Conflict minerals and Kony2012
March 14th, 2012 § 6 Comments
Everyone who cares about African development has surely heard both sides of the Kony2012 debate by now, and frankly the sight of another #stopkony hashtag is enough to make me close my browser tab at this point. Thus, this is not a post about Kony2012! It is, however, a post about an analogous phenomenon: the way in which the Enough Project used an oversimplified and inaccurate narrative about the conflict in eastern Congo to “raise awareness” in the West, and translated that awareness into harmful policy on the ground. Laura Seay recently wrote an excellent report [PDF] on this topic for the Center for Global Development. It’s a timely reminder that this type of poorly informed Western activism can have very real consequences for ordinary Africans.
The central problem with Enough’s narrative about conflict minerals is this: whilst rebel groups in the eastern DRC were profiting from mineral sales prior to the September 2010 ban on exports, minerals certainly weren’t causing the ongoing conflict, and they weren’t the rebels’ only source of funding. Cutting off one source of funds has done nothing to resolve many rebels’ underlying grievances about land use and citizenship, or to fill in the great vacuum of state authority in the Kivus which is so conducive to armed violence. Furthermore, most rebel groups have access to funds from other activities, including logging, agriculture, and informal taxation of local populations. (If anything, they’ve probably increased their levels of extortion from Congolese citizens since the mineral export ban in an effort to compensate for revenue shortfalls.) Whilst mineral exports were one of the factors perpetuating the conflict, the belief that they were its linchpin is clearly inaccurate. Effectively banning mineral purchases from the DRC has thrown hundreds of thousands of miners out of work, with few prospects for alternative employment, for the sake of a policy that has done little to reduce levels of violence in the region.
Interestingly, mineral exports may have actually facilitated the event that did significantly reduce the frequency of violence in the Kivus: the January 2009 arrest of Laurent Nkunda, leader of the CNDP militia and a key political actor driving the conflict in eastern DRC. Laura notes that President Kabila’s seemingly inexplicable decision to ban mineral exports (an activity from which many top Congolese politicians profit) ahead of the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act was likely driven by two factors: a desire to convince eastern voters that he was paying attention to the region’s problems, and an interest in consolidating FARDC control over mines to ensure Rwanda’s continued access to minerals. This latter consideration appears to be a key element maintaining the continued cooperation between the DRC and Rwanda. This same detente, of course, led to Nkunda’s arrest.
Laura also makes several other points about the political economy of Congolese mineral exports which I hadn’t heard before.
- The much-cited figure about how the DRC has 80% of the world’s coltan supplies is likely inaccurate; the real statistic is probably less than 10%. However, mining revenues (from all minerals) still play an outsize role in the country’s economic life. They “[account] for 80% of the exports, 72% of the national budget and 28% of GDP according to the latest available statistics.”
- “If minerals cause or drive conflict in a failed state, then we would expect to see most, if not all, of the Congolese mineral trade to be militarized and/or the object of competition between armed groups. This is far from true, however. The mines of Kasai and central Katanga are completely free of violence, as are many mines in the heart of the conflict regions in North and South Kivu and Ituri.”
It’s a report that’s well worth reading, for a contextualized take on the conflict minerals narrative as well as a pointed reminder of the dangers of misguided Western activism.
Violence and agency in the DRC
February 16th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
In yet another bit of backdated conference blogging, the Great Lakes Policy Forum held an excellent session on “Telling the Story of the Congo” last October. (Notes aren’t up at their site, but Wronging Rights lived-blogged the session.) The first day of the two-day event (which was all I was able to attend) focused on the partial and often inaccurate narrative about the conflict in eastern Congo which has gained currency among policymakers in the West. One of the first speakers opened with a striking exercise: he pulled a map of the DRC up on the overhead and pointed to a variety of cities throughout the country, asking the audience how many people had visited each. A healthy number had visited Kinshasa, and nearly as many had been to Goma or Bukavu, but very few had been to Lubumbashi or Kisangani, let alone Mbuji-Mayi or Mbandaka. This is a very real result of the way in which our collective imagined geography of the DRC has shrunk to the extreme west (Kinshasa) and extreme east of the country, rendering the rest of the country not as no-man’s land, but as non-existent land.
As the same speaker noted, the current Western framing of the DRC as a land torn by sexual violence and mineral-fueled conflict tends to pass over questions of domestic politics and governance, stripping the Congolese of political agency within their own country. By way of example, he noted that a recent case of rape in North Kivu drew criticism of MONUSCO for their failure to prevent it; however, few commentators asked who committed the rapes, or where the army or police were at the time. Sexual violence is clearly a symptom of the eastern DRC’s broader security problems, but the international community appears more interested in topical solutions aimed at reducing rape rates than in sustained engagement with the larger issue of security sector reform.
