CAN CONGO BE SAVED FROM ITSELF?

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 20^th 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.

Trackless Diplomacy - At Play in the Fields of the Lord's Resistance Army

… the peacemaker must ‘wage’ peace.
- Ben Hoffmann

- by Jamie Arbuckle, for Peacehawks



Peace Guerilla – unarmed and in harm’s way, my obsession with ending violence
By Ben Hoffmann, Ph.D.
The Canadian International Institute of Applied Negotiation, Ottawa, 2009
206 pp., $12.96 (Cdn)



This book is the story of Ben Hoffman’s efforts to end a nineteen-year old war between Sudan and Uganda. His chief instrument in this was the Nairobi Agreement, which had been mediated by former President Jimmy Carter in December, 1999. Ben, working on behalf of the Carter Center (http://www.cartercenter.org/homepage.html), was to oversee the implementation of the Agreement. To do so, he would have to end the guerilla war being waged by Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army against the Government of Uganda, from safe areas within and with the support of Sudan. Kony’s LRA was an especially vile band, kidnapping children for “warriors” and “wives”. Kony himself, as Ben makes graphically clear, was mad, bad and dangerous to know. And get to know him Ben did, with all that entailed. If you take nothing else from this reading, you will empathize with the courage and the self-reliance required for this sort of intervention.

Ben Hoffmann is one whom we unhesitatingly call brilliant. We have worked and learned with him on occasions precious to us, and regard him as one of the best leaders we have ever followed. We had long respected his intellectual courage, and this book makes clear as well his physical courage. The story is told with cinematic sweep and a sense of excitement and adventure, and indeed Ben’s negotiations with Kony to free the kidnapped children are to be encapsulated in a movie, “Girl Soldier”, which is based on another book, Stolen Angels, by Kathy Cook (Penguin Global, 2009).