Since gaining independence on 30th June 1960, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been plagued by persistent DRC conflicts. These conflicts are deeply rooted in constitutional anomalies and exacerbated by foreign interference, particularly from neo-colonial powers. The DRC’s vast natural resources, while a boon, have also become a curse, driving internal strife and external manipulation aimed at exploiting these riches.
From the beginning DRC constitution that has centralised power in Kinshasa was a major nadir to forging a peaceful and prosperous nation.
Those holding the reins of power from Kinshasa were too corrupt and looters of natural resources who pocketed the change for themselves and their minions at the behest of neo-colonial powers who were the chief beneficiaries.
As a result, unequal regional development sparked tensions between the centre and its peripherals. Most of the wealth is located in the Eastern DRC but the contradiction this area is least developed! M23 backed allegedly by Rwanda is determined to slice Eastern DRC and patch up their own country.
Majority of M23 rebels are Tutsis and Banyamulenge who had helped overthrow General Mobutu Seseko.
This article reviews this conflict which most peace efforts have focused in curing the symptoms of the conflict but not the causes behind it.
Narcissism and a refusal to address colonial and post colonial injustices fuel the conflict to the present day!
After gaining independence, the Belgians who had prepared the DRC constitution created two rivalling centres of powers between an executive prime minister and the ceremonial president.
Patrice Lumumba became the first prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu its first president. Both were elected by the parliament.
On the day of independence, it was a speech made by Patrice Lumumba that convinced the Belgians he was a serious threat to their continual exploitation of DRC natural resources.
The Belgians turned president Kasavubu against Lumumba. On the day of independence, Lumumba advocated for indigenization of DRC. In a matter of months, Kasavubu sacked Lumumba and the vice versa happened. So, DRC slided and sank into a constitutional crisis.
Colonial powers were determined to assassinate Lumumba, a source of their agony. The UN provided Lumumba with security.
Lumumba out of fear of being assassinated he was as good as in a self imposed house arrest. Feeling alienated,
Lumumba attempted a daring escape from hostile Kinshasa to friendlier territory of the then Stanleyville now caĺed Kisangani. Kisangani had declared independence from DRC in July 1960 following unrest, after a couple d’etat sponsored by the Belgians and led by Kasavubu in 1961 to oust Patrice Lumumba. .
On his way out of Kinshasa, Lumumba underestimated the danger he was in as he wasted valuable time on his way to Kisangani making rounds of speeches to adoring supporters.
When the Belgians heard he had escaped, knew he would cross Sankuru river in order to reach Kisangani. So, they went there and a boat that was planned to carry Patrice Lumumba and his entourage to Kisangani was confiscated.
On November 30th, 1960, evening hours, Patrice Lumumba and his assistants reached the Sankuru river but they saw the boat was nowhere, immediately they knew they had fallen into a trap. As they were trying to flee from
the scene, they were captured and taken to the state of Katanga where they were tortured and executed by a firing squad.
Mobutu henchmen and the Belgians were the ones who captured Lumumba but appreciating the dangers of executing him in Kinshasa opted to hand him over to the prime minister of Katanga Moise Tshombe who tortured and assassinated Patrice Lumumba by firing squad. Tshombe was promised to replace Lumumba as prime minister of the DRC in order to win his cooperation.
Since Lumumba was the most popular politician of his time, the Belgians dissolved his remains in concentrated sulphuric acid.
One reason for the dissolution of his remains was to cover their tracks but another reason was to ensure the grave of Lumumba would not be turned into a martyr, and a fountain of perpetual resistance.
Only one tooth remained after his body was acidified, that tooth was kept in Belgium archives until recently was returned with a verbal apology.
Belgium has never promised any form of restitution for her role in the political assassination of Patrice Lumumba.
Even the US Senate made a mockery of the investigation of who was behind the execution of Patrice Lumumba by arriving at a deceitful conclusion that the assassination of Patrice Lumumba was an African affair sorted out by Africans themselves, while it was not.
While a number of eastern states in the DRC such as Katanga and Kisangani had declared independence after constitutional impasse there was no effort to legalize the demands for regional autonomy.
