Nowadays, when we think of Congo, we immediately think of scenes of war. The two tragic Congolese wars that began at the end of the 20th century have brought deep disasters to the country and made this impression deeply rooted in the international community.
In 1996, when the First Congolese War broke out, the regime led by Mobutu Sésé Seko, then President of Zaire ( formerly known as Congo ) , was overthrown by rebels backed by foreign forces such as Rwanda and Uganda , and kabila, the leader of the rebels, established himself as president. In 1998, because Kabila became increasingly suspicious of the Rwandan garrison that refused to withdraw, the Rwandan military forces counterattacked, and the Congolese war resumed, which was also known as the "World War in Africa", with a total of 9 countries and 20 armed forces participating in the war, and more than 1 million people were forced into exile.
But for Jason Sterns, a scholar focused on Africa, the disaster was far from the attention it deserved, and mainstream Western media outlets such as The New York Times did not devote much space to reporting on it. In "The Congo War," Sterns sharply points out that this is because the news media has difficulty categorizing the "evil" that occurred in congo. "There is no Hitler or Mussolini here, it is a war of ordinary people, and the reasons for their fighting are also complex." The stark narrative of confrontation between good and evil fails here, and in its place is the "banal evil" that is densely packed in the land: they are shaped by the corruption of the regime, the lack of the rule of law, tribal conflicts, and so on.
This may not be just a problem with the Congolese war. For African countries far from developed countries, wars that take place there may generally encounter such stereotyped gazes. We receive monolithic narratives from various media, which crudely attribute wars in these countries to the intervention of Western forces or the backwardness of local peoples. And such a rough attitude also exists in many of the current international assistance for war. Sterns pointed out that the current war aid led by developed countries and international organizations may have short-sighted problems. The frequent billions of dollars in economic assistance to the Congo, while ignoring its eventual implementation, remains a sign of indifference. For a country's economic reconstruction and development, there are complex struggles and games between governments, local elites, and business organizations, and international aid agencies need to think more carefully about how to get involved.
The following is an excerpt from the Congo War: The Defeated Leviathan and the Forgotten African War, with the permission of the publisher, with deletions and subtitles added by the editor.
The Congo War: The Defeated Leviathan and the Forgotten African War
Author: Jason Sterns
Edition: Guangxi Normal University Press, Republic of China
2022-5
1
"War between people"
Congo has left a spell on the hearts of many tourists. It's hard to explain why. The writer Philip Gourevitch once wrote: "Oh, Congo! It's really devastating. It hurts to look at her and listen to her. It's also heart-wrenching to turn around and leave. "The tragedy in the Congo is indeed somewhat as eye-catching as a car accident. Nine governments fought on territories the size of Western Europe, with warriors trekking thousands of miles through rainforests and swamps. More than five million people have died and hundreds of thousands of women have been raped. If anything is important, it is the lives of five million victims.
But does it matter? In fact, the Congolese war is rarely seen as a product of complex human nature. In the Western media, it is either portrayed as a tragic and chaotic world — a mess of rebel groups fighting each other for mineral resources on the ruins of a failed state — or as a contest between good and evil, with the opposite played by one or more of the Rwandan government, the International Mining Corporation, the U.S. government, or one or more Congolese warlords. International news focuses on the war on terror and related disturbances with twenty-four hours of news coverage around the world, but no one is interested in delving into the root causes of this African conflict, and is interested in paying attention to the unimaginably large number of five million victims. The headlines are made by some visually striking news images.
Eve Ensler, a social activist and author of the famous play "Vagina Monologues," wrote in an article to the Huffington Post that she had heard many horrific stories, from "a woman being gang-raped by fifty men in a day to a woman being forced to eat her own dead child," and that the New York Times also reported that a woman was killed. Kidnapped and tied to a tree by a mob, they repeatedly gang-raped him. She said that she was embarrassed by the actions of those who had cut open the stomach of a pregnant woman alive in front of her."
All of these stories have really happened. In this war and conflict, we have seen human tragedies such as cannibalism, girls as young as five years old being sexually assaulted with guns and sticks, and women buried alive. Journalists have a responsibility to report on these atrocities, and the horrific tragedies can draw attention and awaken people's consciences. In addition, humanitarian aid organizations and health care teams in the area received millions of dollars in funding to help local survivors rebuild their lives.
