Economic opportunities and local governance on an African frontier: the case of the Semliki Basin (Congo–Uganda)

Abstract

The Semliki Basin historically represents a dynamic borderland between the interlacustrine kingdoms of the African Rift Valley (the Toro and Buganda) and the mountain people of the Western Rwenzori slopes and the Mitumba Mountains, in the contemporary Democratic Republic of Congo. Typically an agro-pastoralist area, it has hosted a lively trade between the Toro kingdom, around lake Katwe, and the neighbouring Bakonzo and Banande, living respectively in Kasese and Bundibugyo districts (Uganda) and Beni and Lubero territories (Congo). More recently, since the mid-twentieth century, the Semliki valley has served as a base for rebel movements and political guerrillas fighting against the Ugandan and Congolese regimes. The analysis offered here is inspired by Igor Kopytoff's 1989 work on the African frontier. Building on his argument, this article looks at the opportunities and obstacles generated in the Semliki area in terms of cross border “governable spaces”, focusing on the emerging actors that use and transform conventions about identity, labour and rule. The hypothesis is that the border is not just a space of “opportunity, of vibrant, desperate inventiveness and unrestrained profiteering”, but also forms a constitutive element in producing what is to be governed, i.e. a space where new forms of governance emerge, challenging the ruling conventions about what politics is and where it is to be found.

Keywords:

• frontier
• Uganda
• Democratic Republic of Congo
• governance
• boundary conflict
• boundary economy

Notes

1. Turner, The Frontier.

2. Le Galès, “La nuova political economy,” 79.

3. Hogan, “The Frontier.”

4. See Kopytoff, The African Frontier; Escobar, “Culture Sits in Places.”

5. Kopytoff, The African Frontier, 7.

6. Le Meur, “State Making,” 872.

7. See Prunier, “L'Ouganda”; Perrot, “Entrepreneurs”; Reno, “War, Debt and the Role of Pretending”; Clark, “Explaining Ugandan Intervention.”

8. United Nations, Report.

9. United Nations, Report. See also Human Rights Watch, Uganda in Eastern DRC and Covered in Blood.

10. Vlassenroot and Raeymaekers, “The Politics of Rebellion.”

11. Kopytoff, The African Frontier.

12. Leopold, Inside West Nile.

13. Raeymaekers, “Protection for Sale”

14. Human Rights Watch, Uganda in Eastern DRC.

15. Reno, “War, Debt and the Role of Pretending.”

16. Clark, “Explaining Ugandan Intervention.”

17. According to Reno (“War, Debt and the Role of Pretending,” 7), for example, “a key strategy for consolidating domestic political bargains has been to steal from outside a state's territory.”

18. Clark, “Explaining Ugandan Intervention,” 276.

19. Dietrich, “The Commercialisation of Military Deployment.”

20. Perrot, “Entrepreneurs,” 65.

21. Perrot, “Entrepreneurs,” 65.

22. General James Kazini (who led the offensive against the Allied Democratic Forces [ADF] in the West of Uganda) and Salim Saleh (a first-time National Resistance Army [NRA] soldier and half-brother of the President) conveniently made use of their involvement in Uganda's regional wars to haul in a number of lucrative defence contracts that were supposedly meant for the modernization of the army, but mostly involved the payment of vast illegal commissions (Wood and Peleman, The Arms Fixers). In the meantime, Salim Saleh also expanded his business activities elsewhere. He became the reported shareholder of Banff Resources, a Canadian company that owned the Kilembe copper mines in western Uganda, and he acquired 25% of the British mining company Branch Energy for the exploitation of the gold reserves in the park of Kidepo (Executive Intelligence Review, January 8, 1999). Branch Energy is associated with the private military company Executive Outcomes, in which Saleh held another 45% through its Ugandan branch Saracen Uganda, and which notably defended the Kidepo mines in the face of the LRA menace (Chapleau and Misser, Mercenaires).

23. United Nations, Report, 59.

24. A good example of the merging between military and economic agendas was the so-called Victoria Group. According to the Porter Commission, which investigated UN claims about Uganda's “illegal” exploitation of Congolese resources, this fictitious company was founded in 1999 by Salim Saleh, his wife Jovia and a Lebanese diamond trader to organize their diamond traffics from occupied territory in eastern DRC. The United Nations Expert Panel on the DR Congo refers to the activities of the Victoria Group as a combination of illegal diamond and gold selling, the production of counterfeit currency and the provision of a cover for the UPDF's commercial operations in eastern DRC. In particular, it served to illegally export commercial goods and resources from the DRC under a safe conduit General Kazini had himself issued to UPDF and Congolese rebel headquarters in Kisangani in 1999. While Saleh continued to expand his business, General James Kazini functioned as “the master in the field; the orchestrator, organizer and manager of most illegal activities related to the UPDF presence in north and north-eastern DRC” (UN, Report, 89).

