Narrating history in terms of a long struggle for freedom, dignity and democracy frames the post-colonial past as a black chapter in the history of the country, and the present as a new beginning to overcome that past. After a failed democratic transition in the 1990s and two civil wars, the transition process that followed the peace accord was seen as a form of foreign tutelage, a western driven process. In December 2002, after a long and complex process of peace negotiations, a Glob- al and Inclusive Accord was signed by all belligerents. It was necessary to in- clude all the main belligerents. But it was also problematic, for it proved to be very difficult to proceed with the transition process, implement the ambitious transitional agenda, and organise elections. Foreseeing some of these difficulties, a committee of foreign ambassadors was installed as a spoiler management mechanism, but also an arbitration mechanism that aimed to hold the transitional leaders accountable and push as much as they could for the implementation of the transitional agenda.
Perhaps it is not surprising that the main funders of the transition wanted to oversee the process and arranged for a mechanism that would form some form of guarantee on the process. Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) Bill Swing called it a moral authority, that had only a supportive role (CIAT 2006). For the Congolese, however, it was an interference in Congolese sovereignty,21 that was sometimes perceived as threatening by the political elite.22 The international community was overtly present on the political stage and involved in political processes. For many Congolese this was too much, ei- ther because it was seen as illegitimate interference in domestic affairs, or be- cause it was interpreted as a conspiracy between the greedy political leaders and their foreign patrons.
The power-sharing agreement is also seen as being enforced by international mediators. This ‘1+4’ formula, in which one President was assisted by four Vice- Presidents from different former belligerent groups, is seen as having paralysed governance. “1+4= 0” was a popular reference to governance during the transi- tion period. The idea behind the 1+4 formula was that the Presidency could func-
20 Interview with Street Parliamentarian 3 and UDPS activist, Kinshasa 03 March 2010.
21 Interview with (then) MP, Kinshasa 11 May 2006; interview with (then) Minister, Kinshasa 18May 2007.
tion as a platform to forge consensus between the former belligerents, and where mutual trust and confidence could be built. However, in effect it functioned as a platform on which the war between the belligerent leaders continued, thereby paralysing governance and the transition process (De Goede and Van der Borgh 2008, 120). Kinshasa daily Le Potential however wrote: “Eventually, the transi- tional executive is like a detonating cocktail, ready to explode at the least crisis and block the whole (transitional) mechanism. The only means to avert such an eventuality would be establish a climate of confidence between the primary ac- tors, particularly the five members of the Presidency” (Le Potentiel 2003, Author’s translation from French).
The idea behind the 1+4 formula may have been well intended, for many Congolese it was another example of how the international community, the West, finds arrangements to keep the country under its control:
‘1+4 exists only in the Congo, nowhere else. And we did not have it because the Congolese wanted it. It has been imposed upon us by the West. The West does not want a sovereign Congo, it does not want a democratic Congo, it does not want the rule of law in the Congo. It wants a weak Congo to exploit.’23
A civil society activist told me that ‘since Sun City and the transition, Congo is under tutelage of the International Community. We have accepted the 1+4 in the name of peace.’24 It was recognised that this was not a power sharing agree-
ment in the best interest of the population, but rather a temporal elite bargain or warlords’ peace (Lemarchand 2007, 12-14). It was accepted as collateral damage, convinced that it was the best of two evils. The narratives, on the other hand, in- terpret this as a conspiracy, a joint effort of Congolese elitist and western busi- ness interests.
The discontent about the transition is fed from different directions. UDPS, an opposition party that left the negotiation table in discontent and that has sidelined itself from the political process ever since, is perhaps most vocal and aggressive in its rejection of the Sun City peace process and the political system it has in- stalled. It claims that the peace agreement was not a ‘peace on our terms’, that it served foreign interests instead of Congolese interests, and that it ignored the democratisation process of the 1990s. This process did perhaps fail in the end, for the supporters of UDPS it was the great momentum. Compared to the CNS transition, the post-war transition is not ‘Congolese’ but ‘foreign’. UDPS claims that the West is behind the current regime, thereby insinuating that Kabila is a puppet of the West. To them, the elections were a farce and the results have been manipulated because ‘the West wanted Kabila’ – ‘The International Community already knows who will be the winner of 2011’.25
23 Street Parliament, Victoire, Kinshasa, Field Notes March 2010. 24 Interview with Civil Society activist 3, Bukavu, 18 March 2010. 25 Street Parliament, Victoire, Kinshasa, field notes March 2010.
