Maybe peace in the Congo
at long last?
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF
Associate since 1991
Comments directly to
JonatPower@aol.com
August 31, 2007
LONDON - Eight months have passed since the surprisingly peaceful Congolese election and the country has dropped out of the headlines. Yet it is not so long ago that a senior U.S. Administration figure was talking about the Congo as the site of “Africa’s First World War”. Has the UN really pacified this country that has been continuously in a state of unrest since the Belgian colonisers, after effectively looting the country dry, fled in 1960, turning the country over to a hastily improvised African government led by the notorious Patrice Lumumba?
Perhaps yes, although to be wise, given the history of this the most turbulent of all African countries, we should say, let’s wait and see. Nevertheless, as some voices are being raised to suggest that the UN could take on the whirlwind of Iraq, it is encouraging to know that its largest peacekeeping operation ever is meeting with some measure of success.
It also raises the interesting question why does this second UN intervention in the Congo appear to be more successful than the first, back in 1960 when, fearful of the U.S. and the Soviet Union competing to gain a foothold in Africa, the UN’s secretary general, Dag Hammarskjold, pushed for UN intervention, as the country’s post independence civil war appeared to spin totally out of control? The UN did pacify the country to some degree- at the cost of claiming Hammarskjold’s life in a plane accident- but it left with its tail between its legs, handing the country over to 32 years of decadent rule by the masterful, but quite wicked, dictator, Mobutu.
One important reason for the UN’s present success is, since 2002, its partnership with the European Union. Whenever events hotted up or threatened to spiral out of control the EU dispatched its well trained armed forces, first the French and later the Germans. Altogether eighteen European nations participated including Turkey. The UN presence for once was also adequately funded, with the U.S. a major contributor. Not least, unlike the last time, it had a unanimous Security Council mandate behind it, involving Chapter 7 of the Charter, which bestows the right to use military force.
The European effort was critical in pacifying Bunia and Bukavu, areas plagued by rebel armies and multiple atrocities. There are still areas of instability in particular in the Kivus where there have been regular clashes between the UN forces and the remnants of the Interahamwe who fled from Rwanda to the Congo after leading the massacres of the Tutsi in 1994. Even this week this still restless corner of the Congo flared anew as the Interahamwe battled a dissident Congolese army and there was discussion about Congolese and Rwandan government troops joining the fray.
The results of this UN-EU activism are impressive. Most of the country is quiet. The number of displaced persons is down by over a million. The economy has started to grow. The mining sector is recovering well. Hyperinflation has been tamed and the exchange rate has remained stable. Mobile phone masts have been installed even where the roads have all but disappeared. Foreign investment is returning. The International Monetary Fund describes the country’s progress as “remarkable”.
The November general election was a critical turning point. The BBC’s Africa correspondent, Mark Doyle, described the successful vote with its high turn out as an unexpected “miracle”. The UN had done a workmanlike job in helping write an electoral law and drawing up procedural plans for polling and aiding registration. European troops entered the capital, with a larger support contingent on standby in nearby Gabon and Chad. A battalion of reserves was held at the ready in France.
Nevertheless, when the results war announced giving the election to the incumbent dictator, Joseph Kabila, fighting broke out in Kinshasa. A large number of the foreign diplomatic corps was trapped in the cellar of his opponent, Jean Pierre Bemba, when forces aligned with Kabila attacked his house whilst a meeting was in process. They were rescued by an EU force. The fact that the EU had appeared to strike against Kabila’s troops bolstered the legitimacy of the mission.
All in all this has not been an easy nor an inexpensive operation nor one that has always run smoothly, as the serious allegations of rape made against some UN contingents attest. The UN operation has cost $1 billion a year to run and the total aid bill is over $10b. The poll itself cost the international community half a billion dollars.
However, this is much less than what has been spent in Iraq and Afghanistan and, as far as one can judge at the present, the results are more favourable. Indeed, one can plausibly argue that before the Western intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan the Congo was the country of the three in the greater mess, with the most violence.
Copyright © 2007 Jonathan
Power
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Jonathan Power can be
reached by phone +44 7785 351172
and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
Jonathan
Power
2007 Book
Conundrums
of Humanity
The Quest for Global Justice
“Conundrums
of Humanity” poses eleven questions for our future progress, ranging
from “Can we diminish War?” to “How far and fast can
we push forward the frontiers of Human Rights?” to “Will
China dominate the century?”
The answers to these questions, the author believes, growing out of
his long experience as a foreign correspondent and columnist for the
International Herald Tribune, are largely positive ones, despite the
hurdles yet to be overcome. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, London, 2007.
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