tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/mobutu-sese-seko-27193/articlesMobutu Sese Seko – The Conversation2024-03-04T13:27:20Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2233932024-03-04T13:27:20Z2024-03-04T13:27:20ZCongo Style: how two dictators shaped the DRC’s art, architecture and monuments<p><em>What kind of art is left behind by totalitarian regimes? A new <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/113312">free-to-read</a> <a href="https://press.umich.edu/Books/C/Congo-Style2">book</a> called Congo Style: From Belgian Art Nouveau to African Independence explores the visual culture, architecture and heritage sites of the country today known as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It does so by exploring two now-notorious regimes: <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-II-king-of-Belgium">King Leopold II</a>’s rule (1885-1908) of Belgium’s Congo colony and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mobutu-Sese-Seko">Mobutu Sese Seko</a>’s totalitarian Zaire, established when he seized power in a military coup in 1965 after five years of political upheaval. We asked artist and visual culture scholar Ruth Sacks five questions about her book.</em></p>
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<h2>What did you set out to achieve?</h2>
<p>Years ago, while I was in Belgium on an art residency, I became interested in the early modernist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/Art-Nouveau">art nouveau</a> movement (1890-1914). In architecture and art, this period is part of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/Modernism-art">20th century modernism</a>, known for a minimal, clean aesthetic that’s influenced by new technologies and the advent of machines. Art nouveau is distinctive because it’s highly decorative, while still using the new building materials of iron and glass.</p>
<p>What interested me was the colonial nature of art nouveau. Art nouveau came with a very strong sense of defining newly formed (or unified) nation states in western Europe. It was the style used at <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/worlds-fair">world fairs</a>. These were grand exhibitions showing off western countries’ scientific and cultural achievements, including the acquisition of colonies. </p>
<p>A colonial pavilion in the art nouveau style at the 1897 Brussels world fair in Belgium helped establish one of the names for Belgian art nouveau: <a href="https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/art-nouveau-year-brussels">“Style Congo”</a>. </p>
<p>The style is distinctive for its curling, plant-like shapes and is a major tourist feature today. The years in which it was implanted in Brussels (about 1890-1905) directly coincided with the brutal Congo regime of Belgium’s King Leopold II. </p>
<p>Travelling to the DRC, I located actual art nouveau buildings from the early colonial period. But it was the state sites of the early Mobutu Sese Seko regime (1965 to 1975) that captured my attention. Like art nouveau, they are steeped in a sense of <a href="https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-2039">nationalism</a> and aimed at impressing. For example, the Limete Tower (in use from 1974) on Boulevard Lumumba is a massive monument intended to be a museum celebrating national culture. A tower made up of a huge raw cement tube is topped by an organic floret shaped crown, with a curving walkway leading off from its rounded lower sections.</p>
<p>My experience of the capital city, Kinshasa, made me rethink what cities were and could be. Buildings like Limete Tower that were designed for very different infrastructures (far more ordered, European and US systems) have weathered in fascinating ways that are often related to extremely violent historic events.</p>
<p>I didn’t want to present a conventional study that only analyses the design of the architecture and its functionality. The book attempts to read sites like this within the particularities of their city, its streets, plants and histories.</p>
<h2>What did you conclude about the Leopold period?</h2>
<p>In Leopold II’s time, the king himself was cast as the villain of the “red rubber regime” in the Congo. The Belgian colonial regime under Leopold II <a href="https://www.amdigital.co.uk/insights/news/red-rubber-atrocities-in-the-congo-free-state-in-confidential-print-africa">committed atrocities</a> connected to the rubber industry. (The 1897 Congo Pavilion was a pavilion within the <a href="https://www.bie-paris.org/site/en/1897-brussels">Brussels World’s Fair</a> dedicated to displaying how the Congo provided a lucrative and exotic resource to Belgium.) </p>
<p>Movements like the <a href="http://www.congoreformassociation.org/cra-history">Congo Reform Association</a> (mainly US and British) protested against horrific conditions, including torture and mutilation, that left at least a million Congolese people dead. A great deal of the focus was on Leopold II himself and his greed, which distracted attention away from the greater system of capitalist colonial expansion that was fully endorsed by Euro-American powers. </p>
<p>Famously, Leopold II never set foot in the Congo and neither did the art nouveau designers who fashioned buildings and exhibition pavilions relating to the Congo. I believe this distance from the realities of life in the Congo itself allowed for the fantastical forms that were created in Belgium.</p>
<h2>What did you conclude about the Mobutu period?</h2>
<p>Mobutu Sese Seko was widely maligned by the Euro-American press. What’s often ignored, to this day, is that he was <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/58653/drc-how-the-cia-got-under-patrice-lumumbas-skin/">put in place</a> by Belgium and the US. He was painted as the villain of the African story, fulfilling the ultimate caricature of the African kleptocrat, yet he wouldn’t have come to power without the nature of the colonialism that came before him.</p>
<p>Belgian colonialism followed a logic of extractivism (removing natural resources to export them) that forced the Congolese economy to supply raw materials to the west (especially Belgium), which continues today. </p>
<p>Mobutu is considered corrupt in the Congo today and his military dictatorship was indeed brutal and controlled the Congolese people with fear. However, his commandeering of a cultural blooming in Kinshasa in the late 1960s and early 1970s was important. Instead of dismissing what he built as only the work of a dictator, my book draws out some of the complexity of this time and what it meant to celebrate African craft, art forms and traditional culture. </p>
<p>The process of appropriating Euro-American artistic ideas and architectural styles in order to celebrate Africanness, as an anti-colonial statement, still holds weight today. Many of Mobutu’s towering monuments are considered objects of pride in the city. </p>
<h2>How does this live on today?</h2>
<p>There is something to be gained from looking at what is left in the wake of tragically violent regimes and how their structures are treated within both their societies and their immediate surroundings. How material culture is made is as important as what is made. Reckoning with monuments and memorials, and considering how these are maintained in the city, can shed often unexpected insights into the ways histories are told. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/retracing-belgiums-dark-past-in-the-congo-and-attempts-to-forge-deeper-ties-184903">Retracing Belgium's dark past in the Congo, and attempts to forge deeper ties</a>
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<p>My hope is that the book remains relevant as a sign there is value in picking apart material remains of regimes that aimed for total control, but never fully achieved it. The associations that build up around public spaces and exhibitions are not necessarily only to do with the circumstances of their making, but how these stories have been filtered over time. They can alienate people but they can also engender pride.</p>
<p>The extractivist attitudes I describe throughout the book, which see the Congo as a resource with bountiful raw natural materials, are still very much present in our day-to-day life. The cobalt in our smartphones, computers and electric cars is mined by labourers working in <a href="https://www.paradigmshift.com.pk/cobalt-in-congo/">near slave conditions</a> to feed our need for the latest technology. While Congo Style stays with historical examples in Kinshasa, the built material that follows colonial ecocide is the main topic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223393/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Sacks receives funding from the National Arts Council for research in the Congo conducted while undergoing a PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand. </span></em></p>The nationalist art of Mobutu Sese Seko and the art nouveau style of King Leopold II both live on in Kinshasa in fascinating ways.Ruth Sacks, Senior Lecturer in Visual Art, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2184372023-12-03T05:48:50Z2023-12-03T05:48:50ZAfrican countries lost control to foreign mining companies – the 3 steps that allowed this to happen<p><em>Within a few years of independence, African governments asserted sovereignty over their metal and mineral resources. Prior to this, the resources were exploited by European mining corporations. Since the 1990s, transnational corporations have once again become the dominant force as owners and managers of major mining projects.</em> </p>
<p><em>Ben Radley has researched economic transformation in central Africa, with a particular focus on resource-based industrialisation. He argues in this excerpt of his new book, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/disrupted-development-in-the-congo-9780192849052?lang=en&cc=gb">Disrupted Development in the Congo: The Fragile Foundations of the African Mining Consensus</a>, that the return of transnationals was carried out through a three-stage process beginning with a misguided reading of African economic stagnation from the mid-1970s onwards. The ceding of resource sovereignty was enabled by pathologising the African state and demonising African miners.</em></p>
<h2>Stage one: Blame the African state</h2>
<p>In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), president Joseph-Désiré Mobutu took steps early to place resources under state control. The <a href="https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PNAAT376.pdf">Bakajika Law</a> of June 1966 required all foreign-based companies to establish their headquarters in the DRC, then known as Zaire, by the end of the year. In addition, the largest Belgian-owned colonial mining subsidiary, Union minière de Haut Katanga, was nationalised the same year. It became Société générale Congolaise des minerais (Gécamines). By 1970, the Congolese public sector controlled 40% of national value added.</p>
<p>Nationalisation had no immediate adverse effect. In the DRC copper production increased steadily between 1960 and 1974 from around 300,000 tonnes to 500,000 tonnes. It grew over the same period from 500,000 tonnes to 700,000 tonnes in Zambia.</p>
<p>In the DRC, state revenue tripled from US$190 million in 1967 to US$630 million in 1970. A national health system numbering 500,000 employees was established. It was seen as a model for primary healthcare in the global south. The country also achieved 92% primary school enrolment and increased access to the secondary and tertiary sectors.</p>
<p>But soon after, the oil price began to rise. Commodity prices fell due to recession in the global north. In the DRC and Zambia, the copper price crashed from US$1.40 per pound in April 1974 to US$0.53 per pound in early 1975 and stagnated thereafter. Around the same time, from 1973 to 1977, the cost of oil imports quadrupled. In addition, as African government loan repayments became due, interest rates on the loans began to rise as the United States sought to control inflation through monetary policy.</p>
<p>Mining production levels stagnated or dropped. Growth slowed, and debt grew across the continent. Between 1980 and 1988, 25 African countries rescheduled their debts 105 times. In the DRC, copper and cobalt exports decreased sharply, eventually collapsing by the early 1990s. </p>
<p>Of course, external shocks were not the sole cause of the reversal. Nationalisation measures undertaken in 1973 and 1974 were poorly planned and implemented and went badly awry. Agriculture had been neglected, receiving less than 1% of state expenditure from 1968 to 1972, and the Congolese manufacturing sector was in decline. </p>
<p>Yet, a consideration of the impact of external shocks, alongside recognition of the progress made by newly independent African governments in the short time frame up until this juncture, was largely missing from <a href="https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/702471468768312009/accelerated-development-in-sub-saharan-africa-an-agenda-for-action">influential analyses</a> of the 1980s seeking to understand the causes of African economic stagnation from the mid-1970s onwards.</p>
<p>Instead, misguided African state intervention and government corruption were put forward as primary causal explanations, to the exclusion of other factors.</p>
<h2>Stage two: Liberalise and privatise</h2>
<p>Between 1980 and 2021, the World Bank provided US$1.1 billion in mining sector grants and loans to 15 of the continent’s 17 mineral-rich and also low-income countries. This gave the bank significant leeway to implement its <a href="https://documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-reports/documentdetail/722101468204567891/strategy-for-african-mining">strategic vision</a> for how mining should be organised and managed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The private sector should take the lead. Private investors should own and operate mines. Existing state mining companies should be privatised at the earliest opportunity </p>
</blockquote>
<p>With the regulatory framework overhauled, foreign investment was unleashed to seek out fresh opportunities. Mining exploration in Africa increased from 4% of total mineral exploration expenditure worldwide in 1991 to 17.5% in 1998. Overall mining investment in Africa doubled between 1990 and 1997. </p>
<p>The start of a commodity price surge in 1999 gave fresh impetus. In 2004, the US$15 billion invested in mining in Africa represented 15% of the total of mining investment worldwide, up from 5% in the mid-1980s. From 2002 to 2012, a period spanning most of the supercycle, mineral exploration spending in Africa rose by more than 700%, reaching US$3.1 billion in 2012. </p>
<p>The dramatic increase in foreign direct investment growth since the 1990s has altered the composition of these economies, which have become increasingly dependent upon foreign direct investment as a source of development financing. This level of dependence is greater today relative to other country groups and regions.</p>
<p>The underlying logic of the World Bank’s African mining strategy continues to hold. In 2021, the lender had ongoing mining reform programmes in seven African countries ranging from <a href="https://projects.worldbank.org/en/projects-operations/project-detail/P164271">Niger</a> ($100 million) to the <a href="https://projects.worldbank.org/en/projects-operations/project-detail/P161973">Central African Republic</a> ($10 million). Each programme was geared towards institutional and regulatory change within a general framework giving overall priority to capital-intensive, foreign-owned mining.</p>
<h2>Stage three: Criminalise African miners</h2>
<p>There was one last hurdle for transnational mining corporations. Some prized deposits were already occupied by labour-intensive miners. They mined gold and diamonds mainly. But they were also involved in the production of silver, copper, cobalt, tin, tantalum, iron ore, aluminium, tungsten, wolframite, phosphates, precious and semi-precious stones, and rare earth minerals. </p>
<p>Globally, labour-intensive mining contributes up to 30% of total cobalt production, 25% for tin, tantalum, and diamonds, 20% for gold, and 80% for sapphires. </p>
<p>Labour-intensive African mining directly employs millions of workers across the continent. It has grown significantly since the 1980s, driven by a number of factors. These include rising commodity prices, especially during the supercycle of 1999–2012, which pushed up mining wages and profits. </p>
<p>Despite the sector’s importance to rural employment, African miners have typically been cast by the World Bank, African governments, and parts of the scholarly literature as “primitive”, “basic”, “inefficient”, “rudimentary” and “unproductive”. </p>
<p>In 2017, 70,000 miners were displaced by Ugandan military and police to make way for a Canadian-listed mining corporation. Speaking of the displacement, a Ugandan government official <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/201711040012.html">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Those people (Ugandan miners) still joking should style up. Now, I’m not only a director (in the Ministry) but also a commander of the Minerals Protection Unit of the Uganda Police Force. So, those illegal miners still behaving like those in Mubende (who were evicted), they should pack and vacate the mines, otherwise, my police force will them help to pack.</p>
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<p>This statement speaks well to the general regard held for African miners within the process of capital-intensive, foreign-owned mining (re)industrialisation. Forcibly displaced and removed from the best deposits, African miners are restricted to working in less productive areas.</p>
<h2>The final act?</h2>
<p>Recent mining code and policy revisions led by African governments such as <a href="https://www.miningreview.com/gold/mining-sector-reform-in-tanzania-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/">Tanzania</a>, the DRC, Sierra Leone and Malawi have begun to push back against this dominance. They draw inspiration from <a href="https://au.int/sites/default/files/documents/30995-doc-africa_mining_vision_english_1.pdf">the Africa Mining Vision</a>, a framework developed by the African Union in 2009 to deepen the linkages between foreign-owned mining and national economies. The vision also seeks to strengthen government capacity to negotiate with and secure developmental benefits from foreign mining corporations.</p>
<p>But these are short of a fundamental challenge to the dominant model of capital-intensive, foreign-owned mining industrialisation on the continent. They remain a far cry from the earlier period of 1960s and 1970s African resource sovereignty.</p>
