Answers and analysis to last week’s trivia and discussion. To receive weekly education updates which include trivia, a discussion guide, and news briefs, email education@standnow.org.

TRIVIA:
The fourth chapter of the Genocide Prevention Task Force (GPTF) Report entitled “Preventive Diplomacy: Halting and Reversing Escalation” names several factors that influence which preventive tactics might be used. Name at least two.
Possible answers include: timing/speed of the violence, geographical location, political character, and economic profile.
 
DISCUSSION:
How would the GPTF recommendations on preventive diplomacy impact the conflicts in Sudan, Congo, Burma and other areas of concern if they were implemented into government policy?

SUDAN

Sudan’s multiple crises involve multiple actors within the crisis region, within the country, and outside the country. In a complex and constantly changing conflict, the US government cannot afford to not have an updated and united position every time it interacts with actors on the ground. Recommendation 4-5 suggests that actors must maintain consistent with their messaging. An Atrocities Prevention Committee could be the only body capable of coordinating such a sophisticated response to such a complex and delicate set of negotiations, relations, and actions.

BURMA

Recommendation 4-4 suggests that diplomatic strategies to prevent genocide “should include the credible threat of coercive measures, should avoid an overly rigid “escalatory ladder,” and should not dismiss potential benefits of rewarding ‘bad people’ for ‘good behavior.’”  It includes guidelines about imposing sanctions, recommending that sanctions, along with other diplomatic measures, be implemented more strongly at earlier stages rather than imposing gradually harsher measures to maximize effect, and notes that sanctions should be used as a tool to be coupled with others as part of a larger strategy.  These recommendations can inform President Obama’s policy on Burma.  His policy is one of “pragmatic engagement,” for which he has faced criticism, but his policy has the potential to be effective if he uses engagement with the regime as another tool for pressure, along with targeted sanctions and the willingness and flexibility to use harsher measures when necessary.  The recommendation notes that engagement with and even the  reward of regimes that have committed mass atrocities can be justified if it prevents further violence.

CONGO

Given Kabila’s government’s lack of a firm grip on territory and activities in the country, especially the East, it is very common for clashes to happen at any time, anywhere and by a new group. This phenomenon takes peace keepers’ attention when they have to meet immediate needs of fragile newly attacked communities, which dilutes peace keepers’ impact on their original missions. For example while at the beginning of the millennium MONUC had to deal mainly with the FDLR, the CNDP sprang up in 2007, around the same time as the LRA and many other smaller rebel forces, giving the government forces and peace keepers even more chaos to deal with. Preventative diplomacy would be effective if local grievances were addressed as they arise; passing them off as baseless ‘traditional’ wars leads to missing important pointers like community to community threats and sometimes arms’ acquisition that results from citizens feeling that their grievances have been ignored and so they have to take their security into their own hands. In their efforts to maintain peace where it exists in DRC, USA should facilitate and encourage respectful and informed diplomacy between the government and aggrieved citizens.

Hint: You’ll find the answer in the discussion guide!

How would the GPTF recommendations on preventive diplomacy impact the conflicts in Sudan, Congo, Burma and other areas of concern if they were implemented into government policy?

• Ideally, the US should use peaceful tactics to prevent and resolve crises whenever possible, though diplomatic, economic, legal, and military are potential policy options.
• Factors influencing policy choices include:
  • Timing ("volcanic" or "rolling" genocide)
  • Geographical location
  • Political character
  • Economic profile
• View a chart of preventive tools available to the US here on page 61.
• Challenges include:
  • Countries prioritizing other issues deemed more important to national interest and security
  • Popular belief that little or nothing can be done to halt atrocities
  • Difficulty in getting international support
  • Legal and budgetary concerns (ie if policymakers determine a crisis is of little effect to US interests, paying the bill for preventive measures is not desirable)

GPTF RECOMMENDATIONS on preventive diplomacy
Recommendations:

• Recommendation 4-1: The new high-level interagency committee-the Atrocities Prevention Committee-should meet every other month (and as needed at other times) to review the status of countries of concern and coordinate preventive action.
  • This committee should be directed from the White House and co-chaired by a senior NSC official.
  • The APC would review the status of countries on the Atrocities Watch List (AWL) and coordinate preventive actions.
• Recommendation 4-2: The Atrocities Prevention Committee, working with NSC staff, should prepare interagency genocide prevention and response plans for high-risk situations.
  • Crisis response plans include:
    • 1) A detailed target country assessment by the intelligence community that identifies potential points of leverage and policy intervention.
    • 2) An atrocities estimate and impact assessment
    • 3) A policy options assessment that draws on the target country analysis to lay out a range of potential U.S. responses matched to rising levels of crisis escalation.

