1
MASARYK UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Social Studies
Department of International Relations and European Studies
Armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Driven by greed
or grievances? The M23 Rebellion
June 03 2016 in Brno
MVZ489 Causes of political violence
by Zsolt Szabó (452404)
2
Introduction
This paper tries to explain the high preponderance of armed groups in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo. I analyse the underlying motives of these militias and ask to what extent are they
pushed into the conflict by legitimate concerns or if they are enticed by the prospect of profits
from the war economy. The latter explanation, elaborated upon by Collier and Hoeffler, whose
econometric model I’ll briefly introduce, seems to be, at first sight a perfect fit for the situation
in Congo-Kinshasa, but a closer look will reveal some its shortcomings. My analysis of factors
of ethnicity and economy will include with a more general portrayal of Congolese conditions
that favour civil war, but I’ll also have a special focus on the M23 rebel group as this militia
can be considered the most ethnically charged major armed rebellion in recent Congolese
history and thus perhaps the most challenging for the model to explain.
The M23 rebellion
The M23 Movement was an armed rebellion against the Congolese government that began in
April 2012 and was defeated in November 2013. It had its origins in the CNDP (Congrès
national pour la défense du peuple), a Tutsi-dominated militia recruited from soldiers formerly
integrated into the Congolese national army (Forces Armées de la République Démocratique
du Congo – FARDC).1
The democratic elections in 2006 ended the power-sharing agreement
that gave the biggest rebel groups a vice-presidency each and thus the Rwanda-supported
faction of Azarias Ruberwa a bigger slice of power than the demographic share of
Banyarwanda and Banyamulenge - ethnic groups whose protection was supposed to legitimize
the incursions into Congo led by former Rwanda-based armed groups (RCD) – would have
warranted. Only 1.7 % voted for the party led by Ruberwa and Laurent Nkunda, fearful of
losing influence, founded the CNDP.2
The CNDP then laid down arms after an agreement on
the 23th of March of 2009 that detailed the integration of rebel soldiers into the FARDC. In
April 2012 some 300 former CNDP soldiers split from the Kinshasa-based army, citing poor
conditions, delayed payments and lack of promotion opportunities and blaming the Congolese
government for not respecting the terms of the agreement.3
These rebels, called M23, quickly
took Goma, a provincial capital of South Kivu, but were soon defeated by the FARDC, aided
1
The Economist: Rwanda in eastern Congo. A new sphere of influence? Goma: 2012.08.04
(http://www.economist.com/node/21559970?zid=304&ah=e5690753dc78ce91909083042ad12e30)
2
Stearns, Jason K.: From CNDP to M23 - The evolution of an armed movement in eastern Congo. London: Rift
Valley Institute, Usalama project, 2012, pp.18
3
Stearns, Jason; Verweijen, Judith; Baaz, Maria Eriksson: The national army and armed groups in the eastern
Congo - Untangling the Gordian knot of insecurity. London: Rift Valley Institute, Usalama project, 2013, pp.
28
3
by a much more proactive approach of MINUSCO4
, the UN peacekeeping force that was
woefully ineffective in the past5
. Although the M23 rebellion was crushed, its centre, the Kivu
Regions, remains volatile, with more than 70 small armed groups still existing – most of them
locally-based self-defence groups, so-called Mai-Mai-militias.6
The Collier-Hoeffler model
The model is the result of a large-N quantitative study undertaken by Paul Collier and Anke
Hoeffler that attempts to explain the motivations behind violent conflicts. According to Collier,
the oft-cited reasons for going into civil war, that are usually related to some sort of grievance
over identity, ethnicity, religion, etc., are just some rationalizing veneer over the real
motivation for turning to violence: greed. The statements of the actors citing grievances should
not be taken for face value as they are intended to add some legitimacy for turning to arms or
to aid recruitment by exploiting kinship terms.7
In their econometric analysis, the authors have
found no evidence for ethnic diversity, often mentioned as a factor raising the chance of
conflict, being the root cause of violence; a very high ethnic fragmentation was even correlated
to a lowered chance of civil war. Instead, they found positive correlation between the
preponderance of lootable resources like gold, diamonds and timber and the outbreak of civil
war, the share of young men in the population was also tied to more conflict. The level of
education seems to be negatively correlated to violence. This led the authors to explain conflicts
in terms of rational choice, expected profit not ideals motivate conflicts.8
Presupposing that
fighters, especially low-educated ones as the model assumes, are cost-benefit calculator
machines, might be perceived as far-fetched. And the reduction to a greed v. grievance binary
is perhaps also excessive. The biggest strengths of the model are the fact that it doesn’t rely on
exploring the motives that militias proclaim they are guided by to explain the underlying causes
of conflict; secondly, if we assume that grievances can motivate armed conflicts, the CollierHoeffler
model neatly presents the conditions under which hostility turns into outright violence
4
The Economist: Raising the stakes - A more robust United Nations risks roiling neighbourly relations. Nairobi:
2013.08.31 (http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21584395-more-robust-united-nations-
risks-roiling-neighbourly-relations-raising?zid=304&ah=e5690753dc78ce91909083042ad12e30)
5
Ulriksen, Ståle; Gourlay, Catriona; Mace, Catriona: Operation Artemis: The Shape of things to come?
