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On the Kinshasa-Brazzaville Border

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On the Kinshasa-Brazzaville Border Clara Devlieger [email protected]; [email protected] Cambridge University; affiliation with Université de Kinshasa (UNIKIN) "Assainissement" on the Kinshasa-Brazzaville Border Abstract Written at a very early stage of research, this paper is a beginning in conceptualising the social construction of an African border area through bodily experiences. Much of the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, Congo-Kinshasa) and the Republic of Congo (RC, Congo-Brazzaville) is formed by the mighty Congo River. The river forms at once a rural and an urban boundary, notably between the capitals Kinshasa and Brazzaville. All along the border and at various times in history, it has been subject to various "assainissement", "cleansing" campaigns. Between Kinshasa and Brazzaville, the river's islands served as refuges for those who wished to stay out of sight of the state, and were often subject to state raids with the objective of "purging". Along the entire border, international sanitary conventions were supposed to "cleanse" the border and the state of contagious illnesses. “Cleansing” the urban border in Kinshasa of Ngobila Beach (Beach Ngobila, or the Beach), has been attempted many times in the past, mainly in the form of attempts to eradicate corruption and smuggling, and more subtly, the presence of those associated with it. Indeed, part of the Beach's negative image is due to the people associated with the area. One group often subject to “cleansing” are the disabled traders who have created a niche in border trade thanks to reductions in passage and import fees received in the 1970s. For them, the Beach has been described as a “court of miracles”, considered as a rare place where such socially marginalised figures are able to thrive, although attempts are often made to eradicate their niche. In this way, whatever the situation or time at the DRC-RC river boundary, the border is variously depicted and presented as "state-less", "chaotic", "orderless" or "wild". Beach Ngobila, which forms the main crossing point over the Congo River to Brazzaville, is located in the city centre and yet is constantly portrayed as separate from and peripheral to the rest of the city. The 1 state's preoccupation with "assainissement" on the border thus appears to show a body politics on the border, infuencing the bodily experience of crossing and living on the border. In this regard, this paper draws attention to a vital characteristic of (African) border areas that has been undertheorised and is in need of further research: the border as a site that affects bodily experience, an element that infuences the social construction and imagination associated with a border area. In this paper, I use archive documents, newspaper articles, documentaries, and preliminary fieldwork with the disabled traders operating at the Beach as a basis on which to begin considering the social construction of a border zone located in a city centre and the experience of bodily borders. I start by considering the fuctuating historical relations between Kinshasa and Brazzaville, before considering three examples of "assainissement" on the border, and the implications of these examples for the understanding of bodily borders. 2 "Assainissement" on the Kinshasa-Brazzaville Border Clara Devlieger, Aborne 2013 - This is a draft, please don't cite or circulate - Flowing between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, Congo-Kinshasa) and the Republic of Congo (RC, Congo-Brazzaville), the Congo River forms much of the boundary between this Central African giant and its little brother. In colonial and post- colonial times, the river has formed an urban and a rural physical and political boundary. Whatever the time or place however, the border has often been subject to "assainissement", "cleansing" campaigns. In the following, we consider three examples of "assainissement" on the border, considering the implications of these campaigns for the social construction of the border as a "state-less" or "wild" place. In this way, these observations open to questions on the body politics of the state and bodily experiences of subjects on the border. Written at a very early stage of research, this paper is based on archive documentation and very preliminary fieldwork at Beach Ngobila. I intend to explore many of these themes throughout my fieldwork, in this paper I'll give a summary of preliminary observations in need of further research. First however, we must consider some of the background of this border. The Kinshasa-Brazzaville Border The Congo River forms much of the boundary of two countries with a long history of intense and fuctuating relationships. Often referred to as the Central African "highway", the river has been an indispensable resource for river populations since precolonial times; contacts, migration and trade between both shores have always been intense. In both countries, French is the official administrative language, while Lingala forms the lingua franca of Kinshasa and the major trade language along both banks of the Congo River and alongside Lari in Brazzaville. “Villes mirroirs” with close ties, Kinshasa and Brazzaville form the closest capitals in the world, agreeing on a mutual status of “sisterhood” in the 1980s (Clausmeyer and van der Jeught 3 2006; Gondola 1997). Kinshasa, the third largest city on the African continent, is a megalopolis of about 8.4 million inhabitants known as Kinois, while Brazzaville forms a fraction of its size with around 1.3 million (CIA 2012). Contact between the cities across the border has been intense, forming a local and international centre of a vibrant informal economy. As a boundary in rural and urban areas, the Congo forms a very diverse border. In terms of rural borders, the wavering and constantly changing fow of the Congo, perhaps surprisingly, can be similar to land border zones in rural, thinly populated areas, where the boundary is a line clearly represented on the map but difficult to discern in reality. Like other rural boundaries, these river boundaries are reputed to be policed lightly due to “the weakness of central authority, their considerable length, the inaccessibility of the terrain and the reality of official corruption” (Nugent and Asiwaju 1996: 11). Where the river forms a border between cities of millions, however, these qualifications are altered: urban border areas such as Ngobila Beach, the main crossing point and the international border zone in Kinshasa, are heavily policed and heavily populated; the Congo River, a twenty-minute journey across, forms a clear physical boundary. Commerce and contact between the two cities is vital for the functioning of both. As such, the Beach is the site of busy traffic, where the ONATRA, Offce Nationale de Transport on the Kinshasa side, and its sister organisation the ATC, Agence de Transport Congolaise, ensure transport between the cities. Located in the city centre, this border also forms at once a central and peripheral space. Both rural and urban borders however appear to be similar to African border zones described in academic literature where official corruption and informal practices take place on both sides, and where the border cuts through a culturally homogenous space. Further, for many people in different positions, the border functions as a "theatre of opportunity" and an interstitial conduit rather than a barrier (Nugent and Asiwaju 1996: 11). The diverse border and the government's attempt at managing it is directly related to diplomatic relationships, often directly impacting border populations living on both banks of the river, as well as the their respective capitals. The Congo as boundary was treated and managed differently depending on the political situation. In colonial times, relationships between the Belgian and French administration were convivial. After the independences in the 1960s, however, the states lost much of their political understanding (Gondola 1997: 373). Internal political stability and diplomatic relationships between the countries had a direct infuence on 4 border traffic. "Assainissement" of the Border As the historian Didier Gondola writes, "[...] for the Congolese at the Pool, colonial boundaries 1 were strategic spaces of liberty and action." Whether speaking about the river boundary in rural or urban areas, the border between the Congos has always been depicted as a "wild" place, and as such, a place of possibility. In the following, we will consider three different border areas. While they are very different, they have one characteristic in common: the government's wish to "cleanse" them, in both rural and urban areas, in both colonial and post-colonial times. In their work on the literal and fgurative "margins" of the state, Veena Das and Deborah Poole note that "In this vision of political life [where the state has a monopoly over "legitimate" violence], the state is imagined as an always incomplete project that must constantly be spoken of - and imagined - through an invocation of wilderness, lawlessness, and savagery that not only lies outside its jurisdiction but also threatens it from within" (Das and Poole 2004: 7). As the literal outskirts of the body of the state, the conception of "assainissement," "cleansing", has been used in various ways throughout the history of the Kinshasa-Brazzaville border, adding to the perception and invocation of the border as "wild", whether it is rural or urban. We start with two colonial and rural examples, after which we focus on a contemporary and urban situation,
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