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