<p><em>A longer <a href="https://roape.net/2023/11/16/the-three-stage-process-through-which-african-resource-sovereignty-was-ceded-to-foreign-mining-corporations/">version</a> of this excerpt was originally carried in Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Radley received funding from the Leverhulme Trust under grant number SAS-2016-047/7.</span></em></p>Since the 1990s, transnational corporations have once again become the dominant force as owners and managers of major mining projects.Ben Radley, Lecturer in International Development, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2170012023-11-14T09:00:26Z2023-11-14T09:00:26ZDRC elections: the Kabila family legacy looms large over the country’s polls<p><em>The Democratic Republic of Congo is expected to hold elections on 20 December 2023. The country’s electoral commission has announced President Felix Tshisekedi will be seeking reelection <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/twenty-four-candidates-sign-up-congolese-presidential-race-december-2023-10-08/">alongside 23 other candidates</a>. They include Nobel Peace Prize winner <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20231003-nobel-prize-winner-denis-mukwege-unveils-dr-congo-presidential-bid">Denis Mukwege</a> and the runner-up in the 2018 presidential election, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20230930-dr-congo-opposition-figure-martin-fayulu-to-stand-in-presidential-election">Martin Fayulu</a>. The courts will confirm the final list of candidates. One key political figure has yet to make his intentions known: Joseph Kabila. He was president for 18 years until Tshisekedi took over in 2019. The DRC’s constitution allows <a href="https://africacenter.org/spotlight/circumvention-of-term-limits-weakens-governance-in-africa/">two five-year terms</a>, but he remained in power by <a href="https://www.africanmedias.com/dr-congo-sets-elections-for-december-2018/?lang=en">delaying elections</a>. He holds substantial political, military and business sway. Jonathan R. Beloff is a <a href="https://jonathanrbeloff.com/publications/">political scholar</a> who researches the politics and security of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. We asked him some questions.</em></p>
<h2>What is the Kabila family’s place in the DRC’s politics?</h2>
<p>Joseph Kabila was the country’s fourth president. He took office after the assassination of his father, Laurent Kabila, who was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/feb/11/theobserver">killed</a> by his bodyguard in 2001. Joseph later won presidential elections in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/nov/16/congo.chrismcgreal1">2006</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/17/congo-joseph-kabila-election-victory">2011</a>. </p>
<p>The surprise <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2019/01/drc-election-results-analysis-implausible/">2018 election</a> of Felix Tshisekedi, who took power in January 2019, as president interrupted more than two decades of the Kabila family’s rule. At the time, Joseph was constitutionally barred from running for president – and he had already <a href="https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2015/12/12/will-kabila-go?zid=309&ah=80dcf288b8561b012f603b9fd9577f0e">overshot</a> his second term by more than three years.</p>
<p>The Kabila family became a political powerhouse after gaining control in 1996. With the <a href="https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3bc5a95e8.pdf">assistance</a> of other countries – such as neighbours Uganda, Angola and Rwanda – the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, under the leadership of Laurent Kabila, <a href="https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a6ce20.html">overthrew</a> the long-standing Zairian dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. This was during the First Congo War (1996-1997).</p>
<p>Laurent’s tenure was riddled with <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/9789004407824/BP000014.xml?alreadyAuthRedirecting">ineffectiveness and corruption</a>. In less than two years, he had <a href="https://www.kcl.ac.uk/rwanda-and-drcs-turbulent-past-continues-to-fuel-their-torrid-relationship">dismissed</a> his minister of defence, the Rwandan James Kabarebe, and <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Africa_s_World_War.html?id=kp93kUfdhC0C&redir_esc=y">begun arming</a> anti-Rwandan forces. These forces contained actors who participated in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. </p>
<p>Laurent <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/angola/how-kabila-lost-his-way-performance-laurent-d%C3%A9sir%C3%A9-kabilas-government">claimed</a> his government only backed these forces after Rwanda attempted to overthrow his regime. </p>
<p>The bloody <a href="https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violence-democratic-republic-congo">Second Congo War (1998-2003)</a> led to at least two million deaths, many of them from disease and extreme poverty rather than warfare itself. While <a href="https://archive.ph/20190515011819/https://mobile.monitor.co.ug/Rwanda-s-Gen-Kabareebe-remembered-Operation-Kitona-/691260-4834546-format-xhtml-ry3w3x/index.html">Kabarebe’s invasion attempt on the capital Kinshasa in 1998 failed</a>, the vast DRC was divided into spheres of influence for different nations and their aligned rebel groups. This status quo only began to break after Laurent’s assassination, which led to the rise of his son Joseph. </p>
<p>Joseph learned military strategy, tactics and politics under Kabarebe. The two worked together after the Second Congo War <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2014/06/rwandan-ponders-own-security-while-fdlr-remains-a-strategic-threat-by-jonathan-beloff/">to flush out many anti-Rwandan forces</a>. This included the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda. They also <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/africa/2011-11-28/joseph-kabila-and-where-election-congo-went-wrong">campaigned</a> together during the 2011 presidential elections, which Joseph won. </p>
<p>Joseph initially cast himself as a reformer who would <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/27/world/kabila-preaches-peace-congo-rebels-skeptical.html">end the Second Congo War</a> and pursue policies to spur political and economic development. However, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/12/jospeh-kabila-kivu-crisis-congo">instability in eastern Congo</a> persisted under his rule, with accusations of <a href="https://jgbc.scholasticahq.com/article/72664-cobalt-and-corruption-the-influence-of-multinational-firms-and-foreign-states-on-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo">massive corruption that undermined the nation’s development</a>. </p>
<h2>How much sway does Joseph Kabila hold today?</h2>
<p>Joseph Kabila remains a <a href="https://www.gisreportsonline.com/r/kabila-congo/">strong presence</a> within Congo’s political, economic and military institutions. He has strong networks developed over <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/25/drc-what-is-joseph-kabilas-legacy-after-18-years-in-power">18 years in power</a>. He could use this influence to sway the vote towards any of the candidates.</p>
<p>His influence <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/drcs-shady-political-alliance-unravels">stems</a> from favourable business and political alliances he created when he was president. Like Mobutu, Kabila used his vast financial resources to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/11/19/document-leak-shows-kabila-family-associates-looted-drc-funds">secure favourable relationships</a> with Congolese and foreign business leaders. A <a href="https://www.pplaaf.org/2021/11/19/congo-holdup-leak.html">document leak</a> in 2021 revealed that Kabila received over US$138 million from corruption and bribes. </p>
<p>There were claims that the former president originally <a href="https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1065149/politique/consultations-nationales-en-rdc-comment-joseph-kabila-prepare-loffensive/">convinced</a> Tshisekedi to accept a power-sharing agreement. Under it, Tshisekedi would be president, while Kabila would control political decisions behind the scenes. The near <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/7/16/in-protests-hit-drc-a-fierce-power-struggle-deepens">appointment</a> of Ronsard Malonda as the president of the electoral body illustrated Kabila’s political influence. Malonda held senior positions during the country’s 2006, 2011 and 2018 elections. He has been accused of rigging results in favour of Kabila.</p>
<p>Such accusations have benefited <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20181123-dr-congo-opposition-elections-tshisekedi-kamerhe-ramazani-kabila">Tshisekedi’s election campaign</a>. He is depicting himself as a candidate not tied to the corruption within DRC. </p>
<p>If Kabila does decide to campaign, political dynamics within much of Congo’s civil society, military and economy will be divided. Government ministers and officials will be forced to choose to support either the incumbent or Kabila’s preferred candidate.</p>
<h2>What was Tshisekedi expected to change after he routed Joseph Kabila?</h2>
<p>There was <a href="https://theconversation.com/rwanda-and-drcs-turbulent-past-continues-to-fuel-their-torrid-relationship-188405">initial</a> hope that Tshisekedi’s government would foster peace in eastern Congo, establish greater national unity and help solve the nation’s economic woes after decades of corruption and conflict. However, these problems have persisted.</p>
<p>Initially, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/01/drc-one-year-since-tshisekedi-took-office-insecurity-and-impunity-still-imperil-human-rights/">Amnesty International praised</a> Tshisekedi for pardoning political prisoners and allowing greater public space for criticisms of the Congolese government. He also began <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-28/congo-reviews-6-2-billion-china-mining-deal-as-criticism-grows">investigations</a> on past mineral deals during the Kabila governments. As the <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/february-2021/new-au-chair-drc-president-felix-tshisekedi-sets-ambitious-agenda-2021">African Union chair</a> from 2021 to 2022, he pushed for greater attention to the COVID-19 pandemic and promoted the African Continental Free Trade Area. </p>
<p>Despite initial attempts to foster more significant relations with Rwanda, relations <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/6/2/analysis-why-are-rwanda-and-drc-having-another-diplomatic-spat">soured</a> in 2022. This was after the Congolese government accused Rwanda of supporting the <a href="https://theconversation.com/m23-four-things-you-should-know-about-the-rebel-groups-campaign-in-rwanda-drc-conflict-195020">resurrected M23 rebels</a>. </p>
<p>Rwanda <a href="https://www.africanews.com/2022/03/31/rwanda-denies-supporting-m23-rebel-group-in-eastern-drc//">denied</a> the allegations. It has also accused Tshisekedi’s government of being <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-banyamulenge-how-a-minority-ethnic-group-in-the-drc-became-the-target-of-rebels-and-its-own-government-201099">hostile to the Congolese Tutsi population</a> – the Banyamulenge – who are historically related to Rwandans. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/democratic-republic-of-the-congo/">US Department of State has expressed concern</a> about Tshisekedi’s anti-Banyamulenge rhetoric, as well as democratic transparency in the upcoming election. </p>
<p>Tshisekedi’s campaign strategy seems to focus on promoting security in eastern DRC by not only defeating the M23, but also attacking Rwanda for interfering in Congolese affairs. The <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2018/01/14/securitisation-theory-an-introduction/">securitisation</a> of the Banyamulenge and Rwanda – the political manipulation to stir public fear – has helped deflect internal criticisms of the Tshisekedi regime.</p>
<p>Whether the elections take place is another area of concern. There are concerns that Tshisekedi will <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/congo-president-says-unrest-east-could-disrupt-elections-2023-02-27/">delay or cancel the election</a> by citing security concerns. If this happens, it might be perceived by domestic and international partners as political interference by the ruling regime.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217001/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Beloff receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/W001217/1). </span></em></p>Laurent Kabila and his son Joseph were the Democratic Republic of Congo’s third and fourth presidents.Jonathan Beloff, Postdoctoral Research Associate, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2042882023-04-21T17:29:48Z2023-04-21T17:29:48ZSudan: violence between army and militia is a symptom of an old disease that is destroying Africa<p>A three-day ceasefire to mark the Islamic festival of Eid-al-Fitr in Khartoum appears to be dead in the water as fighting continues in the Sudanese capital. According to the World Health Organization, more than <a href="https://www.emro.who.int/media/news/regional-director-opening-remarks-at-regional-press-briefing-on-sudan.html">330 people have been killed</a> over the past week. Now, with reports emerging that arms are being sent from Egypt and Libya, there are growing fears the situation could develop into a <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sudan-conflict-civil-war-egypt-libya-xgjpn0bcn">civil war that could draw in regional powers</a>.</p>
<p>The violence represents a power struggle between the country’s military, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary group <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/who-are-sudans-rapid-support-forces-2023-04-13/">Rapid Support Forces (RSF)</a> led by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/20/sudan-outsider-hemedti-mohamed-hamdan-dagalo-leader-militia-army-war-conflict">General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo</a>, often referred to as Hemedti. The pair were respectively leader and deputy leader of a transitional government which was supposed to hand over to a civilian administration after the 2019 ousting of the former president, Omar al-Bashir. Instead the pair <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/sudan-politics-events-idAFKBN2WD0BD">launched a military takeover in October 2021</a>.</p>
<p>The RSF began as a militia movement, the Janjaweed, comprising fighters from Darfur in the west of Sudan. It was set up by al-Bashir, who ruled Sudan from 1993 until April 2019 when he was deposed by the army in 2019 after months of popular protest against his regime.</p>
<p>A true conflict entrepreneur, Hemedti has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/17/mohamed-hamdan-dagalo-the-feared-ex-warlord-taking-on-sudan-army-hemedti">switched sides repeatedly</a>. He rose to prominence fighting for al-Bashir in Darfur, then led an uprising against him in 2007 before switching sides again in a deal that made him a general. In 2013 he folded the Janjaweed into a new group, the RSF. This gave him a considerable power base which in 2019 was instrumental in ousting al-Bashir and then again in 2021, seizing power alongside the head of the army. Now the pair has fallen out.</p>
<h2>Paramilitary power brokers</h2>
<p>Far from being a short-term Sudanese problem, this conflict between two rival centres of military power illustrates a common long-term problem in Africa. There has been a history of authoritarian rulers setting up their own armed groups to counter possible military insurrection. And the continent has been ravaged by conflicts featuring non-state armed groups developed with the backing of international players with either commercial or political interests rivalling those of the state.</p>
<p>After seizing the presidency of Zaire in 1965, Mobutu Sese Seko set up a range of special paramilitary units, including the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/1997/zaire/Zaire-04.htm">Special Presidential Division</a>, which were loyal to him rather than the constitution and tended to be drawn from the same ethnic group. Likewise in Zimbabwe the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/feb/19/zimbabwe.andrewmeldrum">green bombers</a>” acted as a virtual private army for former Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe as he fought to hold on to power.</p>
<p>These paramilitary militias are typically used for a wide range of activities including political or party-based violence, or as a counterweight to formal armed forces if they are perceived as a potential threat. </p>
<p>What defines these groups is the willingness to use violence as a means to a political end and loose command and control, usually tied to personal patronage or ethnic links. They tend to grow out of regional disputes. And they often show a willingness to be flexible in terms of loyalty and the pursuit of resources.</p>
<h2>Adding mercenaries to the mix</h2>
<p>These groups are frequently allied to other mercenary organisations that may provide fighters, training or some command and control. The arrival of Russian mercenaries from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/04/russian-mercenaries-wagner-group-linked-to-civilian-massacres-in-mali">Wagner Group in Mali</a>, and <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/03/mozambique-civilians-killed-as-war-crimes-committed-by-armed-group-government-forces-and-private-military-contractors-new-report/">South African firm Dyck Advisory Group</a> (DAG) in Mozambique has recently shed light on a <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/the-rise-of-mercenary-armies-in-africa/a-61485270">new wave of mercenary activity</a> across the continent. </p>
<p>The Wagner Group has denied any involvement in events in Sudan, saying in a post on Telegram: “Due to the large number of inquiries from various foreign media about Sudan, most of which are provocative, we consider it necessary to inform everyone that Wagner staff have not been in Sudan for more than two years.” </p>
<p>DAG, meanwhile, describes itself on its website as having a “long history of providing bespoke solutions having undertaken security-based operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Central African Republic, Malawi, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique, for a variety of high profile clients”.</p>
<p>Wagner has been identified as <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/russias-wagner-africa">operating in a number of countries</a>, from Mali and Libya to the Central African Republic, where it was accused by Human Rights Watch of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-61311272">human rights atrocities</a>. Now it is apparently active in Sudan as well, where it has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/world/africa/wagner-russia-sudan-gold-putin.html">accused of using gold</a> from Meroe, north of Khartoum, to boost Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. </p>
