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Will the EU be able to reverse reconfirmation of patrimonial rule in the DRC?
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, hopes are high that the country is moving towards democracy. During the last months, an internationally supported electoral process has voted a new president, parliament and provincial assemblies. These elections not only represent an official end to the political transition process, they also are the first democratic vote since more than four decades.
Congo’s elections will unlikely lead to democracy, however, if not accompanied by a new political and governance culture. This new culture is far from realized; the peace process and electoral campaign have pointed at one of the crucial weaknesses of the current political transition. Rather than paving the way towards democratic and transparent rule, they seem to reconfirm patrimonial rule and the use of public positions for private gain. While it would be wrong to only blame the international community, this observation raises some serious questions about the current international and EU efforts to institute peace and democracy in war-torn societies.
A close look at the functioning of the governance structures that have been put in place since the start of the peace process, indeed, suggest a return to Mobutist practices. It was one of the objectives of the internationally supported efforts to create the conditions of durable peace, to create a new administrative framework that would guarantee good governance, strengthen the rule of law and protect Congo’s citizens. As part of the peace process, local administrations were reintegrated into the national state framework and again had to report to the political centre in Kinshasa. New administrators were chosen by the different components of the transition government and were posted in every corner of the country. What was supposed to be the first phase of a larger process of state reconstruction, however, turned out to be a continuation of governance practices based on clientelism and patronage. Even more, as the power-sharing strategy of the peace process offered new opportunities to the former warring parties, local strategies of exploitation and control have been integrated into the national, legitimate political framework and have been consolidated as the main guidelines of local representatives of authority.
The persistent logic of politics for private gain is probably most visible in Congo’s natural resource sector. During the war, several UN Panel reports described in great detail the networks that were active in the ‘illegal’ exploitation of Congo’s mineral wealth. A report by the Congolese parliamentary commission headed by Christophe Lutundula and set up to investigate mining contracts that were signed by the government authorities and rebel leaderships between 1996 and 2003, in June 2005 concluded that corruption in the Congolese mining sector had become endemic. The report identified several companies involved in fraudulent deals (including some close to President Kabila) and recommended the termination or renegotiation of dozens of contracts. Despite its release, business in the DRC has continued as usual. At every level of the state, local elites have installed their own structures of control and predation in order to secure their access to local resources. The example of Maniema, where the provincial authorities play a central role in the local resource exploitation, illustrates how the transition process has provided new opportunities to use official positions in the Congolese administration for self-enrichment. In Maniema, it is a general complaint of provincial administrators that they lack resources to govern the province and to support local development initiatives. Strangely enough, at all levels of society, a multitude of taxes that should generate the necessary income to let function the local administration has been put in place. A closer look at the local tax collection practices reveals that only small part of the collected resources is forwarded to the ‘trésor publique’. The largest share of taxes has to nourish the parallel structures and accounts that have been instituted by provincial authorities, directors of provincial departments, army and police commanders etc.
Predation, however, is not limited to the mining sector. In every part of public life, governance today is reduced to the collection of money for private use. For most administrators, army commanders and police officers, creativity has no limits when exploiting the Congolese population. Checkpoints, convocations, fines and taxes have become widely used tactics to increase personal income. All levels of society have to deal with these practices: from the farmer that is faced with representatives of the divisions of rural development, agricultural production, environment and transport, to local NGOs, of which each new initiative is experienced by state administrators as an opportunity to generate additional resources.
State positions have become the best guarantee to secure the control over trading networks and exploitation mechanisms that have been instituted during the war. Provincial governors, police commanders, directors of provincial administrations and ‘local chefs de poste’ all try to exploit their official position to generate resources for private gain. The worst record, however, is that of the new unified Congolese army. Today it should be questioned if greater loyalty and cooperation between former warring parties through army unification is leading to an increase of security in the Congo. A series of corruption scandals in the Congolese army points at a strategy of maintaining insecurity to benefit from economic predation. The situation in most parts of the east also reveals that every new posted soldier poses a new security threat to the Congolese population.
The regional spillover effect of the decade of conflict in the DRC clearly demonstrated the need for cooperation between EU countries. A key moment in this recognition was the Franco-British ‘Saint Malo meeting’ in December 1998 since it brought the French and British closer to each others on African affairs. Another key mobilizing element is the reinforced international interest in the challenges and threats emanating from fragile or failing states, non-state groups and transnational issues, such as crime and terrorism and the recognition that these require an agile and multi-faceted response. As reflected in the European Security Strategy, this has strengthened the perception on the need for reinforced coherence and coordination between policy areas.
In general, and somewhat surprisingly, in view of the differences between the multitude of European players in the DRC, the facts about the EU intervention in the DRC indicate a large degree of common interest between the EU institutions and the bilateral policies pursued by the member states. These last years there has been a common strategic focus on the electoral process. And although this issue has been even more sensitive, the experience in the field of SSR also indicates a common purpose between actions pursued by the Commission and the Council (this includes the Commission financial support to the flanking measures identified by the EUSEC mission, the justice project in Ituri district following the ARTEMIS operation and, especially, the EUPOL Kinshasa mission, following the training of the UPI through a Commission financed project).
The cleavages in and amongst EU countries and institutions and the limits these impose on the EU actions in the DRC have been somewhat overstated by Batabiha Bushoki in his article. The full picture is rather more complicated. Some of the criticism on ARTEMIS and EUFOR RDC is unjustified, since the purpose of these CFSP/ESDP operations is concentrated on short-term objectives, in both cases in support of the UN. Community tools and instruments are there to ensure that EU intervention is framed within the parameters of long-term objectives. This cleavage is less clear with the EUPOL and EUSEC missions, of which especially EUSEC has a vocation to be in the field for the long run in support of SSR in the DRC.
One could, however, more easily justify the criticism on the absence of European troops in UN forces in sub-Saharan Africa, including the DRC, since the Somalia and Rwanda disasters in the beginning of the nineties. In view of this political reality, forces such as ARTEMIS and EUFOR RDC have nevertheless performed a critical function. They have allowed the UN, at critical moments in the transition to build-up or maintain its capacity and credibility. In 2003, ARTEMIS essentially saved MONUC and the UN credibility in sub-Sahara Africa and the very sensitive start of the DRC’s transition period. Considering EUFOR, it was clear from the outset, that the geographical scope would exclude the area of operations of MONUC’s Eastern Division (reinforced by contingents from ONUB). The presence of EUFOR has contributed to maintain MONUC’s operational capacity in the East by shoring up its capacity in the less conflict prone Western Provinces. The validity of this approach became clear during the clashes in Kinshasa and during the most recent crises in North Kivu. EUFOR RDC is however not an all rosy picture, there were some serious doubts on the position of France in the preparation and operational phases. These have created some issues between France and Germany. These elements may serve as a warning that operations conducted under the EU flag could be used to disguise the national interests of some of the key players.
The lack of adequate numbers of peacekeepers does not constitute the key problem in bringing security to the DRC. The main issue is the urgent need for the Congolese authorities to reform their security services and to become themselves accountable for delivering security to their citizens. This is one of the key elements in the process of democratization. So far, the Congolese political authorities have been able to escape the notions of responsibility and accountability – if the process of democratization will succeed it will depend on their willingness and capacity to become responsible and accountable. The European Union has demonstrated its capacities to assist electoral processes and to help maintaining security during the election process. It is very doubtful, however, if it will have the same competence to force the newly elected political elites to shift from a patrimonial control of resources to democratic and legitimate rule.
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Hans Hoebeke is senior researcher at the Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels