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Source App: [Of foreign invasion and democracy in the DRC - Netscape]
Of foreign invasion and democracy in the DRC
November 30, 1998
Kinshasa - The fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) pits those
Laurent Kabila's troops against those rebelling against him.
Kabila says it is "an invasion by Uganda and Rwanda" and that "the rebels have backing from these two eastern neighbours," a charge strongly denied by both countries. The same neighbours were instrumental in bringing Kabila to power less than a year ago. Now Kabila charges that they are interested in creating "a Tutsi empire" in the Great Lakes Region, hence their involvement in the DRC war. On his part, Kabila has enlisted the sympathy of his southern neighbours - Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe. But analysts argue that democracy in the DRC will not be delivered by foreign invasion, as is the case now, explains an AANA Correspondent.
At an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis in the DRC held in Lusaka, Zambia (September 7-10), churches and ecumenical organisations in Southern Africa and Great Lakes region called on invaders in the DRC to immediately withdraw and allow the people of Congo to sort out their own problems (see AANA Vol 38/98 pg. 1).
Churches and ecumenical movements in the region realise the potential of the crisis spilling over to other Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries and the Great Lakes Region. Consequently, they strongly opposed the resolution of the conflict in the Congo through military means and instead argued for a negotiated settlement.
The three-day meeting was jointly organised by four ecumenical organisations:
Fellowship of Christian Councils in Eastern and Southern Africa (FOCCESA); All
Africa Conference of Churches (AACC); American Friends Service Committee (AFSC);
and World Council of Churches (WCC).
Two months later, the situation hasn't changed much. Foreigners are still fighting in the DRC, either allied to Kabila or the rebels. Meanwhile, senior political analysts say foreign invasion will only worsen the situation. This is why the Director of the African Studies Centre at the University of Capetown, Mahmood Mamdani, argues against a popular thesis advanced mostly by political scientist from the West: that the problem of many African states is deeply rooted in the artificial nature of its boundaries. Most of the boundaries were arbitrarily drawn up at the Berlin Conference (1884/85) then imposed from the outside.
Mamdani argues that this thesis is wanting, as all boundaries are more or less artificial; and two, to understand the crisis of the state, an understanding of how power is organised is likely to prove more revealing than the nature of boundaries.
He also challenges the western-based thesis that the state is collapsing in more and more African countries. The DRC is popularly quoted as an example of such collapsing states. Mamdani argues that "the state" as is in Africa today is a creation of European colonialism and that this thesis is therefore flawed as "it assumes the state in Africa was the result of an attempt to reproduce the European state under African conditions. Hence the conclusion that the attempt to imitate the original has failed. The difference between the two is seen as evidence of an African failure and understood as a collapse."
Mamdani argues that the state in Africa is a product of a different history - a
history of conquest. Colonial powers reformed the nature of the state as they
attempted to generate support for alien rule. The British took the lead with a
reform called "indirect rule". The French and Belgians followed suit. According
to the analyst, it is this reform which begins to explain what is different
about the state in Africa. Indirect rule reorganised power as two distinct
authorities, each ruling through a different legal regime: one civic and the
other customary.
Civic power ruled through civic law, which was legislated by the central state. In contrast, customary law was enforced by a native authority whose seat was the local state. Civil law claimed to speak a universal language, that of rights, but it excluded "natives" on the grounds that they "needed to be ruled through a regime that would enforce custom".
Even then, colonial powers did not create a single customary law and a single customary regime ruling all natives. They claimed that each ethnic group had its own custom. Colonial powers created a different set of customary laws for each ethnic groups and a separate native authority to enforce each set of laws. The result: racialised civic power and ethnicised native authority.
In a widely quoted article on the situation in the DRC, Mamdani claims it is this form of state that underwent a reform after independence. While the reform process varied from country to country, "one can discern the more radical from the more conservative". He adds that the Congolese reform followed the conservative variant: while civic power was de-racialised the native authority remained ethnicised. Therefore, when political scientists speak of the collapse of the state, they are speaking of the collapse of civic power, not that of native authority, at least in the case of Congo.
"The point is, what holds Congo together is not as much the civic power in Kinshasa and Kisangani, and so on, but the hundreds of native authorities that control the bulk of the population in the name of enforcing 'custom'," he argues.
Mamdani concludes: "Foreign invasion cannot give us democracy as a turn-key
project". He cites Uganda in 1979 and Congo in 1997 as examples.
"And it remains true of Congo in 1998. A lot of problems ascribed to Kabila would have been faced by any government put in power by foreign forces. It is better to face up to this fact, no matter how things turn out in the present conflict in Congo. Even if Wamba or any other person should turn out to be the head of the next government, this single political fact will not go away. (Ernest Wamba Dia Wamba is former Harvard University Political Economics Professor who is leading the Congolese Rally for Democracy, the rebel army. He was a close ally of Kabila's in the fight to oust former Congolese leader, Mobutu Seseseko.)
What is ironical in the Congo crisis, according to analysts, is that the government claims to stand for the national question, while the rebellion highlights the democratic question. Many say the dilemma is that any political force which hopes to realise its democratic aspirations will first have to establish its nationalist credentials. And that is a tall order, to say the least.
The lesson to learn from the Congo crisis, it is observed, is that Africa needs to reassert and strengthen two principles. "The first is the defense of territorial integrity and sovereignty in the face of militarism and the associated tendency to export revolution". What this means is that Africa must make a clear distinction between the right of peoples to negotiate and re-define sovereignty and the obligation of states to respect existing definitions of sovereignty.
Secondly, Africa must oppose militarism in politics as a first step to democratisation. "Only this twofold commitment can provide us the basis for dealing with deeper issues that the Congo crisis has brought to surface, being those of citizenship and state reform," Mamdani claims.
Given that the questions in the Congo can be replicated in many other states around the continent, isn't it time to give such issues the priority they deserve in an attempt to minimise this ongoing and devastating conflict?
Copyright © 1998 All Africa News Agency. Distributed via Africa News Online (www.africanews.org). For information about the content or for permission to redistribute, publish or use for broadcast, contact All Africa News Agency at the link above.