<p>Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin who is believed to be the founder of the Wagner Group has <a href="https://telegra.ph/SUDAN-06-05">denied the allegations</a>: “ I have nothing to do with the Meroe Gold company, this company has never belonged to me, I do not know anything about this company.” He has also denied being associated with any entity known as the Wagner Group: “I am not aware of any evidence that the Wagner Group exists. The legend of ‘Wagner’ is only a legend.”</p>
<h2>Pot of gold</h2>
<p>In 2017, al-Bashir reportedly <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/sudan-president-visits-russia-asks-for-protection-from-us/4131704.html">travelled to Russia</a> to ask Putin for support. Shortly afterwards a new gold-mining company, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/27/europe/russia-wagner-sudan-gold-sanctions-eu-intl/index.html">Meroe Gold</a>, began operating in Sudan, Africa’s third-largest gold producer. Wagner’s chief role was to protect mining interests and support the regime of al-Bashir. After al-Bashir’s ousting in 2019, Wagner’s main focus has reportedly been on Sudan’s gold mining operations. </p>
<p>More recently, relations appear to have developed between Wagner and the RSF, with <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/sudan-russia-idAFL1N2UY0K8">Hemedti flying to Moscow</a> in February 2022 to meet Vladimir Putin. Days later, according to a CNN investigation published in July, an aircraft <a href="https://unherd.com/2023/04/how-wagner-plundered-sudans-gold/">loaded with gold</a> flew from Sudan to Russia’s military base at Latakia in Syria. CNN estimated that around <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/29/africa/sudan-russia-gold-investigation-cmd-intl/index.html">90% of Sudan’s gold production</a> worth an estimated US$13.4 billion (£10.8 billion) has allegedly been smuggled out this way.</p>
<p>This week CNN has published a report quoting “Sudanese and regional diplomatic sources” as saying that Moscow is <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/20/africa/wagner-sudan-russia-libya-intl/index.html">supplying the RSF with missile technology</a> during the current conflict – specifically surface-to-air missiles to counteract the Sudanese air force.</p>
<p>The creation of paramilitary forces such as the RSF usually does not end well. And the involvement of external mercenaries serving both political and commercial interests complicates things further. In Sudan it has enabled a group initially formed as auxiliaries for a previous dictatorship to become a serious player in both business and government. </p>
<p>Such powerful and wealthy individuals are unlikely to hand over power in a hurry. This raises urgent questions about the immediate future of Sudan and also the longer-term future of the use of fragmented security structures on the continent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204288/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Jackson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Armed group, mercenaries, mining, power struggles. It’s a familiar story in Africa, sadly.Paul Jackson, Professor of Politics, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1913512022-10-02T08:41:52Z2022-10-02T08:41:52ZBurundi’s Gatumba massacre offers a window into the past and future of the DRC conflict<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486859/original/file-20220927-18-9tkhfy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Men hold up protest signs in front of the coffins of DRC refugees killed in August 2004 in Gatumba, Burundi. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Simon Maina/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For nearly three decades, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been embroiled in violence. Millions of people have been killed and an <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/events/the-future-of-the-drc/">estimated 5.6 million</a> others displaced by civil wars, local feuds and cross-border conflicts. The neighbouring countries of Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda have been locked into this ongoing cycle, too.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.easterncongo.org/about-drc/history-of-the-conflict/">The First Congo War</a> began in 1996, with a coalition of the DRC’s neighbours supporting a rebel group that toppled the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Laurent Kabila was installed as head of state in 1997. A year later, however, a bloodier war began amid violent jostling for power and influence.</p>
<p>In December 2002, a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/dec/17/congo">peace deal</a> was signed. The DRC got a national army and new constitution. Democratic elections were held in 2006, the country’s first in more than 40 years. </p>
<p>But the violence soon resumed. Consolidating peace efforts across the vast territory proved difficult. Since then, the Congo has received tens of billions of dollars in humanitarian aid and hosts one of the largest <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/monusco">United Nations peacekeeping missions</a>.</p>
<p>Various studies have fronted several reasons for the persistence of war in the Congo. These include <a href="https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/central-africa/democratic-republic-congo/congos-peace-miracle-or-mirage">flaws</a> in the 2002 peace deal, a Congolese elite that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-un-is-under-attack-in-eastern-congo-but-drc-elites-are-also-to-blame-for-the-violence-187861">benefits from the chaos</a> and <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/countries/africa/2010-drc-mapping-report">ethnic intolerance</a>. </p>
<p>The events that have shaped the DRC mean different things to different actors. The fact that sub-Saharan Africa’s largest country has over <a href="https://minorityrights.org/country/democratic-republic-of-the-congo/">250 ethnic groups</a> gives a sense of the complexity of its plight.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-conflicts-intertwined-over-time-and-destabilised-the-drc-and-the-region-185432">How conflicts intertwined over time and destabilised the DRC – and the region</a>
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<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chris-Davey-9/research">My research</a> adds to debate on the factors driving the violence. I focused on the narratives of Banyamulenge soldiers. The Banyamulenge are a sub-group of the Congolese Tutsi ethnic group, and originally come from the province of South Kivu in eastern DRC.</p>
<p>They are an important constituency to consider because their experiences offer a window into past and current Congolese conflicts. </p>
<p>They illustrate how violence in the Congo multiplies across borders, blurs the lines between victim and perpetrator, and is used to win a place in government rather than to overthrow it. </p>
<p>From my research, I believe that to stop the cycle of violence, the DRC and its regional allies need a new status quo that doesn’t reward rebellion but decreases its appeal. Politics that facilitates peaceful livelihoods is essential.</p>
<h2>Tracing the pattern</h2>
<p>In August 2004, 166 members of the <a href="https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/2071779/ACCORD_DR+Congo_Situation+of+Banyamulenge.pdf">Congolese Banyamulenge community</a> were <a href="https://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/africa/burundi/2004/0904/index.htm">killed in Gatumba</a>, a small town in Burundi near its border with DRC. They were at a UN-protected refugee camp. </p>
<p>The killings were <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3564358.stm">perpetrated</a> by a group of armed rebels, many of them from the Forces for National Liberation, a Burundian Hutu militia group. The group claimed their Banyamulenge victims were planning a new war in the Congo.</p>
<p>I <a href="https://commons.clarku.edu/gatumba/">spoke to</a> survivors of the 2004 massacre. Most felt that the attack wasn’t a one-off event, but part of a pattern of mobilising anti-Tutsi violence. </p>
<p>This began before Gatumba and persists into the present day. </p>
<p>An <a href="https://commons.clarku.edu/gatumba/">archive of Gatumba survivor accounts</a> that I was involved in curating attests to this ongoing persecution and the wider dysfunctions of the region. These include the lack of robust democracy or transparent governance, and high levels of insecurity. </p>
<p>Like most participants in Congolese conflicts, the rebels and refugees involved in the Gatumba massacre regularly crossed the DRC’s border. The Banyamulenge refugees fled to Burundi to escape turmoil in <a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/drcsouth-kivu-jun-2004-situation-report-and-recommendations">South Kivu in 2004</a>. The Forces for National Liberation moved between DRC and Burundi to recruit, fight and cooperate with armed groups in both countries. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-drcs-colonial-legacy-forged-a-nexus-between-ethnicity-territory-and-conflict-153469">How DRC's colonial legacy forged a nexus between ethnicity, territory and conflict</a>
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<p>The DRC’s borders are <a href="https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/103/412/359/81797?redirectedFrom=fulltext">porous</a>, with the central government too weak to control its eastern region or its boundaries. DRC borders nine countries: Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo Brazzaville, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia.</p>
<p>These porous borders have allowed armed groups – like the Ugandan <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00358533.2011.542297">Allied Democratic Front</a> and Congolese-Tutsi <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-m23s-on-and-off-insurgency-tells-us-about-drcs-precarious-search-for-peace-182520">March 23 Movement</a> – to use the DRC as a base and battlefield, connecting civil conflicts across borders.</p>
<h2>Beyond ethnic conflict</h2>
<p>Gatumba was a border refugee camp. Hutu rebels found an easy target in Banyamulenge refugees, whom they associated with the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/11/congo.rorycarroll">Tutsi rebels</a> behind the violence in the DRC. </p>
<p>The Forces for National Liberation deployed religious-flavoured anti-Tutsi rhetoric to motivate their political base. But there’s rarely a straight line between politics and ethnicity. The Hutu rebels <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/000203971605100202">were in political competition</a> against other Hutu-labelled militias and parties. </p>
<p>Contemporary rebel groups, too, act in multiple directions as they destabilise border areas, displacing and killing civilians. </p>
<p>The March 23 Movement, for instance, provides anti-Tutsi fodder for extremist politicians across the DRC. These politicians benefit from promoting <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2022.2078578">discrimination and hate speech</a>, and fuelling <a href="https://theconversation.com/protests-against-un-in-eastern-congo-highlight-peace-missions-crisis-of-legitimacy-187932">protests</a> against the UN mission. The movement’s use of force has <a href="https://chrispdavey.blogspot.com/2022/06/m23-memory-remains.html">hardened lines</a> between Tutsis and other Congolese. </p>
<h2>Illegal violence to legitimate power</h2>
<p>The Forces for National Liberation, like other rebel groups, committed atrocities to improve its bargaining position in peace talks. </p>
<p>By 2004, other Burundian rebels had cut a peace deal with the Burundi government to become politicians and army officers. The Forces for National Liberation was marginalised. It, therefore, stopped trying to overthrow the state and focused on killing civilians, hoping to use the threat of terrorism to negotiate its way into power. It worked. </p>
<p>Agathon Rwasa, the leader of the Forces for National Liberation, signed a deal. He now leads <a href="https://apnews.com/article/africa-kenya-burundi-agathon-rwasa-b10afc3bb09daf8e4b87782b057fb56d">Burundi’s opposition party</a> in parliament and has not gone to trial for any crimes.</p>
<p>This elevation of a guerrilla into government is not unique to Burundi. </p>
<p>Rebel groups in the DRC typically aren’t looking to overthrow the state. Instead, they’re <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ia/article-abstract/98/3/873/6581695?redirectedFrom=fulltext">using rebellion</a> to prove themselves a threat. They then sue for <a href="https://riftvalley.net/publication/recycling-rebels-demobilization-congo">limited peace</a> and an improved position either in DRC or in neighbouring countries like Burundi or Uganda. </p>
<p>As one Gatumba survivor observed:</p>
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<p>the reward for killing people is a promotion in our country. </p>
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<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>It’s been 18 years since the Gatumba massacre. Groups like the <a href="https://www.gatumbasurvivors.org/">Banyamulenge Gatumba Refugee Survivors Foundation</a> are <a href="https://www.wishtv.com/news/hundreds-gather-for-18th-anniversary-of-the-gatumba-massacre/">working internationally</a> to pursue accountability and justice. Yet, addressing their own community’s past and current involvement in DRC’s multi-directional violence is largely taboo. </p>
<p>Until a broader sense of the past is more widely shared among Congolese groups, rebels will flit across borders, civilians will be both victims and perpetrators, and groups will purchase political power with demonstrations of violent disruption.</p>
<p>Interstate collaboration between the DRC and Burundi governments for justice in Gatumba would be a first step towards building a future without impunity.</p>
<p><em>Ezra Schrader, a research assistant at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies with the Gatumba Survivors Project, contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191351/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher P. Davey works for Clark University.</span></em></p>Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo is used to win a place in government, not to overthrow it. And it keeps working.Christopher P. Davey, Visiting Assistant Professor, Clark UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1884052022-08-09T07:06:15Z2022-08-09T07:06:15ZRwanda and DRC’s turbulent past continues to fuel their torrid relationship<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478120/original/file-20220808-1331-j07zmx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">DRC President Félix Tshisekedi (left) and Rwanda President Paul Kagame in Kigali in 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Habimana Thierry/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) make for very unhappy neighbours. Both sides claim the other is set on bringing down their government, and violating past agreements and international norms. </p>
<p>Rwanda accuses the DRC of working with the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) or FDLR. The rebel group’s stated aim is to overthrow the Rwandan government. </p>
<p>For its part, the DRC accuses Rwanda of violating its sovereignty by supporting the Mouvement du 23 Mars (March 23 Movement, M23). The rebel group, <a href="https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2019/democratic-republic-of-the-congo/#:%7E:text=According%20to%20the%20UN%2C%20there,these%20armed%20groups%20as%20terrorists.">along with multiple others</a>, is active in the DRC. </p>
<p>A recent United Nations report supports Kinshasa’s contention. A group of experts on the Democratic Republic of Congo <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/8/4/rwanda-backing-m23-rebels-in-drc-un-experts">detailed its accusations</a> in a 131-page report. Kigali, however, dismissed the findings as “false allegations”.</p>
<p>Rwanda is a country of 13 million people and occupies 26,000 square kilometres. DRC, on the other hand, has 90 million people and covers a territory of 2.3 million square kilometres. The DRC lies to the west of Rwanda. The two countries share a border of about 217 kilometres.</p>
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<p>Tensions between the two nations date back to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda when an estimated <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1462352042000225958">one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed</a>. Many of the perpetrators of the violence fled to the DRC, at the time called Zaire. The post-genocide Rwandan government launched military operations in a bid to force the perpetrators back home to face justice.</p>
<p>Rwanda believes the DRC continues to provide refuge for those behind the 1994 attack. </p>
<p>The two countries have gone through two major wars and multiple skirmishes. They have also had periods of stability and trade growth. The latest tensions, however, are <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/rwanda-dr-congo-tension-threatening-regional-integration-3837838">cause for concern</a>. They risk destabilising the Eastern Africa region, disrupting trade routes and allowing for the establishment of opportunistic militia groups.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-un-is-under-attack-in-eastern-congo-but-drc-elites-are-also-to-blame-for-the-violence-187861">The UN is under attack in eastern Congo. But DRC elites are also to blame for the violence</a>
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<p>The issue is on <a href="https://www.state.gov/secretary-blinkens-travel-to-cambodia-the-philippines-south-africa-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-and-rwanda/">US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s agenda</a> as he tours three African nations in August 2022. He will meet with Congolese and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-and-rwanda-how-the-relationship-has-evolved-since-the-1994-genocide-188115">Rwandan leaders</a> to negotiate for a peaceful resolution to the current conflict.</p>
<p>But, based on a decade of research into relations between the two countries, I do not believe Blinken’s visit will to lead to any significant reduction in tensions. The most recent events are not new. Both nations hold old suspicions of each other.</p>
<h2>How it started</h2>
<p>Since the 1994 genocide, the Rwandan government has kept a close eye on DRC. While 4 July is marked in Rwanda as the day the genocide ended, it was a temporary pause. </p>
