Henry-Pacifique Mayala
“Implications_of_violent_regime_change_for_long-term_democratic_prospects_in_a
_country: case_study_of_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo”
Implications of violent regime change for long-term democratic prospects in a country:
case study of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Introduction
By navigating the history of the DRC this essay will discuss the negative implications of violent
regime change. Both violent regime changes, manufactured by foreign governments to secure
their interests and those arising from internal political frustrations mostly on ethnical / tribal
adherance’ grounds, on the long-term democratic prospects for a country. After, gaining
independence from Belgium in 1960 the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC, underwent
a period of internal conflict which ultimately resulted in a military coup and takeover by army
Chief of Staff Joseph Mobuto in 1965. Mobutu ruled the country for thirty-two years until tribal
conflict in neighbouring Rwanda spilled over to the DRC leading to the First Congo War during
1996-97 and to his deposition and flight in exile to Morocco. This was later followed by the
Second Congo, the great war of Africa which lasted for five years between 1998 and 2003.
Although still suffering from internal conflict, the DRC has recently voted for a second time in
2018, and is currently experiencing its ever first spell of democratic rule. Well-endowed with
natural resources, including oil, and strategically well positioned at the centre of the African
continent, the DRC has a landmass equivalent to that of eastern Europe and is Africa’s second
largest country. It is bordered by nine neighbours, and still has open access to the Atlantic
Ocean.
Following the Schumpeterian tradition, the essay will firstly explore the distinctive approaches
to democracy and to what extent the DRC met these during each period of its historical
development. Theorists have drawn distinctions between rationalistic, utopian, and idealistic
definitions of democracy on the one hand, and between empirical, descriptive, institutional
and procedural explanations on the other and have concluded that only the latter have
provided analytical precision and empirical evidence that make the concept a useful one.
(Huntington, 1991). Secondly, the essay will assess the responsibility and role played by the
international community, the world governmental bodies, as well as the current and former
Congolese elites in addressing the issues of democratisation and stability of the DRC
throughout its history consistently impeded by the negative effects of violent regime changes
– a history awash with resistance against systemic exploitation of the country's huge mineral
resources by foreign powers, coupled with repression of local populations by subsequent
Henry-Pacifique Mayala
“Implications_of_violent_regime_change_for_long-term_democratic_prospects_in_a
_country: case_study_of_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo”
regimes. (Kasonga, 2018). Finally, the essay will conclude by offering thoughts and possible
solutions to enable democratisation from an African/ local perspectives.
Background to Colonialism and Regime Change in the DRC
Congolese state and society have not always been so weak. The Kongo kingdom flourished in
the fifteenth century along the Atlantic coast and, at one point, was able to field over 20,000
infantrymen and archers in battles funded through an elaborate system of taxes. It also had
diplomatic representatives at the Portuguese, Spanish and Papal courts. The Luba and Lunda
kingdoms, based in the centre of today’s DRC, developed a successful model of government
based on sacred kingship and local councils that spread throughout neighbouring regions. Since
then, the country has experienced violent change commencing with the slave trade during the
sixteenth century when millions of slaves were exported from the country by both European and
Arab traders. This led to conflict and bloodshed between rival kingdoms over the lucrative trade,
and also to a huge population shortage. In the nineteenth century, the country was synonymous
with tragedy and a history of executions, assassinations, mass killings, rape, and other human
rights abuses as a result of domestic dictatorships, foreign invasions and meddling by external
powers. Most notably, King Leopold II of Belgium acquired rights to the Congo territory at the
Berlin Conference in 1885 and made the land his private property, a situation which continued
until 1908 when the country was formally annexed by Belgium. At this stage, a colonial state
was created but it was never intended to be accountable to its own citizens and no African was
ever enlisted as an officer in the army, and all important positions in the administration were
held by white foreigners. The colonial administrators continued to dismember what remained of
the Congolese kingdoms, appointing hundreds of new chiefs and expropriating lands and
allowing Belgians to take over many functions of the customary rulers. Local inhabitants were
forced to produce rubber to supply the emerging industries of the Industrial Revolution,
particularly the automobile industry, in Europe and the USA resulting in the death of millions
through disease and exploitation (Hochschild, 1999). According to Roger Casement, the then
British Consul, it was estimated that ten million native Congolese died as a result of these
exactions (Casement, 1903). The triumph of the Allies in World War II initiated a wave of
democratisation that reached its zenith in 1962 with thirty-six countries governed democratically,
but this was followed by a second, reverse wave between 1960 and 1975 that brought the
number of democracies back down to thirty (Huntington, 1991).