Despite these concerns, the elections of 2006 and the launch of the Third Re- public were welcomed as a new beginning. Elections had been promised long ago, a transition to democracy started in 1990, and again in 2003. In the mean time there had been numerous victims of the struggle for democracy and both wars. The elections thus meant much more for the Congolese than merely a strat- egy in the transition from war to peace. Although conditions were perhaps not conducive to hold elections, it was nevertheless considered impossible to post- pone them because of this public demand for elections.26 People are proud of the elections of 2006, ‘we have found our dignity again with the elections.’27 This pride was evident on Election Day in 2006, when people patiently queued out- side the polling stations, cast their votes with dignity and devotedly executed the counting process by candlelight until the early hours of the next morning. In his inauguration speech, Kabila refers to the war as a ‘battlefield for democracy’, a battle that has been won and that enables the beginning of a new era. Kabila pre- sents his inauguration as the victory of Congolese self-determination, Congolese dignity and he emphasises that he, and with him the Congolese people, will take their responsibilities (Kabila Kabange 2007, 15-16).
The elections marked the end of the wars that were characterised by foreign interference and exploitation, and completed a peace and transition process in which the country had been under foreign tutelage. It also marked the end of a long struggle against dictatorship and the beginning of the long awaited democ- racy. It meant victory and the regaining of self-determination. With the launch of the Third Republic, the post-war thus becomes an emancipatory momentum in which Congolese re-claim self-determination and emphasise sovereignty and re- ject foreign tutelage.
The narratives provide a frame of meaning to the present. The narratives are very rich and contain much more interesting material than I can discuss in this chapter. For the purpose of this thesis, a few aspects stand out. The mythistory frames the current post-war situation in terms of both continuity (continued in- ternational interference and victimhood) and change (emancipation, democracy, a new impetus for resisting this international interference). It puts the current sit- uation in a historic sequence of events of ongoing international breaching of Congolese sovereignty and a quest for emancipation. It frames the current post- war era as a victory of the quest for self-determination and an end to foreign tute- lage. It is thus employed as an emancipatory discourse that claims sovereignty, Congolese dignity and self-determination. The liberal peace is thus locally de- fined as a political project that pursues peace founded on locally defined aspira- tions, namely those of emancipation and self-determination.
26 Interview with Western diplomat 1 and CIAT member, Kinshasa 28 May 2006. 27 Interview with PALU representatives, Kinshasa 06 May 2010.
This means that Congolese and their partners have a different interpretation of the present in a historical sequence. As a project of dispossession the liberal peace is not about dignity and self-determination. The narratives also show am- bivalence in the engagement with the hegemonic discourse of the liberal peace. Congolese employ a strategy of straddling engagement and disengagement with the liberal peace to emphasise their own status as hero or victim, and to give meaning to the failures of the past and the present, as well as hopes and fatalistic perspectives for the future.
Secondly, it affects relations with the main partners (donors) of processes of state building and democratisation. Different people use the same repertoires to construct opposing arguments. Putting political differences aside, the narratives create a suspicion of western partners engaged in state building and democratisa- tion. These interventions are considered to be instruments to prevent Congolese self-determination and to continue Western domination. In the historical se- quence of the relations between the Congo and the western world, these partners are perceived with distrust and suspicion. Consequently, the narratives also pro- vide a frame of meaning and interpretation to the failures of the post-war regime and the disappointments with unfulfilled expectations. The narratives enable this to be interpreted as the result of continued interference of the West and its ally Rwanda. The West is simply not trusted. This sets the stage for us-them percep- tions, rather than a partnership of actors with shared objectives.
The narratives thus negotiate western interference (power) in post-war Congo and seek to destabilise it by providing an understanding of the present shared by local agencies that pursue a post-liberal peace. Because these narratives are ig- nored and silenced by liberal peace interventions the liberal peace is unable to connect with local agencies. The agents of the liberal peace fail to recognise that local agencies see them as the cause of perpetuated Congolese misery, and nei- ther do they recognise that local agencies frame the post-war as a political project in pursuit of emancipation from the West. This lack of understanding of local interpretations of the present affects the ability of outside actors to engage with local agencies. In the next chapter I will discuss these myth workings and how it implicates the process of post-war state building and democratisation in the Con- go and negotiates with the discourses of the liberal peace.