Conflict in the Congo is certainly not new. Since independence from Belgium in 1960, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), formally known as Zaire, has suffered in a permanent state of transition and flux. The land and its people have not once experienced a sustained period of freedom, peace, and development. The DRC boasts one of the world’s greatest pools of natural resources including 50% of Africa’s forests, copper, cobalt, gold, coltan and diamonds. Yet the DRC is one of the world’s poorest countries (168 out of 177 according to the 2007/2008 United Nation’s Human Development Index), and home to one of the worst human rights records on the planet.

Until recently, much of the international community remained uninformed of the long bloody conflict, ethno-political obstacles, and horrific tales of death and destruction that make up the story of the last 50 years in the DRC. The lack of exposure resulted in a severe deficiency of humanitarian aid and development in the region. It has taken the recent resurgence of violence and extreme political upheaval that could crumble a nation, along with the threat of another great war in Africa to finally catch the media spotlight.

Why has it taken this long for a humanitarian crisis of such severity to be noticed, while others, such as the genocide in Darfur, work their way into world consciousness and eventually policy agendas, albeit in a limited way? The images in this spread are of refugees who have fled the war in Congo. These photographs may evoke reaction in readers, but the question of why conflict in the DRC receives little in the way of international support can help us understand how foreign aid operates and sometimes leaves countries behind.

Understanding a Conflict: Violence and Confusion

International efforts to parse out the politics of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo are difficult to say the least. Peacekeeping is a frustrating and convoluted endeavor. The national military, government supported militias, united rebel Hutu groups and volatile Mai Mai rebels all assert they exist for the defense of the Congolese and all are guilty of using significant violence against citizens at one time or another. While each is associated with specific ethnic groups within the country, their actions are generally motivated by a desire to control resources. Alliances are constantly changing. Peace negotiations incorporating the agendas of all groups remain a difficult, if not impossible, task.

In contrast to the melee of belligerents in the DRC, the situation in Darfur offers one specific and ethnically motivated conflict, that of Janjaweed rebels partnered with the Sudanese government against the Sudanese citizens of Darfur. This situation has been described as ‘genocide’, a term that justly evokes international action and connects the events in Darfur with the memories of past atrocities. It is a word that demands international attention.

In a world where geopolitics is arguably increasingly focused on religious divisions, particularly Christian vs. Muslim, the fighting in the DRC involves African vs. African and does not lend itself to any greater political paradigm. In Sudan, the antagonists are classified by some as ‘Arabs.’ “The primary perpetrators of the killings and expulsions are government-backed ‘Arab’ militias” Foreign Affairs noted in 2005. “The main civilian victims are black ‘Africans’ from three tribes.”  Even though the victims in this case were also Muslim and it is difficult to make the distinction of Arab vs. African in Sudan, the international world has focused on this dramatic dichotomy.

Complicated Problems, Deadly Outcomes

According to the International Rescue Committee’s Mortality Survey, 5.4 million people died between August 1998 and April 2007 as a result of the wars – whether as direct victims of violence or of the poverty and disease perpetuated by the conflict.  The most widespread human rights violations involve impunity from legal process and punishment, torture and execution, rape, preventing the accessibility of citizens to basic necessities, and the stunting of individual and community economic opportunity.

Gender-based violence has reached revolting new extremes in the Congo. “‘The sexual violence in the Congo is the worst in the world,” said John Holmes, the United Nations secretary general for humanitarian affairs. “The sheer numbers, the wholesale brutality, the culture of impunity-it’s appalling.’”  One single hospital staffed by Médecins Sans Frontières-Suisse (Doctors Without Borders) within the Ituri Province reports treating over 16,000 rape victims since 2000.  In addition, children are the most vulnerable victims of the war, “account[ing] for 47% of deaths, even though they constitute[] only 19% of the population.”

While terrifying tales of rape and execution surround the DRC conflict, the majority of deaths in the last ten years result from preventable causes and side-effects of war. Only four percent of the 5.4 million deaths between 1998 and 2007 are a direct result of violence.  Infrastructure deterioration, population displacement, food aid problems, and disruption of health services are ultimately interwoven and tangled with the rebel situation.

In the Eastern part of the country where violence plagues daily life 26.3% of deaths are attributable to fever and/or malaria, 9.1% caused by diarrhea, and 4% caused by malnutrition, while only 0.6% of deaths are the direct result of violence.  Dealing with the problems of the DRC would entail a full-scale development initiative as rebel groups and soldiers have attacked the country on every level from infrastructure to national resources to population. In order to remedy the situation, the international community needs to tackle all these problems.

Commerce in a War Zone

Instability in the government of the DRC created an environment in which short-term international development contracts are made with various local enterprises or rebel groups which are essentially detrimental to the development of a national economy. Throughout the conflict, various companies were able to extract supplies, especially coltan – the base material for many electronics, on an as-needed basis and negotiate and re-negotiate prices in concordance with the market. By negotiating with rebel or independent groups, businesses were able to get around dealing with international standards and national exportation policy.

Therefore, it is in the best interest of extraction companies that instability reign in the region. Diamonds were especially exploited in this way. In a 2003 article ‘Regress and War: The Case of the DR Congo’ . Marysee asserts that “the amount of Congolese diamonds entering Antwerp, a global diamond trading centre, is already twice as large as Congo’s total legal diamond exports.” As this “wild capitalism” progressed throughout the conflict, the exploitation of the country’s resources by various rebel populations sent the DRC into an economic decline, even though resources extracted increased drastically as rebel groups opened up resources to foreign companies as a source of income. Diamond exports, for example, increased from 18,163 carats to 26,084 carats from 1980-1999.

