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Abstract
To ‘save’ the Virunga National Park, located in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the European Commission (EC) allocates development aid to the paramilitary training of the park guards, their salaries, and mixed patrols of the guards together with the Congolese army. Moreover, the ‘development’ projects the EC supports around the park have militarising effects as they are based on a soft counter-insurgency approach to conservation and to address dynamics of violent conflict. This amounts to the ‘green militarisation’ of development aid. This article describes how a personalised network of policymakers within the EC renders militarised conservation-related violence and controversy around the Virunga park invisible, by framing contestations and violence in and around the park as solely caused by economic factors and motivations. Moreover, by ‘hiding’ the fact that the EC aid is used to fund armed conservation practices, policymakers circumvent political debate about the use of development funds for (para)military expenditures. While the existing literature focuses on the importance of securitised discourses to explain the militarisation of conservation, this article indicates that in addition, it is important to focus on these more mundane practices of securitisation within international organisations that ultimately fund the militarisation of conservation.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their very valuable comments and suggestions, and Marijn Hoijtink and Judith Verweijen for comments on earlier drafts.
Notes
1. Corson, “Shifting Environmental Governance”; Sachedina, “Disconnecting Nature.”
2. European Commission, see http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-14-547_en.htm (accessed 18 April 2016).
3. Lunstrum, “Green Militarization,” 87.
4. Verweijen and Marijnen, “Counterinsurgency/Conservation Nexus.”
5. Neumann, “Moral and Discursive,” Büscher and Ramutsindela, “Green Violence”; Duffy, “War by Conservation”; Lunstrum; “Green Militarization.”
6. Massé and Lunstrum, “Accumulation by Securitization,” 229.
7. Neumann, Imposing Wilderness.
8. Huysmans, “What’s in an Act?”
9. Marijnen and Verweijen, “Selling Green Militarisation.”
10. Büscher and Ramutsindela, “Green Violence”; Devine, “Counterinsurgency Tourism”; Lunstrum, “Green Militarization.”
11. Cavanagh and Benjaminsen, "Guerilla Agriculture?"; Neumann, "Moral and Discursive"; Peluso, "Coersive Conservation.”
12. Büscher and Ramutsindela, “Green Violence.”
13. Lombard, “Autonomous Zone Conundrum”; Schmidt-Soltau, "Conservation-related Resettlement”; Poppe, "Conservation Ambiguities.”
14. Corson et al., “Capturing the Personal”; Corson, “Shifting Environmental Governance.”
15. See, for notable exceptions, Lombard, “Raiding Sovereignty”; Corson, “Shifting Environmental Governance.”
16. Cavanagh and Benjaminsen, "Guerilla Agriculture?”
17. Büscher, "Transforming the Frontier"; Lunstrum, “Green Militarization.”
18. Büscher and Ramutsindela, "Green Violence"; Büscher, "Rhino Poaching.”
19. White, “The ‘White Gold’”; Duffy, “War by Conservation.”
20. Neumann, “Moral and Discursive”; Ybarra, “Taming the Jungle.”
21. Beymer-Farris and Bassett, “REDD Menace.”
22. White, “Africa’s White Gold.”
23. Duffy, “War by Conservation.”
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. European Commission, Larger than Elephants.
27. Shaw and Rademeyer “Flawed War.”
28. Bernazzoli and Flint, “Militarization to Securitization.”
29. Verweijen, “Ambuigity of Militarization.”
30. Fairhead et al., “Green Grabbing.”
31. Bernazzoli and Flint, “Militarization to Securitization,” 450.
32. Lombard, “Raiding Sovereignty.”
33. Mosse, “Is Good Policy Unimplementable?”
34. Bigo, “Pierre Bourdieu,” Huysmans, “What’s in an Act?”; Huysmans, “Jargon of Exception.”
35. Huysmans, “Jargon of Exception.”
36. Bigo, “Pierre Bourdieu.”
37. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory.
38. Léonard, “EU Border Security.”
39. Ibid.
40. Ferguson, Anti-politics.
41. Li, Will to Improve.
42. Interview, EC official, Brussels, January 2014.
43. Interview, de Merode, Rumangabo, June 2014.
44. Multiple interviews, employees of international NGOs, Goma, 2014–2015.
45. Frankfurt Zoological Society, Press Release, http://www.glenoakzoo.org/WPPHTAG/PPHTAGpdfs/Hippo%20Crisi%20DRC1.pdf (accessed 15 February 2016).
46. European Commission, Supporting a Climate for Change, 27, emphasis added.
47. Hatchwell, “Public–Private Partnerships.”
48. Interview, de Merode, Rumangabo, June 2014.
49. Ibid.
50. Interview, EC official, Brussels, January 2014.
51. Interview, EC official, Brussels, July 2016.
52. Multiple interviews with park guards in Rumangabo and Rwindi, 2014–2015.
53. Dunlap and Fairhead, “Militarisation and Marketisation of Nature.”
54. European Commission, Supporting a Climate for Change, 27.
55. European Commission, see http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-14-547_en.htm (accessed 18 April 2016).
56. Verweijen and Marijnen, “Counterinsurgency/Conservation Nexus.”
57. Interview, de Merode, Goma, June 2015.
58. Interview, EC official, Brussels, July 2016.
59. Shifflette, “Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
60. European Commission, see http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-14-547_en.htm (accessed 18 April 2016).
61. Devine, “Counterinsurgency Ecotourism”; Dunlap and Fairhead, “Militarisation and Marketisation of Nature.”
62. Verweijen and Marijnen, “Counterinsurgency/Conservation Nexus.”
63. Vikanza, Aires Protégées, Espaces Disputés.
64. Verschuren and Mankoto Ma Mbaelele, “Renaissance du Premier Parc National.”
65. Vikanza, Aires Protégées, Espaces Disputés.
66. Interview, NGO employee, Goma, May 2014.
67. Interview, de Merode, Goma, June 2015.
68. Interviews, employees of multiple NGOs, Goma, 2014–2015.
69. Verweijen and Marijnen, “The Counterinsurgency/ Conservation Nexus.”
70. Interviews with guards at multiple patrol posts, 2014–2015.
71. Interview, de Merode, Rumangabo, June 2014.
72. Vikanza, Aires Protégées, Espaces Disputés; Van Schuylenberg, “Entre Délinquance et Résistance.”
73. Interview, EC official, Brussels, January 2014.
74. Interview, EC official, Brussels, March 2016.
75. Koddebrock, “Malevolent Politics,” 670.
76. Li, Will to Improve.
77. Lombard, “Raiding Sovereignty.”
78. Ibid, 279.
79. RAPAC, Libreville Ref. No 48/RAPAC/SE/asr/01-16, 10 February 2016.
80. Interview, EC official, Brussels, January 2014.
81. Interview, EEAS official, Brussels, April 2016.
82. Interview, Virunga Foundation employee, Goma, July 2015.