However, these appeals and efforts have also produced some unintended results. They have cemented the impression of congo: it is violent, chaotic and mad about power and greed. The focus on violent terror has led to a loss of the political factors that give rise to these conflicts and the underlying causes behind the bloodshed. If all we see is the rape and killing of blacks by inhumane means, it may be difficult for us to believe that there is any logic to follow in this violent conflict. We'll go back to the novelist Joseph Conrad's point: Congo will take you into the heart of darkness, into unexplainable and unsolvable chaos. If we want to change the political situation in this country, we must first understand the conflict itself. The first step to doing this is to understand how political power works here.
Mobutu Sese Seko (14 October 1930 – 7 September 1997), President of Zaire (1965-1997), served in the Belgian army, joined the MLC party in 1958, was chief of staff of the army in 1960, promoted to colonel, launched a military coup with the support of the United States in the same year, took over the Lumumba regime, served as commander-in-chief of the National Army, and launched a coup d'état again in 1965 to overthrow Casavub, becoming president and marshal. Since then, efforts have been made to revive the Congolese economy and to promote the Africanization of national and geographical names. In the 1960s, the political situation was stable and the economy grew. After the 1970s, the policy of radical nationalization and nationalization was adopted, political corruption, economic difficulties, and in 1997, the domestic opposition seized power by armed forces, went into exile, and died in Morocco.
When I was investigating and writing this book, it lingered in my mind, and one of the questions that bothered me the most was how far-sighted and ethical the leadership group in this country was. Congolese and foreigners always ask: Why are most Congolese political officials so morally corrupt? If the situation can only be changed by the Congolese themselves, is it possible to change in such a situation?
Once, after returning to the United States from the Congo, I found time to go to the library and read the works of Thomas Hobbes, the founder of Western political thought. He began his work after the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), which devastated entire Central European civilizations and killed millions of civilians. It is the product of a complex combination of political struggle, violent localism, ideology and greedy humanity. Hundreds of feudal kingdoms fought against each other, divided by the confrontation between Catholicism and Protestantism and the power struggle within the Holy Roman Empire. Mercenaries in this war are notorious for their misdeeds, serving whoever bids the highest, turning areas into ruins for bounties. Historians usually use the Latin "bellum se ipsum alet" to describe this phenomenon: war feeds on itself. Many Congolese army commanders should be able to understand this concept.
Hobbes, who finished his work three years after the end of the Thirty Years' War, had every reason to be disappointed with the state of nature, which he believed was "war between men." Life in its natural state is "lonely, poor, filthy, barbaric and ephemeral." This view holds that it is in the public interest to give up individual rights to the state—in Hobbes's writings, the state is synonymous with "Leviathan"—in exchange for protection. This is the first time the concept of the "social contract" has been proposed, providing theoretical support for the rule of the government and the responsibility of the government to its citizens.
But Congo does not have a Leviathan, no country that can provide protection for its citizens or even monopolize violence. The Thirty Years' War gave birth to Europe's "nation-state" system, but the CongoLese War could not have forged a powerful state. As clearly stated in the previous chapters of the book, the weakness and incompetence of the Congolese government led to the proliferation of rebel groups, and by the end of 2010, the number of rebels was still as high as twenty-nine. These armed groups, as the United States has seen in Vietnam and Iraq, engage in brutal insurgency and counter-insurgency struggles against each other, seizing territory and, and even more, seizing control of civilians, who have also been brutalized by war in order to compete for resources and retaliate against their enemies.
Congolese government and society have not always been so weak. In the 15th century, large kingdoms with mature governance systems began to form in the steppes of central and western Congo. At its peak, the Kingdom of the Congo was located on the Atlantic coast at the western tip of Africa, and at its peak, the country was able to support 20,000 infantry and archers to fight through a well-established tax system, and had diplomatic envoys in Portugal, Spain, and the Holy See. The kingdoms of Ronda and Luba, located in the middle of what is now Congolese territory, developed a successful system of government administration in the steppes bordering Angola, with the sacred throne as the center of power and local administrations throughout the surrounding area.
Since then, however, the Congo has experienced four hundred years of political division. Beginning in the 16th century, European and Arab slave traders abducted millions of slaves from the Congo, causing devastating wars between rival kingdoms over this lucrative trade and severe population shortages in some areas. Later, beginning in the 19th century, Belgian colonists dismembered most of the remaining Congolese kingdoms, reappointed hundreds of new chiefs, acted as a link between colonial rulers and local institutions, confiscated large amounts of land, and allowed Belgian officials to take over many of the powers and functions of traditional chiefs. They formed a colonial government to plunder resources and (later) provide basic services to the local population, but this government had no intention of being accountable to the citizens under its rule from the outset. Until the last moments of colonial rule, trade unions, political parties, and other forms of political mobilization were brutally suppressed by the colonial government.
Stills from the movie "Hotel Rwanda".
