Will Intercommunity Dialogue Restore Peace in the Highlands of South Kivu?

KST on April 13, 2021

Mikenge, in the highlands of South Kivu on June 1, 2020. Photo Monusco / Alain Likota.

An agreement was signed on March 31, 2021 in Kinshasa, between the representatives of the different communities of the high and middle plateaus of South Kivu. While modest in scope, the dialogue organizers recognize that the agreement alone will not be enough to restore peace. But is this right direction?

By Pierre Boisselet, Coordinator of the Kivu Security Tracker.

This blog post is a translation of the original French version published on April 8, 2021. A new government of the DRC was announced on April 12, 2021.

March 31 marked the end of the “intercommunity dialogue on peace, security and development in the high and middle plateaus of Fizi, Mwenga et Uvira.” Over the course of three days, representatives of the Babuyu, Banyindu, Barundi, Bavira, Babembe, Bafuliru, and Banyamulenge communities met in the Béatrice Hotel in the Congolese capital. This conference brought to an end a process led by the international NGO, Interpeace, with the support of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), to de-escalate the situation in the highlands of South Kivu.

Volatile Area

This area, which has been volatile for some decades, has seen an upsurge in violence since 2016, and above all since 2018. It is the main home of the Banyamulenge community, whose members traditionally are cattle-herders (the transhumance of cattle is often a source of conflict) and speak a language close to those spoken in Rwanda and Burundi. This historically marginalized and discriminated against (in French) community saw some of its members join the ranks of Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), then armed groups backed by Rwanda, such as the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo-Zaire (AFDL) and the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) in the 1990s and 2000s, which committed abuses against civilians in South Kivu, sometimes in the context of local conflicts.

This fed into a deepening of the mistrust and discrimination against them and encouraged the formation of armed groups by other communities, particularly of the Mai-Mai type. From 2018, the situation considerably deteriorated following abuses committed by the Banyamulenge armed group, “Ngumino” (“let’s stay here”), against civilians, including the traditional chiefs of other communities (such as the assassinated Chief Munyindu Kawaza Nyakwana), the presence of Rwanda National Congress (RNC) rebels of Kayumba Nyamwasa in the area, and the decree confirming the creation of the rural commune of Minembwe led by a Munyamulenge mayor, thereby escaping the authority of the South Basimunyaka groupement.

Many Abuses

A significant coalition of armed groups, comprising in particular the Mai-Mai Yakutumba, Ebu-Ela Mtetezi or Biloze Bishambuke (from “indigenous” communities) and Burundian rebels of the Résistance pour un Etat de droit (RED-Tabara), who Burundian authorities accuse of being backed by Rwanda, assembled to fight the Ngumino. These groups committed many abuses against Banyamulenge villages, setting them on fire and looting their cattle, thereby forcing them to live in a few enclaves, such as Minembwe. On their side, the Twigwaneho “self-defense” militias have become the Banyamulenge community’s principal armed movement, which has also been responsible for committing just as many abuses against civilians belonging to other communities, leading to population displacement. Last August, the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office estimated that the total number of displaced (across all communities) in the area amounted to 110,000 (in French).

Since January 2020, Interpeace, an international peacebuilding NGO, has tried to solve this problem through a community-oriented process. The meeting which took place March 29 to 31 is, in effect, the culmination of a process which started at the beginning of last year, including a ceasefire in March 2020 (with little lasting effect on the ground) and a series of “intercommunity” dialogue events.

According to the conclusions of the Kinshasa meeting, representatives of different communities noted that there were both points of convergence and persisting differences, and made recommendations and commitments, such as “to disengage from foreign armed groups,” “lay down arms […] at the end of a ceasefire process” and “raise awareness among their respective populations of the need to avoid the possession of weapons and to work for peace and security.”

Read the conclusions of the dialogue (PDF, in French)

These commitments are quite broad and vague, and therefore fail to clearly designate the actors, means, or timetable for their implementation. However, participants hope that the government will use them to form the basis of its “roadmap” for restoring peace. For this to stand a chance of success, the roadmap should move well beyond recommendations, by including in particular the reform of local administration and the security services, and a functional process of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR).

The outcomes of the Kinshasa agreement were not, in any case, immediately apparent. Representatives of the Bavira community even directly rejected the conclusions of the process, believing that they had been marginalized. Moreover, several security incidents have occurred in the highlands since, such as at Rubarati on March 31 (where clashes took place between the Twigwaneho and some Mai-Mai groups), on April 1 at Kitanda (where a Munyamulenge woman was killed) or on April 4 (where a subsequent clash between the Twigwaneho and the Biloze Bishambuke occurred).

