Managing Spoilers in a Hybrid War: The Democratic Republic of Congo (1996–2010)

Abstract

Scholarship on the management of spoilers in a hybrid type of conflict is almost non-existent. Through an examination of the recent Congolese wars and peace efforts (1996–2010), we develop an understanding of how spoilers are managed in a conflict characterised by both interstate and intrastate dynamics. Certainly, more strategies of dealing with spoiler behaviours in this type of conflict are likely to emerge as similar cases are investigated, but our discussion recommends these non-related, but strongly interacting principles: the practice of inclusivity, usually preferred in the management of spoilers, is more complex, and in fact ineffective, particularly when concerned groups' internal politics and supportive alliances are unconventional. Because holding elections is often deemed indispensable in peacemaking efforts, it is vital that total spoilers be prevented from winning or disrupting them. The toughest challenge is the protection of civilians, especially when the state lacks a monopoly on the use of violence and governance remains partitioned across the country.

Notes

In 2010, MONUC's name was changed to the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO).

Primarily young men organised into para-military groups.

In Burundi, armed groups that were excluded from the Arusha process increased their use of violence quite noticeably between June 1999 and January 2000, thus making ‘themselves significant players in less than one year’. See Daley (2007, 344).

Literally ‘those from Rwanda’ in Swahili.

In Rwanda, 11 famines were recorded between 1895 and 1945. The latest occurred in 1990. See Lemarchand (2000, 330) and Prunier (1998, 88).

In Rwanda, Hutus and Tutsi were originally terms denoting political class or status, with Hutu meaning ‘ruled’ and Tutsi ‘ruler’, and applied to a society containing many crosscutting cleavages. The Belgians destroyed the system's flexibility: Hutu and Tutsi came to describe racial categories with Tutsi destined to rule because of their declared similarity to Caucasian people. Numerous authors have analysed how ethnicity was constructed in Rwanda; how the constructions were driven by claims about entitlement to power; how a zero-sum view of who could hold power developed; and how the possession political power was synonymous with economic power. See Mamdani (2002), Nzongola-Ntalaja (2002a, 93), Nzongola-Ntalaja (2002b, 219), and Prunier (1998, 39).

Banyamulenge, literally meaning ‘the people of Mulenge’, refers to Rwandan Tutsi living in the high plateau of South Kivu. The name was likely adopted in the 1960s by earlier Tutsi settlers to distinguish themselves from more recent refugees from Burundi and Rwanda. See Lemarchand (2001, 56) and Jackson (1996, 108).

We develop our definition after reviewing Stedman's contribution (1997).

The UN deployment proceeded at a glacial pace. The Kabila Sr Government took the UN's arrival on its soil as insulting and wanted the UN territorially restricted to territory not controlled by it or the RCD. See Braeckman (Le Monde Diplomatique, 7 April 2001, 2–5), Swart and Solomon (2004, 15–23), and Cilliers and Malan (2001, 10–66).

See ‘the Peace Agreement between the Governments of the Republic of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo’. Available online at http://www.usip.org/library/pa/drc_rwanda/drc_rwanda_pa07302002.html (accessed 25 August, 2006).

With these agreements in place, the RCD-Goma, the most powerful of the RCDs, returned to the ICD.

As noted earlier, the Sun City meetings of late 2001, the ICD already had more than 350 participating delegates. See Khadiagala (2009, 73).

See the UN Final Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo UN/S/2009/603.

See http://www.cei-rdc.cd/ (accessed 22 December, 2009).

The programme is the Multi-Country Demobilization and Re-integration programme.

See http://www.mdrp.org/ (accessed 25 August, 2009). This programme was concluded in 2010.

See ‘Stockholm Initiative on Disarmament Demobilisation Reintegration. Final Report’.

See http://www.monuc.org/News.aspx?newsID=17897 (accessed 12 August, 2009).

See http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/monuc/facts.shtml (accessed 22 December, 2009).

See http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/C.5/63/25 (accessed 22 December, 2009). See also the UN Final Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo UN/S/2009/603.

The important actors in humanitarian assistance are the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Medical Corps, the World Food Programme, the UNHCR, USAID, and Action Against Hunger.

Done by the UN Children's Fund; the UN World Health Organization; and Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

The eastern DRC, defined as four provinces, North Kivu, South Kivu, Maniema, and Orientale, is 14 m. The population of the DRC is 72 m (numbers rounded off). See https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cg.html (accessed 7 June, 2011).

Or the Congolese police.

Complementary statements by Anthony W Gambino, former head of USAID in the DRC, during a meeting with the class WWS 401e Post-Conflict Peacebuilding in Central and Southern Africa: Dealing with Past Abuses of Violence, Princeton University, and the various reports of MONUC.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Fuamba

GIGA Institute of African Affairs, Hamburg, Germany. Email: [email protected] University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

Masako Yonekawa

Former Head UNHCR, North Kivu Office, North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo Utsunomiya University, Utsunomiya, Japan

Annette Seegers

Department of Political Studies, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa