A short history of the Congo wars and rebellions: 1996-2006

What came to be known as the First Congo War (1996-97) began when Rwanda and Uganda, formally in support of a Congolese rebel group led by Laurent-Desiré Kabila, invaded what was then Zaire in response to cross-border attacks by Interahamwe extremists driven from Rwanda after the genocide. Zaire was a mere shadow of a state after decades during which President Mobutu kept state institutions, especially the armed forces, weak and corrupt so they were more easily controlled. Kabila was installed as the new president, but relations between him and his patrons soured rapidly. The subsequent Second Congo War (1998-2003), where the Rwandans and Ugandans dug in on one side, with the DRC and a plethora of African states on the other, still had a clear regional dimension. The overriding conflict dynamics were starting to change, though. First, the economic dimension of the conflict became more obvious: all sides were involved in the export of minerals and other valuable goods from the areas under their control. Second, the presence of armed forces sped up the process of local mobilisation and self-defence groups, or ‘mayi-mayi’, became increasingly active all across eastern DRC.[3] Mayi-mayi used their new prominence to control territory and try to be of benefit to their own communities vis-à-vis others.[4]

After a series of peace agreements in 2002 led the regional states to leave the DRC, two principal armed groups with a foreign dimension remained active. The first was (what would later be called) the Congrès National pour la Défense du People (CNDP), a movement of mainly North Kivutian ‘Rwandophone’ Congolese, whose ancestors had migrated from Rwanda over the 20^th century, and are still seen as outsiders by many ‘autochthonous’ Congolese.[5] The CNDP received tactical and material support from Rwanda, which used the group as a proxy force to control a strategic buffer zone along its border with Congo. The CNDP set up parallel administrations in strategic parts of North Kivu. The second group was the Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération de Rwanda (FDLR), led by former Hutu extremists and Rwandan ex-armed forces who had fled Rwanda after 1994. Their official goal was to take back Rwanda from President Kagame’s ‘Tutsi regime’, though their ideological motivation may well have been replaced by a more economic one over the years, as they became increasingly involved in the mining business, settled down in Congolese society, and attracted or pressured into service an increasing number of Congolese recruits.[6] The FDLR has had a long working arrangement with the Congolese armed forces, the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC), which used them to counter the influence of the CNDP and Rwanda’s wider agenda.[7] The CNDP, the FDLR and the FARDC fought each other over the next few years, trying to wrest territory from each other and making ad hoc agreements with the various mayi-mayi groups in the area, who often opportunistically switched sides. Aside from the population displacement that the fighting caused, the Kivutian dislike of ‘foreigners’ increased exponentially. This would have a lasting impact on already strained inter-tribal tensions.

With violence worsening across the eastern provinces, and in support of the Congolese government, the Security Council mandated a peacekeeping mission, the Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies en Republique Democratique du Congo, MONUC, from 1999 onwards. The mission started as a small force of observers to monitor the implementation of the various peace agreements, but rapidly scaled up in the following seven years with infantry support and air assets as violence spread across the east. It is from this point onwards, roughly 2006, that a cyclical dynamic can be noticed in how the Congolese government, with MONUC in tow, responded to the crisis in the eastern provinces.[8] As will be seen, short-term responses have dominated the government’s approach to dealing with armed groups in the east, and the international community has had little choice but to follow suit.

The first cycle: from the 2006 elections to the 23rd March 2009 agreement

In early 2006, relations between the government and the international community were relatively good and there was a joint sense of purpose. President Joseph Kabila and his government needed all the outside support they could get: first, to support the army against the armed groups who went against the peace agreements; and second, for the enormous logistical support required to organise the country’s first-ever democratic elections that were planned for that year. MONUC expanded rapidly, moving assets to the eastern provinces to take a more hands-on approach to protecting the population.

