Panel 3 of a Triptych for Peacehawks, by Jamie Arbuckle
Introduction
On 6 November, the
Army of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with support from UN,
Tanzanian and South African forces, defeated the rebel group M23. On 5
December, Nelson Mandela died. In one
month, then, we have been confronted with the worst and the best of sub-Saharan
Africa. Which is the true picture? Which
represents the future of Africa? Are conflicts to be peacefully resolved, which
we might call the Nelson Mandela Future Model, or are conflicts to be endlessly
and brutally protracted, which we might call the Central African Future
Model? Is there hope, or do we face
merely a grim preparation for more of the same, in Africa south of the Sahara?
Is the Congo
still at the heart of darkness, or is it the birthplace of the first great
international human rights movement of the 20th Century?[1]
It does not
simplify our understanding of the situation there that it is in fact both.
To address these
questions, we need to assess several tributary influences:
1.
The
colonial legacy, which was one of cruelty, disregard and dysfunction.
2.
We
will review briefly the state of the game board in DRC.
3.
We
will survey progress in human development in Africa as a region, with a view to
gaining a better sense of what progress in DRC might mean – or might not.
The Past as Prologue
Much has been
written about the foulness of Belgian colonial rule of the Congo as a personal possession of King
Leopold – the best description of this is the acclaimed book by Adam
Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost.[2]
I will not here attempt to recap that history. At any rate, as we wrote in
Panel 1 of this Triptych, the past is not necessarily fate, it is only prologue
– we might have added that the effect of that prologue is largely in the hands
of the users. The misalignment of
borders with tribal traditions, the deliberate denial of education and training
of the indigenous peoples by their colonial masters, colonialists’ sabotage of
the process of independence of the erstwhile colony – all these deliberate
malpractices characterized Belgian rule of the Congo and the process of the
birthing of the new Republic of the Congo.
These systemic failures to prepare African colonies for independence
were not uniquely Belgian, although the degree of neglect of emerging and
about-to-be-ex-colonies in Africa varied widely – the British did try to train
and educate administrators to assume
independence. They wouldn’t let
“natives” into their clubs, but they did let them into their schools and
universities, and gave them responsible positions in administrations soon to be
their own.
But the past must
be largely what we make of it. At some point in our lives as adults, we either
do or do not separate ourselves from our childhood dependencies, from our
childhood homes and childhood influences – even if these might not have been
dysfunctional or even particularly unhappy.
We must take charge of our own lives, and begin to mold our own futures
– or, perhaps, we do not. As with
people, so with nations – they either overcome the past, or they sink under its
weight. And over a half-century and more
after independence, nations cannot endlessly blame their former masters,
especially if they speak the language of their colonial masters – DRC is
officially a Francophone country - model their governments on those of the
former colonizers and send their children “abroad” to be educated. If they cannot make the present their own, how can they hope to own their future?
The State of the Game in Congo
The recent defeat
of M23 and their willingness to negotiate a cease-fire has again focused international
attention on a most confusing conflict.
M23 were formed
out of the former rebel group known as the National
Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), which ended its rebellion and signed a peace treaty with the government of the DRC
on 23 March 2009, and were subsequently
integrated into the army of the DRC.
However, on 4 April 2012 about
300 former members of CNDP mutinied, citing violations of the treaty by which
they had ended their previous revolt. (They
took their name from the date of the allegedly voided peace treaty of three
years before.) These 300 or so mutineers were primarily Tutsis, but included in
their number former Interhamwe, the Hutu youth league responsible for much of
the genocide in Rwanda in 1994[3]. In November 2012, M23 captured Goma, a city
of about 1 million on the eastern border of DRC with Rwanda, and scant miles
from the border with Uganda. The DRC Army ran away; the UN peacekeepers stood
by doing nothing.
