Volume 20 Number 2

Features

Emerging lessons from the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo: military contributions to the protection of civilians
Stian Kjeksrud and Jacob Aasland Ravndal

Since December 2008, protection of civilians has been the primary task of the United Nations (UN) mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Guidance on how UN military units can contribute to the protection of civilians has been lacking, however. This has necessitated a bottom-up approach to protection of civilians in which the mission and its partners have developed a series of cross-cutting protection initiatives. The UN military plays a key role in many of them. Based on the findings of a 2010 field study conducted in the DRC, the paper discusses how UN military units can contribute to protection of civilians in three dimensions, namely civil-military cooperation, the use of intelligence, and the use of military force. The aim is to inform the preparation of military contributions to future missions mandated to protect civilians.

Our work here is done: European Union peacekeeping in Africa
Per Martin Norheim-Martinsen

Since the European Union’s O rganisation O peration Artemis in support of the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) in 2003, Africa has become a key area of operations for the EU, an important source of lessons learned, and a test case for a constructive UN-EU partnership. The questions posed in this paper are whether the lessons learned have been the ‘right’ ones, and whether the hopes that the EU would become a vehicle for a revival of European peacekeeping in Africa have been met. The paper shows that despite initial hopes that it would become an active and responsible peacekeeper, the EU’s African venture soon showed signs of strain. Routine claims to success, and a need to prove itself as a potent military actor, have made it hard for the EU to learn the right lessons from these operations and develop relations with the UN. A further problem is that the EU, through its short-term ‘bridging operations’, subsequently often increases the strain on the UN. Finally, the potential for drawing synergies between both organisations’ unique potentials as civil-military actors has not
been tapped.

MONUC and the quest for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo: assessment of a peacekeeping mission
Sadiki Koko

When MONUC (the Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo) was first deployed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in late 1999, the territorial integrity of the DRC was at stake as the country was divided into autonomous fiefdoms controlled by the national government and several rebel groups. Concomitantly, the country also played host to a number of foreign national armies as well as non-state armed groups that took advantage of the confused situation in the DRC to pursue their respective security, economic, or simply survival agendas. In over a decade of deployment, MONUC contributed greatly to the preservation of the DRC’s territorial integrity. The mission also played a crucial role in establishing relative peace, security and stability in central Africa’s largest state. H owever, all these achievements could not wipe away significant shortcomings experienced by MONUC, stemming from both internal and external factors to the mission, especially with regard to the protection of civilians.

Africa Watch

Swaziland: can southern Africa’s last absolute monarchy democratise?
Dimpho Motsamai

The disproportionate use of force by government paramilitary units against the 12 April 2011 pro-democracy demonstrations in Africa’s last absolute monarchy, Swaziland, underlined the monarchy’s flawed approach towards addressing popular dissent. The consequences of economic mismanagement by the government of King Mswati III are becoming dire and can no longer be quelled by political repression. The uprising was inspired by the revolutions in North Africa on the one hand and was the result of many years of relentless campaigning for the restoration of multiparty democracy led by banned opposition parties on the other. It would be a mistake to write off the significance of the uprising, which has consolidated a platform for democracy advocates in the country as well as opened up possibilities for ushering in change in the country’s political landscape. In this paper, it is argued that the prospects for change in Swaziland will be determined by the degree of unity in the political agenda and strategy within the movement comprising trade unions, political parties and civil society organisations; broad-based mobilisation in much of the country’s rural areas and political buy-in of the reform agenda by pro-monarchists; and a sustained momentum for change from Swaziland’s neighbours and other key African and international partners.

