by Jacques Depelchin
Jacques Depelchin, a [former] leader of the Rally
for Congolese Democracy, was interviewed by SAR's Congo correspondent
David Moore in August [2000], just as the Democratic Republic of the Congo's
latest round of peace negotiations under the rubric of the Lusaka Accord was,
once again, being pronounced a failure. Readers will recall that, in August
1998, the RCD was the first rebel group to mount a challenge to Laurent Desire
Kabila, at much the same point as Rwanda and Uganda also turned against their
ally of 1996 and 1997. Led by University of Dar es Salaam History professor
Ernest Wamba dia Wamba, the RCD articulated the most progressive and democratic
policies of all the Congolese rebel groups that mushroomed up during this
period. More recently, however, the RCD has been plagued by a major split: a
more militarist faction led by Emile Ilunga and backed by Rwanda has forced the
Wamba dia Wamba group into the Bunia region of north-east DRC and away from the
more newsworthy centres such as Kisangani where the Ilunga forces are currently
in a situation of stalemate vis-a-vis Kabila's forces.
While such a situation might seem at first to
suggest a weakening of Wamba dia Wamba's group, this repositioning may also be
having positive effects. Certainly, it appears to have influenced Jacques
Depelchin's own thinking about peace and reconstruction, encouraging him to
shift away from the state (and rebel-group) centred approach of the Lusaka
Accords and towards a more "people-oriented" stance. This position is
articulated clearly in the course of the following interview. The positive
aspects of this shift are clear to see. At the same time, when one also takes
into account the entrenched state-centredness of international relations and of
peace-keeping discourse what can it mean in practice to say that "global
civil society" has to work with the popular forces for peace? Needless to
say, there are some tough issues for SAR readers to consider here.
For their part, Jacques Depelchin and his group
continue to negotiate the conflicts that emerge over such issues as land tenure
relations and the like - even as, in doing so, they brush up against the
complexities of the interface of "tribe" and class and the
difficulties offered up by colonially imposed boundaries and by the various
state-driven armies and bureaucracies that swirl around them. Yet they have
seen enough and done enough to eschew any notion of the "end of history"
that the post-Cold War "world order' was supposed to have delivered. In
their corner of Congo, Depelchin seems to suggest, it's more like history is
restarting.
Before assuming a leadership role in the Rally for
Congolese Democracy Jacques Depelchin worked as a professor of economic history
at the Universities of Dar es Salaam, of California-Berkeley, and of Eduardo
Mondlane (in Maputo, Mozambique). Most recently he taught at the Protestant
University in Kinshasa where, from 1996 to 1998, he also worked on the
transformation of the DRC's educational system. He is the author of From The
Congo Free State To Zaire (1885-1974); Towards a Demystification of Economic
and Political History (Dakar: CODESRIA, 1992).
SAR: Why you think the Lusaka Accord talks have
failed?
Depelchin: The primary factor is President Kabila
himself. He has refused to go along with the agreement. Ever since he signed,
he has been complaining about one thing or the other while at the same time
violating the Lusaka Agreement.
Of course, the agreement has faults. Some go back
to what we would call the state of the rebellion against the state. After all,
the people in the Congo were rebelling because Kabila was turning his back
against the process of democratization, so the peace everybody was expecting
did not occur.
The Accord's timetable is another example of why
these things don't work. Given the Congolese situation it was clear that it
couldn't. The concept of the timetable itself is flawed: unless this or that
happens nothing can be done. So the UN says it cannot deploy troops unless the
treaty conditions are realized. With that kind of situation Kabila has room to
create the kind of problems that in effect allow him to prevent deployment.
Yet we have always said that the issue is not one
of peacekeeping troops. You can't have peacekeeping troops on the ground when
the conditions for actually building and making peace aren't there. The framing
of the Lusaka agreement has not taken this into account.
SAR: What might be some conditions for
reinvigorating discussions at a different level and towards building peace? You
have been involved in negotiating a peace process between the pastoralists and
the agriculturalists - the Hema and the Lendu - in Ituri province near Bunia.
Perhaps some of the experience you've gained there could be built on more
broadly.
Depelchin: This is not just from our own
experience, but from that of others as well. But, as an example, when we went
to Bunia we had to bring under control a conflict involving, fundamentally, the
Hema and the Lendu. (Although it's an oversimplification to reduce it to a
matter of these two ethnic groups, they were in fact the two main
protagonists.) We simply went to those who were most interested in seeing that
peace should return. We discovered that the majority of the people wanted the
war to end. We felt that the question of who was responsible for the war and
where the blame should be put should be handled later, because you will never
reach an agreement if you get bogged down on figuring out who is to blame. We
combatted that way of thinking about it. Also, the emphasis was on engaging the
people most likely to gain from the peaceful resolution.
During the conflict's height there was a great deal
of news coverage, but nobody talked about the success of such a process. Sure,
there are still people being killed, unnecessarily, here and there - there are
sellouts - but in the end we can say that the conflict has died down.
In Angola, to take another example, there is a
process involving initiatives from religious groups. The notion is anchored in
the idea that people really wanting peace should get together. It is hoped that
all protagonists - including UNITA and government representatives - would come
on board eventually but it is interesting that, in the first instance, the
process takes place in line with the population's own logic as opposed to a
logic rooted in state-to-state, party-to-party negotiation which is then
delivered downwards to the people.
To look beyond the UN - not to put down all the
efforts it undertook to bring about the Lusaka Agreement, of course - and the
difficulties it has had over the last few years with regard to the Lusaka
Agreement, to the DRC or to Angola, and then compare those stumbling failures
to the Mozambican case, one can distinguish between processes with a logic
rooted in the state and another rooted in ensuring that the people most likely
to benefit from the agreement were made central to the process. This difference
even affects how the representatives organize the discussions. Sure, in
Mozambique government representatives were essential to the process, but what
was central was the government's concern to make sure it responded to wishes of
the majority of the population.
SAR: A state logic involving Rwanda, Uganda and
other states is seen by many Congolese as being a main factor in perpetrating
the war. There is an internal logic of rebellion but many Congolese see the
rebels as other states' proxies. Can one get beyond that dichotomy? Can armed
opposition groups talk to unarmed groups, as the Accord proposes?
Depelchin: True: in this case regional states
involved make that process more difficult. But if you really look - whether in
Rwanda, whether in Uganda, in Angola, whether in Zimbabwe, in Congo - you find
that the majority want to see an end to this war. This majority is very, very,
very tired of war. People just want to see it end. If these countries were led
by peoples' governments they would follow the route taken by Mugabe at the end
of the Mozambican civil war. That is to say, "let's make sure that you
really respond to the wishes of the majority of the population." So while
that inter-state logic is true, that difficulty is primarily one of appearance.
Those state signatories should really make an effort to satisfy the wishes of
the majority.
In that sense, today's Angolan internal process is
leading to a national dialogue. It's a new initiative based simply on people
saying: "Listen, let's get all the protagonists together to discuss
fundamental issues keeping us at war and let's put an end to this war."
It is what we ourselves have tried to do. During
our work of social reconstruction and peace-building, we are working to
establish processes, not advance individual interests. Moreover, these
processes are fundamentally Congolese. We do this on the basis of democratic
prescriptions for the state. This is fundamental.
In contrast, the state-logic which continues to
wreak havoc on the people is a colonial inheritance, a fact often overlooked.
Regardless of the accommodations we have made to them subsequently, the present
states are colonial and conquest states organized in order to divide and rule
people. They have created the very conditions we see today. The Great Lakes
Region crisis is an exacerbation of that kind of rule. The leaders in the
region must now take stock and decide that conducting low-intensity warfare
against their own population must end. For whom? For the benefit of their own
population.
SAR: There's much talk about a "global
civil society" alternative to an international state logic. What
initiatives could global actors other than the United Nations and states play
in facilitating a process like that which you advocate? Clearly, there are many
Congolese who desire to get together at a level other than states, but lack the
means. What international organization of people could facilitate a dialogue?
Depelchin: One has to be very, very careful here.