What Mobutu did was to neutralize leaders who were seeking more say over natural resources in their own backyards.
Today DRC has 25 provinces with 145 territories and 30 cities. Power is still concentrated in Kinshasa and Eastern Congo where most of the natural resources are located have been conspicuously neglected sparking “forever wars” for regional devolution and autonomy.
Mobutu officially declared himself president on 24th November 1965 and was overthrown by Desire Kabila on 16th May 1997.
Mobutu ruled DRC for almost 32 years but did not address the real causes of regional conflict and secessions until he was forced to flee DRC for Morocco where he died on September 7th, 1997 aged 66 years. He was buried on 14th September, 1997 in Rabat, Morocco.
Exactly two decades and a half have elapsed but Mobutu’s remains are still buried far from the land of his ancestors.
Mobutu had succumbed to prostate cancer and was limping with the help of a walking stick on the day he left Kinshasa for good. During his reign, he amassed wealth estimated to be around $50 millions to $5 billion. Paradoxically, Mobutu was a mentee of Patrice Lumumba and used to represent Lumumba in Belgian negotiations for independence while Lumumba was in prison!
Mobutu turned out to be the DRC Judas Iskariot in chief. Today, only the initials “MSS” mark the grave of Mobutu Seseko in Rabat, Morocco, as a jostling of his final resting burial place is still not yet finalized.
Joseph Kabila who succeeded his father Desire Kabila as the DRC president had promised in October 2023 to return the remains of Mobutu in what was said to be an agreement with his family.
The president made the announcement in a rare parliamentary address in which he pledged to create a new unity government. BBC Africa analyst Ibrahima Diane had said Mr Kabila was likely to have consulted Mr Mobutu’s son, Nzanga Mobutu, before announcing that the ex-ruler would be reburied in DR Congo.
Mobutu Sese Seko was still fondly remembered by his supporters who believed one of his achievements was to keep the vast country united, he said. Nzanga Mobutu was an MP who was then an ally of Mr Kabila.
While Patrice Lumumba’s tooth was finally returned to his family before being repatriated to Kinshasa and archived, the remains of both Mobutu Seseko and Tshombe are still interred abroad. In 2011, Joseph Kabila dismissed Nzanga Mobutu from the government by presidential decree.
The promise of returning the remains of Mobutu were shelved since then. No promise of a return of Moïse Tshombe remains was ever made. Tshombe is still buried in a Methodist service at Etterbeek Cemetery, near Brussels, Belgium.
Owing to his role in the death of Lumumba and his association with Western interests, Tshombe’s name became synonymous with “sellout” to Black African nationalists.
Thereafter, the politics of resting his remains in his homeland have been polarizing. He served as the president of the secessionist State of Katanga from 1960 to 1963 and as prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1964 to 1965.
Following Lumumba’s overthrow and execution by Tshombe’s supporters in 1961, the Katanga rebellion was suppressed in 1963, forcing Tshombe into exile.
The following year, he was made prime minister of the country as part of a new coalition government against the “Simba rebellion” by Lumumba’s supporters.
In 1965, he founded the CONACO alliance, which comfortably won the March and April general elections. However, he was dismissed as Prime Minister in October of that year, being replaced by Évariste Kimba.
Following the November 1965 coup which ended the Congo Crisis, he was charged with treason and was forced into exile again. He died four years later under disputed circumstances.
Tshombe died in Algeria in 1969. The Algerian government called in eight Algerian physicians and three French doctors, who concluded that he died in his sleep.
Later, an autopsy concluded a natural death. Tshombe’s nephew Joseph Kayomb Tshombe claimed that no medical doctor chosen by the Tshombe family was admitted at the autopsy.
Further doubts were raised regarding Tshombe’s death by former governor of Katanga and political exile Daniel Monguya Mbenge, who accused French lawyer Jacques Vergès of poisoning Tshombe by order of Mobutu.
Perhaps, apart from Lumumba showing naivety when fleeing Kinshasa and wasted precious time for three days making his case to his supporters leading to his capture, torture and execution another least discussed mistake he committed was his successful negotiation for a powerful central government.