• Recommendation 4-3: The secretary of state should enhance the capacity of the U.S. government to engage in urgent preventive diplomatic action to forestall emerging crises.
  • Efforts towards this end are already present in the State Department’s Civilian Response Corps; these small active corps can be deployed within 48 hours; further efforts from this structure or the establishment of something new would enhance US capacity.
• Recommendation 4-4: Preventive diplomacy strategies should include the credible threat of coercive measures, should avoid an overly rigid "escalatory ladder," and should not dismiss potential benefits of rewarding "bad people" for "good behavior."
  • The threat of coercive measures should only be used if credible; harsh rhetoric with meager action shows weakness and damages US credibility (ex. Darfur)
  • Stronger measures at earlier stages are more likely to achieve success.
• Recommendation 4-5: Preventive diplomacy strategies should engage international actors who have influence with potential perpetrators, be mindful of becoming hostage to peace negotiations related to a broader conflict, and maintain consistency in the messages conveyed.
  • The international community, neighbors, prominent individuals and organizations, NGOs, diaspora networks, etc should be engaged.
  • Actors should strive for consistency and discipline with messages delivered to perpetrators.

• Recommendation 4-4 mentions that strong speech with weak action diminishes credibility. Are there instances regarding Sudan, Congo and Burma when the US government used strong, forceful language which preceded little action? What impact do you think this had on these conflicts?

• Recommendation 4-5 mentions that influential international actors should be engaged; what if these actors have higher priorities than stopping the violence? For instance, China is a key actor in Sudan, yet their oil interest often trumps their concern of the violence.

• While these recommendations address developing crisis response plans, how can we be sure that these plans would be implemented?

Email education@standnow.org to subscribe to weekly education mailings which include trivia, a discussion guide, and news briefs.

In this week’s issue: Seven UNAMID police officers were injured in an ambush; over 900 Karen have returned to Burma from a refugee camp on the border of Thailand; Women were executed and abducted in an FDLR attack in Congo

Weekly News Brief, February 12 through 19, compiled by Joshua Kennedy at GI-Net and the STAND E-team. Email education@standnow.org to subscribe to weekly mailings with news briefs, trivia, and a discussion guide.

Areas of Concern

• SLA rebels and Sudanese government forces have continued to fight in the Jebel Marra region of North Darfur.
• ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo will appeal the ruling that rebel commander Bahr Idriss Abu Garda of the United Resistance Front has no substantial link to the 2007 attack on African Union peacekeepers at Haskinita.
• Seven UNAMID police officers were injured in an ambush near the El-Sherif IDP camp south of Nyala, South Darfur. The peacekeepers were attacked by unknown gunmen who appear to have been waiting for their return.
• A fire broke out in the Riyadh IDP camp near El Geneina, killing one person an injuring two others.
• It appears that Darfuri rebel movements are receiving weapons from a seller in the Ukraine. After leaving Eastern Europe, the weapons entered Sudan via Eritrea.

• According to Karen relief groups, Burmese government troops burned down dozens of houses, forced eleven schools to close, and forced about 2,000 Karen villagers to flee into the jungle due to attacks in early February.
• Tin Oo, Vice Chairman of the National League for Democracy, was freed from six years of house arrest on February 13.
• On a five-day visit to Burma, Special UN human rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana has met with lawyers from the National League for Democracy.  He has not yet received a response to his request to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi.
• Despite statements that there will be no refoulment of refugees, over 900 Karen from a camp on the Thai-Burma border have gradually been returned to Burma since deportation began in early February.  The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) recently expressed its concern that the areas to which the Karen are being resettled are heavily mined.

• Seven women were executed and another eight were abducted during an FDLR attack on the village of Kisembe in the Mwenga area of South Kivu.