In the case of Mozambique or that of the inter-ethnic conflict in Ituri which
we have discussed, the key to a successful exercise was that it be rooted
within the area and the population with most to gain from peace. That is
fundamental. Unless that view is taken then we will continue convening peace
conferences here and there with nothing happening. In Angola, people on the
ground are taking hold of the whole process. Those who have resources and
mandates from their organizations can, however, push for such processes and
help such Angolans to realize them. In the DRC there are initiatives, too. But
the conditions must be created so that the entire local population can come
together within their own areas and be at the core of the whole process, thus
bringing about what everyone really wants to see happen. That can happen in a
national and global way too, but only if it is anchored and rooted in people in
the areas most in need of need of the desired outcome.
SAR: Che Guevara's Congo diaries say that the
Congolese aren't good fighters. Of course, this could be a very positive thing:
many Congolese say, "we are a peace-loving people." You yourself seem
to be leaving the military or armed option and moving towards reimagining the
possibilities in more peaceful processes. Why have you changed your thinking
about these things?
Depelchin: Our August 1998 political declaration
said specifically that we took up arms as a last resort to make Kabila
understand the Congolese crisis could only be resolved politically. In our
statements regarding Kisangani [where, as noted above, a group in the RCD split
from Wamba dia Wamba in mid-1999 and joined the Rwandans, instigating a war
between the two RCD groups] we said that the present war was the eleventh in
the Congo since 1959. These wars have never resolved the question of getting a
sustainable democratic regime in place. This defines, in fact, the crisis of
the Congo.
There are two camps or lines regarding the question
of militarization. One says the crisis is political. It must be resolved
politically. We must not resort to military means to resolve the contradiction.
It also says that we do not have to enter Kinshasa to bring about
transformation. The process of democratization takes place as the rebellion
goes on. That is one reason why many people did not like Professor Wamba's
leadership in Goma. People said democratization can not take place during war.
But the results of the alternative view can be traced in the careers of Mobutu
and Kabila. It leads to rule by coup d'etat following coup d'etat. That process
has itself to be transformed.
The Congolese people have learned one thing over
these last few years: they know very well what they no longer want. Yet it is
much more difficult to begin building what they actually do want. This is what
we are trying to do in the area we control. We involve the population in
dialogue. After all, how can one say you are going into the National Dialogue
without allowing people to exercise that very method? We are making public the
treasury function, and transforming administration into something of the
population, for the population, by the population. This requires a series of
dialogues day in day out so that people can internalize what we understand by
dialogue. Then people can resort to dialogue to resolve any kind of issue -
including those too often solved by life-or-death methods in other situations.
SAR: The outside world only sees the logic of
armed force. And yet it is apparent that various movements have different
dynamics across the country, however difficult it sometimes seems to get inside
such processes.
Depelchin: I repeat and I emphasize: the central
issue is which group responds to peoples' needs not just simply in speeches and
declarations but concretely on the ground. Which one helps things to happen
that the population wants to see? That is the only way people are mobilized.
Sooner or later it is not how many troops you have that counts, but whether the
population supports the position and the processes in which your group is
engaged.
And we have seen this reality at work, even though
misleading propaganda continues as people try to push Professor Wamba aside by
alleging all manner of things. But people will eventually ask why the group
without military force comparable to the others has withstood those who are
trying to eliminate it. We were supposed to be eliminated in Kisangani last
year. Over the last few weeks in Bunia all kinds of efforts have been made to
undermine the process of democratization by people who say "first of all
let's get to Kinshasa." But this is, to repeat, the mentality of the coup
d'etat. We feel that's over, that's something from the past. We must get away
from of that mentality. As long as you stick with what the population wants,
you are likely to emerge as the leader it wants.
SAR: Small groups from all sides benefit from
the political economy of war. Who benefits in this one? What process makes
people aware of who benefits? What can break the cycle?
Depelchin: I can respond generally. It would
require an international investigation to specify the pillaging of the Congo's
resources - the names and so on. The UN has proposed that. It would be a
welcome exercise. However, remember that this is not the first time our
resources have been pillaged. It was underway during colonial occupation. Adam
Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost states that 10 million Congolese
disappeared simply because the process of pillaging the country took precedence
over their welfare. That can only be genocide, although Hochschild refuses to
use the term. Any war situation benefits a "mafia" - people organized
to take advantage of the resources of Angola, Congo and the like.
SAR: Are you making progress?
Depelchin: I think that if everybody tried to go in
the direction of which I have spoken, we would move, however slowly, but we
would move forward.
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