Weakness of Interventions to Bring Peace

Dialogue alone will not, therefore, restore peace. And this was not the aim of the organizers. But is it a step in the right direction? Past examples are far from encouraging. Between 2006 and 2020, at least 15 local agreements were signed in eastern Congo, according to a study by Claude Iguma Wakenge and Koen Vlassenroot published in July 2020. These agreements were implemented by such diverse actors as NGOs (Life & Peace Institute, in particular), the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in DR Congo (MONUSCO), or even Swedish or Swiss sustainable development agencies. “The general failure to make local agreements tangible reveals the weaknesses of peace interventions in eastern DRC,” the writers noted.

In a forthcoming report analyzing the conflict in the highlands (entitled “Mayhem in the mountains”), Judith Verweijen, Juvénal Twaibu, Moïse Ribakare, Paul Bulambo, and Freddy Mwambi Kasongo are even more critical of this type of process. According to them, “intercommunity dialogue can unwittingly result in worsening rather than mitigating the dynamics of the conflict and violence.” The risks raised include hiding internal conflicts, reinforcing the placing of blame for violence on communities (rather than on the armed groups themselves) and thereby increasing stigmatization. This logic was in plain sight at the Béatrice Hotel if some findings are to be believed, such as the accusation that the “Barundi were facilitating clandestine migrations and the infiltration of foreigners.”

“The argument put forward in this report is no doubt interesting, but in such a crisis situation, people identify very strongly with their community,” remarked a UN source who wished to remain anonymous. “This reality cannot be denied and the intercommunity model can be useful.”

Interpeace in any case tried to take past failings into account. Aware of the divisions within communities, the NGO organized a series of “intercommunity” dialogue events for each of the communities in 2020 in order to level out the disagreements and identify representatives through consensus. However, this had some adverse effects: the conclusion of the Bembe intercommunity meeting in March 2020, for example, described the Banyamulenge as “Rwandan so-called Banyamulenge,” which was inconsistent with easing tensions.

Lack of Coordination

On the other hand, the process did reproduce some issues identified in previous studies, including the lack of coordination between the various initiatives. While Interpeace was leading its process in the highlands with British funding from January 2020, another parallel and concurrent initiative was underway to obtain a ceasefire between the armed groups of South Kivu: the Murhesa process, led by the NGOs Search for Common Ground (SFC) and the Initiative for a Cohesive Leadership (ILC), with funding from the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden, which led to the signing of another ceasefire (also largely ignored) in September 2020. The creation of a peacebuilding coordinator position within the forum of international NGOs to try to solve the problem is reported to be ongoing.

However, there were other issues, such as the lack of participation by the authorities. Most of the “recommendations” by the dialogue’s participants were addressed to the national government, such as the management of the issue of the rural commune of Minembwe, implementing a DDR process, or establishing a roadmap. All the participants with whom we were able to speak insisted on the fact that the dialogue would only have positive effects if the government effectively engaged with all stakeholders. Instead, the national ministers present at the dialogue (the Minister of the Interior, Gilbert Kankonde and Defense, Aimé Ngoy Mukena) belong to the outgoing government and could be replaced by the next government.

Will the next ministers of the interior and defense transform these recommendations into an action program? It remains unclear, and it would certainly have been preferable for the dialogue to have been held under the auspices of the new government. However, the funding awarded by the FCDO for this project stops on March 31, which led to the timing of the meeting being brought forward. Discussions took place with a view to postponing the end of the funding (and therefore the meeting) to May, but were unsuccessful. “The presidency was involved and it was the head of the Civil House of the Head of State, Bruno Miteyo, who moderated the dialogue,” explained a source within Interpeace. “Future ministers will be briefed and will continue the process.”

The other category of actors capable of bearing on the conflict is the armed groups themselves. However, in the case of the Kinshasa discussions, there were very few among those invited, they only made vague commitments and above all, without any certainty as to their implementation on the armed group who they were supposed to represent. The group of Michel Rukunda, aka Makanika, who has become one of the main armed actors of the highlands, whose numbers were recently boosted by the arrival of former FARDC officers, was not represented, for example. According to a source close to the organizers, bringing more representatives of armed groups to Kinshasa would have created legal and security issues, but the other participants had insisted on holding the meeting in the capital so as to engage the national elite.

