Eastern DRC Research Articles

BRINGING HISTORY BACK IN: PAST, PRESENT, AND CONFLICT IN RWANDA AND THE EASTERN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

AbstractThis article argues that on the borderland between eastern DRC and Rwanda, the past and its representations have been constantly manipulated. The cataclysmic events in both Rwanda and Congo since the 1990s have widened the gap between partial and politicized historical discourse and careful historical analysis. The failure to pay attention to the multiple layers in the production of historical narratives risks reproducing a politicized social present that ‘naturalizes’ differences and antagonisms between different groups by giving them more time-depth. This is a danger both for insiders and outsiders looking in. The answer is to focus on the historical trajectories that shape historical narratives, and to ‘bring history back in’.

A miner’s canary in eastern Congo: Formalisation of artisanal 3T mining and precarious livelihoods in South Kivu

Numerous initiatives are currently trying to reform eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) ill-reputed artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector through formalisation, traceability, and certification of the region’s trade in tantalum, tin, and tungsten (3T). While this ethically driven impetus derives from consumer pressure following numerous reports on the militarisation of the area’s ASM sector and concomitant human rights abuses, the ability of the resulting initiatives to address these problems remains unclear. In this paper, we enhance long-term qualitative research with an experimental quantitative survey to generate insights into two questions: how has the formalisation of eastern DRC’s resource markets, through traceability and certification, altered the socio-economic dynamics around artisanal mines and trading routes? What is its actual impact on the everyday life of miners, their families, and associated professions? Based on in-depth research in South Kivu, a pioneer case for traceability and certification of 3T mining, we demonstrate the ambiguous outcome of these reforms so far and analyse how they threaten an informal ASM sector already in jeopardy. In figurative terms, the artisanal miners themselves have become a proverbial ‘miner’s canary’ whose livelihoods are increasingly under stress in sequence to formalisation efforts.

Sexual violence issues in eastern DRC: processes of global and local co-constitution

According to Séverine Autesserre, there is a dominant culture within the field of international peacebuilding in the Democratic Republic of Congo that excludes any action at the local level. This dichotomy between the local and the global is also noticeable in terms of women's rights, where international human rights law and local customs are opposed. But in order to grasp the complexity of the emancipation movements of the female victims of violence in North Kivu, we must consider the multiplicity of the semi-autonomous social fields that regulate the lives of individuals on the local and global spheres, as well as the social actors’ interactions within these spaces. Using the results of an ethnography study carried out in North Kivu between 2011 and 2012, we will see that these actors not only construct law, but they also inhabit normative systems built and maintained by them.

Sons of the Soil Conflict in Africa: Institutional Determinants of Ethnic Conflict Over Land

Can the political science literature on sons-of-the-soil (SoS) conflict and civil war explain patterns of ethnic conflict over land in sub-Saharan Africa? Sons-of-the-soil terminology, developed with reference to conflicts in South Asia, has been used to describe some of Africa’s most violent or enduring conflicts, including those in eastern DRC, northern Uganda, the Casamance Region of Senegal, and southwestern Côte d'Ivoire. Is Africa becoming more like South Asia, where land scarcity has often fueled conflicts between indigenous land owners and in-migrants? This paper argues that political science theories that focus on rural migration and land scarcity alone to explain outbreaks of SoS conflict in Asia fall short in Africa because they are underdetermining. The paper proposes a model of structure and variation in land tenure institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, and argues that these factors are critical in explaining the presence of absence of SoS conflict over land. This conceptualization of the problem highlights the strong role of the state in structuring relations of land use and access, and suggests that the character of local state-backed land institutions goes far in accounting for the presence or absence, scale, location, and triggering of large-scale SoS land conflict in zones of smallholder agriculture. A meta-study of 24 subnational cases of land conflict (1990–2014), drawn from secondary and primary sources and field observations, generates case-based support for the argument. The study suggests that omission of land-tenure institution variables enfeebles earlier political science theory, and may inadvertently lead policy makers and practitioners to the erroneous conclusion that in rural Africa, primordial groups compete for land in an anarchic state of nature.