The cyclical downswing set in after the elections. Once Kabila was elected president and the subsequent electoral violence was quelled, the relationship between the government and the UN became frostier. The government felt that its power had been consolidated and legitimised, and resorted increasingly to short-term and politically painless solutions for the east.[9] Violence in the Kivus and Ituri was presented as a law-and-order problem caused by bandits, rather than linked to the grievances of the local population. Reform of the country’s army was nominally started but turned into a largely technical training exercise instead of improving control and oversight. Military operations against the armed groups mainly succeeded in temporarily pushing the rebels around the countryside and led to the large-scale displacement of the population. This lukewarm approach left the eastern provinces more insecure than ever. Armed mayi-mayi groups multiplied, making use of the resulting security vacuum and mobilising to protect their communities and their own interests, and controlling increasing swathes of territory. Resentment against the state grew.[10] The military offensives against the CNDP failed to gain traction. The low point came when a well-disciplined rebel force consisting of the CNDP and their media-savvy commander, Laurent Nkunda, together with a number of smaller groups, marched on Goma in late 2008. The Congolese army was scattered and Kinshasa was forced to come to MONUC and the international partners for support. A ‘carrot and stick’ approach was used: for the stick, MONUC used its gunships to fight off the CNDP from the outskirts of Goma; for the carrot, the government opened up its army integration process to the armed groups.

This started the upswing of the cycle. At the end of 2008, the Goma accords were signed, in which a host of local armed groups came together to lay down their arms and openly debate the grievances, disappointments and ambitions of the people of the east.[11] This left the CNDP and the FDLR, but unbeknownst to the international community, Kinshasa and Kigali had been negotiating a secret rapprochement. The CNDP, under pressure from Kigali, had its commander, Nkunda arrested and replaced. The rebel movement integrated into the FARDC, and joint operations of the Rwandan and Congolese armies pushed the FDLR back into the bush. The 23rd March 2009 agreement formalised this arrangement.

The second cycle: from the 2009 agreement to the defeat of the M23

In early 2009, the Congo and its international supporters were in an optimistic mood. The Goma accords and the 23rd March agreement were enthusiastically welcomed as a fundamental break with the past. This was the moment when international partners would begin to consider the eastern provinces of the DRC as a ‘post-conflict zone’ and adjust their development toolkits to support a transition to ‘normalcy’. However, this optimism overlooked a few critical dilemmas and, as a result, the cyclical downswing was right around the corner.

The respite given by the Goma accords of 2008 and the 23rd March agreement of 2009 was temporary at best. The 2008-2012 ‘post-conflict’ period would see some of the worst insecurity in the country’s history. In the wake of the 2009 operations, the government did little to support an inclusive peacebuilding process and focused instead on a consolidation of its power and expansion of its military control over the east. From 2009 onwards, the FARDC undertook an open-ended military operation, rather ironically named ‘Amani Leo’ (‘peace today’), which was dominated by integrated CNDP cadres and managed to severely worsen the security situation. The FARDC behaved so badly that MONUC was forced to start a conditionality policy and would only support FARDC brigades whose commanders had a clean human rights record. The integration of the armed groups had made the army bloated and increasingly difficult to control. People were caught in a pendulum movement between the poorly disciplined FARDC and the armed groups, and many thousands were displaced.[12] The countryside became heavily militarised and there was a mushrooming of armed groups, who took control of large swathes of the Kivus and Ituri.[13] Moreover, the government again began to cold-shoulder its international partners. Integrating the rebels into the army had provided a temporary ‘solution’ and Kinshasa felt it needed less international support and monitoring as a result. Under pressure from the government, MONUC was turned into MONUSCO in 2010, with the ‘S’ in stabilization indicating that a return to ‘normalcy’ was envisaged down the line, even if this was not reflected by what was happening on the ground.[14] However, as the mission still did not consider that its mandate was to provide direct fighting support to military operations, the central government announced to MONUSCO in 2011 that it had to start drawing down its presence.[15] The mission also had to provide substantial logistical support to the 2011 elections, which were marred by fraud and, predictably, won by the ruling coalition.[16] By 2012, MONUSCO had effectively been battered into a corner by the government.

The low point of the cycle was soon to hit with a vengeance. With antipathy building within the armed forces, and with the population opposed to the integrated CNDP cadres, it was only a question of time before the bubble burst. This happened in 2012 when President Kabila, under heavy internal pressure, decided to dismantle the Amani Leo operation. This decision cut many CNDP officers out of the army’s command chain and threatened their grip on strategic areas under their control. Some of these CNDP cadres broke off, formed the M23 and organised the most substantial revolt against the government in years. The M23 received the support of Rwanda, which was worried about the loss of a CNDP-dominated security buffer on its borders.[17] The M23 routed the army in a manner of months and marched on the capital city of North Kivu province, Goma, in December 2012. The FARDC fled, and MONUSCO, which interpreted its mandate to only support the FARDC and not fight on its own, stood aside and let the rebels take the town. After a decade of peacekeeping, the strategic centre of the eastern DRC fell into the hands of a rebel movement: a more symbolic defeat could hardly be imagined. The government’s emphasis on expanding its control over the east through force while letting the political causes of the conflict fester had once more backfired badly.