In March 2013 the
UN Security Council authorized an intervention brigade with an unusually
aggressive mandate to protect civilians. This brigade, with a strength of about
3000, operating with South African and Tanzanian forces, launched an assault on
November 2013 on M23, who surrendered on the next day. Martin Kobler, the German head of the mission, is a Green Party supporter and an avowed pacifist, but he has been quoted as saying that "it is sometimes necessary to forcibly bring about peace by military means". Peacehawks couldn't have put it better.
In their 18-month rampage, M23 had succeeded
in driving at least 800,000 people from their homes. And even with these
additional, and certainly better forces the UN and others have now been able to field, Congo remains as Dag Hammarskjoeld
characterized it 50 years ago: a country five times the size of France, with
fewer soldiers than there were police in Manhattan.[4]
It is not
clear why the M23 collapsed so quickly, but it had been reported that the Hutus
and the Tutsis of the rebel group had been quarreling among themselves. Reports
of Rwandan support of M23 have been vigorously denied by Rwanda[5]; as reported by News 24 in August of this year:
Rwanda - a temporary Security Council member
- has blocked a bid to impose UN sanctions on two M23 leaders as well as a Council
press statement condemning the death of (a) Tanzania peacekeeper[6]
Despite their
denials, the allegations did attract a distinct note of censure of Rwanda; if
that support were genuine, and if it were curtailed or ended, that plus defeat
in battle might have brought M23 to the table.
Peace talks between
M23 and the DRC government seemed to be following the course normal to such
affairs when the DRC negotiator walked out of the talks over the title of
document (which had been mediated by Uganda).
The UN Special Envoy, Mr. Kobler, was characteristically upbeat and
expressed his confidence that the talks would resume.
“A new level of
assertiveness by the United Nations has produced a swift and fortuitous victory
over the worst of the marauding militias that have terrorized eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo in recent years”, writes Howard W. French in The New York Times. He notes as well a
sober and responsible attitude of the DRC government towards their victory,
which observation we hope is more than wishful thinking. Challenges remaining, he notes, include
dealing with “a complex patchwork of armies that continue to hold sway over
broad swaths of this vast country’s east.”
There is also “Rwanda’s nearly constant meddling on its much larger
neighbour’s territory”, and, perhaps the nub of the matter, the urgent
requirement to create the qualities of governance demanded of genuine sovereignty,
inter alia: collection of taxes, a monopoly on the use of force, control of
borders.[7]
As this was being
written came news that, on 11 December, Congolese and UN forces launched
another offensive against yet another rebel group, the Democratic Forces for
the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), also Rwandan, and also linked to the 1994
genocide.[8]
Not so
sanguine however is at least one journalist.
“Don’t Save Congo”, writes
Andrew M. Mwenda in The New York Times.[9] He writes:
Although
the United Nations, human rights organizations and the media have focused on
M23 (perhaps because it was the strongest) there are over 40 rebel movements in
Congo … In
defeating M23 and establishing a semblance of peace, the international
community has achieved a short-term humanitarian objective — an end to one
rebellion. But it is a partial victory at best. It won’t end the myriad other
rebellions raging across the country. … Foreign intervention is helping
Congolese leaders in Kinshasa look outside for a solution to a problem that can
only be solved by internal political reform.
So far quite correct – Hammarskjoeld had advised the Congo government
that “the international community could not be asked to ‘foot the bill for
political ineptitude and irresponsibility’”[10], but then Mr. Mwenda, who is Ugandan, descends
to a brutal social Darwinism for his solution:
… the United Nations and other African countries may need to allow the
belligerents to fight until one secures a decisive military victory or all
sides get exhausted by war and find working together more attractive than
further fighting. … Anyone with capacity to organize an army, mobilize
resources and pacify the country should be given a chance to prove this on the
battlefield.
But that is precisely what has been going on in Congo since the
Belgians left them to their own devices more than a half-century ago, and has
to date caused nearly 5 million deaths.