International Peacekeeping (13533312). Autumn2004, Vol. 11 Issue 3, p508-525
6
Stearns, Jason K.; Vogel, Christoph: The Landscape of Armed Groups in the Eastern Congo. New York
University Congo Research Group, 2015 December
7
Collier, Paul, 2000: Doing Well out of War: An Economic Perspective, in: Mats Berdal/David M. Malone
(eds.), 2000: Greed & grievance: economic agendas in civil wars, pp. 91-111, p.92
8
Ibid., pp. 100
4
instead of staying latent as the success of even “idealistic” armed campaigns depends on
modalities to finance them and finding willing recruitees.
Ethnicity in the DRC
Congo’s more than 200 ethnic groups certainly make identity-based conflicts possible, it was
even argued that holding democratic elections in the country is futile as campaigns don’t run
along policy lines but are mere exercises in ethnic mobilization and the winning coalition is
nothing more than an ethnic aggregate.9
While ethnic identity is relevant, it is not the most
important factor in Congo. Etienne Tshisekedi, a member of the Luba people that face vast
prejudices beyond their Kasai Region10
, could become the country’s decade-long opposition
leader nevertheless, winning elections in the Kinshasa district. Joseph Kabila, the country’s
current president could stay in power even without speaking French and Lingala, the two main
languages in Kinshasa and having spent his childhood in exile with his father in Tanzania.11
Mobutu Sese Seko managed to rule over Congo (back then Zaire) even if he belonged to a very
small group, the Ngbandi, often mocked for its alleged backwardness as it’s considered a
warrior tribe12
. There are cases when the Congolese army simply sold their weapons to militias
representing other ethnicities, like during the Ituri conflict, the economic interest trumped the
ethnic belonging. 13
In the case of the M23, however, ethnicity seems to be particularly important, as 80 % of its
senior commanders were Tutsis.14
The first Rwanda-supported incursions into the Congo were
supposed to hunt down the perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda, a reason that was evoked
by the M23 as a reason for fighting as well. Another reason was to protect the communities
considered Tutsi-affiliated like the Banyamulenge, often used as scapegoats and discriminated
against. They had different fortunes: Mobutu once tried to co-opt them but then the tide turned
and they were stripped of citizenship in 1981.15
That the RCD then went on in 1997 to take
Kinshasa on the Western edge of the country, very far from the area of settlement of the
9
Prunier, Gerard: Cocktail meurtrier en Afrique centrale. Le Monde diplomatique, 2015 november, pp. 8-9
10
Wrong, Michaela: In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz. Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu’s Congo. New
York: HarperCollins, 2001, Chapter 5: Living above the Shop
11
Stearns, Jason K.: Dancing in the Glory of Monsters. The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa
New York: Public Affairs, 2011, Chapter 20: The Bearer of Eggs
12
Wrong (2001): Chapter 4: Dizzy worms
13
The Economist: Waiting to be rescued - The UN wants to stop the massacres in eastern Congo. But how?
Nairobi: 2013.05.15 (http://www.economist.com/node/1781263)
14
Stearns, Jason K.: From CNDP to M23 - The evolution of an armed movement in eastern Congo. London:
Rift Valley Institute, Usalama project, 2012, pp.11
15
The Economist: The “Jews” of Africa. Bukavu, Goma and Kigali: 2004.08.19
(http://www.economist.com/node/3113203?zid=304&ah=e5690753dc78ce91909083042ad12e30)
5
Banyamulenge, showed that more was at stake than ethnic issues back then, perhaps economic
interests were more potent.
