Great Lakes Region Conflicts: Actors and Interests
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Some of the visible ‘other actors’ may have the most noble stated motives, but in certain cases their actual activities on the ground may not be consistent with their stated motives and goals. This may arise either from deliberate strategies of deception or from weaknesses of orientation arising out of the logic of their interests. It may be a fine combination of both. Furthermore, such actors as the Red Cross, UNHCR, WFP, etc may have the best of humanitarian intentions but fall foul to powerful economic or political interests of their backers. The problem is that such actors are usually studied either as disaster relief organizations or as peace facilitators but rarely are they ever studied as an ‘industry’ with interests that may hinder peacemaking efforts.
The invisible but quite powerful actors are even more problematic. Some may work invisibly to promote peace but more often than not they work to subvert peace. Such actors as the intelligence and security services (CIA, MI6, regional security organizations) are, by definition, secret service organizations. Private military and security companies (PM/SCs), drug dealers, arms merchants and money launderers operate in the seamy and gray areas of criminality. The plunderers (diamond and gold diggers), lords of poverty, International Financial Institutions, weak states and warlords all work together in complex interdependencies.
Some important actors in the Great Lakes region conflicts and their interests
Imperialists – These are largely the Western countries with an interest in stable but weak states. They may operate overtly or covertly but always with an eye to power and wealth. Increasingly, they ‘outsource’ military, foreign trade, and intelligence activities to an alliance of intelligence agencies and private sector companies including PM/SCs. Weakening regional states in collaboration with arms dealers, PM/CS, lords or poverty, warlords, moneybags, globalizes, ambulance, chasers. For a long time in the DRC, they blocked the SADC allied forces, played out their rivalry over wealth and influence, and ultimately failed to deploy an effective peacekeeping force thus prolonging the war. Their peace orientation is opportunistic.
Plunderers - Individuals, companies and states essentially involved in activities of plunder and pillage. They thrive under conditions of relative anarchy with little or no government control over licensing or taxation of resource extraction. High and quick returns, (as opposed to long-term investment), are the key in coltan, nobium, diamonds, gold, genetic resources, etc. Plunderers prey upon weak states in collaboration with imperialists, drug barons, arms dealers, mercenaries, PM/SCs, war lords, lords of poverty and money launderers. In the DRC they are the central actors in an international network plundering resources, financing the war and obstructing peace initiatives. Their peace orientation is blockers or spoilers.
Drug Barons - Individuals or companies involved in drug trafficking networks. They usually supply warlords, mercenaries and child soldiers in war zones as well as civilians at large. Close collaboration with plunderers, gun runners, mercenaries, PM/SC’s, warlords, and money launderers. Like plunderers, they thrive under conditions of anarchy. Working with criminal networks, drug barons are responsible for supplying the drugs that keep the child soldiers under the influence so that they can kill, rape, maim, steal or burn property as happened in Sierra Leone. Their peace orientation is spoilers.
Gun Runners - Individuals or companies involved in the procurement and supply of arms and ammunition either legally or illegally to any or all sides in conflicts. Thriving on armed conflicts in collaboration with drug barons, mercenaries, PM/SCs, warlords, weak states, and imperialists, gun runners are arguably the most important actors after the plunderers. They have played a pivotal role in prolonging the war in the DRC by supplying the necessary weapons and ammunition to one or all sides in the war.
Mercenaries - Individuals or companies of professional soldiers who are hired to take part in hostilities for private gain normally not being nationals of the region, members of formal armed forces, a parties to the conflict or states. They work closely with weak states, PM/SCs, plunderers, warlords. Mercenaries have been cited to operate on almost all sides in the DRC. Since they are invited by conditions of state fragility, political instability and general insecurity, they may provide temporary and limited relief, in the short term, but tend to exacerbate the conditions that brought them about, in the long term. Their peace orientation is spoilers.
Private Military/ Security Companies (PM/SCs) - These are relatively new actors who provide a range of military and security services in conflict situations and extremely weak or collapsed states. Services may include combat and operational support, military advice and training, arms procurement, intelligence gathering, hostage rescue, etc. Private security services are supplied in crime prevention, protection of businesses, people and property in non-conflict situations where state police capacity has diminished. Major clients are weak states, globalizes, ambulance chasers, plunderers, imperialists, drug barons. They have featured at different times and in different roles in protecting plunderers in the DRC. Their peace orientation is blockers or spoilers.
Warlords - Individuals or bands of usually rebels against a state who organize and lead armed groups operating either as bandits or conventional forces carving out certain areas, which they continue to control and exploit by military force either through consent or coercion. The region has become defined by warlordism and features two kinds of warlords – those in power and those out of power. Those in power attain it by force and violence, and are obsessed by state security; they build ramparts around themselves against the groups they have earlier driven out by force, and then they clone themselves elsewhere, particularly in neighboring countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. They work closely with plunderers, drug baron’s arms dealers, mercenaries and PM/SCs. Their peace orientation is blockers or spoilers.
Weak States - States, which suffer from diminished capacity to exercise legitimate authority over governance including the capacity to administer government, maintain law and order, provide social services, defend state sovereignty etc. Worst cases are called collapsed or failed states. The incapacity to exercise effective control over their resources is, in part, the source of their crises of legitimacy. They are highly penetrated by foreign interests and therefore unable to take independent decisions with regard to long-term peace building processes. Even when they perform stabilizing roles as in the case of the SADC Allied Forces in the DRC they are either ignored or, indeed, chastised. It is no wonder that the withdrawal of SADC forces in DRC was the necessary condition for the deployment of MONUC. Weak states fall prey to imperialists, warlords, lords of poverty, ambulance chasers, drug barons, plunderers, and PM/SCs. They may be opportunists or peacemakers depending on whether they are seeking protection (acquiescent) or autonomy (resistant) from blockers or spoilers.