So, despite everything, could the process started by Interpeace lead to a breakthrough? One of the conditions would be that MONUSCO, the armed groups, and the next Congolese government converge to take up its findings and develop them into a complete roadmap, including the far-reaching reforms needed to solve the current situation. This dialogue was surely not the last.

Divisions between Tshisekedists and Kabilists Paralyze the State in Eastern DRC

KST on November 20, 2020

In Kanyaruchinya, near Goma, July 15, 2013. (Monusco Photo by Sylvain Liechti)

The division between President Felix Tshisekedi’s camp and that of his predecessor, Joseph Kabila, prevents, for the time being, the adoption of a coherent strategy to stabilize eastern DRC.

By Pierre Boisselet, Coordinator of the Kivu Security Tracker.

2127 civilians killed, 1450 abducted, 938 kidnapped… The Kivu Security Tracker (KST) recorded record-high deaths, abductions, and kidnappings for ransom during the first twenty months of Félix Tshisekedi’s presidency. This toll is even heavier than that of the last 20 months of his predecessor, Joseph Kabila (1553 civilians killed).

The difference is due mainly to the resurgence of killings perpetrated by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF)– the very one that President Félix Tshisekedi had promised to “definitively exterminate” during a “final offensive” in October 2019.

In order to fulfill this promise, and, more broadly, to eliminate all foreign armed groups present in the Kivus, the Congolese president first attempted to set up a regional military coalition. He organized several meetings in Goma with neighboring countries’ armies’ chiefs of staff in September and October 2019.

Already at that time, Joseph Kabila’s political coalition, the Front Commun pour le Congo (FCC), opposed this project. And the deep divisions between Rwanda on the one hand, and Uganda and Burundi on the other, as well as the opposition of a large part of Congolese public opinion, finally killed the project.

But on October 31, 2019, the FARDC, most of whose generals were appointed during Kabila’s time, launched a unilateral offensive. MONUSCO, which had not been involved in the planning, did not participate.

One year later, results on the ground are sorely lacking. Despite the announced reconquest of certain ADF strongholds, the operation has largely failed to put this Islamist group out of action. In fact, the ADF has committed far greater massacres since the beginning of the offensive (more than 640 civilians killed in attacks attributed to the ADF in the past year, compared to 195 the year before). On the ground, the FARDC offensive is now largely at a standstill. The Congolese military seems to have become the target in this conflict: of the eight clashes between the FARDC and ADF recorded by the KST in August, for example, the ADF were the initiators in seven cases. “When the president wanted to launch this offensive, the generals accepted it because it allowed them to get the funding that went with it,” a senior FCC official commented to the KST “but they never really believed in it.”

This offensive against the ADF illustrates, among other things, the lack of a coherent, coordinated strategy among the various Congolese and international political leaders to stabilize eastern DRC. Félix Tshisekedi’s rise to power has not, for the moment, made it possible to remedy this.

In Kinshasa, a multitude of Congolese institutions play a role in the politics of the country’s east. However, these institutions are divided between the coalition of the president and that of his predecessor. The Minister of Defense, Aimé Ngoy Mukena, is close to Joseph Kabila. But the Deputy Minister of Defense, Sylvain Mutombo Kabinga, is a fierce supporter of Tshisekedi, as is the Minister of the Interior, Gilbert Kankonde. The National Monitoring Mechanism of the Addis Ababa Agreement (MNS), which is expected to publish a roadmap for stabilizing the country, is headed by Claude Ibalanky. Ibalanky, a close associate of Tshisekedi, comes from the diaspora and does not have extensive experience dealing with conflict dynamics in eastern DRC. “We do not know who is in control” a European diplomatic source revealed in an interview with the KST. In his speech to the nation on October 23, President Tshisekedi cited “issues relating to peace and national security” as the main reason why there are “differences that persist between parties” to the ruling coalition.

Indeed, not all personalities playing a role in the east are pulling in the same direction. This has been evident of late in the “hauts plateaux” (highlands) of South Kivu, where a conflict pitted several militias from the Fuliru, Bembe, Nyindu, and Vira communities against those from the Banyamulenge community. This conflict, which has gone through repeated cycles of violence for several decades, has resumed with renewed vigor since Tshisekedi’s presidency: the main belligerents (Mai-Mai René, Ebu Ela, Biloze Bishambuke, Twirwaneho, Gumino and Makanika) have killed at least 81 civilians in the past year, a sharp increase over the previous year (35 killed), according to KST figures.

