Briefing: Democratic Republic of Congo: Political transition and beyond

African Affairs

Volumn 106, Issue 423, 2007, Pages 307-317

  Reyntjens, Filip ^a  

^a ANTWERP MANAGEMENT SCHOOL   (Belgium)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

POLITICAL CHANGE;

AFRICA; CENTRAL AFRICA; CONGO; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA;

EID: 34447559964     PISSN: 00019909     EISSN: 14682621     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/afraf/adm018     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. On this period, see G. de Villers in collaboration with Jean Omasombo Tshonda Zaïre: La Transition manquée (1990-1997). Collection 'Zaire, Annees 90', Vol. 7. Tervuren & Paris: Institut Africain-CEDAF, Afrika Instituut-ASDOC & Editions L'Harmattanl, octobre 1997, CAAS (Cahiers Africains Afrika Studies) No. 27-29.
2. On this first year of the regime, see International Crisis Group, 'How Kabila lost his way: the performance of Laurent Kabila's government' (Background Paper, Brussels, 1999).
3. For more details, see F. Reyntjens, 'Briefing: the second Congo War: more than a remake', African Affairs 98, 391 (1999), pp. 241-50.
4. A survey of obstacles on the road to implementation can be found in International Crisis Group, 'Scramble for the Congo: anatomy of an ugly war', Africa Report No. 26 (Nairobi/Brussels, 2000).
5. An analysis of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue and its institutional outcome is offered in P. Bouvier (with F. Bomboko), 'Le Dialogue intercongolais. Anatomie d'une négociation à la lisière du chaos', Cahiers africains, Nos. 63/64 (L'Harmattan, Paris, 2004) 326 pp.
6. This was the second deployment of a European military force in the DRC, the Artemis operation in Ituri in 2003 being the first.
7. Sensitive, because the issue of 'populations of doubtful' citizenship - a reference mainly to the Kinyarwanda speakers in the Kivu provinces - had created tensions and violence since the 1960s and was a major contributory factor to the war that started in the fall of 1996.
8. It was promulgated only in February 2006.
9. 'The political institutions of the transition remain in place until the effective installation of the corresponding institutions provided for by the present constitution; they exercise their functions in accordance with the transitional constitution' (author's translation).
10. And a Rwandan at that, a particularly vicious claim in light of the profound disgust of most Congolese for Rwanda, which twice invaded the DRC.
11. The agreements signed in early October 2006 between the AMP on the one hand and the palu and the udemo on the other, in addition to setting up a majority behind Kabila's bid for the presidency, also announced that they would join forces to form a government based on a majority in the Assembly. The agreement with the palu contained a clause that the Prime Minister would be from the palu.
12. It seems that quite some pressure was brought to bear on Bemba by the ciat, which probably even threatened him with prosecutions before the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes, should he derail the process.
13. Of the 690 provincial assembly members, 632 were directly elected and 58 were co-opted in early January 2007 from among the customary chiefs.
14. As the constitution provides for a quasi-federal state structure, this importance is set to increase in the future.
15. Due to a dispute over the nationality of some candidates, the gubernatorial elections were postponed in the two Kasai provinces.
16. This fraud was made possible because the provincial assemblies have only a few dozen members, who can be individually approached and 'bought', unlike the many millions of voters during the direct elections.
17. At the time of writing, protests against this state of affairs resulted in the death of about one hundred people in Bas-Congo province. Similar and possibly more devastating violence cannot be excluded in Kinshasa.
18. Now 81 years old, Gizenga was deputy Prime Minister in Lumumba's ill-fated cabinet in 1960.
19. Local elections will take place later.
20. Thus the creation of the so-called 'Maison militaire', which in practice is a private army command structure, allowed Kabila to control the Presidential Guard and to sabotage the regular functioning of the other military structures. See T. Vircoulon, 'République démocratique du Congo: la démocratie sans démocrates', Politique Étrangère 3 (2006), p. 575.
21. Amnesty International, 'DRC: Stability threatened as country fails to reform army' (London, 2007) (AI Index: AFR 62/002/2007).
22. A UN panel monitoring an arms embargo reported compelling data on the total absence of the state in controlling cross-border traffic, including at ports and airports; indeed 'irregular aircraft practices are the norm' (United Nations Security Council, Report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, S/2004/551, 2004, para. 56).
23. For details, see F. Reyntjens, 'The privatisation and criminalisation of public space in the geopolitics of the Great Lakes region', Journal of Modern African Studies 43, 4 (2005), pp. 587-607.