Henry-Pacifique Mayala
“Implications_of_violent_regime_change_for_long-term_democratic_prospects_in_a
_country: case_study_of_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo”
In the Congo, following the bloodshed of January 1959 commemorating the victims of the
independence movement, and which precipitated the negotiation of independence in June 1960,
the colonial authorities handed over government to a handful of lawyers and university
graduates who proved unprepared to manage a vast country and its resources. Meanwhile,
foreign business interests and cold war politics led to Belgian and American backed mercenaries
repressing nationalist sentiment and to the assassination of the fragile government’s first prime
minister, Patrice Emery Lumumba, in January 1961. Following the contested elections of 1965,
with the government in near-paralysis, Mobutu seized power in a bloodless coup on 25th
November under the auspices of a regime d'exception, the equivalent of a state of
emergency. Although ostensibly declaring a non-aligned position in international affairs, he
emphasised his alliance with the United States and the western world and continued to rule the
Congo, renamed Zaire in 1971, as president for thirty-two years until 1997.
Following the deterioration of social and living conditions in the country, Mobutu grew unpopular
and was losing control of his generals, a cornerstone of his totalitarian regime. Facing serious
internal and external pressures, and through the National Sovereign Conference under the
leadership of the Catholic Church, he offered to collaborate politically with his arch enemy,
Etienne Tshisekedi Wa Mulumba. Most serious of the external pressures was the coalition of
Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, formed and led by the Rwandan army, to combat and destroy
the Hutu
1
rebellion in the East of the DRC following the assassination of Rwandan president
Juvenal Habyarimana himself from the Hutu ethnicity. This triggered the onset of the Rwandan
genocide in 1994 and led to the opening of the DRC borders for humanitarian reasons. However,
the DRC has paid a huge price to this day for this action due to the intrusion of coalition forces,
unauthorised by the United Nations, and to a serious violation of its sovereignty under
international law (Barhatulirwa, 2017). In order to avoid international condemnation, and in an
effort to legitimise the incursion, Laurent Desiré Kabila, a long-time opponent of Mobutu then in
exile, was recruited by the coalition to ostensibly portray the invasion as an internal rebellion.
The invasion was launched in September 1996 in the eastern region of the country and was
supported by the Clinton administration in the USA. Mobutu, now weakened by ill health, was
isolated politically and had lost the support of his fragile and unpaid army. He had also been
abandoned by the West, most notably by Washington and London, as he was now perceived
as an embarrassment. In an act of hypocrisy by the West, President Clinton sent his secretary
of state Bill Richardson to Kinshasa to advise Mobutu to leave power peacefully. In the
1
Hutu: is one of the ethnic groups within Rwanda. It is estimated to represent more than 80 percent of the
Rwandan population.
Henry-Pacifique Mayala
“Implications_of_violent_regime_change_for_long-term_democratic_prospects_in_a
_country: case_study_of_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo”
meantime, the USA provided the invading coalition with substantive logistical resources to speed
up the regime change process. In May 1997, Kinshasa was seized after seven months of fighting
and the country fell completely to the liberation forces in August of that year therefore ending
thirty-two years of Mobutu’s rule. He died in exile in Morocco in that year just prior to the
country’s capitulation (N'Gbanda, 1998).