Several speakers were similarly critical of the Western narrative around minerals and conflict. One pointed out that mining is in fact not the only revenue source for many armed groups, and that it’s unclear whether cutting off this particular source of funding would decrease or exacerbate violence. Another speaker, more accepting of the idea of a positive correlation between mining revenues and violence, said that the international community’s exclusive focus on eastern Congo overlooked continued conflicts over natural resources in the center of the country. In his words, places like Kikwete and Mbuji-Mayi are “more like war zones” today than Goma is. Ultimately, the canonical view of conflict minerals in the eastern DRC appears to have been created largely by Western activist groups such as the Enough Project, with very little input from the Congolese, and without sufficient attention to the contextualized and ultimately local ways in which violence plays out.
Prepping for fieldwork in the DRC
January 12th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
No, I’m not going back any time soon, unfortunately, but Peter van der Windt has a useful list here. Note especially the preparations for getting around without an affiliation to a local NGO – could come in handy for independent researchers!
Liveblogging Leon Kengo wa Dondo at SAIS
September 27th, 2011 § 4 Comments
Throwing myself into the perilous waters of Congolese electoral blogging again, I’m currently at a speech being given by DRC presidential candidate and current Senate President Leon Kengo wa Dondo at SAIS. The speech itself was mostly an anodyne review of Congolese political history, starting with independence, but the questions coming in are harsh. (Video can be downloaded here.)
Commentator #1: Kengo worked for Mobutu, whose rule was obviously disastrous, and “sacrificed” the lives of the current generation. It seems like the current batch of presidential candidates who worked under Mobutu has not yet redeemed themselves. How will they change the course of history and improve the quality of life of young people today? Response #1: Brushes off the accusation that the commentator’s youth was sacrificed, pointing out that he clearly got a decent education in the DRC if he was able to continue to study abroad. Long discussion of the state of education in the DRC.
Commentator #2 chews him out for being the same type of personalistic leader as Mobutu and continuing the same policies. Unconvincing response #2: he won’t be the same if elected.
Commentator #3: Does he think he’ll actually win, given the “social, political and cultural context” of the country, and without a base? If not, why is he running? [RJS: I assume this is a comment on his half-Polish, half-Rwandese heritage.] Response #3: He’s created a party before, so why not another? He has a base in Kinshasa, apparently.
Commentator #4: Will people keep changing the constitution for political reasons? Response #4: He considered it a necessary and legal reform. Wouldn’t discuss reasons further, because he’s a member of the Senate and must keep the confidentiality of the deliberations, but will give his point of view: it wasn’t wise to reform the constitution just before an election. Draws a distinction between the legality and the legitimacy of the revision – he felt it was legal but not legitimate.
Commentator #5: Will Congolese abroad be able to vote in the future? Response #5: If the opposition wins, they’ll change the law to allow expats to vote.
Commentator #6: Would he be willing to support Tshisekedi as a unique candidate? Response #6: Negotiations on this issue are ongoing, and it’s too early to tell which opposition candidate has the largest support. However, if it turns out not to be him, he’ll support that candidate. If he’s elected, he’ll bring the other opposition candidates into his government. [RJS: this is largely the same set of responses given to this question by Medard Mulangala at SAIS last week. It sounds like "negotiations will be ongoing" about a single opposition candidate up till the day of the election, at this rate...]
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Viva Riva!
July 2nd, 2011 § Leave a Comment
I slipped under the wire to see Viva Riva! [NYT review] during its limited run at E Street Cinema in DC last week, out of immense curiosity about the first film to come out of the DRC in several decades. It turned out to be both tightly plotted and disturbing – an eerie portrait of a society where the state monopoly on violence has almost completely broken down, and where the promise of money in sufficient amounts can induce almost anyone to betrayal. The constellation of gangsters, army officials, sex workers, priests, street children and bystanders who are drawn into interaction with each other around the central character of Riva, an audacious gasoline smuggler, is well-drawn, and watching their various twisting plotlines slowly converge on the same place was one of the central pleasures of the film. Along the way, there’s some ridiculous sex, quite a lot of alcohol, many reversals of fortune, and some apt commentary on the old “Kin la (pou)belle” saw. The final scene is pitch perfect, as well. Check out the trailer here.
Steps towards mineral certification in the DRC
June 28th, 2011 § 3 Comments
The Wilson Center held an interesting event last week on steps towards the development of a certification process for conflict-free minerals in the DRC, with representatives from an admirably broad variety of interest groups participating in the discussion. (This included representatives of the US and Congolese governments, one of the negotiators of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, an industry CSR type, and researchers from the Enough Project.) Undersecretary of State for Economic, Energy & Agricultural Affairs Robert Hormats briefly discussed one of the most substantive steps that I’ve yet heard of towards an actual certification process, namely a USG-funded pilot supply chain of certified minerals. A common concern, however, was that these early moves towards reopening clean supply chains aren’t enough to mitigate for the damage done to the industry (and the incomes of its artisanal miners) by the Dodd-Frank act and the mining ban instituted by the Congolese government last fall. According to Tim Monin, the director of CSR at Advanced Micro Devices, the volume of trade has fallen by more than 90% since this time last year. It’s not clear to me what, if anything, is being done to assist displaced miners until trade picks up again (or until they find alternate employment – always a scarce commodity in the Congo).