The economic structure of the DRC
In the era under Congo’s long-serving dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, the country became a
textbook example for the resource-curse.16
In a normal economy, individuals create the
economic value and they have the agency so they can decide who governs. A country cursed
by an abundance of resources, is however more often than not based on rent-seeking. There is
only so much treasure in the ground so it becomes hugely important who gets to exploit them,
closeness to government will pay off, favouring the emergence of networks of cronies, also
known as corruption. As all the riches are in the hands of the government and all the income
flows to them, there is no reason for it to democratize. In fact, Congo under Mobutu Sese Seko
was one such huge network of patronage. His dictatorship was not based on repression or
torture, even if sometimes that happened, too, but by effectively bribing anyone who was or
could become influential, even if this potential consisted in a mere university degree, by a share
coming from the mineral resources, running what was effectively a kleptocracy and ignoring
everyone else.17
This network was huge, so when Laurent Kabila took over power, he famously
said, you “you all danced in the glory of the monster”.18
Bureaucratic posts were seen as
something of a cash cow, meaning that a lot of fees were charged, somebody calculated that
the effective tax rate in Congo was 230 %, taking away any incentive from starting an own
business, leaving everybody dependent on the government.19
The army, seen as an eternal
source of coups, was kept deliberately weak, as Mobutu was from a very small tribe, and
couldn’t rely on the support of his own ethnic group. Indeed, even an army job was seen as
something to be milked. Soldiers were rarely paid and were expected, according to the
infamous article 15 of the Congolose Constitution consisting solely of “débrouillez-vous”,
meaning roughly solve it as you can, to “live off the land”, offering protection for small favours
or in the worst case, loot. Mobutu once said openly: “you have guns, you don’t’ need a
salary”20
, creating an army culture where using weapons for intimidating civilians and
16
Basedau, Matthias/Wolfram Lacher, 2006: A Paradox of Plenty? Rent Distribution and Political Stability in
Oil States, GIGA Research Program: Dynamics of Violence and Security Cooperation, (http://www.giga-
hamburg.de/de/system/files/publications/wp21_basedau-lacher.pdf)
17
Wrong (2001): Chapter 4: Dizzy worms
18
Stearns (2011): Introduction
19
World Bank: Doing Business 2009. Washington: World Bank, 2008, pp. 43
20
Stearns (2011): Chapter 8: The Dominoes Fall
6
benefiting materially was accepted. When Mobutu failed, the kingpin in this network cronies,
Congo collapsed.
The ensuing civil war, called the Great War of Africa by Gérard Prunier, can be thus explained
in terms of reshuffling the patronage networks for the distribution of the income from mineral
wealth. The state depended on giving away mining concessions to dubious companies for a
fraction of their worth in a bid to make some quick money to finance the war effort. Indeed,
one of the businessmen close to the regime who saw the war in Congo as an investment
opportunity, Dan Gertler was so shady, that an offshore bank in Panama refused to deal with
him.21
While the state depended on Gécamines, the state mining company extracting the
country’s abundant reserves in copper, cobalt and rare earth minerals, rebels could profit from
a large amount of lootable resources. Uganda, the traditional ally of Rwanda, has seen a
blooming trade that surged thanks to timber and gold looted from the Kivus Region during the
M23’s reign.22
Paul Kagame, the Rwandan President spoke in the case of the RCD of a “selffinancing
war”.23
An estimated of 80 % of the costs associated with the rebellion were covered
by looted resources.24
A long history of conflict brought forth a generation that didn’t
experience any other profession other than being soldiers. Tellingly, Laurent Kabila, the rebel
leader who deposed Mobutu, was killed in 2001 by his own desperate child soldiers, who feared
that he was about to sign a peace accord and make them redundant.25
Founding a business is
prohibitively difficult in Congo, running is even more as the danger that somebody with a
weapon grabs the revenues is real. Decades of conflict left the schools of the Kivu Region in a
parlous state: 47 % of children never attended school.26
The situation is hardly better in other
regions of the DRC: just 1.6 % of the GDP is spent on education which means that 156
countries of the world spend a larger share.27
There is a whole generation whose only chance
of making a living is to take up arms, waging a war for war’s sake. In resource-rich Congo, this
can be a profitable enterprise, at least for those at the top. Bosco Ntaganda, the leader of the
21
Tilouine, Joan: « Panama papers » : Dan Gertler, roi du Congo et de l’offshore. Le Monde, 2016.04.18
22
WWF 2012: Timber movement and trade in eastern DR Congo and destination markets in the region
(https://d2ouvy59p0dg6k.cloudfront.net/downloads/regional_timber_movement_and_trade__summary___englis
h.pdf)
23
Fruchart, Damien: United Nations Arms Embargoes. Their Impact on Arms Flows and Target Behaviour –
Case Study: Democratic Republic of the Congo. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2007, pp.3
24
United Nations, Final report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and
Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, UN Document S/2002/1146, 16 Oct. 2002,
pp. 14–15.
25
Stearns (2011): Chapter 18 – The Assassination of Mzee
26
UIS. (2010). Education aid flows to conflict-affected countries. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0019/001912/191244e.pdf)
27
CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cg.html)
7
M23, who made his name in the Ituri conflict (around 2003), used his military control over
Goma, the trading centre of the Kivus to establish a lucrative smuggling network of looted
minerals. He had his own businesses, hotels and villas.28
Perhaps the strongest point for the
greed theory is the fact, that the poor conditions in the Congolese army first became unbearable
enough for Ntaganda’s soldiers to start a mutiny when Kinshasa wanted to post them to another
part of the country, away from the hub of their business dealings.29
External factors
One of the most important aspects that the Collier-Hoeffler model seems to neglect is that of
external influence. Rwanda had control and command over the M23 rebellion30
and benefitted,
alongside its ally, Uganda, from most of the trade emanating from the war-torn Kivu Region.