In August, Tommy Thambwe Rudima, a former member of the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD) rebellion, traveled to the highlands to try to defuse the conflict. He is affiliated with the NGO Interpeace, and apparently also held a presidential mandate, which a source in the head of state’s office confirmed to the KST. However, at the MNS, a source interviewed by the KST said that he was unaware of this mission, and even went so far as to suggest that Thambwe Rudima was probably an imposter.

Then, in mid-September, Tshisekedist Deputy Minister of Defense Sylvain Mutombo traveled to Murhesa, near Bukavu, to participate in talks between armed groups organized by the NGOs Search for Common Ground (SFCG) and the Initiative for a Cohesive Leadership (ILC). This initiative was funded by the governments of the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland, but was criticized by other donors and many sources in MONUSCO as being premature. Among the participants were representatives of the main belligerents in the highlands who eventually signed a very fragile ceasefire on September 16.

During the following days, relative calm prevailed in the region. But on September 28, Defense Minister Aimé Ngoy Mukena and Decentralization Minister Azarias Ruberwa, both FCC members, traveled to Minembwe to participate in the official induction of Gad Mukiza, a Munyamulenge, as mayor of the rural commune. This ceremony, held at a time when other local entities in South Kivu were still waiting for their administrative status to be formalized, was perceived as a provocation by a large part of the Congolese public. As a result, Félix Tshisekedi himself visited Goma on  October 8, promising to “cancel what has been done” in Minembwe. Since October 19, violent clashes have resumed in the highlands.

The rivalry between Tshisekedi coalition’s Cap pour le changement (CACH) and the FCC is also evident – and deleterious – in the development of a new Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) program. While many of the armed groups in eastern DRC justified their struggle as being against Joseph Kabila’s presidency, Felix Tshisekedi’s term in office has sparked a real wave of voluntary demobilizations since the beginning of the year. Most of these combatants found themselves in cantonment camps. However, due to a lack of resources allocated to these camps, particularly food, most of them fled and returned to the bush.

With bitter memories of previous DDR programs, which they considered to be ineffective and non-transparent, donors did not release the funding that was hoped for for “DDR 3.” “The state was not fulfilling its part of the contract, which was to feed the cantoned combatants,” explained a source close to the dossier.

Félix Tshisekedi has therefore promoted a new approach: so-called “community-based” DDR. This was initially launched by governors of South and North Kivu, as well as Ituri, and is coordinated by Clovis Munihire, under the acronym “CIAP-DDRRRC”: Commission interprovinciale d’appui au processus de désarmement, démobilisation, réinsertion, reintegration et réconciliations communautaires. Its promoters want to change DDR methods, for example by avoiding the problematic DDR stage of confinement in military camps. The idea would now be for them to remain in their communities of origin. This approach also rules out any collective reintegration of combatants into the FARDC.

After having raised a certain amount of skepticism among the DRC’s main donors and MONUSCO, the project now seems to have the consent of the majority from this group. Most western ambassadors supported the new approach after a meeting with the president on October 22, where no FCC minister was present.

In fact, the president’s camp is hampered by the presence of people close to Kabila in key positions. Until now, DDR programs have been coordinated by the Stabilization and Reconstruction Plan for Eastern DRC (STAREC), the Congolese agency that is supposed to implement these programs with the international community. It is also this structure that controls the donor-funded Stabilization Coherence Fund (SCF).

STAREC is coordinated by Alain Kasindi, a man reputed to be close to Néhémie Mwilanya, the National Coordinator of the FCC, and is placed under the authority of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Planning, Elysée Munembwe, who is also from the FCC.

According to a source related to the case, the Tshisekedi camp sees STAREC as a tool to capture funds for the benefit of the FCC. According to a UN source, the president intends to create a new structure, attached to the presidency, which would allow him, among other things, to control STAREC. Thus, in Goma the president announced the forthcoming appointment of a National Coordinator for community DDR.

The issue of funding for these projects, however, remains unresolved. During his visit to Goma, the president announced that $50 million would be allocated to DDR. According to a source at the World Bank, however, this money was not intended to finance DDR-C, but the “Social Fund for the DRC” to support communities affected by violence. Faced with a fait accompli, however, the Bank finally announced “a dedicated stabilization project to support the governors’ initiative in the east,” the parameters of which have yet to be defined.

In addition, the DRC is eligible for new funding under the World Bank’s Prevention and Resilience (PRA) allocation. This funding, provided by European diplomatic sources, totals $700 million. However, the Congolese government must meet several conditions in order to release these funds, including the publication of a comprehensive strategy for stabilizing the country. To date, the World Bank believes that the Congolese government has not met this condition.