Prevalence of angular leaf spot disease and sources of resistance in common bean in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Angular leaf spot ( Pseudocercospora griseola Crous U, Brown) is one of the most important diseases hindering common bean ( Phaseolus vulgaris L.) production in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo. The disease causes extreme yield losses, estimated at 384.2 tonnes per year, in Sub-Saharan Africa. Little is known about the distribution, severity and incidence of the disease and the effect of agronomic practices and environmental factors on the disease prevalence in the country to facilitate interventions. A field survey was conducted during two crop seasons, February to June and September to January, in two main beans growing zones of eastern DRC namely; sub-humid highland and sub-humid mid altitude at low latitudes, in South and North Kivu, respectively. Severity and incidence of angular leaf-spot and other occurring diseases were assessed on common bean plants in farmers’ fields. Angular leaf spot in these fields had an average severity index (PSI) of 49.9%. PSI was significantly different (P<0.05) between districts and seasons. Using multiple regression analysis, independent variables: growth stage, cropping system, districts and altitude were shown to have significant influence on the observed PSI (P<0.05) with R 2 = 96.2%. The highest severity (PSI=59.7%) was observed in Kabare district, and the lowest in Uvira district (PSI=39.5%). Screening of a set of 37 released common bean varieties in DRC using virulent Andean and Mesoamerican isolates identified four resistant bean varieties; ARA 4, COD MLV 059, MLV 224/94B, LSA 144 and Mexico 54. Some of these varieties possess useful traits, in addition to acceptable seed market class, and are hence recommended as suitable parents for ALS resistant variety development and promotion in ALS prone environments. Keywords: Phaseolus vulgaris , Pseudocercospora griseola , severity

La souffrance aux confins de la coutume et de la science : le psycho-traumatisme chez un soignant, fils du roi en République Démocratique du Congo

IntroductionCulture is produced by a field of data transmitted by custom, which set themselves up among those of scientific backgrounds, from scholar education. In Africa, due to historical reasons, academic and traditional educations are two different, parallel paths of learning taken by children. They are respectively secreted by two different sources: the tradition is locally produced whereas school education comes from the West. The process of understanding sickness requires attribution of meaning, the case of Mr B. exposes us the how and the why the African draws, strategically, in both production sources of his culture to attribute meaning to sickness. ResultsMr B. grew up in the royal court, emblematic symbol of the pure tradition. Child in a village in the forest, he braved all difficult to access education. After high school, he worked as a teacher in his village before the insecurity forced him to leave and settle in a city, considered relatively secure and trading hub, 20 kilometers from his village. Having no access to the school where he taught, Mr B. decided to complete his studies downtown, in nursing. Finally graduated, he was hired by the Congolese organization of emergency management, Croix-Rouge du Congo, the Congolese national branch of the Red Cross International. As head of an aid worker team, Mr B. is led to deal with disasters, especially those produced by the exactions of armed groups given the current state of the security context in eastern DRC. In the middle of a mission, to intervene in a slaughter in which was killed thirty-eight people, a psychic trauma was triggered in him. Alongside the literary descriptions – learned in school and used every day for his patients – the reading of his own suffering is traditional first. Mr B. has managed to subtly carry his illness within an area where mix Western type treatment and traditional type. This disease was, in addition, an opportunity for rereading family ties, relationships between his – very demanding – work and his father's will. The king's witch doctor, the same who treated his father, provided the key, by his ritual to soothe family disputes. He also updated the meaning of symbols in order to establish individual and collective narrative identity, so that Mr B.’s work is no longer in conflict with his deceased father's will. ConclusionThe value of this case lies in the reflection on modernity in the African health system to provide mediation between two intentionally made heterogeneous universes: the theories of some against realities of living of others. Caregiver training in DRC and Africa, while remaining scientist, would benefit from being closer to cultural practices to finally aspire to its note of nobility: producing caregivers for Africans.

Presence of species within the Anopheles gambiae complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Anopheles gambiae s.l. is the primary vector of malaria in the Democratic Republic of Congo, however, there is little data on the species from this complex present in the country. This paper presents the species collected (as determined by PCR) between 2004 and 2011 in 16 locations across the country. The two species from the An. gambiae complex that were detected were An. coluzzii and An. gambiae s.s. An. gambiae s.s. was predominant in eastern DRC, whereas An. coluzzii was the main species found in several locations in Bandundu. The species were also found in sympatry in several locations (Kinshasa, Kisangani, Lodja). These results provide a basis for future work, which is needed to accurately describe the distribution of the An. gambiae complex species in DRC.

Sexual Violence in the Congo Free State: Archival Traces and Present Reconfigurations

Western imaginings and colonially scripted images of the Congo as barbaric, savage and the Heart of Darkness have dominated understandings of events in the DRC since its colonial inception (Dunn 2003). The contemporary global focus on sexual violence in the armed conflict of eastern DRC has only reinforced such framings. While sexual violence has always captured the social imagination before the Congo, the political frame through which it is articulated has made sexual violence “the major horrendous crime of our time” and “an exceptional form of brutality”1. Drawing on largely unused archival material, obtained at the Royal Museum of Central Africa and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Belgium, this paper sheds light on how sexual violence prefigured our own times in King Leopold II’s Congo Free State (1885 – 1908). The vivid memories and testimonies of the grotesque and spectacular violence inflicted upon the Congolese are similar to the sexual atrocities that have taken place in the current conflict in eastern DRC. These memories are in Mbembe’s (2007) words “traces and fragments” of colonial violence and excessive abuses. Yet, today’s international security discourses occur in the midst of an almost complete absence of such history and its memories. Ultimately it is argued that viewing the contemporary and colonial violence as “repetitions in history” (Hunt 2008) is crucial to understand how colonial “traces” live on in the present and are naturalised by history and politics.

Securing (in)security: relinking violence and the trade in cannabis sativa in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

The handful of studies that exist linking illegal drugs and violence in Africa tend to focus on understanding the role of drugs in shaping armed conflict. The reported linkages made between the trade in cannabis sativa and the continuing violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo are exemplars. Contemporary reports of cannabis use in the region have largely focused on two main concerns: the psychophysiological effects of drug use on conflict actors and the participation of cannabis within the war economy. According to these narratives, drugs and violence are seen to go together, destabilising society, creating insecurity, and spreading HIV. Drawing from four months of qualitative research on the cannabis trade in eastern DRC, this paper presents an alternative story of drug-related violence in the region. Namely, it argues that the dangers stemming from an entanglement with the drug are rather, as one informant aptly stated, the result of ‘security’.

Different faces of access control in a Congolese gold mine

Mukungwe is a gold mine in eastern DRC, where mineral resources are commonly labelled ‘conflict minerals’. Although Mukungwe’s history has been characterised by conflict, we do not analyse the conflict here as a mere example of a mineral resource conflict. This article offers a more contextual understanding, starting from a detailed ethnographic and historical account and inspired by the literature on access control. In this sense, violence is understood as but one of the mechanisms of access control. Based on ethnographic and archival research, this article offers insights into the narratives and practices of the conflict’s key players.

Increasing exploitation of grey parrots in eastern DRC drives population declines

Increasing exploitation of grey parrots in eastern DRC drives population declines

LES PLANTES MÉDICINALES DE LA RÉGION MONTAGNEUSE DE KAHUZI- BIEGA EN RÉPUBLIQUE DÉMOCRATIQUE DU CONGO : UTILISATION, ACCESSIBILITÉ ET CONSENSUS DES TRADIPRATICIENS