Now why, we ask, would an Ugandan think that such turmoil continuing on
his doorstep for another half-century – and another 5 million! - would be a
good thing? And why would Rwanda, by “nearly constant meddling on its much larger neighbour’s territory”, apparently
seek also to cause, or enable, that conflict to continue?
Could the enormous natural resources, especially in Eastern DRC, the
scene of the most serious conflict (30% of the world’s diamonds, 70% of the
world’s coltran, plus copper and cobalt), be of interest to the neighbours? Cui bono? As Hammarskjoeld posed the
question, might it be “that a period of
utter crisis and disintegration is one in which those who work for their
personal benefit are acting against the interest of the people of their country
…?”[11]
Peacehawks wouldn’t rule that out.
Progress in Africa
We need
now to reconsider what we know about Congo in the wider context of Sub-Saharan
Africa. To do this we will consider the following:
- · The status of women;
- · Human Development; and
- · Information Technology – the Digital Divide.
Women. Her skirts are too short, her colours are
too loud, her English is too perfect (she can’t be a true African!), she is too
young, she is a woman. She is Lindiwe Mazuko, she is 33, and she is also the
Leader of the Opposition in the South African government. Her job, and her life, are never going to
quite what you might expect.
There are about
1 billion people in the African Union.
Women in Sub-Saharan Africa produce 80% of all food products, yet own
only 1% of the arable land. Africa’s women are said to be “on the move”, and
indeed there are more women moving into positions of political power: Ms.
Mazuko’s party, The Democratic Alliance, is led by three women, one of whom is
a provincial governor. A South African woman heads the African Union Commission. Liberia and Malawi have female presidents,
and in Kenya the Foreign Minister and the Defence Minister are women. In
Rwanda, 64% of the members of the lower house of parliament are women, the
highest percentage in the world. In 2011
two African women were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
But
generally the status of women in Africa is not encouraging. In South Africa,
only about 30% are employed, and their average wage is about 1/3 that of a male
in the same work. The Prime Minister of
South Africa has had 14 children by his six wives, and refers to Ms. Mazuko as
a “young girl.” Ms. Mazuko stands her
ground: “Many African presidents are over 70, while the average age in Africa
is 19. These men know nothing about the
realities of life for young men and women.”[12] And this is South Africa, ranked among the
highest of Sub-Saharan African nations in Human Development – but near the
bottom of the Medium Development range, and only 121st of 186
nations ranked on human development by the United Nations Development Programme
Human Development Index for 2013. In
terms of gender equality, South Africa, again one of the top-rated African
nations, ranked 90th.[13]
We need
now to consider this Human Development Index in more detail in order to place
what we have seen and what we know of DRC in a wider regional context, which
will permit of some useful generalizations.
Human
Development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Human
Development Report. UNDP has produced annual Human Development
Reports (HDR) since 1990. The Agency
defines the concept of human development as “a process of enlarging people’s
choices. Enlarging people’s choices is
achieved by expanding human capabilities and functions.” Three essential
capabilities for human development are a long and healthy life, education and
access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living. Other concerns nearly equal in importance are
sustainability, justice and human rights.
The measurement of these factors is called the Human Development Index,[14]
and it is to this Index as contained in the HDR for 2013 that we will now turn.
The
Human Dimension Index (HDI) Rankings. Nations are
ranked in the HDI, according to a number of factors, and these rankings are
grouped under the headings of “Very High Human Development,” “High”, “Medium”
and “Low Human Development.” Only six Sub-Saharan African states are ranked in
the “Medium” category[15];
all the rest are ranked in the lowest category. The DRC is ranked 186, and is
tied with Niger for the lowest ranking in the Index.
The Middle Class in Sub-Saharan Africa.
