DRC STABILITY SHOULD NOT BE A PASSING INTEREST

Last week we were reminded, by the attack on Mpondwe Lhubiriha Secondary School in which at least 40 people were killed, that instability in the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) will have to be dealt with one way or another, it will not go away by itself.

For us mere mortals we wonder about the Allied Democratic forces (ADF). How do they continue to terrorise our people? Why can’t we just go into the Congo and fish them out? What is the ir problem with us?

"To answer these questions with any seriousness we probably have to go all the way back to the 19^th century, when Belgium’s King Leopold carved out the vast mass of land at the center of the continent for his personal enrichment. DRC is bigger than the European Union by land mass. DRC is almost eighty times the size of Belgium...

In the years when it was he is personal fiefdom, between 1885 and 1908, he put the natives to work in building arguably the biggest rubber planation in the world. Leopold terrorized the Congolese to ensure they met rubber production quotas including conscripting whole villages to work for him, wiping them out if they did not, mutilation, child slavery, rape and any number of depravities humans are capable of. It is estimated that up to 15 million Congolese died during the period.

Leopold did not coat his intentions with high sounding motivations like bringing civilisation to Africa. He did not think the African deserved any courtesy.

International pressure – maybe by those missing out on the Congo’s huge bounty, was used to pry the Congo from King Leopold greedy fingers and hand it over to Belgium.

It goes without saying Congo’s modernisation project got off to a less than enviable start. The Belgians like other colonialists did the bare minimum for the Congolese, focusing more on extraction of its natural endowments.

When they left in 1960, they ensured this extraction continues by putting in place lackey’s like Mobutu Sese Seko. Mobutu famously chided Emperor Bokassa of neighboring Central Africa Republic for building good roads in his country.

“These same roads will be used to kick you out,” Mobutu told him. Mobutu’s philosophy means that today most of DRC is unreachable by land and to get around you have to fly. DRC is easily the most connected country on the continent by air.

The net effect of this thinking is that public goods like security, justice and social services can not be delivered to the people. As a result poverty is endemic, poverty like we have no conception of in Uganda. Invariably this leads to lawlessness and insecurity...

So, its not hard to understand why Eastern DRC, more than 2000km from Kinshasa – about twice the distance from Kampala to Mombasa, is the way it is. There are dozens of militia groups running around, set up to protect areas from other militias but they in turn terrorise others for survival.

The UN have had a mission in the area for the last 20 years, which has failed spectacularly in pacifying the area. An impossible task for a handful of foreigners to do in an area the size of Buganda region.

It is useful that DRC has joined the East African Community (EAC). This could attract more investment to eastern Congo. At the bare minimum if we could open up the road infrastructure and trade can flow more seamlessly, wealth can be created for more people in that region and then we will have a real chance of stamping out lawlessness in eastern DRC.

As it is now if we were to do it by force, we would need to raise a full army or two in the area to have half a chance.

That is how history goes. In more “developed” countries they battled lawlessness and terror for centuries before a critical mass of people were created for whom peace and stability was critical. These people – middle and upper classes, had the reins of power and the ability and will to enforce the law.

Sadly, history suggests that it will get worse before it gets better. History also shows that the thing with history is that we do not learn from history.