Subsequently, the colonial rulers handed over the government to the unprepared Congolese people to run the vast country. The country has some lawyers and university students. During the Belgian colonial government, Africans were not eligible to become full officers in the army, and important positions in government were held entirely by white foreign countries. At the same time, Belgium, motivated by commercial interests and Cold War policies, provided substantial external support to military strongmen in the region, while cracking down on local nationalist movements.
This historical legacy has had a major impact on the present. Since independence, from Joseph Mobutu to Joseph Kabila, every political strongman's purpose has been to seize and maintain power, not to build a strong, responsible state. But that's understandable. In the Congo, everything is handled by the political authorities: the best business opportunities, influence and social status. For those outside the circle of power, the chances of getting a soaring skyrocket are slim. In the eyes of these in power, strong public institutions are a threat to their power, weakening control of the military, preventing them from maintaining their firm grip on key areas of society and contributing to independent judiciary and congressional restraint on them.
The greatest fear of the Mobutu and Kabila regimes was not an invasion from abroad—Mobutu never thought until the end that a neighbor would oust him—but an internal collapse. They were even afraid that their bodyguards or ministers would stab themselves in the back. Today's Congo is in some ways more similar to 16th-century Machiavelli Italy—their court power struggles bear some resemblance—than to the modern state of the 21st century.
Therefore, the core reason why Congo has always lacked visionary leaders is that the political system rewards reckless recklessness and eliminates careful leaders. They value a person's loyalty more than their ability, and they value wealth and power more than moral character. Well-intentioned (albeit misguided) political leaders like Wanba Dia Wamba are isolated from the centers of power, while those who are more cunning are in power. The grand hotels in Kinshasa are the main places for politicians to socialize and negotiate political deals, and if you spend some time here, you will find that the well-being of the Congolese people is not at all on the minds of these people, they are only keen on political struggles.
2
The issue of international assistance
This is not to say that the Congo does not have ideology. As one friend put it, it's full of incendiary nationalists who have long hated the shame that congo is a stepping stone for Central Africa, on which every army that comes and goes has to wipe its feet clean. But under Congolese political system, such ideologies and national sentiments have not produced a responsible leader. The only effective means of mobilizing the population remains ethnic identity, but even the moral core of ethnic identity has long since been stripped away after years of government repression and the appointment and replacement of generations of local traditional chiefs. These ethnically based groups, whether political parties or armed forces, seek resources and benefits only for their own small groups, not for the common good. This in turn exacerbates the level of corruption in the system, as ethnic leaders embezzle public resources and funds in order to reward their supporters.
In Europe, nations were formed through war, trade, and technology. The leaders who could not collect enough taxes to feed a large conventional army were eventually overthrown. The war was supported by taxes, which led to a massive bureaucracy to collect and manage these taxes. In congo, the rulers are not under much pressure to build strong armies and bureaucracies. For years, Mobutu relied on outside help to suppress the rebels, bribing mercenaries from South Africa or Moroccan, Belgian and French soldiers with cash or goods. There was no need for him to build a strong administrative system — a system that could later become a breeding ground for political opposition — because he could get ample funding from copper mine revenues and foreign backers.
Joseph Kabila has largely privatized the economy and intensified tax collection, but he has little interest in building a strong rule of law system, which in turn will tie him down. Even the violence that continues to this day in the Kivus has not pushed him to make major reforms to the military or the police; He prefers appeasement or repression to dissidents rather than pushing for a fair and self-disciplined security sector. Instead of demanding a reliable and clean government, the country's business elite often clings to the power figures in Kinshasa for more for their own benefit.
Congo: The Epic of a People
Author: (b) David Van Reblaucker
Edition: Huazhong University of Science and Technology Press
2019-1
Having such a corrupt and wanton political elite is not the responsibility of a single person. Of course, social and educational problems are also the reasons for this situation. But it is clear that as long as these political elites can profit from the current political system, which is opposed to the creation of strong and effective social institutions, there will be no meaningful change in the system. With foreign support and the help of high revenues such as domestic copper mines, oil fields, and diamond mines, the authorities feel that it is unnecessary to serve domestic citizens and promote sustainable development. If you only feel tied up, why bother to set up congresses, courts, and auditors?
In the current situation, donor agencies abroad should carefully examine the long-term effects and implications of their actions and carefully consider providing multi-billion dollars of development assistance to the Congo. These donors — mainly the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom — often insist that the funds are neutral and do not directly benefit those political elites. That's true, because most of that money is used to build schools, roads, health services, and water diversion irrigation systems. But all economic development assistance cannot be separated from politics. Since international agencies have taken on the place of the Government to undertake most of the investment and construction of public service facilities, the Congolese Government has less pressure and incentive to meet the needs of its citizens.