If we might generalize about the factors described so far, we could say
that these are middle class characteristics and values, and here we encounter
the first warning signs of the fragility of progress in Africa. There are about
1 billion people living in the 54 member states of the African Union; nearly
200 million of these live in North Africa and on the Horn of Africa, thus
Sub-Saharan Africa with about 800 million has a population well over one-and-one-half times that of the European
Union, and nearly three times that of North America. However, the middle class in Sub-Saharan
Africa is the world's smallest: 32 million in 2009, predicted to grow to 57 million by 2020,
and just over 100 million by 2030. The next smallest is in North Africa and the
Middle East, where the middle class (in a population about one-fourth that of Sub-Saharan Africa) was in 2009 estimated at just over 100 million, and
is expected to grow to nearly 250 million by 2030; that is, from two-and-one-half to three times that of the Sub Sahara. (In North America, the middle class in 2009
was over 300 million; in Europe it was 600 million.) The relatively small size
of the middle class in Sub-Saharan Africa, and its scanty growth over a further
generation, do not bode well for the spread and the sustainment of middle class
values.[16]
The
aggregate of these factors could easily lead to some pretty Malthusian
predictions about this region. But are there some flames, however weak, which
could be fanned? Are there some potentially game-changing events which, however
nascent, might overwhelm the pessimistic forecasts, just as the industrial and
agricultural revolutions overwhelmed Malthus’s predictions?
We went
looking for these, and we found some flickers,
which might indeed be fanned into more robust life.
Information
Technology and the Digital Divide. Ten years ago, the Secretary-General of the UN told a
meeting of the UN Information and Communications Technology Task Force that “…
bridging the digital divide, in Africa and elsewhere, is a formidable task that
requires not only leadership, but also a major commitment of resources.” He concluded his address by saying that, “Now
is the time to think of partnerships and initiatives for concrete programmes
that will make a difference on the ground.”[17]
Der Speigel says that “In the space of 10 years, mobile phones and the Internet have changed African nations more significantly than any development since their independence from colonial powers.”[18] Kenya,
which did not score particularly well on the HDI (145), is nevertheless a hub
of innovation in the field of digital information technology.
For one
example, a Nairobi-based and developed digital
payment system known as M-Pesa “turns a mobile phone into a bank account,
credit card and wallet all in one.” Spiegel
says that one-third of Kenya’s economy uses M-Pesa, and the system is now
in use in nearly all developing nations.
Another
project, called Brk, is a mobile router (it takes its name from brick, which it
resembles), capable of connecting up to 20 devices to the internet, even from
the most remote areas, and has a battery capable of running that entire
intranet for up to eight hours in case of power outages. Thus an entire bush village could be
connected to the internet, which is already in widespread use for medical,
agricultural and veterinary services and advice, as well as for emergency
assistance and disaster relief. The
prospects for this are enormous not only in a continent where over 4 billion
are not yet on line, but throughout the developing world and indeed in any
remote area – say, in many parts of
Canada. Says the Brk developer, “What
works in Africa will work anywhere.”[19]
It’s not Just the Economy…
Reports on
the state, and the future, of the economy of Africa also send very mixed
signals, especially those reported by Der
Spiegel on 29 November. On the one
hand, there is considerable economic growth – between 5 and 10 % annually, but that
is from such a low base that it belies the real state of African economy. The continental GDP is said to be equal to
that of Russia – which is a rust-bucket with few prospects and fewer allies other
than those it can bludgeon with its
energy resources. Africa has 40% of the
world’s raw materials and 60% of its
uncultivated arable land – but few African nations have been able to transform
natural resources into any advantages for the people. Especially in the seemingly favoured nations
such as Gabon and Angola (Angola with a “possibly record breaking” growth of
over 22% per year) “many … experience those resources not as a blessing, but as
a curse.”[20]
As in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for another example.
A increasingly
important factor in African development, for better or worse a potential game-changer, is Chinese
investment.
China made
its initial moves in Africa very late in the last century. According to Der Spiegel, Chinese-African trade has since
grown twenty-fold, reaching U$ 200 billion in 2012. China has “surged ahead” of France, the U.K.
and the U.S. to become Africa’s most important trading partner.[21]
But the
Chinese massive intervention in the economic life of the region has been far
from an unmixed blessing.
