By Alex Mvuka
In January 2019, the Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi declared his commitment to fighting corruption, restoring the rule of law, and eradicating the problem of insecurity in eastern Congo. In 2020, he launched the “state of siege” in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri. This program aimed to put an end to the persistent insecurity problems in eastern DRC but also to a gradual withdrawal of MONUSCO. These measures have completely failed. In an interview with journalists in Beni, Tshisekedi condemned the misappropriation of funds by his military leaders as the reason for the failure.
The main reason for the failure of the state of siege is simply that the FARDC faced two dilemmas. On the one hand, they could not destroy their allies (Mai Mai armed groups and CODECO)— 85% of the weapons used by armed groups come from the national army. On the other hand, they could not dissociate themselves from hate speech at the national level, which also serves populist politics to access and maintain power.
In South Kivu, Félix Tshisekedi described the targeted violence against the Banyamulenge community as “a matter between herders and farmers.” In reaction to the hate speech by political leaders and the discriminatory contestations of the legitimacy of the Minembwe municipality, Félix suggested to “cancel everything that was done there.” The Minembwe municipality was created by the decree of June 13, 2013, granting municipality status to certain agglomerations in the South Kivu Province with the objective of bringing rulers closer to the ruled.
It has now been more than six years since concerted attacks carried out by a coalition of militias and the Congolese army have targeted the Banyamulenge. Thousands of people have been killed, raped, or subjected to violence, hundreds of thousands of heads of cattle—the main livelihood of the community—have been looted or killed, and hundreds of Banyamulenge villages have been burned. The proliferation of armed groups, often acting with the complicity of state agents to defend economic interests or sectarian policies, further undermines the state’s responsibility to protect (equitably) the Congolese people. A small locality, like Minembwe, in a vast country, has become one of the most militarized zones in the world after the border between North and South Korea, eastern Ukraine, and the Golan Heights, in the southwestern corner of Syria.
The “Wazalendo” phenomenon
Armed groups have been considered by the Congolese state as reserve forces under the “Wazalendo” umbrella. Those armed groups called Wazalendo are perceived as “good” armed groups, or “patriots defending their nation”, but the M23 and Twirwaneho are excluded from that “Wazalendo” qualification. Let us consider one instant that their exclusion is due to the fact that they are described as “supported by a foreign country.” But that argument does not hold, because several armed groups, such as the Mai Mai and the FDLR in South Kivu, are supported by Burundi, and they have been embedded within the Wazalendo entity.
What makes the M23 and Twirwaneho different? The armed groups called Wazalendo have no political claim. They are merely motivated by the idea of what they believe to be “defending their land against invaders” (which to them means “Rwandans” or Congolese Tutsi). However, they never operate on the borders of the DRC. They attack civilians simply because they look differently. These paradoxes are rarely a subject of curiosity for international organizations.
“Tukule ngombe za banyarwanda” [We must finish with the livestock of Congolese Tutsi]
Herders (in South and North Kivu) have accused the FARDC of looting the goods of innocent civilians. The statement “Tukule ngombe za banyarwanda” [We must finish with the livestock of Congolese Tutsi] has become a national practice. Cattle looting has become another form of war economy. Cows are affected by ethnic hatred as if they also had a “Tutsi ethnic identity”. For example, a bishop in the Kwango territory once declared that Tutsi cows carry AK47.
The revenues derived from this looting of the cattle are shared between the Mai Mai groups, the FDLR, and the Congolese army FARDC. They also serve to sustain the conflict and allow armed groups and the FDLR to recruit within local communities, as well as everywhere in the Great Lakes region. This barbarity against cows is perceived by the UN experts as a “matter between tribes” or simply reduced to “cattle raiding”. And yet, the loss of cattle among herders represents the destruction of the livelihoods of a herding-based community.
In the DRC, violence is normalized. Support for armed groups by state actors should be a concern to the world and especially to regional states. It is a serious and unconceivable situation in our modern world. When state and non-state actors collaborate to make civilian populations insecure, the state no longer has a monopoly on violence. There is a great threat to peacebuilding when the causes of deadly conflicts are primarily internal and maintained by the arbitration institution.