The fall of Goma made the pendulum swing back. The government had to once again work with the international community, after having sidelined it over the past few years. A period of frantic international diplomacy followed, in which the Security Council threw its unconditional support behind Kinshasa, a regional peace agreement was envisioned, and heavy international pressure brought to bear on Kigali to keep away from the M23. The crisis atmosphere inside both MONUSCO and the central government was clear. A Force Intervention Brigade, consisting of concerned regional states (South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi) was set up under the mission’s mandate to provide combat support, or even fight armed groups unilaterally – a clear break with the past. The Congolese government agreed to an oversight mechanism that would keep track of the implementation of the same reforms it had blocked over the previous year. The upswing of the cycle gained momentum over 2013: there was a noticeable thaw in relations between Kinshasa and its international partners, the government ‘talked the talk’ about the need for cooperation and reform, and a regional agreement for collaboration in the region, the Peace, Security and Collaboration Framework (PSCF) was signed and brought the regional states together for an inclusive dialogue – it was even dubbed the ‘Framework of Hope’ by the incoming UN Special Envoy for the region, Mary Robinson. Finally the M23 was beaten back and militarily defeated at the end of that year through a joint effort by the Congolese army and MONUSCO’s Intervention Brigade. At the end of 2013, much as in 2009, the mood was festive: the country had turned a page, and peace was finally in sight after so many years. And again, unfortunately, there was considerable wishful thinking involved.

The third cycle: a new downturn post-M23

The defeat of the M23, and with that the elimination of a threat to the government’s control over strategic areas in the east, seems to have once again changed Kinshasa’s attitude. A third cyclical downturn, after 2006-2009 and 2009-2012, may well have set in. As far as the government is concerned, the war against the M23 has been won – and with that threat to regime control disappearing, so is the need to kowtow to the international community. With the crisis over, the government is again focusing on consolidating power in the east, by force if it has to. This is apparent from what has happened in the post-M23 period in terms of security and politics.

In terms of security, the supposed ‘window of opportunity’ created by the defeat of the M23 did not lead to a thought-out military-strategic approach nor to a more secure eastern DRC. Post-M23, the Kivus, Northern Katanga and Orientale province are still home to dozens of mayi-mayi movements that seem to be as active as ever.[18]

Illustrative of the situation is the plight of ‘foreign’ armed groups. Since the ‘Rwandan’ ex-M23 was defeated, Kinshasa has been politically neutralising the last remnants of the movement. The Ministry of Defence developed a new demobilisation programme (the ‘PNDDR-III’) that sent a first group of ex-M23 fighters to camps on the other side of the country, far away from their communities of support, despite international criticisms that this amounts to forcible displacement.[19] Donors have not been enthusiastic about funding the programme so far, and with supplies running short, several people have starved in the camps.[20] This has obviously not motivated the remaining ex-M23, currently in camps in Uganda and Rwanda, to return to Congo. Several of the former rebels decided to ‘auto-demobilise’ instead and flee into the bush. As long as the ex-M23 are in camps, however, they are no bother to the government, so there is little urgency on Kinshasa’s side to move forward with the demobilisation and reintegration programme. While the neutralisation of the M23 was going on, military operations were launched against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in the northern part of North Kivu. The ADF had barely registered in this story so far: it was a small movement, led by Ugandan (supposed) Muslim extremists who used the Congo as a fall-out base against the Museveni government. However, the conflict around the ADF, in true Congolese fashion, expanded and mutated rapidly throughout 2014. Where the army initially drove the movement back, a number of smaller politico-military networks and copycat groups started causing trouble, claiming to be ADF but in fact using this mantle to settle scores and manoeuvre political allies into important positions at community level.[21] Over 300 people have been brutally murdered since late 2014, with the government denying that this has to do with grassroots tensions and blaming Ugandan influences instead. The FARDC has been given free rein to ‘stamp out’ these threats, with dubious results so far.