30-second impression of Etienne Tshisekedi
June 20th, 2011 § 40 Comments
I was only able to attend a few minutes of DRC presidential candidate Etienne Tshisekedi’s recent speech at CSIS (as it started late and I had to leave for an evening class), but came away impressed with his analysis of the political situation in the DRC, which seemed articulate and astute. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect of the speech, to be honest; even given the political imperative to sound optimistic about one’s own candidacy, the level of certainty he displayed about his chances in this recent interview with Colette Braeckman left me wondering a bit about how accurate his understanding of the overall political context was, but he offered a clear picture of the challenges the country is facing. Please do share your impressions if you attended or were able to watch the whole thing. If you’d like to learn more about his campaign, I’d suggest checking out the coverage at AllAfrica, Jeune Afrique, or Radio Okapi.
(Note as of 28 July: This post has been edited to remove a comment on Tshisekedi’s age [he's 78] which many commentators found offensive. I don’t think it’s illegitimate to discuss a candidate’s age and health as well as his political stances, but many readers seem to have interpreted that comment as a suggestion that age is the primary axis along which a candidate should be judged, which wasn’t what I meant to say. Apologies to those I offended.)
(Note as of 16 August: Comments on this post are now closed, as it’s received a healthy variety of responses. Thanks to everyone who wrote in – I’d welcome your comments on other posts as well!)
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Severine Autesserre on the failure of peacekeeping in the DRC
May 8th, 2011 § 1 Comment
As mentioned in an earlier post, Severine Autesserre recently joined Frank Fukuyama at SAIS to discuss state-building in the DRC. (My hat is definitely off to African Studies at SAIS, who have pulled together some fabulous events this term despite being a relatively small department.) Autesserre’s talk largely drew from her recent book on the failure of international peacekeeping in the Congo, and made clear the insight she’s gained from the more than ten years she’s spent living on and off in the DRC.
As scholars like Laura Seay have noted, the continuing conflict in eastern Congo is fundamentally predicated on local factors, like land rights and citizenship, and Autesserre makes a similar argument about the failure of peacekeeping to reconstruct eastern Congo. Whilst a common criticism of forces such as MONUC is that they enforce a hegemonic Western “liberal peace” agenda of free markets, free elections, and human rights, which may not be appropriate for the reconstruction of countries like the DRC, Autesserre points out that most peacekeepers are not in fact neutral enforcers of Western liberalism. Instead, they often act in manners influenced by their own (frequently non-Western) beliefs & backgrounds, and within the constraints of a state that remains durably more interested in extorting its citizens than protecting them. Even if the liberal peace agenda were sufficient to reconstruct the DRC, it has proven quite difficult to carry out on the ground.
Whilst the salience of promoting democracy and human rights may go unquestioned among the top echelons of the UN, Autesserre observes that peacekeepers usually have substantial operational autonomy on the ground. This may lead to correspondingly idiosyncratic interpretations of their mandate. For instance, peacekeepers whom Autesserre interviewed during fieldwork in North Kivu often preferred technical missions such as military training to more open-ended missions to reduce human rights abuses by the FARDC. Some of this hesitance surely has to do with the sheer challenge of promoting better human rights records among the FARDC, but Autesserre also recounted an instance where reports of the recruitment of child soldiers were written off by South Asian peacekeepers, one of whom observed to her that he’d known children who had found discipline and purpose after they were recruited into his own nation’s military.
Many peacekeepers also doubted the overall value of their mandate to support the FARDC, an understandable concern given that civilians often suffer more from its predations than from those of rebel groups. (C.f. this 2009 HRW report on sexual violence in the DRC.) Autesserre notes that “the Congolese state is still a predatory structure,” and shares the worries of some peacekeepers that reconstructing the state may simply amount to a reconstruction of the state’s ability to harass its citizens. Unsurprisingly, many Congolese civil society groups have felt that MONUC was misguided or even malicious in attempting to work with local government bodies to build their capacity. With this in mind, Autesserre closed in calling for fundamental revisions to the normative ideas of state-building that MONUC (and now MONUSCO) have been called to carry out. She shared Fukuyama’s insistence that it’s dangerous to consolidate state power before establishing the rule of law, and proposed sequencing judicial sector and security sector reform before attempts at rebuilding the capacity of the Congolese state.
Where are the Congo’s resources?
May 5th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Via Le Monde Diplo, here’s a very useful map:
