegal trade of
minerals but did nothing to destroy the actual power base of armed groups. In
the absence of any broader political, economic or social reforms, local
military leaders have managed to remain the principal power brokers in the
rural areas of eastern Congo. In some cases, they have even expanded their
mining operations while vulnerable populations lost their livelihood.
The international community’s disproportionate attention to
sexual violence has also raised the status of sexual abuse in a dangerous way.
Some combatants now use it as a bargaining tool by threatening to commit mass
rape if they are excluded from negotiations. And state-reconstruction programs
have done little more than boost the capacity of the authoritarian central
government and of administrative officials at all levels, to oppress the
population.
Since the end of the country’s transition to peace in late
2006, living conditions in the country (formally the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, formerly Zaire) have become the worst in the world; the situation in the
East of the country continues to be worrying. Ethnic fighting continues in the
Ituri region between the Hema and the Lendu.
The DRC situation has been a case of misguided intervention.
One reason is that foreign diplomats, U.N. peacekeepers and many NGOs tend to
view the fighting exclusively as a consequence of national and international
tensions — especially power struggles among Congolese and foreign elites — and
a spillover from the Rwandan genocide. And they typically consider intervention
at the national or regional levels to be their only legitimate responsibility.
They neglect to address the other main sources of violence:
distinctively local conflicts over land, grassroots power, status and
resources, like cattle, charcoal, timber, drugs and fees levied at checkpoints.
Most of the violence in Congo is not coordinated on a large scale. It is the
product of conflicts among fragmented local militias, each trying to advance
its own agenda at the village or district level. Those then percolate and
expand.
The country’s massive resource wealth—estimated to
include $24 trillion of untapped mineral resources—also fuels violence. The
mineral trade provides financial means for groups to operate and buy arms.
The United States passed legislation in 2010 to reduce the
purchase of “conflict minerals and prevent the funding of armed militias,
but complex supply chains in the DRC mineral sale business have made it
difficult for companies that purchase resources from secondhand buyers to
obtain certification. As a result, multinational companies have stopped
buying minerals from the DRC altogether, putting many miners out of work and
even driving some to join armed groups to gain a source of livelihood.
Despite the establishment of an elected government in 2006
following the implementation of a series of peace agreements, the country still
faces challenges in consolidating peace throughout its territory. The eastern
regions of the DRC have consistently experienced high insecurity and repeated
incidences of violence, often as a result of interference of neighbouring
countries.
Solutions
The U.N. Security Council should now refocus its efforts on
supporting grassroots projects directed at resolving local conflicts,
especially over land. If the international community continues to address the
consequences of the violence in Congo rather than its most important causes, it
will only add to the death toll.
Addressing the consequences of sexual violence and these
other abuses is important, of course, but donors should do more to address
their underlying causes. Most important, they should approach the resolution of
conflicts in Congo from the bottom up. They should assist local groups —
official authorities, NGOs and civil-society representatives — with the
funding, logistical means and technical capacity necessary to implement
narrowly tailored programs.
The ongoing violent crisis in the DRC threatens to reverse
gains made in the peace process and through the implementation of peacebuilding
efforts. The current interest by regional and international actors in the
crisis provides an opportunity for laying a framework for the resolution of the
underlying structural issues that have plagued the DRC for a long time.
Furthermore, the reality is that historical issues will take
a long time to resolve and that the peacebuilding process in the DRC cannot be
tied to a timeline. The actors and stakeholders interested in consolidating
peace in the DRC must focus on transformative strategies that are aimed at
ensuring the development of infrastructure for a stronger and more peaceful
DRC. This will involve coalesced efforts and context-specific long-term
peacebuilding strategies by multiple stakeholders whose interests are
entrenched in reconciliation and wellbeing of the people of the DRC.
Finally, the conflict within the DRC can be solved only with
a political will in Kinshasa and internationally that has long been missing. No
amount of new border-security, billion-dollar UN stabilizing forces, or NGOs
can bring the needed reform within the DRC that, in reality, only central
government can implement. And while the continuing distraction of how to
respond to M-23 hogs the political limelight and international attention; the
underlying problems remain - as does the daily hardship and
violence suffered by citizens of this failing state.
The current crisis is catastrophic for Africa. It is also a
call for the Africa Union and International Community to renew their efforts to
address the source of the conflict. The solution is political one, and it must
be resolved peacefully through dialogue. What is now desperately need is not
deployment of more troops to the region, but increased capacity for diplomatic
work, and emergency humanitarian relief assistance for people who were forced
to flee.
For now, I am keeping a close eye on developments in the
Kivus and on any renewed violence in Ituri. I am hoping for a long lasting
solution for this very long lasting conflict. I hope that someday DRC will have
an accountable and transparent government able to provide peace, security and a
hopeful future for Congolese men and women, girls and boys #EndConflicts
#PeaceBuilding #PeaceforSustainableDevelopment #DRCPeace #EndWar #Humanity
#UnitedNations
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