There are
increasingly frequent and well documented cases of shoddy Chinese merchandise
flooding and then ruining local markets.
The Chinese tend not to hire or even to train locals, but import their
own labourers who live in company ghettos and have little contact with the
local population. The few local workers in
Chinese companies are allegedly paid very low wages and treated brutally by
Chinese factory guards.
The
obvious goal of the Chinese is access to natural resources, and they have scant
concern for issues such as human development in Africa. The Chinese have made
no political demands on the governments with which they deal – except that they
shall not recognize Taiwan. Indeed, China has contributed greatly to the
continuance in power of such odious regimes as Sudan and Zimbabwe. Security
Council Resolutions which would have censured the Sudanese and Zimbabwean
governments have been vetoed by China. In
a well publicized case in 2008, China attempted to land in South Africa a
shipment of weapons and explosives addressed to the police forces of Zimbabwe,
but were prevented from landing the shipment by dock workers in Durban. The
Chinese ship sailed away, presumably to Maputo, Angola, from whence the cargo
was delivered to the police forces of Zimbabwe: “ammunition, rockets and mortar
bombs”; just what a well-equipped police force needs. Said a Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesman: “China has always had a
prudent and responsible attitude toward arm sales. One of the most important
principles is not to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.” [22]
This is certainly not the sort of friendship which will move a country
up that Human Development Index.
Conclusion
Peacehawks is based on the principle that
international peace can and must be enforced, just as are national and local
laws. The international community has the firm obligation to protect the rights
of peoples as defined by customary international law, taking "all
necessary measures" to ensure the safety and security of nations and
peoples, and "to maintain international peace and security."
In this
vein, when we discuss what might be done in Africa, or how Africa might escape
a Malthusian future, we need to set aside some shibboleths which have arisen in
recent times.
It has
been fashionable to romanticize indigenous capacities, when in fact prolonged
misadventure has made clear that such capacities are seriously chronically
inadequate to the situation. At its most
extreme, external intervention is characterized as neo-colonialism; it is asked
in syndicate rooms and in study groups and in lecture halls and in essays and
in theses and in book clubs if we are doing things for people, or are we doing things to people. These discussions
seem always to take place at a safe distance from the “theatre” of operations.
We need to
be realistic about addressing such serious dysfunction over such a long time as
in the Democratic Republic of Congo: there is very little that a people so
brutalized and so deprived for so long can effectively and sustainably do for
themselves. The security situation must
be stabilized, the borders must be secured, foreign meddling must be stopped.
Education and health care must be provided. Taxes must be collected. The middle class needs to be assessed realistically, and its prospects and its limitations must be taken into account. Governance,
in qualitative terms, needs not merely to be improved incrementally, it needs
to be utterly and completely transformed. It is nearly impossible that local
capacities can rise to this challenge. In whatever form an intervention on this
scale may take place, it is unlikely that anything else or less than very
positive measures delivered by the most effective and efficient means has the
slightest chance of success. This will
probably mean some form and degree of external programming.
This will
not be popular with the lords of misrule who hide behind their “domestic
jurisdiction” and their equal sovereignty, but one can only imagine what it
might mean to a mother that her children can grow up, can be educated, that
they might have clean water, that they might not be kidnapped or murdered or
both – and then we must be prepared to “take all necessary measures” to bring
such a transformation to pass. The
people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo would have good reason to be eternally
grateful for that sort of tough love and they might, if they were asked, be
prepared to relinquish some degree of that sovereignty so precious to their
governments. Especially the mothers.
Or we
could always stay home, but then shut up
about it.
[2] Hochschild, op. cit.
[3] Goma
is just across the international border from Gisenyi in Rwanda. By the end of
1994, nearly 1 million refugees from Rwanda were encamped in and around Goma.