Part of Lumumba’s least acknowledged negative legacy was to bequeath the DRC with a highly centralised government that failed to keep up with the demands of a modern state.
Had he had bargained for a federal state the Belgians would have little motivation to kill him because states would have powerful prime ministers who would have cut mining deals with their former colonisers.
Lack of say of the provinces made Lumumba a marked man who was posing a serious threat to post colonial exploitation of the DRC natural resources.
After Desire Kabila had overthrown Mobutu with armed backing of Uganda and Rwanda he fell out with his backers.
The understanding between Kabila and his military backers was that devolution was the way to go forward. Kabila reneged on the decentralisation pledge after tasting power and corruption.
During his reign, he signed a mining contract with the Chinese worth around $ 1 Bill, at a cup of coffee. Both Uganda and Rwanda were furious. It is unclear who ordered his assassination or what were the motives although some newspapers alleged that a failure to pay his own military could have led to his brutal demise.
Others dispute this theory and claim that it is just his blatant betrayal of those who helped him to acquire power that led to his violent end.
The truth of his assassination may probably never be known for a foreseeable future.
His son, Joseph Kabila took over but did not address the fundamentals of what was besieging the country. For a decade in power, he left the governance contradictions unresolved.
While the instability in Eastern DRC is largely linked to her mineral curses but there is another angle rarely considered in the Eastern DRC: “forever wars”.
The instabilities in the easten DRC are overflowing into Rwanda and Uganda.
Rebels of both Rwanda and Uganda have found refugee in the Congo forests where they plot and practice how to destabilize both Uganda and Rwanda.
It is increasingly becoming a national security concern for Uganda and Rwanda that some order needs to be established in the eaten DRC.
Neither Uganda or Rwanda will accept those who want to overthrow them should find refugee in the Congo forests because the DRC is either unable or unwilling to address security issues there.
It is understandable why international commission accused Rwanda for meddling in DRC internal matters. It is also understandable why Rwanda is vehemently denying the accusations.
International efforts to solve the DRC conflict has fallen short because issues of devolution and decentralisation have never been given the weight they fully deserve.
Now equipped with high-tech weapons, according to a recent U.N. report, M23 rebels are trying to carve out a country of their own, and permanently secede.
They train police, set up courts, collect taxes and issue birth certificates, experts say, and have assassinated several traditional leaders, replacing them with officials favorable to their cause.
Mining companies falling under their realm have to pay security guarantee fees to keep exploiting DRC uninterrupted!
Rubaya – a town at the heart of mining coltan, a key ingredient in making mobile phones – fell into the hands of M23 fighters on Tuesday, 30th April 2024, following heavy clashes with the DRC government troops.
More recently, M23 is on the verge of conquering Goma.
The fight over Goma has been on and off with the city falling into the hands of rebels on 20th November 2012. Goma is a North Kivu provincial capital with a population of one million people.
In a rare victory against M23 rebels, the DRC loyalist militias in October 2023 said they regained the strategic town of Kitshanga, in North Kivu’s Masisi province.
DRC’s eastern region has been embroiled in conflict for decades, with more than 100 armed groups vying for territory in the mineral-rich region, near the border with Rwanda.
Since 2022, the M23 rebel group has been enmeshed in a conflict with the army that has displaced nearly two million people.
Rwanda has repeatedly denied backing the rebels, who have captured much territory in the mineral-rich east during fighting.
DR Congo is the world’s second-biggest producer of coltan, with most of it coming from the mines around Rubaya in the Masisi district. Coltan is used to make batteries for electric vehicles and mobile phones.
DR Congo’s government accuses Rwanda of backing the rebels to steal its mineral wealth, an allegation the government in Kigali denies.The rebels, initially Congolese army deserters, accuse the government of marginalising the country’s ethnic Tutsi minority and refusing to negotiate with them.
They regard the verdant hills around Masisi as their true homeland. Mr Tshisekedi, the now president of the DRC, says the rebels are a front for the “expansionist aims” of irredentist Rwanda, which it forcefully denies.
Unless issues of devolution and decentralisation are part of peace initiatives eastern, DRC will turn out to be another Gaza in the heart of the African continent.
How sad that would be!
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