As Rwanda relies in a large part on aid, it is susceptible to pressure from donor countries.
Indeed, the CNDP agreed to lay down arms when a UN report called the Rwanda-backed
RCD’s push to Kinshasa an attempt at counter-genocide and donor countries, above all Britain
put Rwanda under huge pressure to cease and further support of armed groups in Congo.31
As
Rwanda feared for a loss of revenues, Laurent Nkunda, the leader of CNDP was put under
house arrest in Kigali. In the case of the M23 rebellion, the international community had a role,
too. Against Bosco Ntaganda, its leader, an arrest warrant was issued by the International
Criminal Court citing several crimes against humanity during his role in the Ituri-conflict,
where he got the nickname “Terminator”. The huge loss of reputation wreaked by the arrest
warrant made Ntaganda’s position untenable and a leadership crisis ensued.32
Ntaganda then
turned himself in at the US embassy in Kigali, becoming the first person with an ICC arrest
warrant to give himself up voluntarily. The M23 rebellion could have clearly not happened
without the (denied) support of Rwanda providing arms, logistical and planning expertise.
Lootable resources and a youth without perspectives were clearly significant factors, but the
model doesn’t relate to the role external powers willing to exploit a weak state and their
dependence on foreign aid.
28
The Economist: A surprising surrender. Nairobi: 2013.03.19
(http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2013/03/bosco-
ntaganda?zid=304&ah=e5690753dc78ce91909083042ad12e30)
29
Ibid.
30
UN Security Council Report 2012.11.15 (http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-
4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_2012_843.pdf)
31
McGreal, Chris; Rice, Xan; Davies; Lizzie: Leaked UN report accuses Rwanda of possible genocide in
Congo. The Guardian: 2010.09.26
32
Stearns, Jason: Strongman of the Eastern DRC: A profile of General Bosco Ntaganda. Rift Valley Institute
Briefing, 2013.03.12
8
Conclusion
The Collier-Hoeffler model provides a much more potent explanation for the proliferation of
armed groups in Congo than the usual identity-based approaches. An economy based on rentseeking
enabled Mobutu Sese Seko to have a loose rule over a vast territory by cultivating a
huge patronage network but his system couldn’t resist the cessation of Western support after
the end of the cold war and spillover effects from neighbouring Rwanda led to its collapse.
With an army deliberately kept weak fled through the country, the central government couldn’t
afford even a modicum of security to its population in the East, in these regions at least, Congo
was effectively a failed state. The abundance of lootable resources as well as the high share of
jobless young men favoured the proliferation of small armed groups aiming to fill the power
vacuum and to have a share of the natural treasure themselves. In this respect, the model
explains the M23 rebellion as well. Economic and demographic aspects certainly played a huge
part in at least fuelling the armed rebellion. The flourishing gold trade in Uganda - a close ally
of Rwanda - that sprang up in Kampala after the M23 took over Goma, as well as the personal
wealth of rebellion leader Ntaganda attest to the war economy being a powerful reason for the
continuation of war. What the real motivations of the M23 leaders were, stays of course
debatable, but the econometric model clearly outlines under which conditions such a rebellion
can prosper and when hostility turns into violence. It doesn’t account for the role of external
actors, however. Natural resources were still up for grabs for the Kivus’ poorly educated youth
when the M23 surrendered – the loss of Rwandan support is was the important reason for laying
down arms but such elements are not built into the model.
Regardless that they produce violence or not, the grievances of the Banyamulenge are real.
They are still often pointed out as aliens on a land that they inhabited since the 19th
century.
Playing the Tutsi-card can still garner some votes for unscrupulous politicians, indeed, this
ethnic groups is sometimes referred to as the Jews of Africa. These grievances have to be
addressed, in the best way by a decentralization of the Congolese state. Collier and Hoeffler
are probably right that policy-makers should turn to economic aspects first if they want to
reduce the chance of an outbreak of violence. However, a violence-free society doesn’t mean
that there are no legitimate grievances. Reducing the profit actors can gain from waging a war
can help eliminate violence. Addressing grievances can help fight injustice.
9
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november, pp. 8-9
Stearns, Jason K.: Dancing in the Glory of Monsters. The Collapse of the Congo and the Great
War of Africa New York: Public Affairs, 2011
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Congo. London: Rift Valley Institute, Usalama project, 2012
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in the eastern Congo - Untangling the Gordian knot of insecurity. London: Rift Valley Institute,
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10
The Economist: A surprising surrender. Nairobi: 2013.03.19
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11
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