How have the government and the international community conducted security sector reform (SSR) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)? Why has so little progress been made in reforming the DRC’s security sector? This report from the Institute for Security Studies examines SSR in the DRC and its impact on security in the Kivu provinces. It finds that the lack of progress on SSR reveals a fundamental problem in international peacebuilding strategies, and a lack of coordination among donors. The lack of progress also both stems from and contributes to continuing violence in the eastern provinces.
Since elections in 2006, a number of security crises have demonstrated the lack of structural progress in reforming the DRC’s security sector. The failure of ongoing SSR programmes to make any fundamental impact on human security reflects a wider problem in donor-led peacebuilding efforts. While it is increasingly recognised that understanding SSR as a technical process fails to address underlying causes of conflict, this failure is difficult to remedy. The case of the DRC also demonstrates that successful SSR processes depend on the full engagement of political authorities. In the DRC, these authorities have preferred organised insecurity to the organisation of security.
SSR progress in the DRC is key not only to tackling armed groups, but also to building confidence between the population and the government. However, the DRC’s lack of progress on SSR is clearly illustrated by:
- fighting in Kinshasa in 2007 between the bodyguards of opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba and President Kabila’s Garde Républicaine;
- the military offensive against the forces of dissident general Laurent Nkunda in December 2007, which resulted in a major defeat for the Congolese government;
- the heavy-handed policing operations in Bas-Congo province against the political/religious group Bundu Dia Congo in February and March 2008;
- the resumption of fighting between Nkunda and the armed forces of the DRC (FARDC) in eastern Congo in October 2008;
- mounting insecurity in Kinshasa and increasing levels of urban violence throughout the country; and
- the conduct of the FARDC, including collection of illegal taxes and acts of violence and sexual assault against the civilian population in the Kivu provinces.
- The DRC government never internalised the need for SSR as conceptualised by the international community, viewing it as an imported policy.
- The Congolese authorities clearly preferred a bilateral approach to international support. However, lack of planning at national and international level has limited the impact of bilateral initiatives.
- The DRC government has shown little interest in the structural components of SSR, advocated mainly at the multilateral level, preferring bilateral cooperation on operational issues.
- The DRC government has become increasingly protective of its sovereignty and concerned with maintaining its independence of action.