Ultimately, a society governed by the rule of law is not built by capacity-building projects in the financial sector, but by struggles and compromises between governments, local elites, and business organizations. International donor agencies should figure out how to participate in the situation as responsibly as possible, rather than blindly building roads, building hospitals and reforming the financial system.
But why should we provide assistance? First, it is not an act motivated by a purely humanitarian spirit. This is what we owe to the Congolese people. The most obvious reason is centuries of slavery and colonization, as well as the plundering of resources such as rubber, copper and diamonds, which have benefited many Western companies, and from which many Belgian cities have been funded. The injustices of history are enough to make us feel morally and conscientiously guilty about this country, but we don't need to do it to that point.
Most foreign companies operating in Congo today are listed on the stock market, most of them founded in Europe and North America, or received financial support from banks in both regions. Many of these companies have been involved in problematic transactions that, if in their home countries, are certainly prohibited by law. The contracts signed by large mining companies bring little to the country and are said to provide huge kickbacks to government officials. Smaller trading companies buy minerals from eastern Congo without any scrutiny, even if the proceeds end up going to the armed groups behind the deal. We should therefore do everything in our power to help the Congolese people benefit from their resources and wealth, rather than being burdened by them.
3
For congo, there is no easy solution to the dilemma
This is not to say that the war was driven by Western countries and governments eager to encroach on Congolese wealth. We have little evidence to make this allegation. But it is a remarkable fact that many companies, whether Congolese or foreign, have reaped enormous benefits from this conflict. But it was relatively small institutions and companies that made the fortunes — because the conflict of war delayed large-scale industrial mining and investment for more than a decade. Similarly, some Western diplomats and businessmen did profit greatly from various corrupt Congolese deals, but we cannot reverse the causal relationship and say that they led to the war. At best, we can say that wherever it is profitable, the mining companies go, while the diplomats in Kinshasa are doing their part to help them run on the ground. The problem is the failure of regulation; The problem is that the gold diggers in the mining industry have made staggering profits through massive fraud, using offshore companies registered in the Caribbean Islands, and working with corrupt politicians at the top of the Congolese government, but we have let them go unpunished; The problem is that Western governments don't care what their countries' companies do abroad.
Stills from the movie "Hotel Rwanda".
Second, we should give the Congolese a chance to decide exactly how to deal with the violence in their own history. In international intervention, there is a classic fallacy that seeking justice for victims of past conflicts hinders the current peace process. Time and time again, diplomats have evaded, unwilling to organize an international tribunal to accuse and punish military and government personnel who committed heinous crimes in this war. In the course of my investigation, what frustrates me most was hearing again and again from survivors that no one had done them justice—that the murderers had not been brought to justice, and that many times the victims did not even know where their loved ones were buried after they were killed. In this sense, the Congo is the exception: Sierra Leone, Kosovo, East Timor, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, all of which have ended up with tribunals to resolve issues left over from history. In Congo, however, many of the perpetrators of the past remain in power, while the victims are silently swallowing the bitter fruit.
It is precisely because the warlords of the past are still in power that foreign diplomats are reluctant to initiate their trials. This has resulted in the army and the government being filled with criminals who have committed the entire crime, who have no scruples and are ready to pick up the butcher knife again. In October 2010, when I was writing the book, the United Nations released a report documenting the most notorious war crimes that occurred in the country between 1993 and 2003 and recommending the establishment of a special tribunal to deal with them. International donors and the Congolese Government must seize this opportunity. That is not to say that we are going to establish an international tribunal against the Congo, which may not be the best solution. But the Congolese people should have the right to know about some of the things that have happened in past wars and to bring the culprits to justice. Two hundred and twenty Congolese civil society organizations issued a document in support of the United Nations report, calling for a meeting to discuss a set of best possible options. Such actions would be an important signal to the elite that impunity is not an eternal theme in this political system.
However, for the most part, our sins have been forgotten. We simply don't care enough. Contrary to the wishful thinking of many Congolese, Oba President Ma does not wake up early in the morning for breakfast without checking the Congolese security briefing. In general, we are not concerned about a strange war fought by black people in central Africa. This sad hypocrisy is evident – in 1999, NATO sent an elite army of 50,000 men to Kosovo, which is only one-fifth the size of the province of South Kivu. In Congo, the unpromising force was at its peak at just 20,000 people, most of them from South Asia, who were poorly equipped and had no desire to carry out high-risk military operations. As compensation, the Congo has received a large amount of humanitarian assistance — and this is only a short-term mitigation of the big problem.