25. Ballentine and Sherman, The Political Economy.

26. Berdal and Malone, Greed and Grievance.

27. Berdal, “Beyond Greed.”

28. Menkhaus, “Vicious Circles,” 5–6.

29. Prunier, “L'Ouganda.”

30. See Stacey, “The Snows of Rwenzururu.”

31. Vlassenroot, “Violence.”

32. The most important leader was Muvingi Nyamwisi, He was murdered in Beni by Mobutu's henchmen /thugs in May 1993. He was the brother of Mbusa Nyamwisi who became the leader of RCD-ML in 1999, a rebel movement initially supported by Uganda which controlled North-Kivu during the second war (1998–2003). Nowadays Mbusa Nyamwisi is the minister of regional cooperation in the Congo government (Willame, L'odyssée Kabila; Jourdan, Congo; Raeymaekers, “The Power of Protection”).

33. Jourdan, Congo.

34. A complete analysis of the causes of the Congo war is beyond the scope of this article. For an overview, see for example, Turner, The Congo Wars.

35. Prunier, “Sudan's Regional War.”

36. Furthermore, some terrorist acts were attributed to this movement: in 1998 two bombs exploded in Kampala in the Nile Grill restaurant and in the Speke Hotel. The same year a bus going to Rwanda was blown up, killing 30 people. After 1998, the ADF actions became more brutal: for example, in February 1998, 30 students were kidnapped at the Adventist College in Kasese. On June 8 of the same year, about 80 students of the technical college in Kaborole died after the rebels had set fire to their dormitory, and in the same month many children were kidnapped from a school in the Hoima district.

37. In one such case, Col. Peter Kerim was caught while stealing two pick-up trucks loaded with fuel from a Zaïran businessman. Following this incident, Kerim was forced to go on leave. Nevertheless, he managed to reappear, first as the commander of the anti-ADF offensive, and then as a military trainer for Jean-Pierre Bemba's MLC and commander in Mahagi District during the second war in 1998–2003. In the end he became the overall commander in the DRC after the dismissal of Gen. Kazini in 2003.

38. Prunier, “L'Ouganda,” 51.

39. Prunier, “L'Ouganda,” 51.

40. The Monitor, May 22, 2000, “Uganda's Sweet Talk not Enough to Woo Canadians”; I would like to thank Dan Fahey for bringing this article to our attention.

41. De Herdt and Marysse, “L’économie informelle,” 29

42. Vwakyanakazi, “African Traders,” 177.

43. Mobutu himself declared “Article Quinze,” the fifteenth article of Zaire's constitution, as “Débrouillez-vous!,” or “fend for yourselves.” In the 1980s this system emerged as a popular reaction against rapid official economic decline that had made Zaire's official system come “crashing down” on the Zairian citizenry (Schatzberg, The Dialectics of Oppression, 138). Système D represented a massive disengagement of citizens from the state at a time of criminalization and privatization.

44. Tilly, State Making.

45. MacGaffey, The Real Economy of Zaire; see also: Jourdan, Congo.

46. De Boeck, “Borderland Breccia.”

47. Prunier, “L'Ouganda.”

48. Willame, L'odyssée Kabila.

49. This city, in the last decades, has become a crucial centre for trade in East Congo Butembo. It is full of shops that sell all kind of goods: food, clothes, motorcycles, electronics etc. The businessmen of Butembo supply the north and east Congo with their goods, and even partially the Central African Republic. Their influence has increased during the war since the navigation on the Congo river, that connects the capital Kinshasa with the central town of Kisangani, has been blocked.

50. For more details, see Raeymaekers, “The Power of Protection” and ‘‘Protection for Sale.’’

51. Tull, “A Reconfiguration”; Tull and Mehler, “The Hidden Costs of Power-sharing.”

52. Reno, “Order and Commerce,” 611.

53. Mirembe, “Autour de l’économie informelle.”

54. Part of this produce also served to pay of the Great European Depression, but that is an entirely different story (Jewsiewicki, “The Great Depression”).

55. Dickie, Cosa Nostra.

56. Vwakyanakazi, “African Traders,” 183.

57. De Boeck, “Borderland Breccia.”

58. De Soto, The Mystery of Capital; MacGaffey, Entrepreneurs and Parasites and The Real Economy; Mirembe, “Autour de l’économie informelle.”

59. Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience.

60. Clastres, Society against the State.

61. Roitman, Fiscal Disobedience.

62. Hart, “Informal Income Opportunities.”

63. Migdal and Schlichte, “Rethinking the State,” 2.

64. Migdal and Schlichte, “Rethinking the State,”, 4.

65. Magnussen, “The Reification of Political Community,” 46.

66. Hannerz, Transnational Connections, 26.

67. Kassimir, “Producing Local Politics,” 103.

68. Asuman Bisiika, “Rwenzururu a Kingdom only in Hearts of People,” New Vision, July 21, 2008.