<p>After two years of inaction from the then Zaire president Mobutu Sese Seko, Rwanda went after those it believed were behind the attacks and were hiding in Zaire. It carried out military operations that triggered the <a href="https://www.easterncongo.org/about-drc/history-of-the-conflict/">First Congo War (1996-1997)</a>. </p>
<p>This war had two objectives. The first was to disband the refugee camps that were hosting the remnants of the genocide perpetrators. An estimated two million refugees were forced back into Rwanda. </p>
<p>The second objective was the removal of Mobutu on the grounds that he was providing a haven for genocide actors. The Zairian dictator was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/17/world/mobutu-gives-up-leaving-kinshasa-and-ceding-power.html">removed from power</a> in May 1997.</p>
<p>Within nine months, the war was over. With Rwanda’s support, <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-mobutu-to-kabila-the-drc-is-paying-a-heavy-price-for-autocrats-at-its-helm-79455">Laurent Kabila</a> and his Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo, AFDL) took over power.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-m23s-on-and-off-insurgency-tells-us-about-drcs-precarious-search-for-peace-182520">What M23's on-and-off insurgency tells us about DRC's precarious search for peace</a>
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<p>But a much bloodier Second Congo War (1998-2003) soon followed. This was catalysed by two events. First, the dismissal of the Congolese defence minister James Kabarebe, who was Rwandan and largely responsible for conducting the First Congo War. Second, Congo’s support for the remnant genocide forces, Armée pour la Libération du Rwanda (Army for the Liberation of Rwanda, ALiR).</p>
<p>The Second Congo War dragged on for five years. It led to the deaths of millions of people. This was as a result of the actual fighting, and an increase in disease and malnutrition.</p>
<p>The lack of a quick resolution to the war resulted in various parts of the DRC being run by either militia groups or the governments of neighbouring countries. Even allies during the start of the war, such as Uganda and Rwanda, <a href="https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/41712-drc-victims-of-kisangani-s-six-day-war-urge-tshisekedi-to-act.html">fought against each other</a>.</p>
<p>Eventually, the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2009/10/secretary-general-hails-pretoria-agreement-political-milestone-peace">2002 Pretoria agreement</a> led to the withdrawal of the Rwandan military from Congolese territory. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Rwanda continues to contend that Congo supports genocide remnants, now operating as the FDLR. </p>
<p>For its part, DRC accuses Rwanda of supporting Congolese rebel groups, such as the Congrès National pour la Défense du People (National Congress for the Defence of the People, CNDP) and the M23.</p>
<h2>Divisions in Kigali</h2>
<p>The Rwandan government is divided on the future of relations with its giant neighbour. </p>
<p>One group of policy leaders perceives the DRC as a continual threat to Rwandan security. They view the Congolese military as being ineffective in combating forces stationed in the DRC that are expressly against the Rwandan government, such as the FDLR. </p>
<p>This group often dominates public policy decisions in Rwanda’s foreign relations with the DRC. </p>
<p>But there’s a second group that focuses on the economic opportunities of closer Rwandan-Congolese relations. They believe that Rwandan development should focus on the export of domestically produced goods to the Congolese market of 90 million potential customers. Many within this group believe that the economic benefits outweigh the security concerns, which they argue have decreased in recent years.</p>
<p>Following the 2018 election, which saw Félix Tshisekedi become Congolese president, relations between Rwanda and the DRC <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2021/08/18/opinion-rwanda-and-the-drc-converging-at-last/">improved</a>. This included increased trade activity between the two nations. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tshisekedis-victory-in-the-drc-is-historic-but-controversial-109673">Tshisekedi’s victory in the DRC is historic -- but controversial</a>
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<p>It seemed for a while that the beliefs of Rwandans who wanted rapprochement with Kinshasa had the upper hand, hinting at a positive future for the two nations. </p>
<p>But in recent months, these hopes have been dashed. Once more, the dominant narratives involve allegations of DRC collaborating with the FDLR, and Rwanda with M23.</p>
<p>The two countries are likely to continue experiencing periods of stability and tension. Another major conflict, like the Congo wars, is unlikely, but the continual tensions prevent trade integration that would boost development and peace between the two nations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Beloff receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).</span></em></p>Rwanda believes DRC continues to provide refuge for those behind the 1994 genocide.Jonathan Beloff, Postdoctoral Research Associate, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1862412022-07-05T13:37:36Z2022-07-05T13:37:36ZPatrice Lumumba’s tooth represents plunder, resilience and reparation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472450/original/file-20220705-18-op8w4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A march following the return of Patrice Lumumba's tooth from Belgium – all that is left of the anti-colonialist icon murdered in 1961. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Patrice-Lumumba">Patrice Lumumba</a> is the hero of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s truncated bid for complete <a href="https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/congolese-win-independence-belgian-empire-1959-60">independence</a>. He was assassinated by local counter-revolutionary forces with the help of the CIA and Belgian authorities in 1961. Since then, all over the developing world, Lumumba’s name has come to stand for defiance against colonialism and imperialism.</p>
<p>The manner of his <a href="https://www.britannica.com/story/how-did-patrice-lumumba-die">death</a> was particularly distressing. He was humiliated and tortured before he was murdered. His body was then doused with acid to facilitate decomposition. A Belgian official reportedly kept his <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61993601">teeth</a> as mementos as if to add another grisly and macabre dimension to the entire sordid affair.</p>
<p>The return of Lumumba’s tooth after 61 years leaves many questions unanswered and threatens to open a can of worms. This inordinately belated gesture came without a formal apology for the damage caused by Belgian colonialism or a pledge of wide-ranging reparations.</p>
<h2>The ghost of Lumumba</h2>
<p>Ever since his death, it seems the ghost of Lumumba has plagued his aggrieved country, first with the tortuous and bizarre reign of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mobutu-Sese-Seko">Mobutu Sese Seko</a> and then with <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-mobutu-to-kabila-the-drc-is-paying-a-heavy-price-for-autocrats-at-its-helm-79455">Laurent Kabila</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472468/original/file-20220705-20-euq9gz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portrait of a young man in glasses, suit and tie, wearing a moustache and goatee, his hair in a side path." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472468/original/file-20220705-20-euq9gz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472468/original/file-20220705-20-euq9gz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472468/original/file-20220705-20-euq9gz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472468/original/file-20220705-20-euq9gz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472468/original/file-20220705-20-euq9gz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472468/original/file-20220705-20-euq9gz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472468/original/file-20220705-20-euq9gz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=997&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Patrice Lumumba.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>But it was under Belgian colonial rule that the plunder of the Congo began in earnest. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-II-king-of-Belgium">King Leopold II</a>, bloated with colonial self-righteousness, instituted a reign of devastation that left an estimated 10 million people dead. Rubber plantations were transformed into a hell in which the enslaved who didn’t meet their production quotas had their limbs chopped off. Since then, the DRC has been gripped by a delirium of dense, impenetrable, equatorial traumas.</p>
<p>Indigenes of the DRC have always been used as disposable pawns in their externally foisted tragedies. And these tragedies have descended on them as thickly as their famed tropical forests.</p>
<p>What are we to make of the ordeal of <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/benga-ota-1883-1916/">Ota Benga</a>, for example, the Congolese teenager who, on account of his unusual teeth, was captured and relentlessly exhibited in the anthropological zoos of America? Treated like a performing monkey, he experienced the most heartless form of visual cannibalism, physical humiliation and psychological torture. Would his teeth be returned to the DRC as well?</p>
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<span class="caption">Ota Benga at Bronx Zoo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>Indeed, the handing over of Lumumba’s tooth represents a gesture of reparation; the return of pilfered colonial goods to the rightful owners. But what about the tooth’s attendant torture? This much delayed political gesture broaches difficult issues surrounding the African quest for genuine reparations from erstwhile colonial overlords.</p>
<h2>The world’s richest country</h2>
<p>The current <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-mobutu-to-kabila-the-drc-is-paying-a-heavy-price-for-autocrats-at-its-helm-79455">plight</a> of the DRC – all but a failed state – makes us weep over its enduring state of abjection. A huge country blessed with innumerable natural resources, with some of the rarest and most important minerals of earth, it remains crippled by conflict and plunder of its vast natural resources.</p>
<p>It is certain that if Lumumba had been allowed to pursue his <a href="https://roape.net/2021/01/17/patrice-lumumba-revolution-freedom-and-the-congo-today/">bold project</a> of emancipation and development, the DRC story would have been vastly different.</p>
<p>It is almost impossible to understand why the potentially richest country in the world remains one of the poorest. </p>
<p>And yet the wealth of the DRC continues to shine through the accomplishments of its talented people. Out of depleted and crumbling infrastructure, governmental emasculation and chronic internecine strife, miraculously, creative excellence continues to emerge.</p>
<p>How can one ever forget the timeless music of guitarist <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/franco-luambo-makiadi-mn0001615589">Franco Luamabo</a>, vocalists <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/tabu-ley-rochereau-mn0000015762/biography">Tabu Ley</a> and <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mbilia-bel-mn0000337593/biography">M’bilia Bel</a>, singer-songwriter <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/fally-ipupa-tokooos-interview/">Fally Ipupa</a> and so many other Congolese musical geniuses?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472495/original/file-20220705-14-7sobc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a yellow top in profile." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472495/original/file-20220705-14-7sobc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472495/original/file-20220705-14-7sobc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472495/original/file-20220705-14-7sobc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472495/original/file-20220705-14-7sobc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=885&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472495/original/file-20220705-14-7sobc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472495/original/file-20220705-14-7sobc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472495/original/file-20220705-14-7sobc3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1113&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">M'bilia Bel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jack Vartoogian/Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>Or the accomplishments of phenomenal scholars such as Congolese philosopher <a href="https://scholars.duke.edu/person/vmudimbe">V.Y. Mudimbe</a>, whose work singularly redefined the manner in which the west came to understand Africa? Mudimbe reconfigures your mind every time you encounter him. Yet the inhospitability of the DRC keeps him secluded in the US. The rest of the world continues to benefit from Congolese talents and minerals while the country itself regresses.</p>
<p>The eclectic and boisterous urban culture that produced the Congolese rumba and soukous out of the potholed streets of Kinshasa also birthed visual artists such as <a href="https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/23091/lot/22/?category=list">Monsengwo Kejwamfi “Moke”</a>, <a href="https://www.contemporary-african-art.com/cheri-cherin.html">Cheri Cherin</a>, <a href="http://www.cherisamba.net">Chéri Samba</a>, <a href="https://www.thedreamafrica.com/5-congolese-artists-you-need-to-know-patrick-mutombo/">Patrick Mutombo, Marthe Ngandu</a> and many others. </p>
<p>Collectively, their works capture and reflect the life and energy to be found in the DRC’s frenetic and teeming postcolonial metropolises. But there is a snag. These largely self-taught artists were cut off from their precolonial artistic heritage due to the violence of the colonial encounter.</p>
<h2>The tooth</h2>
<p>As in many other parts of Africa, over 2,000 works of art stolen from what is now the DRC remain in the museums of Europe. These works are not merely aesthetic and symbolic. They are also central to the continuation of integrated cultural evolution. In addition, they encompass swathes of history and tradition spanning millennia. The return of those stolen pieces of cultural heritage and an awareness of what they truly represent would be a starting point for meaningful reparations for the past.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-patrice-lumumbas-assassination-drove-student-activism-shaping-the-congos-future-185170">How Patrice Lumumba's assassination drove student activism, shaping the Congo's future</a>
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<p>Ultimately, beyond its cosmetic or even symbolic value, the gesture of returning Lumumba’s violated tooth ought to lead to a considerable degree of healing the DRC so desperately needs, in organic, broadly and deeply conceived ways. This means acts of reparations must not only be loaded in meaning but must also be essentially transformative in nature. In other words, they must include socioeconomic and cultural deliverables.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186241/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sanya Osha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>All that remains of the political icon is a tooth, but it represents much more than just a human trophy.Sanya Osha, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1825202022-05-22T12:36:21Z2022-05-22T12:36:21ZWhat M23’s on-and-off insurgency tells us about DRC’s precarious search for peace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462773/original/file-20220512-16-na032.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A peacekeeper protects civilians who fled violent clashes between the army and the ex-rebels of the "M23" in eastern DRC in January 2022.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Glody Murhabazi/AFP via GettyImages</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since March 2022, fighting has escalated in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between the army and the rebel group <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10220461.2014.942207?journalCode=rsaj20">March 23 Movement</a>, more widely known as M23. The group allegedly attacked army positions near the border with Uganda and Rwanda. In addition, a UN helicopter crashed in the combat zone leaving eight peacekeepers dead. </p>
<p>These events made headlines worldwide and <a href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2022-03-29/statement-attributable-the-spokesperson-for-the-secretary-general-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo-scroll-down-for-french">led to a reaction</a> from the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.</p>
<p>The uptick in fighting between M23 and government troops in fact started in <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/renewed-fighting-flares-in-eastern-congo/a-59789397">late 2021</a>. Moreover, it is only one of several ongoing armed confrontations in eastern DRC. The <a href="https://www.congoresearchgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Inside-the-ADF-Rebellion-14Nov18.pdf">Allied Democratic Force</a>, an insurgent Islamist group with Ugandan roots, continues to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/28/at-least-20-civilians-killed-in-attack-in-eastern-congo-report">massacre people</a> despite ongoing joint Uganda-DRC operations. Another is the proxy war in the <a href="https://www.gicnetwork.be/mayhem-in-the-mountains/">highlands of Uvira and Fizi</a>, not far from Burundi. And in Ituri at the northeastern tip of the DRC, different armed groups including the CODECO factions continue to <a href="https://www.gicnetwork.be/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GIC_Violence-and-Instability-in-Ituri.pdf">wreak havoc</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, the clashes in March 2022 were the most serious in 10 years between the Congolese army and the M23. This raises important questions about timing and context, which we explore in this article. </p>
<p>Both of us have researched <a href="https://riftvalley.net/publication/contesting-authority">conflict dynamics</a> in eastern Congo for many years. This includes the role of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21647259.2014.910384">armed groups in society</a>, the interplay of <a href="https://www.congoresearchgroup.org/en/2022/01/03/report-rebels-doctors-and-merchants-of-violence-how-the-fight-against-ebola-became-part-of-the-conflict-in-eastern-drc/">armed mobilisation with a recent Ebola outbreak</a>, and the overall <a href="https://kivusecurity.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/reports/39/2021%20KST%20report%20EN.pdf">fragmentation of belligerents</a>.</p>
<p>As part of this research, we have also analysed the development of the M23 since its early beginnings in 2012 until today. In our view, it is likely that the group’s upsurge in activities since late 2021 is a reaction to Kinshasa’s attempts to end insecurity in the east. The M23 may feel threatened while at the same time seeking to strengthen its position in the event of any negotiations. </p>
<h2>Security a priority</h2>
<p>President Félix Tshisekedi has made security in eastern Congo one of his main priorities. He has tried different strategies to accomplish this. These include <a href="https://issafrica.org/iss-today/now-the-east-african-community-tackles-the-eastern-drcs-rebels">negotiations</a> with armed groups, a <a href="https://www.defenceweb.co.za/joint/diplomacy-a-peace/dr-congo-strategy-for-former-combatants-led-by-government/">demobilisation and disarmament</a> programme and declaring a <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20210501-dr-congo-declares-a-state-of-siege-over-worsening-violence-in-east">state of siege</a> in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri. </p>
<p>But, as <a href="https://www.gicnetwork.be/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/10_GIC_It-Takes-More-Than-Two-to-Tango_WEB-2.pdf">recent research highlights</a>, this combination of tactics have rarely worked well in the past. </p>
<p>It is therefore unlikely that the current flurry of initiatives will end the M23 and other rebellions for good, as long as the underlying historical issues fuelling violence remain unaddressed.</p>
<h2>The rise of M23</h2>
<p>Formed in April 2012, the M23 has always been perched at the <a href="https://riftvalley.net/publication/cndp-m23">intersection between local, national, and regional power dynamics</a>, where it partakes in different struggles for control over territory, people and resources. These struggles are linked to the security concerns of <a href="https://riftvalley.net/publication/stable-instability">different political and cross-border military networks</a>, which rassemble both state and non-state actors.</p>
<p>The M23 rapidly shot to international notoriety when it <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2012/11/23/m23-fighters-capture-goma-in-the-dr-congo">occupied the city of Goma</a>, capital North Kivu province, for 10 days in November 2012. This followed eight months of intense fighting in Rutshuru area of North Kivu province. </p>
<p>These events were a massive embarrassment to the international community which had invested billions of dollars in peace and statebuilding in the DRC, especially through its <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/monusco">UN peacekeeping mission</a>. But the mission was reduced to <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world/la-xpm-2012-dec-22-la-fg-un-congo-20121223-story.html">bystanders</a> as the M23 marched into Goma. </p>
<p>While the rebels withdrew after strong international pressure, they continued to control key strategic sites, such as the Bunagana border post to Uganda. These provided them with significant income from taxation.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the group’s ability to challenge the Congolese government and the UN became its undoing.</p>
<p>In 2013, a new component to the UN peacekeeping mission was charged with dismantling eastern DRC’s armed groups. It was called the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB). It was composed of regional armies and made the M23 its first and prime target. Internal tensions also triggered a split inside the M23, leaving the group weakened <a href="https://apnews.com/article/41f50e43c95e4bf89439f5a07f561028">exiled in Uganda and Rwanda</a>. </p>
<p>After its defeat, the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/congo-signs-peace-deal-with-m23-rebels-in-nairobi/a-17292474">M23 signed a peace deal with the government</a> in December 2013 in which it agreed to demobilise its fighters and transform itself into a political party. </p>
<p>However, led by commander Sultani Makenga, <a href="https://information.tv5monde.com/afrique/rdc-les-autorites-rwandaises-refutent-les-accusations-de-soutien-aux-attaques-rebelles-du">parts of the group returned to the DRC already in late 2016</a>. This was a predictable outcome as the peace deals failed to address the conflicts underlying issues. </p>
<h2>History of rebellion</h2>
<p>An important feature of the genealogy of armed groups to which the M23 belongs is that they have been led mainly by Tutsi commanders from North Kivu. Historically, these commanders have entertained close ties with the Rwandan military. In the early 1990s, as reported to one of us in multiple interviews, several joined the Rwandan Patriotic Front in its struggle to overthrow the extremist Hutu regime in Rwanda, which carried out the genocide in Rwanda.</p>
<p>A major driving force of rebellions such as the M23 has been the <a href="https://riftvalley.net/publication/cndp-m23">insecure position of the Tutsi community in North Kivu</a> due to a complex combination of interconnected causes. The first is the divide and rule policies of the colonial state (1885-1960) and the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko (1965-1997). In the 1990s, the Mobutu regime fuelled longstanding conflicts between Kinyarwanda-speaking populations, both Hutu and Tutsi, and other communities in eastern Congo by denying the latter citizenship rights of the latter, <a href="https://ccs.ukzn.ac.za/files/mamdani.kivu.pdf">which sparked violent conflicts in the east</a>.</p>
<p>Second is the political propaganda that falsely label all Kinyarwanda-speakers in eastern DRC as “immigrants” rather than “citizens” despite the fact that several Kinyarwanda-speaking communities have been in DRC <a href="https://www.editions-harmattan.fr/livre-banyarwanda_et_banyamulenge_violences_ethniques_et_gestion_de_l_identitaire_au_kiwu_jean_claude_willame-9782738447098-10986.html">since long before colonisation</a>. </p>
<p>It also has not helped that the Tutsi have been involved in several foreign-backed rebellions, in particular the RCD-Goma during 1998–2003.</p>
<p>Finally, members of the Tutsi economic élite have bought large tracts of land in a context where many peasants have become victims of land-grabbing by local élites. </p>
<p>All these factors have produced widespread resentment of the Tutsi, and Kinyarwanda-speaking communities in general. Conversely, the Tutsi from North Kivu, deplore the failure of the Congolese state to respect and protect them as citizens. This has led many Kinyarwanda-speakers to support successive rebellions as a means to seek protection against armed groups hostile to them.</p>
<h2>What the future may hold</h2>
<p>After the first clashes in March and April this year, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/m23-rebel-group-declares-unilateral-ceasefire-eastern-congo-2022-04-01/">the M23 declared multiple unilateral ceasefires</a>. It also announced it was willing to lay down its arms for good. Then in April it promised to withdraw from the areas it had occupied after the fighting in late March and asked for a <a href="https://twitter.com/HeritierBarak/status/1513080458149511169">dialogue with the Congolese government</a>. </p>
<p>These declarations happened at the onset of yet another round of talks between armed groups and the Congolese government in Nairobi under the aegis of <a href="https://www.president.go.ke/2022/04/28/president-kenyatta-urges-stakeholders-to-nurture-peace-in-dr-congo/">Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta</a>. The Congolese government framed these talks as the last chance for armed groups to surrender. Accompanied by this threat was an <a href="https://english.news.cn/20220422/732a9fadcaed4bdc907056e8da2fdfdc/c.html">announcement of yet another regional force</a> to be set up to fight armed groups. </p>
<p>But, fighting subsequently broke out again between the Congolese army and M23 units. Both sides accused each other of instigating the clashes. As result, the main faction of the M23, led by Sultani Makenga, was <a href="https://medafricatimes.com/26532-drc-in-nairobi-peace-consultations-continue-without-the-m23-branch-known-as-makenga.html">ejected</a> from the Nairobi talks.</p>
<p>On a broader regional level, the M23’s return coincides with <a href="https://www.theafricareport.com/200378/drc-time-is-running-out-for-tshisekedi-says-researcher-christoph-vogel/">several significant developments</a>. These include negotiations leading to the DRC joining the East African Community and Uganda’s military intervention north of the M23’s area operation to combat the Allied Democratic Front. </p>
<p>Moreover, after half a decade of frictions marked by border closures, bilateral relations between Rwanda and Uganda seem to rapidly improving. This is in spite of geopolitical rivalry and competition over trade and infrastructure projects in eastern DRC. </p>
<p>On the ground in North Kivu, other Congolese armed groups have recently declared a new ad-hoc <a href="https://twitter.com/PierreBoisselet/status/1524078548109213696?s=20&t=N0bzCk-ZQ3jiz2s_7bVGMA">coalition</a>, allegedly brokered by Congolese army officials. This is aimed at fighting the M23.</p>
<p>Thus, the M23 rebellion finds itself in the tiny but highly strategic border triangle between eastern DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, and at the centre of fast-paced and interlaced local and regional security and diplomatic developments.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kasper Hoffmann receives funding from the Danish International Development Agency and the Social and Economic Research Council of the United Kingdom. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christoph Vogel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Recent clashes put eastern Congo’s M23 into the headlines again, but many other security problems persist in the area as diplomats struggle to tackle the underlying causes.Kasper Hoffmann, Adjunct assistant professor, University of CopenhagenChristoph Vogel, Research Director of the Insecure Livelihoods Project, Ghent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1164392019-05-08T13:03:12Z2019-05-08T13:03:12ZTracking the DRC’s Allied Democratic Forces and its links to ISIS<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/272216/original/file-20190502-103075-f2b6b6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Isis claims attacks in Beni province of northern Kivu, eastern Congo, close to the border to Uganda.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In April the Islamic State, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/world/africa/isis-congo-attack.html?module=inline">took responsibility</a> for an attack on an army base in the troubled Beni region of North Kivu province, eastern Congo, close to the border with Uganda. The Islamic state <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/world/africa/isis-congo-attack.html?module=inline">credited</a> this and <a href="https://ent.siteintelgroup.com/Statements/is-reports-4-attacks-in-congo-in-naba-179-publishes-photo-of-fighters-in-its-central-africa-province.html">four other</a> attacks to the Central African Province of the Islamic State.</p>
<p>The attacks came amid signs that the Islamic State’s offshoots outside the Levant (the area encompassing modern day Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq) are growing in relative importance. Some of these offshoots have been <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-baghdadi/islamic-state-airs-video-purporting-to-be-leader-al-baghdadi-idUSKCN1S51QB">depicted, or mentioned in the latest video</a> of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. </p>
<p>Links between groups within North Kivu province and the Islamic state are not new. As early as 2017 a poorly-made video emerged <a href="https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2017/10/islamic-state-loyal-group-calls-for-people-to-join-the-jihad-in-the-congo.php">showing a small group of fighters</a> (including what seemed to be foreigners), declaring loyalty to the Islamic State. The troubled province of North Kivu has seen almost continuous violence for more than two decades, with violence erupting from 1993 and onward. </p>
<p>In 2018, Kenyan authorities <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=976V_KbwxRo">arrested</a> two people they accused of raising money and supporting various Islamic state organisations in Syria, Libya and the Congo. In Congo’s case, the fingers were pointed at a group called Allied Democratic Forces, based in North Kivu. The case is yet to be prosecuted, but the group was mentioned in other cases of alleged links to Islamic State as well.</p>
<p>The last link was the discovery of a <a href="https://thedefensepost.com/2018/12/04/tentative-ties-allied-democratic-forces-isis-dr-congo/">book published</a> by the Islamic State’s Al Himmah Library on the body of a dead Allied Democratic Forces soldier in February 2018. The book is easy to download from the internet, so it remains unclear whether the download was at the instigation of the Islamic State or not.</p>
<p>All of these signs indicate that there are some links, ideological or organisational, but the nature of these links might be complicated and fragmented.</p>
<h2>The Allied Democratic Force</h2>
<p>The Allied Democratic Forces was a creation of Congolese and Sudanese attempts to undermine the Yoweri Museveni regime in Uganda in the 1990s. Created in Congo in 1995, it consisted of two very distinct elements with relatively strong ideological traits, and separate past histories. </p>
<p>The first group that entered the union that was to become the Allied Democratic Force was the National Army for The Liberation of Uganda. This was one of many based around the mainly Christian Bakonjo-Baamba people of Rwenzori, and their <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/horn-sahel-and-rift/">struggle</a> for more autonomy and independence from Uganda. </p>
<p>The second component was the Islamic Salafi Foundation, an organisation with roots going back to protests against Uganda’s attempts <a href="https://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/blog/jihadists-rebels-or-bandits-the-threat-of-the-allied-democratic-forces">to control Islam</a>. </p>
<p>Inside Congo, the two ideologically different organisations were fused together into a new organisation by the regimes of Mobutu Sese Seko in Congo and Omar al-Bashir in Sudan. The two men envisaged it could be used as a tool against Uganda, to check Museveni’s influence and stir up domestic politics.</p>
<p>I trace the development of the group in my book <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/horn-sahel-and-rift/">Horn, Sahel and Rift: Fault-lines of the African Jihad</a>, pointing out that the new organisation quickly became embedded in Congo. This happened in two ways. The first was through the active attempts by Mobutu to integrate it into the local governance and security of his regime. The second was through Bakonjo-Baamba networks. </p>
<p>Mobutu also encouraged the Allied Democratic Forces to invest in local businesses and partner in business ventures. Some of these links remain active. These old business associates tend to be seen as a part of the organisation which has led to the perception that the Allied Democratic Force has wider reach than is actually the case. </p>
<p>The early golden age of the Allied Democratic Forces ended when Mobutu lost power in Congo in 1997. It was forced to relocate into the Rwenzori Mountains on the border between Uganda and Congo to avoid offensives from Uganda and the new regime in Congo. </p>
<h2>Radicalisation phase</h2>
<p>In the subsequent years the Allied Democratic Forces grew in a more Islamist direction. A number of factors contributed to this. The first was that its Uganda liberation component had slowly weakened as soldiers and officers left the organisation. Seven top leaders of the old National Army for The Liberation of Uganda also <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/horn-sahel-and-rift/">surrendered</a> under a UN disarmament programme. </p>
<p>Secondly, the organisation seems to have increasingly used religious networks to harness funds in the Congo and Uganda. Religious rhetoric grew more important and indoctrination became a vital component in its training camps. </p>
<p>However, compared with other African jihadist outfits such as Boko Haram and the al-Shabaab, the group lacked the ideological focus, religious sophistication and wide distribution.</p>
<h2>Recent developments</h2>
<p>At the start of 2018 Allied Democratic Forces were dealt <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/fardc-and-monusco-launch-joint-operations-against-adf">severe blows</a> from a Congolese government offensive. Many local respondents predicted its end.</p>
<p>Rumours of Allied Democratic Forces factions “for hire” in local conflicts surfaced, with local low level sub-commanders appearing on different sides in the complex conflicts in Kivu. </p>
<p>Over the past two years there have also been regular rumours of tension within the organisation. </p>
<p>But in late 2018 Allied Democratic Forces again attacked villages in Kivu, and Mozambican media even <a href="https://clubofmozambique.com/news/allied-democratic-forces-adf-opens-cell-in-mozambique-says-security-expert-report/">reported</a> about potential offshoots in Mozambique. </p>
<p>In 2018, the Ugandan security services also <a href="https://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/688334-3465844-org7g0/index.html">accused</a> the group of being behind killings of sheikhs in Kampala. </p>
<p>It’s hard to determine if violence in the region is being committed by the Allied Democratic Forces, or other militias. It’s also hard to determine the exact borders of the organisation. And it’s hard to say if the new Islamic State affiliate in Congo is a breakaway organisation of the Allied Democratic Forces. </p>
<p>But, given it’s history, it’s safe to say that the Allied Democratic Forces has vital experience in surviving hardship and pressure, and that it’s aided by regional rivalries and local tension.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116439/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stig Jarle Hansen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Links between groups within the Kivu province and the Islamic state are not new.Stig Jarle Hansen, Associate Professor of International Relations, Norwegian University of Life SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1142022019-03-25T13:58:59Z2019-03-25T13:58:59ZEast Africa should intervene to defuse Rwanda-Uganda war of words<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/265541/original/file-20190325-36270-kd865o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Presidents Paul Kagame (right) and Yoweri Museveni observe a minute of silence during a genocide memorial.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Ricky Gare</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The verbal exchanges between presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, between their ministers and between their media have been escalating. In the aftermath, borders remain closed and trade and movement of people has been disrupted. </p>
<p>Historically the presidents of Rwanda and Uganda – and their countries – have been close allies. Kagame was among the “originals” of the National Resistance Movement that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/30/world/rebel-sworn-in-as-uganda-president.html">started a rebellion</a> in 1981 . He and many other Rwandan fighters contributed significantly to Museveni’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1166507?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">seizure of power</a> in 1986. In return, Uganda gave crucial support to the Rwandan Patriotic Front <a href="https://observer.ug/features-sp-2084439083/96-special-series/35981--museveni-how-i-supported-rpf-in-rwandas-1994-liberation-war">during the civil war in Rwanda</a>. Without it, Kagame would probably not have taken power in 1994. </p>
<p>Again, during the first Congo war in 1997 the two were close allies in support of the rebellion that toppled Mobutu Sese Seko and brought Laurent Kabila <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3557264?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">to power in 1997</a>. </p>
<p>At the end of the 1990s things changed, and the unthinkable happened. The two friends clashed on several occasions <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/great-african-war/044430BB49F3381D4C9B2C1C330A40C0">during the second Congo war</a>. They fell out against the background of political differences on how to handle the war. But just as important was the competition between the countries over the <a href="https://www.economist.com/international/1999/08/19/old-friends-new-war">exploitation of Congolese natural resources</a>. </p>
<p>Hundreds of their soldiers were killed in 1999 and 2000. The entente cordiale never fully recovered.</p>
<p>A semblance of peace was restored in the early 2000s, but only after Clare Short, the then UK Secretary of State for International Cooperation, summoned the two to London in 2001 to avoid all-out war between Rwanda and Uganda. </p>
<p>A new round of hostilities erupted in 2017. These escalated considerably in early 2019. The Ugandan leadership <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/ea/Plot-to-topple-Museveni-claims-army-boss/4552908-4978284-yrcy61z/index.html">alleges that there are external efforts to topple the regime</a>. In response, the Rwandan Foreign Minister has <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/100-rwandans-held-uganda">claimed</a> that hundreds of Rwandans were illegally deported from Uganda and that many have been arrested and tortured. In early March, Ugandan nationals and vehicles were <a href="https://observer.ug/news/headlines/60008-ugandan-nationals-vehicles-denied-entry-into-rwanda">denied entry</a> at Gatuna border post.</p>
<p>Although a military confrontation remains implausible, today’s situation is reminiscent of the worst days between the two neighbours. Leaders of the region need to do more to avert a violent scenario. </p>
<h2>Why relations went sour</h2>
<p>In February 2017 a Rwandan news agency, Rushyashya, which was considered to be close to the intelligence services, claimed that a <a href="https://theugandan.com.ug/rwanda-accuses-museveni-french-of-training-kayumba-nyamwasas-rebels-in-kibaale/">Uganda-backed rebel force was being set up</a> at a training camp to the west of Kampala. It was said to be put in place by the exiled opposition movement Rwanda National Congress with the support of a Rwandan businessman who fell out with Kagame and set up a large tobacco development investment in northern Uganda.</p>
<p>Things came to a head at the end of October, when nine people were arrested and charged in Uganda with conspiracy in the kidnap and illegal deportation to Rwanda of an exiled former military officer six years ago. Lieutenant Joël Mutabazi was sentenced to life imprisonment in Rwanda <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/ea/Ugandan-officers-charged-with-abducting-Rwanda-refugees/4552908-4927982-jxmljvz/index.html">on several counts related to subversion</a>.</p>
<p>Then in mid-December, the Ugandan intelligence <a href="http://www.inyenyerinews.org/justice-and-reconciliation/national-exclusive-cmi-detains-top-rwanda-patriotic-front-official/">detained</a> a high ranking Rwanda Patriotic Front official for “alleged espionage and activities which threaten national security”.</p>
<p>There <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2017/12/04/frenemies-for-life-has-the-love-gone-between-uganda-and-rwanda/">have also been other bones of contention</a>. These include air traffic rights, priorities on the construction of the new standard gauge railway, energy projects and French support for the training of Ugandan military units.</p>
<p>A number of incidents showed that relations continued to deteriorate throughout 2018. In early January, a former operative of Uganda’s intelligence agency <a href="https://www.thegrapevine.co.ug/i-was-paid-usd100000-to-kill-museveni/">wrote</a> to Museveni to claim that he had been offered US$100,000 by Rwandan agents to assassinate him. And Ugandan nationals <a href="https://chimpreports.com/more-ugandans-fired-from-rwandan-jobs/">claimed</a> they were being arbitrarily sacked in Rwandan media, schools and banks. </p>
<p>For its part, Kigali again <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Rwanda-Uganda-tensions/2558-4341084-mldncsz/index.html">accused</a> Kampala of illegally detaining and torturing its citizens and of harbouring dissidents intent on destabilising Rwanda. Suspected Rwandan agents <a href="https://www.glpost.com/suspected-rwandan-agents-flee-kampala-as-military-intensifies-crackdown-at-ugandan-borders/">fled</a> Kampala because of a crackdown by Ugandan security forces.</p>
<h2>Distrust</h2>
<p>Museveni and Kagame know each other very well. Nevertheless, the distrust between them is considerable. They both seem to genuinely believe that the other is bent on destabilising their respective regimes. </p>
<p>Earlier this month Kagame <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/opinions/rwanda-everything-kneeling">lashed out</a>, claiming Uganda “had been undermining Rwanda since 1998”. He added that, faced with attempts to destabilise the country, “no one can bring me to my knees”. Museveni responded on the same day with a <a href="https://www.vanguardnews.ug/once-we-mobilize-you-cant-survive-museveni-responds-to-kagame/">pointed warning</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Those who want to destabilise our country do not know our capacity. Once we mobilise, you can’t survive. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Rwandan government has <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/rwanda-warns-citizens-against-travel-uganda">advised its citizens</a>) not to travel to Uganda for safety reasons, and a week later effectively <a href="https://www.256businessnews.com/uganda-accuses-rwanda-of-imposing-trade-embargo/">closed the border</a>. This left hundreds of trucks stranded. Even ordinary Rwandans who used to go to Uganda for purchases, schools or medical care were prevented from crossing into Uganda. And to prevent them from using unofficial crossings, the Rwandan army destroyed makeshift bridges and arrested those attempting to pass. </p>
<p><a href="https://observer.ug/news/headlines/60027-ugandan-drivers-locked-in-trucks-at-gatuna-chanika-borders">Unconfirmed reports mentioned</a> the deployment of Rwandan troops along the border. In mid-March, Ugandans started to <a href="https://command1post.com/index.php/2019/03/13/ugandans-shut-down-hotels-shops-in-kigali/">shut down their businesses</a> in Kigali because of a lack of supplies.</p>
<h2>What next?</h2>
<p>Where does this lead? </p>
<p>Both governments continue to trade accusations and take hostile unilateral actions. They aren’t even talking to one another directly to find solutions. In addition to impeding trade and the movement of people, the impasse is an obvious setback to cooperation and integration within the East African Community. Yet their neighbours Kenya and Tanzania remain silent. </p>
<p>Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta met both Kagame and Museveni on the same day. But <a href="https://observer.ug/news/headlines/60093-uhuru-kenyatta-meets-kagame-museveni">nothing concrete</a> seems to have come from the bilateral talks. There’s been no follow-up. And no roadmap has emerged. Yet Kenyatta and Tanzanian President John Magufuli, as leaders of countries that control access to landlocked Uganda and Rwanda, have a powerful lever in their hands. </p>
<p>And if leaders of the East African Community prove unable to tackle this potentially destructive issue, then perhaps the African Union – which was chaired by Kagame until January – should take the lead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114202/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Filip Reyntjens does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A military confrontation between Uganda and Rwanda remains implausible. But the stand-off between the two countries is reminiscent of the worst days between them.Filip Reyntjens, Emeritus Professor of Law and Politics Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of AntwerpLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1101222019-01-28T13:33:56Z2019-01-28T13:33:56ZDRC musicians, patronage networks and the possibility of change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255105/original/file-20190123-135148-glbkmy.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lexxus Legal is a hip-hop artist and at the forefront of the activist movement in the DRC.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.facebook.com/lexxuslegal/photos/a.10152059106112445/10156225003507445/?type=3&theater">Facebook</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Popular musicians in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), like many of their compatriots, have often been forced to depend on political patronage networks for their livelihoods. It dates back to colonial times, but has lived on through the country’s nearly six decades of independence.</p>
<p>The nature of the networks may not change after <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/felix-tshisekedi-is-sworn-in-as-congolese-president-11548356987">the inauguration</a> of Félix Tshisekedi as president. That question depends largely on whether or not Tshisekedi is able to take control of the most strategic appointments in the federal bureaucracy and security services. If he does – and it’s a big if – musicians will be faced with a rare moment in their history: a substantial change in the shape of the DRC’s patronage networks. </p>
<p>There have only been three such changes. The first, from the colonial era under the Belgians to the short period of instability after independence in 1960 marked by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jan/17/patrice-lumumba-50th-anniversary-assassination">assassination</a> of Patrice Lumumba in 1961. Next was to the long period of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00ll2z5">Mobutu Sese Seko’s</a> dictatorship from 1965 to 1997. This was followed by the establishment of new networks of patronage by the Kabila family until today.</p>
<p>These latest networks may yet endure if the Kabila family remains in <a href="https://africanarguments.org/2019/01/10/drc-election-results-analysis-implausible/">effective control</a> through a cohabitation arrangement with a Tshisekedi presidency. Either way Congolese musicians are likely to be faced with the same invidious choice: accept the patronage of the powers that be, or face the consequences. </p>
<p>Under the Belgians and Mobutu the choice was stark: toe the line if you want to make a living as a professional musician. Conformity determined access to government controlled media and public space. As Congolese soukous musician <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/kanda-bongo-man-mn0000303409/biography">Kanda Bongo Man</a> told me, in Nigeria <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/fela-kuti-mn0000138833">Fela Kuti</a> might openly protest and survive, but under Mobutu he and his family would be tortured, murdered and thrown from a helicopter into the Congo river. </p>
<p>That control has loosened under the Kabilas. But it has by <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2018-12-10-anti-govt-rapper-abducted-as-dr-congo-vote-tensions-rise/">no means disappeared</a>.</p>
<h2>The colonial period</h2>
<p>After the Second World War Greek and Jewish entrepreneurs, who were outsiders to the Belgium political establishment, were the first to invest in music. They imported rudimentary recording facilities, public address systems, guitars, drums and brass instruments. </p>
<p>They also used their family networks of shops across Africa to sell records elsewhere on the continent. This partly explains how the beautiful and popular music of Leopoldville (the capital of the Belgian colony of Congo, before it was renamed Kinshasa in 1966) and Brazzaville across the Congo River, spread through the colony as well as the continent.</p>
<p>Tanzanian musician <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/remmy-ongala-mn0000190008">Remmy Ongala</a>, who has been part of the Congolese soukous scene since the 1980s, told me in a 2002 interview that he first heard the popular music of the Congolese capital performed in the third largest city Kisangani during colonial times. </p>
<p>It was the Belgian government that paid the transport and provided the public space for the Greek owned company Ngoma to promote their young stars Wendo and Bowane.</p>
<h2>Mobutu’s way of doing things</h2>
<p>Mobutu introduced the cultural policy of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10464883.2014.937235?mobileUi=0"><em>authenticité</em></a>, which was aimed at combating a colonial mentality denigrating African culture and language and casting it as inferior to Europes. In practice, however, it was harnessed to building Mobutu’s personality cult.</p>
<p>The dominance in cultural life of the <em>Mouvement Populaire de La Révolution</em> the political party <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Democratic-Republic-of-the-Congo/Political-process#ref467764">he founded</a>, was implemented in ways that mimicked the kind of imposition formerly associated with the colonial authorities.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/congolese-musicians-rarely-provide-a-critique-but-continue-to-provide-solace-80201">Congolese musicians rarely provide a critique, but continue to provide solace</a>
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<p>His favoured bands, especially <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/artist/tpok-jazz-mn0000955002">TPOK Jazz</a>, benefited the most, and were given both direct patronage and control of the nationalised record plant as part of “Zaireanisation”. The band’s leader Franco Luambo Makiadi was a member of Mobutu’s party. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_k349KCe0qY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Franco’s song ‘Tailleur’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8300170.stm">King of Rumba</a>, as Franco was known, is also famous for composing metaphorically ambiguous songs. One of the most celebrated is <em>Tailleur</em> that’s about an unnamed tailor and an unnamed owner of his needle that captures the nature of patronage networks:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>How is the tailor going to operate if the owner of the needle takes it away?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>During the Mobutu era Congolese musicians created a musical genre that came to known as Rumba. Very little, if any, “resistance” Rumba was composed. As part of <em>authenticité</em>, Mobutu demanded that popular music turn to indigenous influences and languages for inspiration. </p>
<p>Franco responded enthusiastically deepening his relationship with those sources and composing songs in KiKongo. But Lingala, the language of the capital and of the <em>force publique</em> under the Belgians remained the national language of power, government and the army under Mobutu. Despite the “authenticity” policy Lingala remained the predominant language of popular song even for Franco. </p>
<p>This may help explain why the most outspoken musical critics of the corruption and violence in Congolese politics has still not come from the Lingala speaking capital , with some <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/28/political-soundtrack-drc-uneasy-mix-of-music-and-power-elections-congo">notable exceptions</a> such as Lexxus Legal, but from the east of the vast country, and is expressed in Swahili rather than Lingala.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/what-drcs-flawed-election-means-for-emerging-democratic-culture-in-africa-109410">DRC protest music</a> , is mainly expressed in East African <a href="http://afropop.org/audio-programs/congo-goma-music-conflict-and-ngos">versions</a> hip-hop, particularly from Goma. Musically it is more derivative than Rumba, being heavily indebted to US hip-hop. The protest is not against the power of the US culture industries but against violence, and the lies that foster violence.</p>
<h2>Dependent musicians</h2>
<p>The 1990s was a decade of change. Late in the decade there was a general weakening of state institutions in the post-Mobutu era with no sign of a return to secure government sponsorship for musicians or of regular salaries for public servants.</p>
<p>Another dramatic shift was that musicians became more dependent on live performance and transient commercial and political sponsorship with the advent of cheap cassette tapes and even cheaper digital recording technology.</p>
<p>This intertwining of the market, state and society has continued to see itself expressed through music in the DRC. A well-loved dance of 2005, <em>Kisanola</em>, (literally meaning a comb) is associated with the moment when one of the country’s best-known stars, Werrason, shifted commercial allegiance from one beer brand, Skol, to its popular rival Primus, with lucrative consequences for Werrason. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-SJ1kUNx9iE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Werrason’s dancers doing the ‘Kisanola’ dance.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255404/original/file-20190124-135154-ly7too.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255404/original/file-20190124-135154-ly7too.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255404/original/file-20190124-135154-ly7too.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255404/original/file-20190124-135154-ly7too.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255404/original/file-20190124-135154-ly7too.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255404/original/file-20190124-135154-ly7too.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/255404/original/file-20190124-135154-ly7too.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Werrason’s election poster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the <em>Kisanola</em> dance, also involves a movement representing the shaving of one’s hair to the bone – a metaphor for how people in the DRC have had everything taken from them. </p>
<p>In the past commercial imperatives and political censoring have not entirely prevented challenging songs slipping through the net. Remmy Ongala told me how even Wendo in the 1950s, under the patronage of the Belgian colonists, sang songs he and his Congolese audience understood as a call for independence and as a challenge to the colonial regime:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>one fine day this country will change, you will see it yourselves. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is a call that remains tragically resonant today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110122/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Salter received funding from the ESRC for his PhD on the spread of Congolese popular music in Africa</span></em></p>The intertwining of the market, state and society has continued to see itself expressed through music in the DRC.Thomas Salter, Musician, Academic, Consultant, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/802012017-06-29T10:41:16Z2017-06-29T10:41:16ZCongolese musicians rarely provide a critique, but continue to provide solace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176182/original/file-20170629-16061-1fk4of0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Authenticité survives in the present generation of Congolese musicians like Fally Ipupa (with the red vest).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4KNVT2w0mU">From YouTube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The “Indépendance Cha-Cha” is one of the best-known songs in the Congolese cannon. It was composed and first performed by the father of modern popular Congolese music, <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/joseph-kabasele-mn0001901870">Joseph Kabasele</a>, and his band African Jazz in Brussels in January 1960 during the negotiations for Congolese independence. It proved a huge hit all over Africa in the years to come and is performed to this day.</p>
<p>The song was done in anticipation of June 30 1960 when the Belgian Congo became the independent Republic of the Congo.</p>
<p>“Indépendance cha-cha” is firmly part of a tradition in which a list of names of important parties and people are included in the song (it’s a tradition that nowadays involves substantial payment for the honour).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0y6BjNJD0ZM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Indépendance cha-cha’ by Joseph Kabesele and his band African Jazz.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the “Indépendance cha-cha” the list was of pro-independence parties and the main actors in the drama unfurling in Brussels including <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/patrice-lumumba">Patrice Lumumba</a> and <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/gah/tshombe-moise-kapenda-1919-1969">Moise Tshombe</a>.</p>
<p>The early dreams of independence gradually disappeared as the years passed and this beloved song became ripe for a reworking. In 2010 the rap artist <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/baloji-mn0000555019/biography">Baloji</a> produced a wonderful video of the song renamed “Le jour d'après”. In the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/dec/04/baloji-rapper-congo-sorcerer-interview">video</a> he tells the ironic story of life since independence.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/C4vc25TcIe0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Congolese-Belgian rapper Baloyi with a modern update on ‘Indépendance Cha Cha’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Old gentlemen musicians, who could still remember the heady days leading to independence, play and dance beside the younger generation. They’re all attired with the dapper dandy <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/09/world/africa/congo-sapeur-fashion/index.html">style</a> for which the Congolese are rightfully famous. </p>
<h2>The era of mass rallies</h2>
<p>After independence, throwing off the formal shackles of political colonialism proved far easier than removing the bonds of economic imperialism. The covert involvement of the former Belgian colonists and the CIA in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/jan/17/patrice-lumumba-50th-anniversary-assassination">assassination of Lumumba</a> in 1961 was followed by years of turmoil as the independence movement fractured. </p>
<p>Colonel Joseph-Désiré Mobutu assumed the presidency after seizing power in a coup in 1965. In 1971 he renamed the country Zaire.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176076/original/file-20170628-31318-1sdtmrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176076/original/file-20170628-31318-1sdtmrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176076/original/file-20170628-31318-1sdtmrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176076/original/file-20170628-31318-1sdtmrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176076/original/file-20170628-31318-1sdtmrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176076/original/file-20170628-31318-1sdtmrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176076/original/file-20170628-31318-1sdtmrt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mobutu Sese Seko in Kinshasa, back in September 1960.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His programme to nationalise Congolese industries, dubbed <a href="http://dictionary.education/english/dictionary/Zaireanization">Zaireanization</a>, followed visits to China and Korea in the early 1970s. Industries were taken over and assigned to his clients, often without the skills to manage the businesses, or the motivation to reinvest any profits Mobutu didn’t take for himself. Taxes weren’t invested in education and health or maintaining the energy, road and rail networks necessary for the long-term health of the economy.</p>
<p>But the visits to China had another influence on Mobutu. They provided him with a model for mass performances for party and nation. These included mass gatherings during which huge numbers of party members performed choreographed songs and dances in praise of the president and his party. </p>
<p>The gatherings were clearly performances of nationhood. But they were also linked to Mobutu’s policies of <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10464883.2014.937235?mobileUi=0">authenticité</a> – an idea borrowed from the president of Guinea, Sékou Touré. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/21495">idea</a> was first mooted in the Manifesto of N'Sele in 1967, alongside <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=R5pJxgosjIIC&pg=PA216&lpg=PA216&dq=Mobutism&source=bl&ots=t48MVCgraP&sig=FZWciwMLKOb_S6jmNWyuq2AVL0s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjjuLreouDUAhVjAcAKHbyxCscQ6AEIYTAN#v=onepage&q=Mobutism&f=false">Mobutism</a> and nationalism, and presented as a rejection of both capitalism and communism. It was foremost a cultural policy aimed at combating a colonial mentality denigrating African culture and language as inferior to that of Europe.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176186/original/file-20170629-16061-1i79r32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176186/original/file-20170629-16061-1i79r32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176186/original/file-20170629-16061-1i79r32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176186/original/file-20170629-16061-1i79r32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176186/original/file-20170629-16061-1i79r32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176186/original/file-20170629-16061-1i79r32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176186/original/file-20170629-16061-1i79r32.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mobutu on a Zairean banknote.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In practice it was harnessed to building Mobutu’s personality cult. He ordered the building of one of the first state run television studios and broadcasting facilities in Africa. Named the Cité de la Voix de la Peuple it had 18 radio and six television studios. Television broadcasting began in 1966 and the broadcasting centre was completed in 1970. The building is now a sad and dilapidated testament to Mobutu’s glory days. </p>
<p>The dominance in cultural life of the Mouvement Populaire de La Révolution (MPR) was implemented in ways that mimicked the kind of imposition formerly associated with the colonial authorities. </p>
<p>For the sartorially expressive Kinois this was not something to be accepted without a challenge. In time it led to the rise of the rebellious movement of satorial dandies, the <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2013/05/07/181704510/the-surprising-sartorial-culture-of-congolese-sapeurs">Sapeurs</a>. </p>
<p>Authenticité also involved the changing of colonial Christian names to African ones. Mobutu <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1997/sep/08/news/mn-30058">changed</a> his own name to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga. </p>
<p>And like Nyerere in Tanzania, Mobutu demanded that popular music should be exclusively in a national language – which in practice meant primarily Lingala – the language of the capital.</p>
<h2>Personality cult</h2>
<p>For many of the musicians I interviewed, whether or not they had any sympathy for Mobutu, the idea of authenticité was almost universally seen as a positive one at a certain level. This was despite the fact that Mobutu abused Congo culture to build his own personality cult.</p>
<p>Independence may not have led to genuine political and economic autonomy for the former Belgian Congo. But at least in areas of life that were not a source a mineral wealth and not an obvious political threat to the president, a new kind of freedom of cultural expression and self confidence in the worth of Congo’s cultural heritage could bloom. It found expression in a glorious period of musical creativity.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176188/original/file-20170629-11766-wuzgmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176188/original/file-20170629-11766-wuzgmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176188/original/file-20170629-11766-wuzgmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176188/original/file-20170629-11766-wuzgmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=604&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176188/original/file-20170629-11766-wuzgmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176188/original/file-20170629-11766-wuzgmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176188/original/file-20170629-11766-wuzgmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sleeve of Franco and Sam Mangwana’s collaborative album, Coopération.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This included adopting modernity into Congolese music. For some, like <a href="http://likembe.blogspot.co.za/2011/05/congo-memories-with-bumba-massa.html">Bumba Massa</a> and <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/sam-mangwana-mn0000287320/biography">Sam Mangwana</a>, it took the form of modernity from diverse diaspora influences from across the Atlantic, especially Latin America. For others, like <a href="http://africanmusic.org/artists/kanda.html">Kanda Bongo Man</a>, it was in the mastering and use of modern technology to express Congolese culture. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/20407211.2011.10530761">Malcot Lowiso</a>, a Congolese musician working in South Africa, made it clear that authenticité was not about a return to the past:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is possible to modernise with authenticity. We have modernised our authenticity without copying others, without copying the French or the Belgians.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Love of a huge fan base</h2>
<p>The man most closely identified with the cultural movement of authenticité was the leader of the giant band TPOK Jazz, the Congo colossus <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/franco-luambo-makiadi-mn0001615589">Luambo Franco Makiadi</a>. Franco was inspired to create wonderful music by integrating the Congolese musical heritage with African and European influences and the world of the diaspora. He benefited both from Mobutu’s patronage and the love of a huge fan base all over the continent. Franco embraced the principle of authenticité, and sang songs in praise both of the principle and the party espousing it.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jiuDIJTVpzw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Franco wholeheartedly embraced the principle of authenticité in his music.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Maybe the idea of authenticité survives as part of the dream of a meaningful cultural independence in the present generation of Congolese musicians, in the work of singers such as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/455a23c4-ec18-4e87-893d-db79514eb50b">Fally Ipupa</a> and <a href="http://www.musiques-afrique.com/frames/art_ferre-gola.html">Ferré Gola</a>, who continue to create a distinctively Congolese sound.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HqtC3hxVLMo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Congolese singers like Fally Ipupa keep it authentically Congolese.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unfortunately politically things look far less hopeful. President <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/topics/people/joseph-kabila.html">Joseph Kabila</a> is looking increasingly like the inheritor of the political tradition of his father Laurent’s former enemy, Mobutu, and the dictatorial colonists who preceded him. </p>
<p>Scheduled elections slip into an indeterminate future, accompanied by worsening <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39587896">human rights abuses</a> in the Kasai region and attempts to divide and weaken the opposition. </p>
<p>As has been the case for so much of the DRC’s history since independence, musicians rarely provide a critique, but continue to provide solace.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80201/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Salter works as an independent consultant in the Great Lakes Region. </span></em></p>For many of contemporary Congolese musicians the idea of authenticité was seen as a positive one at a certain level, even though Mobutu abused Congo culture to build his own personality cult.Thomas Salter, Musician, Academic, Consultant, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/673982016-11-03T17:41:45Z2016-11-03T17:41:45ZIs Trump a dictator in the making?<p>After using his presidential campaign to denigrate women, Latinos, Muslims, African Americans, war veterans and the disabled – among others – Donald Trump is rounding off the election by attacking some of the fundamental institutions of American democracy. After his final TV debate with Hillary Clinton, when asked if he would accept the election result, he responded: “<a href="http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/20/13343094/trump-concede-election-third-debate">I will keep you in suspense</a>.” </p>
<p>Standing next to him on the debate stage, Clinton <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/final-debate-2016-doanld-trump-hillary-clinton-214373">didn’t hold back</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>He is denigrating … our democracy. And I for one, am appalled that somebody who is the nominee of one of our two major parties would take that kind of position.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Though Trump attempted to clarify that there could be special circumstances whereby he might not accept the results, the damage had been done.</p>
<p>Rarely if ever has a presidential candidate posed such a threat to one of the core principles of democratic politics: the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/19/politics/presidential-debate-highlights/index.html">peaceful transfer of power</a>. And Trump’s recent pronouncements that the election is “rigged” and that he might not accept the outcome have led many to ask whether he in fact <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/10/17/donald-trump-may-be-a-threat-to-global-democracy-experts-warnscholars-of-dictators-alarmed-by-donald-trumps-attacks-on-election-system.html">poses a threat to democracy in general</a>. </p>
<p>There’s plenty of reason to worry. Trump certainly has not hidden his admiration for <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-s-history-praising-dictators-n604801">iron-fisted dictators and autocrats</a>. And though Clinton has repeatedly argued that Trump does not have the temperament to lead the US, he may have a temperament better suited to leading non-democratic countries. In fact, his behaviour during the campaign has been more than a little reminiscent of many of the world’s most notorious dictators.</p>
<p>One of the most notable traits of powerful dictators is intense narcissism. They see themselves as messianic figures; it is only they who can save the country from a life of misery. To promote his “godly” qualities, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hOzp3xgL1FwC&pg=PA229&lpg=PA229&dq=mobutu+clouds+zaire&source=bl&ots=67Q8l1m8Js&sig=VoYRfRzY6fTIkTzANNGamMgFKkI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwir5Lfg6ozQAhXmIMAKHV6WDe44ChDoAQg0MAU#v=onepage&q=mobutu%20clouds%20zaire&f=false">Joseph Mobutu of Zaire</a> had footage of his image descending through the clouds from the heavens screened prior to the television evening news. </p>