Commentary

Understanding the complexities of the Democratic Republic of Congo at the turn of the decade
Sandra Adong Oder

The United Nations O rganisation Stablisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) finds itself operating in an environment that is becoming increasingly complex. Its current involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) may signify a realisation that the drafters of the mission’s mandate may not have come to terms with significant shifts in the geopolitical landscape of the Great Lakes region. The anticipated drawdown and withdrawal of MONUSCO is expected to have serious implications for stability and peace in the DRC. Unless an internal solution with unequivocal support from the Congolese people is found, the continent will continue to be faced with a problematic Great Lakes region. Africa’s cautious approach to the Congolese crisis will require it to deal with increasingly more difficult questions that may require radical reponses.

Book Symposium

The trouble with the Congo: a précis
Séverine Autesserre

The trouble with the Congo suggests a new explanation for international peacebuilding failures in civil wars. Drawing from more than 330 interviews and a year and a half of field research, it develops a case study of the international intervention during the Democratic Republic of Congo’s unsuccessful transition from war to peace and democracy (2003– 2006). Grassroots rivalries over land, resources, and political power motivated widespread violence. H owever, a dominant peacebuilding culture shaped the intervention strategy in a way that precluded action on local conflicts, ultimately dooming the international efforts to end the deadliest conflict since World War II. Most international actors interpreted continued fighting as the consequence of national and regional tensions alone, and diplomats and United Nations staff viewed intervention at the macro level as their only legitimate responsibility. The dominant culture constructed local peacebuilding as such an unimportant, unfamiliar, and unmanageable task that neither shocking events nor resistance from certain individuals could convince international actors to reevaluate their understanding of violence and intervention. Through this in-depth analysis, The trouble with the Congo proposes innovative ways to address civil wars in Africa and beyond.

From local-level violence to international relations theory: a journey through The trouble with the Congo
Michael Nest

If ever there was an indictment of international peacebuilders it is that in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) they failed to ask combatants two basic questions: ‘Why do you keep fighting?’ and ‘What would make you stop fighting?’ The trouble with the Congo argues that peacebuilders’ shared international culture hindered their ability to both ask these questions and to recognise local-level violence as ‘conflict’. Instead, peacebuilders focused on facilitating elections at the national level in a misguided effort to promote democracy before addressing the real causes of local-level violence, and without understanding that the DRC was not yet in a genuine post-conflict situation. It is on this issue of elections and democracy that Autesserre enters the world of international relations theory. She argues that the role of culture in the failed peace process demonstrates the strength and utility of constructivist theory. H owever, her evidence also illuminates the usefulness of realist and neoliberal theory in explaining why international organisations have adopted some rules and values over others and why states compete to ensure their rules dominate these institutions.

Whither civil society? Local peacebuilding and the international community
Laura E Seay

Autesserre’s The trouble with the Congo is a masterful work of political science, drawing on extensive research and solid theory building. In this commentary, these strengths are highlighted and questions raised about the role of local organisations in peacebuilding, the international community’s capacity for involvement in local peacebuilding, and the need for a new diplomacy to be used in post-conflict situations in which violence is ongoing.

The trouble with the local in the Congo: the challenges of multi-level peacebuilding initiatives
Geoffroy Matagne

While agreeing largely with the author’s compelling argument about how a dominant peacebuilding ‘paradigm’ shaped the intervention strategy in a way that did not address local conflicts directly and specifically, this commentary discusses the notion of ‘locality’ and the links between the local and the national in the Democratic Republic of Congo that have implications both for the diagnosis and the recommendations for achieving lasting peace in the country. It argues that local actors are often deeply immersed in national and regional dynamics and contingencies. It also questions recent or current developments that may show that new agendas and discourses are emerging. At the level of the international peacebuilding and cooperation actors, a few developments may be indicative of a potential – if still tentative – change in approach. More operational issues and questions are raised by way of a conclusion. Even if new discourses and agendas are emerging, there are still serious obstacles to coherent multi-level strategies. The advocacy of concrete and convincing alternatives is often the key to effective policy reforms. Further research should therefore focus on the elaboration of a new toolkit for multi-level peacebuilding initiatives.

A review of Séverine Autesserre’s The trouble with the Congo
Michael J Kavanagh

Autesserre’s book is a trenchant critique of how the international community sabotaged peacekeeping efforts in Democratic Republic of Congo by ignoring the persistence of local-level conflicts and holding elections before the country was prepared to assert its sovereignty. Autesserre persuasively argues that the United Nations’ mission in the Congo never received adequate support and that peacekeepers and diplomats should have deepened their relationships with local communities to address the causes of violence at their grassroots, instead of only targeting national and regional conflicts and dealing with elites. H er recommendations slightly exaggerate the capability of peacekeeping missions, given limited support for the exercise by the world’s powers and genuine obstacles encountered by peacekeeping personnel on the ground. But the book’s main conclusionthat the international community could have done better is damning and convincing.

Narrowed focus: reading The trouble with the Congo by Séverine Autesserre
Stephen Jackson

Autesserre’s work makes a powerful argument that a myopic institutional culture of ‘United Nations peacekeeping’ led to ignoring the critical task of local peacemaking in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). H owever, the logic that drove successive international attempts at peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, from the Lusaka and Sun City processes to the more recent mediation by former Nigerian President Olusegun O basanjo, was that you could not sustainably resolve local-level conflicts in the Kivus unless you resolved the underlying disputes at the national and regional levels, which the DRC’s ‘Second War’ of 1998 both symbolised and deepened. That local conflicts were not addressed earlier and more systematically may, in hindsight, have been a mistake: but it stemmed from strategic choices, not bureaucratic blindness. This notwithstanding, Autesserre’s book usefully obliges us to focus on the missing local piece/peace in the complex puzzle that is peacemaking/peacekeeping/peacebuilding.

A commentary on Séverine Autesserre’s The trouble with the Congo
Zachariah Mampilly

Autesserre’s work provides an excellent introduction to the culture of peacebuilding and makes a convincing case that is relevant for understanding the failure of the interventiononal in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But she misses an opportunity to fully dissect the broad nature of this expatriate-produced cultural space by ignoring its social aspects and focusing instead on the history of the Congo wars. In addition, a focus on micro-level factors cannot fully explain the profound suspicion that continues to shape the relationship between Congolese civilians and international interveners. F or that, an understanding of the broader geopolitical context of United Nations’ interventions remains necessary.

The trouble with Ituri
Dan Fahey

The case of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Ituri district both supports and challenges Séverine Autesserre’s contention made in The trouble with the Congo, namely that conflict persists in the eastern DRC because the dominant United Nations (UN) peacebuilding culture does not adequately address local conflicts. Local conflicts that started in 1999 in a small corner of Ituri grew into a brutal, prolonged conflict because of manipulation and mismanagement by local, national, and regional powers. The UN O rganisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) succeeded in bringing peace to Ituri through robust military and diplomatic actions, but unresolved local conflicts could lead to a resumption of war. The failure to address local disputes has less to do with the UN, however, than it does with the poor governance by Kabila loyalists that has characterised the post-conflict phase in Ituri.

Seven commentaries, three debates and one book: the author’s response
Séverine Autesserre

This symposium has been tremendously rewarding. Not only do the commentators generally agree with the central claims of the book, but my argument has also generated a great deal of debate. The reactions focus on three main questions. F irst, do top-down or bottom-up causes drive the violence in the Congo? Second, should the international response to continuing violence be top down or bottom up? F inally, do constraints, vested interests or cultural frames best explain why international interveners have thus far neglected to support local peacebuilding? My response addresses each of these questions in turn. F irst, I use the data presented in the commentaries to buttress the central claim of the book: that local conflicts were significant causes of violence during the transition to peace. Second, I elaborate on my policy recommendations. I demonstrate that a bottom-up approach would have been an essential complement to the top-down strategy, and I clarify the role that international interveners could have played in the bottom-up process. Third, I explain how the dominant international peacebuilding culture constituted the constraints and interests that prevented international action on local conflict. I conclude by briefly discussing the suggestions for further research present in the commentaries.

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