This apathy has made the international community reluctant to put a little effort into formulating policies towards the region. The most obvious is the policy towards Uganda and Rwanda. Donor aid accounted for more than half of rwanda's entire government budget throughout the conflict, as did Uganda as much as a third. The biggest donors are the European Commission, the United Kingdom and the United States, and it is understandable that governments in these countries and regions feel a little guilty of not intervening during the Rwandan genocide.
In addition, both Central African countries have an impressive track record of both the rate of development and the reduction of poverty rates: for more than a decade, international aid has helped Rwanda and Uganda reduce poverty rates by 13 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively. Compared to other African countries, such as the Congo, at least here, international donors know that their aid money is being spent in the right place.
However, these donors are short-sighted. They see development and progress in Rwanda very clearly, but they are indifferent to the conflicts and killings that are taking place on the other side of the border. When Rwanda invaded Congo again in August 1998, Washington and London condemned it, but did not use strong diplomacy or economic sanctions against congolese neighbors. "We have adopted the right policy for Rwanda," said Sue Hogwood, a former British ambassador to Rwanda, "and we need to help them rebuild their homes after the holocaust." We intervene and urge them to improve human rights issues, but they do have homeland security concerns. ”
Rwanda does have security concerns. A political adviser at Kagame expressed to me a typical point: "When the United States suffered the 9/11 attacks in 2001, they decided to strike Afghanistan in retaliation for hosting the terrorists who carried out the attack." Many innocent civilians have been killed in U.S. military operations. Isn't that very unfortunate? But how many Americans feel regret and remorse for invading Afghanistan? Very little. ”
This view does not distinguish between moral situations in different situations. Once we identify which genocides are hiding in the Congo, we can do whatever it takes to deal with them, even if they are not necessarily really aimed at holding them accountable. Is it really necessary to destroy Kisangani in order to deal with these people? Is it necessary to kill tens of thousands of civilians? Is it necessary to take millions of dollars into war?
Policymakers in the region often have simple and crude approaches to complex situations. For example, in responding to the Rwandan refugee crisis, the best approach should be to send an international military force to disarm refugee camps and distinguish between military and civilian populations. But it cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and after the chaos in Somalia, the United Nations was reluctant to get involved in a high-risk military intervention.
Stills from the movie The Colonel's Lady.
Dealing with refugees, especially after the Rwandan invasion, in the absence of large-scale military intervention, is like wearing a pair of thick insulating gloves for brain surgery. As hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to Zaire, the U.S. ambassador to Kigali told his boss in Washington, "The best option we can choose is to cut off support and assistance to the killers so they can leave hostages and run to find new support and resources." If we don't, we're exchanging the lives of Tingi Tinji's children for the lives of those Rwandan children (because the murderers will surely go on a killing spree when they return to Rwanda). "He didn't mention that to cut off support for the murderer, it was necessary to cut off support for civilians at the same time.
Without increased investment and insufficient diplomatic and resource support, there is no way to maintain peace. In this case, the relevant policies will not only fail to work, but will also lead to simple and crude attitudes and policies to deal with complex situations, resulting in more adverse consequences.
The CongoLese War was not caused by a single cause, nor can it be clearly depicted in a few charts. Like an ancient Greek epic, the whole war is full of intricate story lines—some heroic, some dirty and corrupt, all the clues mixed together, layered, constantly changing, mutilated, impossible to see the whole leopard. It is not a sophisticated war machine, it is intertwined with complex human nature.
There is no reason for us to despair. If I have learned anything after a decade of studying the Congo, it is the incomparably tenacious spirit and exuberant vitality of the Congolese people. As the unique Congolese singer Kofi Oronmidai sings about this country: "This is hell on earth." The fires of hell raged, but we were safe and sound. "Some people may think that they will become lifeless and resentful because of the suffering that the Congolese people have experienced. But they didn't.
For the Congo, there is no simple and easy solution, nor will there be a reliable and responsible government and a prosperous era of peace overnight. The fate of the country is ultimately in the hands of the Congolese people. Westerners also have their own responsibilities, partly because he has historically owed this country and partly because such aid is moral. This is not to say that the vision and imagination of foreigners should be imposed on the Congolese, nor is it that it is enough to simply donate some food and funds. It requires us to really understand them, to stand in their shoes to understand the political system and the pulse here, and then to try to provide them with an environment in which development and stability can be achieved.
Original author/[Beauty] Jason Sterns
Excerpt/Liu Yaguang
Editor/Yaguang Liu
Proofreading/Wu Xingfa