These were mostly Hutu, and included in their number an undetermined number of
genocidaires, and these in turn included Interhamwe elements in some numbers.
Since none of the genocidaires wore uniforms, and since their most common
weapon was the machete, it was difficult to identify or to track them then; it
is impossible today.
[4] At
that time, the Security Council had just approved a peacekeeping force – ONUC –
with a strength of 11,000, and that Force was in the field two weeks
later. See Lipsey, Roger, Hammarskjoeld: A Life, The University of
Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2013, pp 403 and 483
[5] In
one well-publicized case, the Head of Mission, Mr. Kobler, texted the Rwandan Defence Minister to arrange
for his convoy to have safe access to an M23 site on the border. See http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/german-pacifist-leads-un-force-in-congo-a-933381-druck.html , accessed 07.12.2013.
[6] See
http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Rwanda-troops-backing-M23-rebels-UN-20130830, accessed
06.12.2013. Has NO ONE in that
Organization heard of or read Article 27.3 of the Charter: “ … a party to a
dispute shall abstain from voting?!” Rwanda, as a member of the Security
Council in 1994, was allowed to vote against an arms embargo on Rwanda. But then France and Britain were allowed to
veto a Security Council Resolution which would have called for a cease fire and withdrawal of foreign troops
from Suez in 1956 – the foreign troops being French and British. Do we or don’t
we learn from history?
[7] See
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/opinion/banishing-congos-ghosts.html?_r=0, accessed 06.12.2013
[8] See
http://news.yahoo.com/un-troops-launch-dr-congo-offensive-against-rwandan-103313843.html, accessed 12.12.2013
[9] See
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/opinion/dont-save-congo.html, accessed
06-12.2013. Mr, Mwenda is the founding
managing editor of The Independent, a Uganda news magazine.
[13] See
Human Development Report 2013: The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a
Diverse World, United Nations Development
Programme, New York, see http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR2013_EN_Summary.pdf, accessed 07.12.2013.
[14] See
“Human Development Reports”, by Stephan Klingebiel, in A Concise Encyclopedia of the United Nations, ed Helmut Volger,
Kluwer Law Intenational, The Hague, 2002, pp 189-193
[15] Gabon
(ranked Nr 106), Botswana (119), S Africa (121), Namibia (128), Ghana (136),
Swaziland (141). HDR 2013, p 18
[16] There is a terrific variance in
estimates of the size of the middle class in Sub-Saharan Africa. Generally, the
broader the definition, the larger the class may be assumed to be. This apparemtly deliberate obfuscation is of
course tacit recognition of the importance of this factor, and of the need to
go as far as the figures can be stretched.
The African Development Bank defines middle class as those who spend
from $2-20 per day, thus their estimate of the African middle class in 2011 was
nearly 350 million persons, larger than the entire population of North America,
where $2 per day won’t get you very far. (See http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/10/us-africa-investment-idUSBRE9490DV20130510, accessed 11.12.203) George Soros has however leapt on that
bandwagon, and speaks of “the world’s fastest growing middle class … one of the
few bright spots on the gloomy economic horizon.” (See http://www.uhy.com/the-worlds-fastest-growing-middle-class, accessed 11.12.2013) An economist with Standard Bank says
the criterion should be spending of $15-20,
which would yield a middle class of about 120 million. Citigroup Africa
essentially agrees with that, but goes further:
they “… don’t believe there is an
African middle class” which can be compared to the middle class in Europe or in
Asia. (See Reuters, op.cit.) We are using
the more conservative figures from the UNDP HDR 2013 (p 3); some serious
research is needed on this very serious issue.
[18] See
“Silicon Savannah: Africa’s Transformative Digital Revolution,” at http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/silicon-savannah-how-mobile-phones-and-the-internet-changed-africa-a-936307-druck.html, accessed 09.12.2013
[22] See
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/world/africa/19zimbabwe.html?pagewanted=all, accessed 09.12.2013
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