Under the new leadership of Laurent Desiré Kabila, who instilled a deep sense of patriotism
across the country, there was reason for new hope and a commitment to positive change with
a particular dedication to fight corruption. However, he gradually alienated his western backers
by suspending several mining contracts with multinational corporations and by becoming
unpredictable and politically unreliable, most notably by aligning himself with communism. His
first official visits as president were to Cuba, North Korea, China, Libya and Zimbabwe, and a
dispute with the then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright effectively signed his death
warrant (Barhatulirwa, 2017). Ultimately, in a similar scenario to the First Congo War, a rebellion
erupted in the Eastern region of the DRC in August 1998. The same coalition declared war on
Kabila who sought support from the Zimbabweans, Namibians and the Angolans forces to
defend his power. Thus commenced the Second Congolese War, also known as the African
war, with seven armies confronting each other on DRC soil with the local population once again
paying the heaviest price. Facilitated by the international community, negotiations led to the
Lusaka ceasefire agreement bringing an end to the hostilities in July 1999. This addressed
several issues including the cessation of hostilities, establishment of a joint military commission
(JMC) comprising representatives of the belligerents, withdrawal of foreign groups, general
disarmament, demobilisation and reintegrating of combatants, release of prisoners and
hostages, re-establishment of government administration, and the selection of a mediator to
facilitate an all-inclusive inter-Congolese dialogue. The agreement also called for the
deployment of a UN peacekeeping force to monitor the ceasefire and investigate violations of
the treaty (Lusaka Agreement). In January, 2001 president Kabila was killed by one of his body
guards, like Lumumba, amidst clashes of foreign powers’ interests within his country. He was
soon replaced by his son, Joseph Kabila, who inherited a country that was still engulfed in war
and that, for the most part, was without a functioning government or basic services, and whose
economy had largely been ruined from years of conflict.
Little was known about Kabila, and the first assessment was that his father’s advisers had
chosen him as a figurehead. However, during the following months Kabila surprised many
Henry-Pacifique Mayala
“Implications_of_violent_regime_change_for_long-term_democratic_prospects_in_a
_country: case_study_of_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo”
people by taking government policy in a different direction. Less than a week after being sworn
in he made his first trip abroad to confer with government leaders in France and Belgium and
also travelled to the USA to meet with Secretary of State Colin Powell, officials of the World
Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations. Whilst in the United States he
also met with Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, who had been one of his father’s principal
opponents.(Britanica, 2020). In a meeting in Zambia in February 2001, Kabila agreed to begin
the implementation of the cease-fire agreement that had been signed in July 1999 but which
had not been honoured. He also held talks with rebel groups and the governments of the five
countries that had troops in the Congo: Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia,
who agreed to begin their withdrawal. The cease-fire and pullback of troops was monitored by
United Nations peacekeepers who arrived at the end of March 2001. In the following month,
Kabila dismissed the cabinet which he had inherited from his father’s administration and named
his own group of ministers and, in December 2002, signed an agreement with rebels to end the
war and form a power-sharing transitional government. This agreement was ratified in April 2003
and later that year an interim government was formed that kept Kabila as president with named
rebel leaders appointed to vice presidential and cabinet posts. This was the position until the
elections of 2006 were held and inaugurated him as the first democratically elected president
since the country became independent in 1960. For over a century from 1908 to 2018, little has
changed in the DRC. Since independence in 1960, the lives and human rights of Congolese
citizens have been jeopardised by corrupt and dictatorial leaders from Joseph Mobutu to Joseph
Kabila who have utilised violent means to acquire or remain in power, and who have
misappropriated the country’s wealth rather than use it to create a democratic and accountable
state.
The death of dictatorship does not ensure the birth of democracy. It however unleashes a huge
array of popular, social, and political forces that have been effectively supressed during the
period of dictatorship (Huntington, 1991). This is evidenced in the history of the DRC subsequent
to the democratic election of Joseph Kabila in 2006 who was then controversially re-elected in
2011, and who attempted to force a third term in office in contravention of the country’s
constitution. This sparked a wave of killings and human rights abuses across the country, a
period in which even United Nation investigator and peacekeepers were assassinated.
However, during this period, and despite the background of violence, the country experienced
a proliferation of civil society movements with a non-violent and pro-democratic focus. One such
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