<p>Trump has also made much of his near-superhuman qualities in his speeches, including the one he gave at the Republican National Convention, in which he expounded on his belief that <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/trump-rnc-speech-alone-fix-it/492557/">he alone</a> could solve the US’s problems.</p>
<p>Many dictators also exhibit high levels of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/8982974/From-Fidel-Castro-to-Hugo-Chavez-with-great-power-comes-truly-great-paranoia.html">paranoia</a>. Kim Jong-il of North Korea was so paranoid about flying, fearing he would be assassinated, that he refused to travel by plane, no matter how time-consuming the alternative. Trump is not only a famous <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/blogs/ticket/germophobe-donald-trump-says-shake-hands-20110304-075209-979.html">germophobe</a>, he has shown his paranoia by claiming that the media is completely against him, the election is rigged and voter fraud will be rampant on election day. Though he exhibits inflated thoughts about his own popularity and appeal, he feels constantly certain that there are forces operating against him.</p>
<p>Many dictators also as time goes on become further removed from reality. They decrease the size of their inner circle to their most trusted advisors. And their entourage consists not of technocrats or experienced advisors that could challenge them, but of sycophants, eager to tell the dictator what he wants to hear. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein encouraged a culture of false reporting; anyone who offered him accurate information that he disagreed with was killed or purged. </p>
<p>Similarly, Trump is either ignoring his advisers or only listening to those who tell him what he wants to hear. In the latter stage of his campaign, he surrounded himself with like-minded ex-Fox News chief, Roger Ailes, and adoring surrogates such as Rudy Giuliani. There are reports that Trump has become <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-trump-tower-the-defiant-and-isolated-republican-nominee/2016/10/08/0b3575a0-8d8e-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html">increasingly isolated</a> from those that might offer advice that counters his strategy. </p>
<h2>Spare me the details</h2>
<p>Many dictators also have little patience for learning about policy, which they find downright tedious. They prefer to enjoy the spoils of power, and invest very little time in the business of actually governing. </p>
<p>Uganda’s Idi Amin found cabinet meetings boring and had little time for learning the ins and outs of government; he kept them to informal chats over a campfire. It’s been reported that Trump similarly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/24/us/politics/presidential-debate-hillary-clinton-donald-trump.html?_r=0">has little time</a> for policy briefings. While he prepared for his first debate with Clinton, his team conveyed that his preparation strategy was similarly informal, initially consisting of little more than a <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/293602-trump-meeting-at-golf-course-sunday-to-prepare-for-first">conversation on a golf course</a> with members of his inner circle. </p>
<p>Despots and autocrats who realise that the end is near often adopt a scorched-earth approach to their inevitable downfall; they cling to power until the very end, but are more than happy to cause maximum damage on the way out. After it became clear that he wouldn’t regain control of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8638556/Col-Muammar-Gaddafis-plan-to-blow-up-Tripoli.html">ordered his troops</a> to destroy any territory they couldn’t hold, including oil refineries and crucial infrastructure.</p>
<p>Trump’s habit of bridge-burning hints at the same mindset. After a tape from 2005 was released on which Trump could be heard speaking in extremely crude terms about women, many within the Republican Party called on him to step down; he retaliated against all those who dared challenge him, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-primary-is-over-but-donald-trump-keeps-attacking-fellow-republicans/2016/05/25/f1ab3c4e-2291-11e6-aa84-42391ba52c91_story.html">complaining</a> that it was more difficult to deal with them than with the Democrats. </p>
<p>Since becoming the nominee, Trump has repeatedly forced a great many Republicans to choose between him and their conscience. His party colleagues, even his own running mate, have been put in the awkward position of <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/videos/politics/2016/10/19/donald-trump-mike-pence-election-results-bash-tapper-intvu-bts.cnn">negating</a> his statements, publicly accepting that the elections are not rigged and promising that they will accept the outcome if they lose.</p>
<p>The spectacle of a potential leader exuberantly denigrating the country’s electoral institutions during a presidential campaign may be unprecedented in American history – but to people around the world who’ve lived and still live under the harsh rule of true autocrats, it must all seem chillingly familiar.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha Lindstaedt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ranting narcissists with no patience for detail have terrorised and suppressed their people the world over. Is a new one about to join their ranks?Natasha Lindstaedt, Senior Lecturer, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/588002016-05-04T11:34:50Z2016-05-04T11:34:50ZPapa Wemba: strong, but ambiguous bonds, with his motherland<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121035/original/image-20160503-19856-19jctdn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ivorians attend a memorial service for the late Congolese singer Papa Wemba in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, 27 April 2016.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Legnan Koula</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“The Kasaï Nightingale” was on stage, a flamboyantly dressed stage animal as always, when he collapsed from a sudden illness. The drummer completed his Rumba riff on the cymbal before stopping the music. The dancers rushed to the leader’s aid. The images of the last moments of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-36123966">Papa Wemba</a>, who died on Saturday 24 April 2016 at the Urban Musical Festival Anoumabo in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, consecrate the end of a superstar. He was one of the outstanding artists of the African continent.</p>
<p>Jules Shungu Wembadio Pene Kikumba, better known as Papa Wemba, was born in 1949 in a village in the Kasai province of what was then the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/21/arts/belgium-confronts-its-heart-darkness-unsavory-colonial-behavior-congo-will-be.html?pagewanted=all">Belgian Congo</a>. Like the character he interpreted in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094265/">La vie est belle</a> (a 1987 Congolese film) he moved to the capital city <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/special-report/2016/03/03/once-upon-time-it-was-kin-la-belle">Kinshasa</a> at an early age, his heart full of dreams of music and success. And Kinshasa, the beating heart of Central Africa’s vibrating music scene, granted all his wishes. Here he launched a career that would make him a world class musician.</p>
<h2>The chameleon of Congolese music</h2>
<p>The chameleon-like artistic itinerary of Papa Wemba follows in the footsteps of the evolution of the story of popular Congolese music. This was triggered by the contact of Congo basin traditional music with <a href="https://etudesafricaines.revues.org/161">Afro-Cuban</a> ensembles hired during the 1940s by the Belgians to entertain the colonial officers in Léopoldville (currently Kinshasa).</p>
<p>Trained as a singer in a church choir, Wemba’s debut in the music business was in the late ‘60s as Jules “Presley” with <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/zaiko-langa-langa-mn0000964011/biography">Zaiko Langa Langa</a>. They were a very successful band among urban youth, mixing classic Congolese <a href="http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/8619/carsten-hollers-ode-to-papa-wemba-and-congolese-rumba">Rumba</a> with elements of rock and soul. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121039/original/image-20160503-19828-t9426h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121039/original/image-20160503-19828-t9426h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121039/original/image-20160503-19828-t9426h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121039/original/image-20160503-19828-t9426h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121039/original/image-20160503-19828-t9426h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121039/original/image-20160503-19828-t9426h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121039/original/image-20160503-19828-t9426h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=493&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko (left) photographed in 1997 with Nelson Mandela and Laurent Kabila.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After a few years Wemba left Zaiko Langa Langa to form his own group <a href="http://www.liquisearch.com/papa_wemba/musical_history/isifi">Isifi Lokole</a>. The group was named after the lokole, a traditional slit drum. It was in line with the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=2UoQ-ueHjdEC&pg=PA1163&lpg=PA1163&dq=Authenticit%C3%A9+campaign&source=bl&ots=_EPFIob5DH&sig=YKuhQvgZc9hKaU-UY3QDcGnCviE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwip0u-o0r3MAhVCnRoKHR3QBqQQ6AEIIzAC#v=onepage&q=Authenticit%C3%A9%20campaign&f=false">Authenticité campaign</a> of pro-Africa cultural awareness launched by the dictator <a href="https://partners.nytimes.com/library/world/090897obit-mobutu.html">Mobutu Sese Seko</a>, who renamed the country Zaire.</p>
<h2>Presley becomes Papa</h2>
<p>The young band leader stopped using his first name. He dismissed his nickname “Presley”, as evocative of the Western invaders. Instead he adopted Wemba, preceded by “Papa”, the term of respect due to Congolese men of a ripe age.</p>
<p>In spite of these superficial changes, Wemba’s music continued thrilling Kinshasa youth with its experimental mixture of African and Western elements, of Congolese drums and synthesizers. In 1977, the singer founded <a href="http://www.radiookapi.net/2016/05/02/actualite/societe/le-village-molokai-rend-hommage-papa-wemba">Village Molokai</a>, a commune for musicians in the central district of Matonge. It is still a hotspot of open air concerts and nightlife in Kinshasa. </p>
<p>The musicians’ commune might recall <a href="http://www.nairaland.com/736840/unknown-soldier-invasion-kalakuta-republic">Kalakuta Republic</a>, Fela Kuti’s headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria. It was burned after an assault by the Nigerian army in the same year Molokai was founded. But unlike Fela’s social activism and political engagement, Papa Wemba’s revolution has been limited to music. This while idolising European fashion and largely employing electronic instruments. Wemba was also still backing up government campaigns, dedicating songs to Mobutu’s first wife.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.economist.com/node/2281725">Zairian nationalism</a> was using Congolese Rumba as a flag of Africanism. It was promoting the artists and creating a musical market and a broad audience for Congolese bands all across Sub-Saharan African countries. Papa Wemba thought of pushing that forward. Since the end of the 1970s he started touring Europe and collaborating with French artists, at the same time appealing to the audience in Kinshasa with a new Western touch in music and fashion.</p>
<h2>Fashion worship</h2>
<p>Wemba took fashion-worship to a new level with his new group Viva La Musica. He eventually became a central figure of <a href="http://www.lejournalinternational.fr/La-Sape-an-elegance-that-brought-peace-in-the-midst-of-Congolese-chaos_a1871.html">La Sape</a> (abbreviation for The Society of Ambiance-Makers and Elegant People), a controversial community of Kinshasa and Brazzaville young dandies characterised by their obsession for European clothing restyled in extravagant ways.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121041/original/image-20160503-19856-myo62u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121041/original/image-20160503-19856-myo62u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121041/original/image-20160503-19856-myo62u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121041/original/image-20160503-19856-myo62u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121041/original/image-20160503-19856-myo62u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121041/original/image-20160503-19856-myo62u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121041/original/image-20160503-19856-myo62u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A member of the Sapeurs walks past Papa Wemba’s coffin in Kinshasa, DRC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Habibou Bangre</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Wemba, the headman of the “Rumba Rock”, decided to <a href="http://www.sundaystandard.info/%E2%80%9C-day-papa-wemba-died%E2%80%9D">“play music for all the humanity, not only for the Zaireans any more”</a>, he did so keeping an eye on his city, affectionately known as Kin la belle. But Papa Wemba settled his business in Europe and became a Belgian citizen. Still, he maintained a Kinshasa section of his band <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36131322">Viva La Musica</a>.</p>
<p>Together with Senegal’s <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/youssou-ndour-mn0000692100/biography">Youssou N’Dour</a>, Wemba has been one of the first African musicians to take advantage of the increasing market of so-called “<a href="http://www.insideworldmusic.com/library/bl1011.htm">world music</a>”. He signed with British singer <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/peter-gabriel-mn0000842802/biography">Peter Gabriel</a>’s <a href="https://realworldrecords.com/artist/473/papa-wemba/">Real World</a> record label in 1992, touring the world with his successful albums. Since then, Papa Wemba has received worldwide an endless list of awards and recognitions.</p>
<p>Wemba’s strong bonds with his motherland had been manifested also in ambiguous ways. In 2003, Papa Wemba was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/07/france.congo">arrested in Paris</a> for being involved in a network that has smuggled hundreds of undocumented migrants from the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13283212">Democratic Republic of the Congo</a> (Zaire’s new name) into Europe. Wemba claimed that if he ever took money, it was “for humanitarian reasons, so a few children could escape the terrible conditions that exist in the country”.</p>
<h2>God’s prison visit</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, he faced three and a half months in prison, before the Congolese government paid the bail for him. The artist spent this period in intensive prayer, until – as shown in his song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuDaPGJDfdM">Numéro d'Ècrou</a>’s video – God paid a visit to his cell, as a consequence of his spiritual conversion. Wemba’s versatility turned the conviction into a new career opportunity, leading the artist to a series of projects promoted by the <a href="https://www.modernghana.com/news/360908/african-music-stars-sing-for-new-vatican-cd.html">Vatican</a>.</p>
<p>When he was asked to comment on Joseph Kabila’s will for a third presidential term despite the Congolese constitution forbidding this, Wemba declined to answer. Politics is a matter for politicians; as a musician, his role is to give “<a href="http://www.jeuneafrique.com/164206/politique/rdc-papa-wemba-je-soutiens-joseph-kabila-parce-qu-il-a-t-lu/">taste for life</a>” to the people and to sustain whomever is elected.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121038/original/image-20160503-19865-kp4vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121038/original/image-20160503-19865-kp4vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121038/original/image-20160503-19865-kp4vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121038/original/image-20160503-19865-kp4vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121038/original/image-20160503-19865-kp4vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121038/original/image-20160503-19865-kp4vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121038/original/image-20160503-19865-kp4vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1026&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Lucas Jackson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This view has always been very popular among Congolese musicians. Even though facing a strong and oppressive political power, many singers praise wealthy and powerful people in their songs (a practice called <a href="http://archived.thisisafrica.me/music/detail/20056/how-do-artists-congolese-artists-make-money-libanga-drc-s-phenomenon-of-commercialised-praise-singing">libanga</a>) to make money. </p>
<p>Times seem to be changing. A radical movement called <a href="https://translate.google.co.za/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.jeuneafrique.com/207585/politique/rdc-quand-les-combattants-s-en-m-lent/&prev=search">Les Combattans</a>, active in the last few years among Diasporic communities, systematically boycotts Congolese musicians when performing abroad. They punish them for colluding with Kabila’s regime and being indifferent to the country’s disasters and misery. </p>
<p>Wemba repeatedly invited Les Combattants to “<a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1qr8qj_papa-wemba-la-rumba-congolaise-n-aura-jamais-de-rides_music">smoke the peace pipe</a>” for the sake of a united Congo. On the contrary, the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/15/dr-congo-release-7-detained-democracy-activists">political tension</a> in the Democratic Republic of Congo is raising, and a new generation of musicians is singing the claim for democracy and social justice, together with the <a href="http://www.voanews.com/content/congo-frees-musicians-arrested-democracy/2687290.html">activists</a>. </p>
<p>Viva La Musica, anyway.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58800/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eugenio Giorgianni receives funding from Crossland Scholarship. </span></em></p>Congolese singer Papa Wemba might have been one of Africa’s best loved musicians - but his politics wasn’t popular with all his compatriots.Eugenio Giorgianni, PhD student in Music, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.