En ethnobotanique, des aspects comme l’influence de l’accessibilité d’une plante sur sa fréquence d’usage, le consensus entre les tradipraticiens autour des rela- tions maladie-plante ainsi que le degré de fidélité d’une plante à une catégorie de maladies sont essentiels pour évaluer une tradition médicinale ; mais ils sont d’une interprétation difficile. Nous avons exploré ces aspects dans cette étude basée sur des entretiens semi-structurés avec 88 tradi- praticiens issus des communautés Batwa, Havu, Shi et Tembo dans les localités situées à proximité de la forêt de montagne du Parc national de Kahuzi-Biega, en pro- vince du Sud-Kivu, à l’Est de la République démocratique du Congo. Il s’avère que 77 espèces végétales sont utilisées pour traiter les pathologies regroupées dans 18 catégories de maladies, dont les plus fré- quentes sont les troubles digestifs et les infections. Lesfeuilles et les écorces sont les parties les plus utilisées dans les recettes majoritairement monoplantes et principa- lement préparées en solutions aqueuses. Bien que la corrélation entre l’accessibilité des plantes et leurs fréquences d’usage soit positive (H = 17,64 ; p &lt; 0,001), certaines plantes forestières pourtant moins acces- sibles connaissent des fréquences d’usage particulièrement élevées. Le facteur de consensus des tradipraticiens est globale- ment élevé, particulièrement pour les caté- gories de troubles musculo-squelettiques (= 0,83) et les infections (= 0,80). Toutes les catégories de maladies fidélisent au moins une plante malgré les taux globalement faibles. Bien qu’exploratoires, nos résultats suggèrent un certain ancrage d’une tradi- tion médicinale au sein de communautés locales de la région. Cet ancrage suppose une bonne connaissance des plantes médicinales, une transmission intergénéra- tionnelle des savoirs ainsi qu’une certaine collaboration entre les tradipraticiens. Plus d’études sont nécessaires pour évaluer davantage ces différents aspects.

Explaining the uneven distribution of conflict-mineral policy implementation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: The role of the Katanga policy network (2009–2011)

There exists a widespread assumption that many of the belligerent parties in eastern DRC finance part of their war efforts through the sale of mineral ores originating from the areas under their control. As a result, recent years have witnessed the launch of various national and international initiatives to make the Congolese artisanal mining sector more transparent and to prevent so-called 'conflict minerals' from entering the legitimate international market. A strikingly paradoxical feature of these initiatives is that, in terms of the level of implementation, the conflict-ridden Kivu provinces are lagging far behind the relatively stable province of Katanga. This paper argues that the concentration of conflict mineral policy implementation in Katanga can, to a very large extent, be attributed to the role of the 'Katanga policy network', a group of highly influential public and private actors closely working together towards the reform of the province's artisanal and small-scale mining sector. In line with the dialectical approach to policy networks advocated by Marsh and Smith, the paper examines three types of interactive relationships: between the structure of the Katangese policy network and the agents operating within them; between the Katangese policy network and the context in which it operates; and between the Katangese policy network and the policy outcome.

Community-based surveillance to monitor trends in unaccompanied and separated children in eastern DRC

Children who are separated from their families and usual caregivers in emergencies face a multitude of risks. The humanitarian community lacks methods to systematically capture changes in the frequency and nature of such separations over time. A mobile phone-based community surveillance system was piloted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The goal was to identify new cases of unaccompanied and separated children on a weekly basis. Over an 11-week period, community focal points reported 62 cases of separation across 10 communities. The majority of children had been under the care of their parents prior to separation. More than half of the children were unaccompanied, meaning that they were living without an adult relative or customary caregiver. The pilot results suggest that implementing a mobile phone-based surveillance system in a humanitarian setting may be feasible and cost-effective and fills a critical gap in the measurement of separated and unaccompanied children in emergencies. A longer pilot to better understand how the system performs over time is recommended.

Min(d)ing the land: The relationship between artisanal and small-scale mining and surface land arrangements in the southern Philippines, eastern DRC and Liberia

This article examines the relationship between artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) and surface land tenure arrangements, through a comparison of mining areas in the southern Philippines, the eastern DRC and Liberia. In all three cases, ASM takes place in peripheral regions outside central state control, where both land- and mineral tenure are characterized by high degrees of informality. Based on our comparative analysis, we highlight three core propositions. First, the relationship between ASM and surface land claimants is not (merely) characterized by antagonism, but involves a significant degree of negotiation and mutual benefit-sharing. Secondly, even in places purportedly characterized by a weak state presence, people make constant references to state-sanctioned legality to underpin their (often overlapping) claims to mineral resource wealth; whether as miner or as a surface landowner claiming royalties. Thirdly, people's ability to effectively use state-sanctioned legality as a mechanism to access mineral wealth -and to exclude others from accessing this wealth-is not distributed equally, and hinges on access to vital financial and political resources.