• The new NATO-led offensive in Marjah, a Taliban stronghold in the southern Helmand province, has been designed to limit civilian casualties, Afghan military officials have said. The 15,000-troop operation is also meant to highlight close collaboration between NATO and Afghan forces.
• A NATO rocket attack during the Marjah offensive reportedly killed at least 12 civilians in what appears to have been operator error.
• On Wednesday, an Afghan official said the Taliban fighters are using human shields to force coalition troops to shoot civilians in the Marjah offensive. At least 27 Taliban militants have been killed in the offensive.
• The U.N. envoy to Afghanistan urged the Afghan government to attempt more conciliatory measures towards the Taliban, to build confidence and establish peace.

• Pakistani government officials have for the first time confirmed that Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud is dead, having been killed by a U.S. drone strike mid-January. Officials disagree on the effect this will have on the Taliban’s organization in Pakistan.
• U.S. and Pakistani intelligence forces captured the Taliban’s second-in-command during a secret raid last week. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who planned the group’s military operations, is being questioned by Pakistani and U.S. agents.
• U.S. drone strikes on Sunday and Monday killed at least nine militants in North Waziristan.
• An explosion at a mosque on Thursday killed 29 civilians and wounded dozens, coinciding with the U.S. special envoy’s visit to Pakistan.

• The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator says 8,000 civilians have fled fighting in Mogadishu so far in February, expressing concern at the new spike in violence. At least 80 Somalis have also died. The coordinator additionally criticized U.S. restrictions on aid to Somalia, saying they prevented aid from reaching Somalis who desperately needed it. The restrictions were put in place to ensure aid was not diverted to Islamist militants.
• Al Shabaab has vowed an all-out war to counter the TFG’s planned offensive to capture key southern towns from Islamist rebels.
• UN Special Representative for Internally Displaced Persons, Walter Kälin recently released a report on his visit to Somalia last fall, stating that the 1.5 million IDPs in Somalia face the threat of human rights abuses at the hands of all conflict actors, in addition to the lack of humanitarian assistance due to insecurity and protracted fighting.
• The African Union continues to deny Uganda’s request that AMISOM’s mandate be expanded to incorporate more peace enforcement as opposed to peace keeping. The AU held a meeting on how to deal with Somalia’s instability last Wednesday.
• The European Union has announced it will train 2,000 Somali troops in Uganda this May.
• Hizbul Islam drove out al Shabaab militants from a southern Somalia town on Thursday, witnesses reported.

• Ten civilians were killed during fighting between U.S.-Iraqi forces and militants last Friday.
• A suicide bomb struck near Iraqi government headquarters in Ramadi on Thursday, part of a wave of violence expected before next month’s parliamentary elections.

Sri Lanka

• Last Friday, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court agreed to hear Gen. Sarath Fonseka’s challenge to his arrest by the Sri Lankan government. The government accused the general, who had just been defeated in presidential elections by the incumbent president, of plotting against the government. President Rajapaksa vowed Fonseka would receive due process.
• A group of Sri Lankan Buddhist monks urged President Rajapaksa to release Fonseka, saying the general had made many sacrifices to unite the nation by ending the 25-year-old civil war .
• The European Union announced on Tuesday it would remove Sri Lanka’s preferential trade benefits with its member countries in six months if Sri Lanka’s government failed to meet human rights obligations. The Sri Lankan government countered that the EU had set “unattainable targets” for the country to meet.
• The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization asked for $23 million to resettle northern Sri Lanka refugees.

Around the World

• The Nigerien capital of Niamay is reportedly calm after yesterday’s apparent military coup. The current junta leader, Mamadou Tandja, reported that civil servants would run the government ministries until the formation of a new government.

After examining the importance of leadership and early warning for genocide prevention, this week STAND’s education team asked you to consider early prevention. We provided trivia and a discussion guide to test your knowledge and jump start a discussion with your chapter. Below, you will find answers to the trivia and the e-team’s analysis of the discussion question. By emailing education@standnow.org, you can subscribe to receive trivia, a discussion guide, and news briefs each week.

This week’s discussion question asked you to apply the recommendations of the GPTF on early prevention to the conflicts in Sudan, Burma, and Congo. What do these recommendations mean for these countries? How would the implementation of theGPTF early prevention recommendations affect these countries? What might these recommendations look like when put into effect? The e-team provides their analysis. To learn more, read the third chapter of the GPTF report.


