Kris Berwouts - Congo’s Violent Peace: Conflict and Struggle Since the Great African War

African Arguments

Written by experts with an unrivalled knowledge of the continent, African Arguments is a series of concise, engaging books that address the key issues currently facing Africa. Topical and thought-provoking, accessible but in-depth, they provide essential reading for anyone interested in getting to the heart of both why contemporary Africa is the way it is and how it is changing.

African Arguments Online

African Arguments Online is a website managed by the Royal African Society, which hosts debates on the African Arguments series and other topical issues that affect Africa: http://africanarguments.org

Series editors

Richard Dowden, Royal African Society

Alex de Waal, Executive Director, World Peace Foundation

Alcinda Honwana, Open University

Managing editor

Stephanie Kitchen, International African Institute

Editorial board

Emmanuel Akyeampong, Harvard University

Tim Allen, London School of Economics and Political Science

Akwe Amosu, Open Society Institute

Breyten Breytenbach, Gore Institute

Peter da Costa, journalist and development specialist

William Gumede, journalist and author

Abdul Mohammed, InterAfrica Group

Robert Molteno, editor and publisher

Titles already published

Alex de Waal, AIDS and Power: Why There is No Political Crisis Yet

Tim Allen, Trial Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Lords Resistance Army

Raymond W. Copson, The United States in Africa

Chris Alden, China in Africa

Tom Porteous, Britain in Africa

Julie Flint and Alex de Waal, Darfur: A New History of a Long War

Jonathan Glennie, The Trouble with Aid: Why Less Could Mean More for Africa

Peter Uvin, Life after Violence: A Peoples Story of Burundi

Bronwen Manby, Struggles for Citizenship in Africa

Camilla Toulmin, Climate Change in Africa

Orla Ryan, Chocolate Nations: Living and Dying for Cocoa in West Africa

Theodore Trefon, Congo Masquerade: The Political Culture of Aid Inefficiency and Reform Failure

Lonce Ndikumana and James Boyce, Africas Odious Debts: How Foreign Loans and Capital Flight Bled a Continent

Mary Harper, Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith, War and Hope in a Shattered State

Neil Carrier and Gernot Klantschnig, Africa and the War on Drugs

Alcinda Honwana, Youth and Revolution in Tunisia

Marc Epprecht, Sexuality and Social Justice in Africa: Rethinking Homosexuality and Forging Resistance

Lorenzo Cotula, The Great African Land Grab? Agricultural Investments and the Global Food System

Michael Deibert, The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair

Adam Branch and Zachariah Mampilly, Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change

Celeste Hicks, Africas New Oil: Future Fortune or Resource Curse?

Morten Jerven, Africa: Why Economists Get it Wrong

Theodore Trefon, Congos Environmental Paradox

Paul Richards, Ebola: How a Peoples Science Helped End an Epidemic

Louisa Lombard, State of Rebellion: Violence and Intervention in the Central African Republic

Forthcoming titles

Odd-Helge Fjelstad, Wilson Prichard, Mick Moore, Taxing Africa

Celeste Hicks, The Trial of Hissne Habr

Hilary Matfess, Women and the War on Boko Haram: Wives, Weapons, Witnesses

Published by Zed Books and the IAI with the support of the following organizations:

The principal aim of the International African Institute is to promote scholarly understanding of Africa, notably its changing societies, cultures and languages. Founded in 1926 and based in London, it supports a range of seminars and publications including the journal Africa.

www.internationalafricaninstitute.org

Now more than a hundred years old, the Royal African Society today is Britains leading organization promoting Africas cause. Through its journal, African Affairs, and by organizing meetings, discussions and other activities, the society strengthens links between Africa and Britain and encourages understanding of Africa and its relations with the rest of the world.

www.royalafricansociety.org

The World Peace Foundation , founded in 1910, is located at the Fletcher School, Tufts University. The Foundations mission is to promote innovative research and teaching, believing that these are critical to the challenges of making peace around the world, and should go hand in hand with advocacy and practical engagement with the toughest issues. Its central theme is reinventing peace for the twenty-first century.

www.worldpeacefoundation.org

About the author

Kris Berwouts is an independent analyst and acknowledged expert on the Democratic Republic of Congo. Until 2012, he was the director of EurAc, the European NGO network for advocacy on Central Africa. He has worked with different bilateral and multilateral partners of the DRC including DfID, MONUSCO and the EU.

CONGOS VIOLENT PEACE

CONFLICT AND STRUGGLE SINCE THE GREAT AFRICAN WAR

KRIS BERWOUTS

Congos Violent Peace: Conflict and Struggle Since the Great African War was first published in 2017 by Zed Books Ltd, The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK

www.zedbooks.net

Copyright Kris Berwouts 2017

The rights of Kris Berwouts to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

Typeset in Haarlemmer by seagulls.net

Index: John Harrier

Cover design: Jonathan Pelham

Cover photo Brian Sokol/UNHCR/Panos

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78360-370-1 hb

ISBN 978-1-78360-369-5 pb

ISBN 978-1-78360-371-8 pdf

ISBN 978-1-78360-372-5 epub

ISBN 978-1-78360-373-2 mobi

With love and respect for Zaida Catalan, Michael J. Sharp, Pascal Kabungulu, Floribert Chebeya, Serge Maheshe and all other friends and colleagues who died in their search for truth and justice for the people of Congo.

Three things cannot be long hidden:
the sun, the moon, and the truth.
Zaida Catalan quoting Buddha
in her last tweet before she was killed on 12 March 2017.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am very grateful that Zed Books accepted my proposal. Without the support and encouragement of Stephanie Kitchen and Ken Barlow, this book would never have existed. The authors field research was made possible by a working grant of the Pascal Decroos Fund for Investigative Journalism.

It has been fed by the hours of conversation, brainstorming and interviews I had with different people in all corners of the Congolese political and military landscape, opinion makers and civil society activists. The confidential talks I had with them gave me insights about public and hidden agendas on Congos political scene, formal and less formal attempts to manage the conflicts and find satisfying deals to bring people, parties, communities closer together. I kept my notes and memories since I started to work full time on Central Africa in September 2000. Through this book, I try to share their analysis with the reader.