Capacity builders for governance: community-driven reconstruction in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Community-driven reconstruction (CDR) has become a new paradigm in post-conflict development. It combines infrastructure restoration with introducing good governance at the local level. Recent evaluations show that governance objectives are not easily met and significant change cannot be demonstrated. This paper adds to this argument on the basis of ethnographic research on a CDR programme in eastern DRC. It seeks to find explanations for the lack of demonstrable governance impact in the content and implementation of training. It identifies room for improvement by better adjusting capacity building to locally prevailing accountability mechanisms and by coordinating capacity building with other development programmes.

Dispatches

Dispatches

Business for peace? The ambiguous role of ‘ethical’ mining companies

Multinational companies are increasingly promoted as peacebuilders. Major arguments in support of such a position emphasise both interest-based and norm/socialisation-based factors. This article uses research on large mining MNCs in eastern DRC – those that, arguably, should be most likely to build peace according to the above positions – to engage critically with the business for peace agenda. First it demonstrates the limited peacemaking, as well as active peacebuilding, activities in broader society that companies undertake. Second, it finds that even those companies deemed most likely to build peace continue relying on hybrid (in)security practice. Third, this article calls for more reflexivity concerning the implications of the business for peace research agenda. While the latter might contribute to socialising businesses into contributions to peacebuilding, it also produces companies as legitimate authorities, despite their limitations as peacebuilders. As a result, new conflict and insecurity are produced, especially for/with those displaced from land and artisanal mining pits and left with no alternative livelihood options.

Armed groups and the exercise of public authority: the cases of the Mayi-Mayi and Raya Mutomboki in Kalehe, South Kivu

The state of the Congolese state has been subject to a heated debate, with some arguing that it remains mostly irrelevant outside its capital or even that there is no such thing as Congo. Others contend that there is no lack of state order in Congo, but that this order is characterised by predatory rule and (privatised) extortion. This paper wants to put both claims into perspective and to assess how different actors re-deploy various rationalities and practices of statehood. Based on fieldwork in South Kivu, this paper looks into the making of public authority in the territory of Kalehe (eastern DRC), where since the start of the Congo wars in 1996 a growing number of armed and other actors have claimed and exercised power. The paper stresses that these actors' competing claims to public authority are intimately linked to struggles of territory and populations and tend to resemble and reproduce previous state practices and norms. The idea of the state seems to be one of the principal objects of reference deployed by these actors to legitimate their claims, mainly because it still resonates with the social imaginaries of public order.

Peeling the onion: autochthony in North Kivu, DRC

Many different attempts have been made to explain the ongoing conflict in the DRC, ranging from ethnicity, to greed and resource wars, to the role of colonialism, and each provides useful contributions to the debate. In this article, we emphasise the concept of autochthony, which links identity and space, enabling the speaker to establish a direct claim to territory by asserting that he or she is an original inhabitant, a ‘son of the soil’. Its expressions have led to violent struggles in Africa, where assertions about autochthony are used to justify land claims. This can be clearly seen in the case of eastern DRC. While acknowledging significance of both regional and international factors, we regard the conflict in North Kivu as largely an agrarian war, and its root causes must be located in the complex web of uncertainties concerning citizenship and land rights. This is fuelled as well as further complicated by the extraction of the valuable minerals that are abundant in this part of the Congo. This article explores how armed non-state groups in eastern DRC, specifically in the North Kivu conflict zone, attempt to create an order for operation, survival and navigation in a population to whom it seeks support from as well as preys upon. We believe that our analysis highlights the need for an approach that assumes conflicts always have a local angle, and in the case of DR Congo and North Kivu this is land and the questions concerning belonging.