Unregulated trade has put substantial sums of money in the pockets of those propagating the human rights abuses throughout the country. Militias occupy mines throughout the country, controlling trade in the region through violence and elaborate systems of taxation. In 2006 a corporation of South African and British investors purchased the rights to a tin mine in the DRC. Even after pledging to build roads, schools, and clinics for the area, the company was met with hostility and the local militia prevented them from extracting any metal. The company’s Managing Director told the New York Times “there are no rules in Congo, just the rule of the gun.”

The lack of any type of development or opportunity in the region leaves mining as the only means of income for many Congolese. Citizens often side with local militias, even despite the heavy taxes levied, in order to maintain their job. In 2008 when the DRC government tried to close the Bisie Tin Mine – a site of significant corruption and militia funding-locals quickly reopened production, fearing the economic consequences if the space remained closed. Using middle-men and mineral brokers, companies have found it is simply easier to extract minerals from the DRC by working with local rebel groups.

After the elections in 2006, the government canceled many mining contracts and negotiated many more including those with BHP Billiton (with locations in the United Kingdom and Australia), Freeport McMoran Copper and Gold Inc (US), and De Beers.  Under international pressure, the DRC government created a commission to review the country’s export relationships; the group found that “none of the contracts met international standards,” and “state assets were undervalued.”   Yet there is no incentive for US corporations and the politicians to directly intercede in these areas.

World Response

It is true that the developed world has certainly contributed some resources to restoring the DRC and assisting its victims. The international community, led by the United States, offered substantial military support to ensure a peaceful election in 2006. The largest peacekeeping contingent in history was deployed to the Congo to oversee the process. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) gave $39.26 million in 2007 to assist 3.7 million war victims. USAID/DRC has worked to make local government more representative, assisted over 31,000 survivors of gender-based violence, reunited 4,000 children with families, and offers programs centered on health, road reconstruction, micro-credit, HIV/AIDS care and prevention and basic education.  Additionally, the US government gives an extra $200 million annually to the UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo with the goal of assisting the state transition to democracy.

Yet this support is insufficient. While many humanitarian projects are effective, aid workers’ capabilities are limited by their lack of resources. Violence often overwhelms aid agencies, forcing them to flee the most desperate areas. When compared to the global response to the crisis in Kosovo, the amount of money designated for the DRC is startlingly minimal. According to Oxfam’s 2000 report “[i]n 1999, donor governments gave just $8 per person in the DRC, while providing $207 per person in response to the UN appeal for the former Yugoslavia. While it is clear that both regions have significant needs, there is little commitment to universal entitlement to humanitarian assistance.”

In 2005, stunned by the disparity between the world’s phenomenal response to the 2004 tsunami and the neglect of the conflict in the Congo for years, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland spoke out, arguing that “there are as many preventable deaths [in Congo] in this period [of 6 months] as the number that died in the December 2004 tsunami disaster.” Egeland asserted that in a March 2005 press conference that “Eastern Congo is suffering the world’s worst current humanitarian crisis, with a death toll outstripping that of Sudan’s Darfur region. ‘In terms of human lives lost,’ he told a Geneva news conference, ‘this is the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world today and it is beyond belief that the world is not paying more attention.’”

Foreign aid is often an outcome of genuine humanitarian endeavors on the part of rich nations, but it is also a very political tool. The level of funds dedicated to a country in need can be taken as a gauge of perceived severity of conflict or, perhaps more accurately, as a measure of political interest in a place or leader.

Perhaps the most talked about current humanitarian crisis is that of the genocide in Darfur. Championed by celebrities and sparking a nationwide divestment campaign, international inaction was protested by thousands of university students. The situation in Sudan certainly is deserving of universal outrage, having caused the deaths of 2 million citizens and driven 600,000 refugees from their homes.  Yet, the Congo is a poorer country than Sudan, and the conflict there has killed or displaced more people than the conflict in Darfur. Why has the DRC been largely overlooked?

Sudan has a little over half of the population of the DRC but enjoys a GDP almost four times that of the Congo; Sudan’s GDP (purchasing power parity) is USD 80.98 billion with a GDP per capita of USD 1,900 while the DRC has a GDP of USD 19.03 billion and a GDP per capita of USD 300. Sudan exports an average of USD 8.879 billion per year, while the DRC only exports USD 1.587 billion per year. Yet, the DRC receives less foreign aid, despite its greater population and lower GDP per capita than Sudan.  There are many possible explanations for this disparity: the compelling media narrative of the Sudanese conflict, Sudan’s relative importance as a trading partner and oil exporter, and private companies’ interest in keeping the DRC politically and economically fragmented.     Whatever the cause, it is certain that greater international aid and attention could greatly improve the lives of millions of Congolese.

USAID is just one funding organization of many that operate to quell conflict and enhance development in Africa. These organizations have limited resources and must make tough decisions about where their money can do the most good. But for the DRC, funding from USAID and the rest of the international aid community has the potential to significantly alter the dismal reality in the area. With appropriate support, international and American aid could be used to establish infrastructure and provide a safety net for Congolese dying from severe poverty.

What happens now?

Millions of Congolese lives are dependent on the future action and humanitarian aid of the international community. With the development of infrastructure and the creation of open market with job opportunities free of rebel looting and violence the country could begin to work toward peace and prosperity. However, without assistance to end violence and to provide basic necessities, the DRC will face even greater death tolls.
In October of 2008, rebels initiated the next wave of violence in Eastern Congo, displacing another 250,000 citizens. These internally displaced people join their fellow countrymen, like those in these photos, stranded throughout Congo and neighboring countries. Left in refugee camps, forgotten, warehoused, they all wait for an international response that, for now, is unlikely.

Meredith can be reached at meredith.hutchison@gmail.com