Perhaps the strongest piece of evidence that the government is returning to ‘business as usual’, is its engagement with what are, arguably, the biggest spoilers of regional peace, the former Rwandan genocidaires of the FDLR. After the defeat of the M23, there was a widespread belief that the FDLR would be next to be knocked out militarily. The government, however, did not seem to share this opinion. With the war against the M23 over, the FDLR could once again be kept on hand as a tool against ‘Rwandophone influences’ in the eastern provinces. A textbook version of stalling and spin started.[22] The FDLR, not for the first time, announced that it was ready to disarm and surrender. This gave the government the excuse it needed to delay operations. The delay was used by the rebel movement to demobilise its older and disabled members and ­re-organise itself, after which it re-launched its usual demands of amnesty for senior leaders and participation in the Rwandan political process – demands they know are unacceptable forKigali. With matters politically blocked this way, a new deadline for the FDLR’s surrender was set for January 2015. With international pressure mounting, Kinshasa made a clever strategic move. To lead the anti-FDLR operation it appointed two generals who had been blacklisted by the UN for human rights abuses, which meant that the UN peacekeeping mission, under its conditionality principle, would be unable to participate.[23] This not only kept the pace of any upcoming operations firmly in the hands of the Congolese government, but also gave Kinshasa an argument to criticise MONUSCO for not supporting the Congolese army after first accusing it of dragging its feet. Kinshasa has pushed MONUSCO on the defensive this way, and has been arguing for a substantial downsizing of the peacekeeping force. At the time of writing (early 2015), FARDC operations have started, with an uncertain outcome. Military operations have in the past managed to weaken but never destroy the FDLR, as they move around and have no fixed support base among the population and, more importantly, rebel commanders were warned about operations in advance by FARDC officers.[24] There are few reasons to be more optimistic about operations this time around.

On the political front, there seems to be little left of the ambitions of 2013-14 either. At the regional level, the Peace, Security and Collaboration Framework (PSCF), the ‘Framework of Hope’ has lost most of its momentum. Mistrust between the countries of the Great Lakes region is as great as ever, and seems to be crystallizing around a Uganda/Rwanda bloc and a DRC/Angola/ South African Development Community (SADC) bloc.[25] Rwanda is furious at the delay around FDLR operations, which it sees as a genocidal enemy of its people. If Kigali decides to turn its back on the regional agreement, it would turn the PSCF into a lame duck. The National Oversight Mechanism, which came with the PSCF and was meant to keep track of national reforms in the Congo, is not doing much better. Kinshasa claimed that it wanted to form a ‘government of national unity’ before moving on any reforms; when this finally happened after a year’s delay, in December 2014, it was filled with the president’s political allies, the same people who have blocked these reforms over the last decade. Reform of the army is a painful example of what is perhaps the most critical reform for peace consolidation in the eastern DRC. Despite all the initial post-M23 talk of rightsizing the armed forces, President Kabila informed SRSG Martin Kobler, the head of the peacekeeping mission, that he is not interested in outside support beyond the provision of equipment and training.[26]

Instead of engaging with the political issues underlying the conflict, the government seems to have spent most of its energies in the post-M23 period on finding ways to consolidate the power of the president and his party as the end of his elected mandate in 2016 approaches. Various stalling manoeuvres for the elections have been used: an unclear electoral calendar, the formation of a government of national unity, attempts to change the constitution to allow the president to run for a third term, holding a nationwide census, and re-drawing electoral boundaries to hold local elections.[27] At the time of writing, it is unclear where the process is heading and how far the ruling coalition is willing to go to hold on to power, but Kinshasa’s electoral machinations are creating resentment with many Congolese.

Finally, in late 2014 and early 2015 the government made it very clear to its international partners that it would no longer tolerate what it sees as interference with its sovereign prerogatives. Public speeches lambasted the idea that ‘external solutions’ were valid for national issues.[28] The collected ambassadors of the Congo’s donor states were given to understand that the country ‘will never be co-managed with a club of diplomats’.[29] The tone is as sharp as anything experienced in 2011. MONUSCO was singled out for special treatment. The discussion around the drawdown of the mission, supposedly because of lower security risks, had begun in 2014 but was given extra impetus by the mission’s decision not to support anti-FDLR operations.[30] MONUSCO was accused of hypocrisy, of trying to blackmail the government and of holding the army back in its fight against armed groups.[31] To add insult to injury, the head of MONUSCO’s human rights division was declared persona non grata for supposed anti-government bias in his section’s reports, making it clear that a critical tone towards Kinshasa would no longer be tolerated.[32] At the time of writing, relations between the peacekeeping mission and Kinshasa are worse than ever.

It is important, at this point, to take a step back and focus on the background story: why didn’t the various military offensives against the armed groups achieve the expected results? And why does the government engage in such a short-term way with the political problems in the east? We shall turn to this next.