The Democratic Republic of Congo

Country Paper: The Democratic Republic of Congo Report prepared for the African Perspectives on Human Mobility Programme, supported by the MacArthur Foundation Coordination: Prof. Dr. Germain NGOIE Tshibambe Prof. VWAKYANAKAZI Mukohya Département des Relations Internationales Université de Lubumbashi/Katanga République Démocratique du Congo Foreword This profile, initiated in the context of the MacArthur Programme: African Perspectives on Human Mobility stems from the bibliographical research undertaken in the libraries of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The facts presented in this profile do not originate from carrying empirical research on migrations in the DRC; on the contrary, we intend to discuss migrations through the words analysed by others. We did not study the object, but indeed the representations of the object such as they can be apprehended from documentation. To that end, three towns with University traditions were selected as the sites for documentary research. These towns are: Kinshasa in the west, the capital of the country: it is home to several universities and to higher education institutions. The second town is Lubumbashi in the south: a mining town with a University; while the third town is Bukavu, located in the east, in the main area of crisis and violence. The focus was concentrated on widely broadcast documentary works and also on probing works that constitute the ‘grey documentation’ such as Doctorate theses, Higher Education memos (DES = Diplôme d’Etudes Supérieures) and graduate work. During a visit to Burundi, the offer was made to work in the central library of the national University of Burundi in Bujumbura, for a brief but most instructive stay in many respects within the context of this research. The aims of the profile The intention is to: 1. Take stock of the documentary materials (listing) on the issues of migrations from and inside the Democratic Republic of Congo. 2. Extract the migration dynamics as they are reflected in the documentation listed and consulted. 3. Establish the level of debate and theories that have been raised in the Democratic republic of Congo by the questions on migrations. 4. Create a database on which the implementation of a coherent research project relating to the Programme will rest. The elaboration of this profile is the result of several people’s efforts in several cities of the DRC. It is appropriate to thank them here for their availability. Without their participation, this work would not be complete, or would have only been completed with countless difficulties. In the east of the country, our assistants in the Official University of Bukavu have agreed to collate the bibliographical data. They are M. Kadanga Mulume Oderwha Philippe and Kamwanga Dominique – Clerks of Works – and Munenge Florent, assistant. In Kinshasa, M. Charles Nkunda, assistant at the National Museum, M. Vincent Ejiba, researcher, and M. Lokolila Mwana Bata, researcher, have travelled great distances to comb through the various libraries in the capital. In Lubumbashi, the team comprised of Kakez Kayeb, assistant, from the ‘Département des Relations Internationales de l’Université de Lubumbashi’, Ngoy Muteba, Assistant, from the Open University in Lubumbashi, Ntambwa Kayembe and Kabika Etobo, assistants from the Official University of Mbuji Mayi. The last words of thanks go to Rachel Mbeya who undertook the management and logistical tasks of the project. Map of DRC Introduction The Democratic Republic of Congo covers an area of 2 345 000 km². According to some documents available in 2008, it has a population of 66 514 506. The population density is 25 persons per km². The growth rate of the population in the country is 2.8% (2005), while it was 3.0% in 1975, 2.9% in 1985 and 3.5% in 1995 (United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs/Population Division, 2006:185). Officially, it has to be admitted that an official census has not been carried out in long time. According to Léon de Saint Moulin, the colonial period provides archives from which annual population statistics were extracted. After the independence, scientific census took place in 1970 and in 1984 (De Saint Moulin, 1987:3-31). Thereafter, several attempts at administrative census have taken place, but were unsuccessful because they met with opposition from the population in some provincial cities: indications allowing the identification of ethnic origins created frustrations and the fear of a pogrom. In other words, population counts are approximate. Socio-demographic details show that the under-15 account for 47.1% of the population; while the over-64 account for 2.5%. The urban population accounts for 32.1% and the percentage of under-nourished people amounts to 74%1. The growth of GDP is estimated at 6.2% and the rate of inflation is 9% for 2008. With the mining sector dominating the economy, copper, cobalt, diamonds and other minerals such as Germanium, Coltan, etc. figure prominently. The strongly ‘rentier’ (Omeje, 2007:1-25) economy is not really performing: it is essentially importing a large range of basic necessity products, in the industrial and food sectors. The activities of the informal sector are predominant. Prior to its accession to independence on June 30, 1960, the Democratic Republic of Congo went through four phases: the first phase stretches from time immemorial to 1885 and is of no interest to us. The second phase begins in that year when the Independent State of Congo is created, a judicial fictitious entity which is in fact the characterization of this land as the private property of Leopold II, King of the Belgians. This short phase extends from 1885 to 1908 because at that time, Belgium inherits the land and makes it a colony. The colonial period per se runs from 1908 to 1960 when the country gains its independence. The DRC is a sovereign country in which political crises occurring against a background of violence are a characteristic feature. Civil wars are recurrent. After independence, the first five years and the first Republic (1960-1965) were dominated by instability: two provinces attempted to secede – the Province of Katanga and the Province of South Kasaï – while rebel movements were proliferating in many places, leading to the instauration of a people’s government that occupied the Eastern Province of the country. In that context, population movements took place internally. These people were the first batches of internally displaced persons and refugees of the post-colonial period. 1 See www.statistiques-mondiales.com/congo-Kinshasa.html When the First Republic was overthrown by a military coup that empowered a new régime in 1965, the political situation calmed down after some predictable unrest that was particularly felt in the Eastern part of the country. Mercenaries attempted to invade the town of Bukavu. The military operation undertaken by governmental troops stopped the advance of the rebels while masses of population fled from their villages, heading for the interior of the country, or for bordering countries like Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania or Zambia. As peace was re-established in most of the country, internal population movements were recorded in the context of the rural exodus or of urban-rural migration. However, rural exodus is more predominant than urban-rural migration because at the time of the Second Republic (1965-1997), only the State could exploit the abundant mineral resources of the territory, following the liberalization of natural resources in 1983 (Ngoie & Omeje, 2007 : 137). While the strength of the régime of the Second Republic was based on an “obscurantist dictatorship”, according to the poignant phrase of “obscurantist despotism” coined by Edem Kodjo (1985: 153), the régime began to encounter difficulties stemming from discontent linked to poor economic performance. The endless economic crisis is settling in this country, however well endowed by nature: growing into an ever larger ordeal for its populations. During the 80s, it was only by submitting itself to the strict demands of international financial institutions that the Democratic Republic of Congo (known as Zaire at that time) could find salvation. These institutions subjected the country to structural adjustment programmes. The salaries of State employees were squeezed – a sector that only provides 4.1% of national employment for the active population, incidentally-; study bursaries were cancelled, public hospitals no longer received State subsidies. The political propaganda in full flow will even find a leitmotiv that will be repeated across the screen of the contemporary official television broadcasts announcing “the demise of the Providential Sate”. The demise of the Providential State did effectively occur: the Congolese population found itself abandoned to its own devices. While the governing classes were helping themselves generously under some ‘inheritance rationale’, the populations were witnessing a daily deterioration of their living conditions. The economic crisis became a structural one. All economic aggregates were showing red warning lights. In the 90, the poor management of the demands from the population that the régime should be liberalized made the plunge of the country into crisis more complex still. Currently, and since that time, economic performance does not presage an honorable past, or a good future. In serene fashion, Ngub’Usil Mpay-Nka uses a climatic metaphor to describe the crisis in the country:” In its recent past, The DRC has been through “rain and

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