Abstract
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has experienced periods of long internal conflicts, organized a series of elections (presidential, national, and provincial) in 2006 in order to close the transitional period that followed the peace agreement in 2002. After the elections, however, the conflicts in the eastern part of the country (Kivu region) aggravated, as the rebel CNDP intensified its military activities. This paper explores why the conflicts recurred in Kivu after the elections, through the examination of changes and continuities during this period.
To understand events of this period, two aspects must be kept in mind. On the one hand, national and regional political environments have changed considerably because of the elections. The RCD-Goma, the Rwanda-backed rebels controlling the Kivu region that became a political party in the 2006 elections, lost its power through a series of national and provincial election defeats. By contrast, parties related to the ex-rebel RCD-ML gained power through the elections. This change can be interpreted in terms of ethnic relations: Banyarwanda-Tutsi ethnic groups lost power at the hands of Nande groups.
Economic aspects, on the other hand, did not change much before or after the elections. Illicit mining, the most important economic activity in the Kivu region, had been mainly controlled by Rwanda, RCD-Goma, and the FDLR (Hutu rebels stemming from the ex-Habyarimana regime in Rwanda) until the transitional period. Recent reports on this issue revealed that the illicit activities have been conducted mainly by three groups: the FARDC (the integrated national armed forces), FDLR, and CNDP. Among the three groups, it is clear that FDLR and CNDP, the Tutsi-hardliners in the RCD-Goma, had already been carrying out their activities since before the elections. The reason that the FARDC came to be involved in illicit mining seems to be related to a certain problematic way of army integration. Under the so called “mixage” army integration system, ex-rebels can become FARDC soldiers, even if they were practically neither disarmed nor demobilized.
The recent uprising of CNDP can therefore be interpreted as purposeful action to change the political order established through the election. The fact that the CNDP had formed around the first-round presidential elections (July 2006) indicates that Tutsi-hardliners had already predicted the defeat of RCD-Goma at this time. The defeat was in fact predictable as the core supporters of RCD-Goma (Tutsi) is extreme minority among Congolese population. Instead of participating in the elections as RCD-Goma, they decided to establish a new instrument for violence, the CNDP, in order to maintain their political and economic vested interests. The 2006 elections, in effect, was a driving force for the subsequent violence in Kivu.