BURMA

The GPTF notes that in general, mass atrocities occur when elites take advantage of underlying conditions such as armed insurgency or political and economic exclusion to take power.  When it comes to early prevention, it is crucial to address these conditions but also to address these leaders and their resources.  Recommendation 3-1 suggests that early prevention strategies “aim to influence leaders by using positive and negative inducements, aggressive enforcement of international regimes, and fresh approaches to conflict transformation.”  The first step to holding the Burmese military regime accountable is to refer Burma to a UN Security Council Commission of Inquiry to investigate the regime’s crimes and potentially refer the case to the International Criminal Court or the establishment of a special tribunal for prosecution.  This action would signal international consensus against the abuses of the Burmese regime, creating political pressure and implying consequences for these abuses.   At the same time, the regime can be concretely weakened through arms embargoes and targeted sanctions. 

Recommendation 3-2 suggests that early prevention strategies “support development of institutions in high-risk states by supporting power sharing and democratic transition, enhancing the rule of law and addressing impunity, and reforming security forces.” The Burmese military regime has already turned down one chance to become democratic and legitimate. Although the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won the 1990 democratic elections by a landslide, the military regime refused to acknowledge the election results and forcibly maintained power.  Elections have been scheduled for 2010, but few political parties and ethnic minority groups give credence to the claim that they will be free or fair.  International pressure should focus on ensuring that the elections are legitimate so that Burma can eventually transition to a true democratic government and allow the NLD to share power, potentially bringing about true reform.   

Recommendation 3-3 suggests that early prevention strategies strengthen civil society by, among supporting economic and legal empowerment and citizen groups, a free and responsible media.  This is particularly relevant in Burma because the Burmese military regime uses suppression of the press as a means to maintain control over the populace. The media is heavily censored, and the military regime owns or controls all daily newspapers and broadcast media.  To prevent information about the regime’s atrocities from reaching the world media, the regime has enacted legislation that can imprison reporters caught smuggling information or video footage out of the country for years.  With virtually no freedom of speech, the Burmese people have no means by which to conduct dialogue about the political process and the regime’s activities.

SUDAN

Sudan is quite literally a ticking time bomb of insecurity: as Southern Sudan builds towards a critical referendum put in place by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement andDarfur witnesses the endless deterioration of the Darfur Peace Agreement, the risk of violence multiplies. The US Government can help prepare and protect the civilian population by supporting civil society and institutions on the ground, while continuing to pressure leaders to slow the swell in violence.

CONGO

The most outstanding recommendation is ‘partnering with local organizations’. Congolese versions of their own history have hardly been considered when coming up with solutions to their problems. Many intervention efforts have continued to be based on western perspectives of the conflict, which rarely do justice to the local people’s sentiments, experiences and resilience. By continuing to export western-centric models and ideas of what peace and democracy are, we continue to force horse shoes on Cinderella’s feet. It is important that local Congolese participate in identifying the risk factors and policies that trigger grievances and cause civilians to rebel. Should the USA heed the prevention ‘gospel’,  emphasis should be put on listening and valuing Congolese input.

This week’s topic is early prevention, the third chapter of the GPTF Report. In this post you will find trivia and a discussion guide to bring to your chapter meetings. You can subscribe to weekly education newsletters which will include trivia, discussion, and weekly news briefs by emailing education@standnow.org.

The Genocide Prevention Task Force (GPTF) finds that efforts to prevent mass atrocities should address the main underlying sources of conflict and what else?

Hint: You will find the answers to the trivia questions in the discussion guides!

The Genocide Prevention Task Force Report outlines the challenges of and recommendations for the inclusion of early prevention of genocide and mass atrocities into US foreign policy. While the report analyzes these recommendations on a general level, it does not specifically apply them to current conflicts or troublesome areas which threaten to become conflict zones.

How would the GPTF recommendations on early prevention impact the conflicts in Sudan, Congo, Burma and other areas of concern if they were implemented into government policy?

• Promoting economic development and strengthening capacities to prevent instability and violent conflict of all kinds should be integral parts of a genocide prevention strategy.

• Effective early prevention requires:
  • (1) an understanding of the conditions and triggers that lead to and enable the commission of mass atrocities,
  • (2) the means required to mitigate those conditions, and
  • (3) a concerted strategy to apply those means.

• “The task force finds that mass atrocities are generally perpetrated when underlying risk factors—such as ethnic or sectarian discrimination, nationalist myths, armed insurgency, or political and economic exclusion—are exploited by opportunistic elites seeking to amass power and eliminate competitors. Therefore, early prevention will have a better chance of succeeding when integrated efforts address both underlying causes of conflict and the means and motives of leaders.”

• There are also key triggers that can tip a high-risk environment into crisis. These include:
  • unstable, unfair, or unduly postponed elections;
  • high-profile assassinations;
  • battlefield victories; and
  • environmental conditions (for example, drought) that may cause an eruption of violence or heighten the perception of an existential threat to a government or armed group.

• Successful early prevention requires a multifaceted strategy that simultaneously reduces capacities and motivations for mass violence while increasing the social and institutional safeguards against mass violence.

• Strategy should focus on:
  • leadership
  • institutions
  • civil society

GPTF RECOMMENDATIONS ON EARLY PREVENTION:

• Recommendation 3-1: Early prevention strategies should aim to influence leaders by using positive and negative inducements, aggressive enforcement of international regimes, and fresh approaches to conflict transformation.
  • Positive Inducements include: grants, loans, debt relief, budgetary support, technical assistance, and equipment and training, etc
  • Negative Inducements include: sanctions, banning travel, legal and moral accountability [ex. International Criminal Court (ICC)]
  • Interdicting funds and arms (tracking arms purchases and financial transactions, arms embargoes, sanctions or legal actions against individuals or public and private enterprises involved, and restrictions in resource flows) is another important strategy.
  • Building collaborative capacity (Programs to bring government and community leaders together to build relationships and encourage mutual understanding) is also essential.

• Recommendation 3-2: Early prevention strategies should support development of institutions in high-risk states by supporting power sharing and democratic transition, enhancing the rule of law and addressing impunity, and reforming security forces.
  • Support power sharing: While there is no one formula for power distribution, representative and accountable forms of governance are key.
  • Enhance the rule of law and address impunity: Law must be transparent and the institutions which enforce it must be competent and accountable. Independent mechanisms to counter corruption are essential. As past atrocities is one factor in risk of future atrocities, past abuses must be addressed in order to abolish a culture of impunity.
  • Reform security forces: Security forces have the capacity to both carry out and prevent atrocities; security forces should represent the diversity of society, be trained to protect life, and be legally accountable to civilian leadership. Security sector reform may be the best way to incorporate these qualities into the security forces.

• Recommendation 3-3: Early prevention strategies should aim to strengthen civil society in high-risk states by supporting economic and legal empowerment, citizen groups, and a free and responsible media.
  • Support empowerment: the benefits of economic growth must be spread throughout the population; land reform and property rights are important factors of empowerment and development which could reduce grievances.
  • Develop civil society: there must be numerous avenues for participation, disperse political power, and an expansion of educational opportunities
  • Support a free and responsible media: independent from state control and multiple media outlets

• Recommendation 3-4: Funding for crisis prevention in countries at risk of genocide or mass atrocities should be expanded through a new genocide prevention initiative, funded through existing foreign assistance mechanisms.
  • The GPTF proposes a new $200 million per year to finance prevention efforts; this would be funded through existing mechanisms in the foreign assistance budget; Congress should approve these funds.
  • During the budget process, country teams and agencies would propose budgets for projects to address risk factors highlighted in research and analysis.
  • This funding would provide approximately $15-20 million to the top ten or fifteen countries deemed at high risk of genocide and mass atrocities. While this is a major investment, this funding is only a fraction of the cost of intervention once conflict erupts.

• Recommendation 3-5: The State Department and USAID should enhance coordination with international partners both in terms of policy and in-country implementation.
  • The assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labor should be the liaison to genocide and mass atrocity prevention initiatives in international organizations (EU, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, World Bank, etc)

• DRC has local organizations and traditional methods of conflict prevention and resolution: these need to be included along with efforts stemming from international sources.

• Engaging dissatisfied factions in DRC would also prevent violent outbursts geared towards calling attention to grievances.

• Other engagements in DRC include monetary support economic growth and development, education, increased government capacity/efficacy and an independent judiciary, the opposites of which are conducive for conflict.

• As Southern Sudan builds towards a critical referendum put in place by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and Darfur witnesses the endless deterioration of the Darfur Peace Agreement, the risk of violence multiplies.

• The US Government can help prepare and protect the civilian population by supporting civil society and institutions on the ground, while continuing to pressure leaders to slow the swell in violence.

• The first step to holding the Burmese military regime accountable is to refer Burma to a UN Security Council Commission of Inquiry to investigate the regime’s crimes and potentially refer the case to the International Criminal Court or establish of a special tribunal for prosecution. 

• Although the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won the 1990 democratic elections by a landslide, the military regime refused to acknowledge the election results and forcibly maintained power.  Elections have been scheduled for 2010, but few political parties and ethnic minority groups give credence to the claim that they will be free or fair. 

• The Burmese military regime uses suppression of the press as a means to maintain control over the populace. The media is heavily censored, and the military regime owns or controls all daily newspapers and broadcast media.  To prevent information about the regime’s atrocities from reaching the world media, the regime has enacted legislation that can imprison reporters caught smuggling information or video footage out of the country for years. 

• The International Criminal Court is already active in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and there are efforts to push the ICC to pursue an investigation in Burma. What impact have these efforts had on these conflicts?

• The GPTF flags “unstable, unfair, or unduly postponed elections” as triggers for crisis in high-risk environments. In light of upcoming elections in Sudan and Burma, how should the international community prepare?

• GPTF recommends supporting democratic transitions as well as use of negative inducements including the ICC for leaders promoting mass atrocities. What does this mean for Sudan as it is likely that President Bashir, who is a wanted war criminal by the ICC, may be democratically reelected?

• FARDC, the Congolese army, is responsible for a large amount of attacks on civilians. How might security sector reform efforts combat this problem?

This week’s discussion focused on Congo and intervention. The trivia asked you to name four intervention missions in the DRC (past or current) and the key actors involved. The discussion asked you to define intervention and to list the key features necessary for successful intervention. STAND’s Congo Education Coordinator Sharon Muhwezi provides her analysis.

To subscribe to STAND’s weekly education newsletter with trivia, discussion guides, and news briefs, email education@standnow.org.

Intervention: Is it necessarily beneficial?

     Along with a huge international market that consumes regardless of origin of the products, the DRC is a victim of extractive relationships and trends planted by the Belgians and perpetuated by DRC’s neighbors and the west, who like it chaotic: the love for abnormal profits and ‘cash in brief case’ markets has left Congolese crying out for help, in vain. Given Congo’s weak government and how overwhelmed they are by the poverty and civil wars, many scholars like Paul Collier in his The Bottom Billion, and well wishers will often call upon capable countries to intervene. DRC has therefore seen all types of intervention, ranging from colonization to military attacks to humanitarian aid. More importantly, even when it comes to well meaning interventions, the best laid plans have been mired by the misrepresentation of DRC and resultant misunderstanding of the conflicts, along with the tendency for interveners to design plans that organize national and regional institutions, ignoring the local roots of DRC’s problems.

      Just like many of today’s manipulative actors in DRC declaring their help and care for the less developed, Leopold did, in his early years, proclaim love for DRC and the need for her people to be liberated from slavery and benefit from their own resources (Philippa Schuyler, Who killed the Congo?, 48). What he actually meant to do is very clear today: manipulate and exploit the country and set a precedence of plunder for his successors (Schuyler, 49), who have clearly not disappointed. The Belgian government, which replaced King Leopold in 1908 in the name of reforming the state for the benefit of the nationals, given huge protests against Leopold’s treatment of them (Renton, 38), brought about a considerable amount of infrastructure development, which would however be mired by their excessive money and labor taxation not to forget deadly forced labor migrations and camps (Renton, 52-53). David Gibbs asserts, “It is now known that the American government helped undermined and probably assassinate, Congo’s first Prime Minister (Patrice Lumumba) from 1960-61 (Gibbs, 1991: 2).” USA would later support dictator Mobutu Sese Seko during the cold war, well knowing that all his policies were very far from freedom, democracy and human rights: what mattered was that this support kept Mobutu from siding with the communists. In November 1999, the United Nations, having recognized the urgency to protect Congolese civilians, launched United Nations Organization Mission in DR Congo (MONUC), whose mandate was to protect civilian lives and mediate a ceasefire¹. 

      The most recent attempt is Kimia II which is supposed to be a joint offensive against the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR) by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) and UN peace keepers. One of their strategies was that they would capture rebels and force them out of mines, while integrating any who give up their arms into the national army. Firstly, the UN and their advisors should have considered reasons why rebels are fighting: some are just looking for a living, others are forced into the militias and many of them actually believe the ideals instilled in them during conscription and indoctrination: in fact, some of these people are perpetuating the expression of grievances held for decades now, but constantly ignored. How then, are they supposed to integrate into the national army overnight, and suddenly start caring about and protecting the same people they have been killing? As argued by Collin Thomas-Jensen, Noel Atama and Olivia Caymaex in An Uneasy Alliance in Eastren Congo, integration took place with no planning, little outside support and in the middle of military operations. I argue that the satisfaction of these Congolese men and women will come out of their grievances being heard and their freedom granted, not from offering them ‘kadogo’ positions in the very same army they’ve been confronting. Actually, the kind of quick integration into the FARDC, which they are being offered, has given them more access to their victims and results are obvious. Since the launching of Kimia II in January 2009, 800,000 people have fled their homes, at least 600 civilians have died and thousands of women have been raped by soldiers from both the rebel groups and the national army (Thomas-Jensen, Atama and Caeymaex). Most recently, Human Rights Watch investigators have come out to openly criticize the UN for knowingly backing FARDC (both former members and inductees) which is terrorizing the civilians, yet Kimia II’s mandate is to protect the same civilians from the FDLR (Georgianne Nienaber, The Huffington Post).

      The international community has been slow at realizing that many interventions in DRC have just laid way for the next war/ chaos. It is high time we put in place prevention measure against not only fresh wars, but also botched interventions. There is need to invest time, money and personnel in objectively studying DRC and what its people really are: their origins, grievances, dreams and willingness to cooperate with interveners in the peace missions. Congolese should be given a chance to voice their opinions on how intervention can best be of help, and what they think the problem really is. Acknowledging and valuing their local dynamics will help establish a branch in intervention plans which treats the local people and militias not as confused victims and criminals respectively, but as people caught up in a civil mess fuelled by both their history (ideals, ethnicities, migrations and colonialism) and the international market. Thomas-Jensen et al also acknowledge that the complex relationship between militias and the local populations need to be understood: intermarriages have happened, and some locals think certain militias represent their needs², hence failure of the likes of Kimia II which assume that all rebels are necessarily against all civilians.

      Further more, not all militias are fighting to control the government: that is why superficial multi party elections and truces are not ending the war, as some insurgents are fighting proxy wars for other companies and countries, like Rwanda’s Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD). Their main aim is extraction of minerals and they could care less who the president is. For instance, with the international market continuing to buy gold from Uganda without checks, well knowing that Uganda doesn’t produce gold, the war in Eastern Congo will not end soon. Checks (not sanctions) on Congo’s gold and coltan will go a longer way towards peace than pawn elections in Kinshasa.

      One of the reasons colonization messed up communities is that it separated them and put them in frames in which they could better serve the master’s interests: instead of taking the lesson from all the deaths, suffering and uprisings it caused, we have continued to want to ‘organize’ and ‘civilize’ these communities. Working with Congolese as partners to design their future will bear better fruits than forcing them into frames which outsiders regard modern and inevitable, leading both selfish and well intentioned interventions to worsen situations and kill hope and trust in humanity.

• the manipulation of one country in another’s internal affairs for the outsider’s gain
• Interference in another country’s affairs by another for purposes and support of ideals like religious beliefs, human rights, world peace, etc … motives here could also range from altruism to selfish gain of the intervener.

Intervention efforts in DRC

• King Leopold of Belgium personally taking the country on as Congo Free State (1885 – 1908)
• Belgium taking the country over as a colony (1908 -1960)
• Patrice Lumumba’s assassination (1961)
• Financial and military support to Mobutu Sese Seko (1965 – early 90’s)
• Rwanda and Uganda’s support of Laurent Kabila’s coup (1997)
• MONUC (1999 – present)
• KIMIA II (2009 – present)

Key intervening Actors

• UN
• USA
• Uganda
• Rwanda
• Belgium