Lords of Poverty - These are self-serving individuals and organizations that have perpetuated poverty and thrived on it through aid or donor organizations. This arises essentially from the fact that the donor countries have no fundamental interest in eliminating the root causes of poverty and underdevelopment. On the contrary, their interest lies in maintaining conditions of structural dependency, which spawn the weak states favored by imperialism. Lords of poverty are the thin end of the wedge that creates an enabling environment for plunderers and globalizers. The prey upon weak states and collaborate with imperialists, moneybags, globalize, ambulance chasers and PM/SCs. Their peace orientation is opportunists.
Money Bags – Named after Marx’s satirical reference to capitalists, these include International Financial Institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and international commercial banks moving money swiftly across the globe with the effect of weakening the economies of weak states and keeping them in debt. Moneybags are essentially interested in free and fast movement of capital into areas and activities where fast profits can be made. They are the flag bearers of liberalization driving the process of concentration of capital and centralization of control. In the DRC some banking establishments have been responsible for moving the money in the vicious circle of resources, guns and money. Preying upon weak states in collaboration with imperialists, globalizers, lords of poverty and ambulance chasers are opportunists.
Globalizers - Multinational Corporations - Gigantic companies with enormous financial resources, bargaining power and technological capacity, which they employ in directing capital movements in search of medium to long-term resources and markets. The holdings of some global giants often far exceed the GNPs of all African states combined. Currently a new wave of mega mergers has set in making them even more powerful and beyond the effective regulation of particular national governments. Preying upon weak states they are facilitated by imperialists and moneybags. Many of these firms are operating within the legal framework in the DRC but they are no less predatory under conditions of unequal power. With an interest in long-term stability unlike the plunderers, globalizers essentially waver between opportunists and peacemakers.
Blue Berets - The United Nations is the ultimate custodian of world peace. However, the UN system is presently constrained by the domination and marginalization of the General Assembly by the Security Council, on the one hand, and the subordination of the Security Council to the United States, on the other. This means that the UN is progressively losing credibility and legitimacy particularly among the smaller and weaker member states that feel that the principle of the sovereign equality of states is no longer the fundamental norm. Dominated by the national interests of the permanent members of the Security Council and driven by the interests of the globalizers including such bodies as the WTO the Security Council is constantly wavering between defending the sovereignty of member states and promoting unilateral interests. At times this has resulted in major inconsistencies and contradictions rendering the organization virtually paralyzed. In the DRC the competing interests and resulting tensions among the P5 in the Security Council were responsible for the failure of the Lusaka process as well as the procrastination in deploying a viable peacekeeping mission beyond the largely symbolic MONUC. Working through some ambulance chasers the UN has conflicted and collaborated with PM/SCs, globalizers, moneybags, and weak states, imperialists. Like the imperialists their peace orientation is opportunists.
Money Launderers - Network of banks and other companies involved in transactions intended to ‘clean’ ‘dirty’ money obtained from criminal activities such as drug pushing, gun-running, plunder of resources, etc. The idea is to conceal the illicit source of the money. It is estimated to be a US $500 billion industry. In the DRC money laundering has played a key role in the transactions of plunderers and gunrunners in particular. These activities are linked with criminal organizations dealing in smuggling, drug pushing, and currency counterfeiting and illegal foreign exchange dealings. Money launderers work in close collaboration with arms dealers, drug barons, plunderers, and mercenaries. Their peace orientation is blockers or spoilers.
Ambulance Chasers - A range of international humanitarian organizations including those in the UN system such as Department of Peace-Keeping Operations, OCHA, UNHCR, Inter-govern mental of organizations such as the Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, Inter and Non-governmental organizations, which respond to natural and man-made disasters. This has become a multi-billion dollar business with networks of food, medical and equipment suppliers. Naturally this has created not only jobs but also vested interests in industry. Refugees and other disaster victims have become sources of enormous profits with the same actors moving between emergency operations to repatriation, rehabilitation, resettlement and reintegration programs. Instead of preventing and ending conflicts these organizations have developed a tendency to prolong them. There are a number of reported cases in the Great Lakes region where refugees have been abandoned, discouraged from repatriation or forcefully repatriated depending on the availability and direction of movement of resources. Ambulance chasers thrive on disasters and prey upon weak or collapsed states in collaboration with Blue Berets, Lords of Poverty, warlords, plunderers and PM/SCs. Their peace orientation is opportunists.
Civil Society – Civil society here is taken as defined by Antonio Gramsci as the counterforce to political society and not as non-governmental organizations. Whereas political society represents the sphere of contestation, civil society is the sphere of consent where legitimacy prevails. Civil society in this sense hardly exists in Africa since as we saw capacity and legitimacy deficits are the defining features of states. Where the state is weak or has collapsed one can hardly talk of civil society in the Gramscian sense. Political competence is almost non-existent. One can talk of fractionalized societies and polarized communities sometimes struggling together for peace while at other times they locked in internecine Hobbesian struggles for survival. Either way they have little time left for organized, let alone effective institutional politics. This is roughly the situation in the DRC where politicized ethnicity has become one of the strategies of warlordism and plunder, on the one hand, and the inter-Congolese dialogue about ‘power-sharing’ is being conducted above the heads of ordinary people. Yet there is no doubt that none of the actors has a greater desire for peace than the ordinary people who become targets and victims of the conflicts.
To this end, actors in conflicts fall into at least four broad categories on a peace-war continuum. At the peace end are the peace-makers who are the victims of the conflict with everything to gain with the end of the conflict. They are actors whose interests are negatively affected by the conflict or who are likely to enjoy a peace dividend. These include civil society, the internally displaced and refugees. They form the backbone of any peace negotiation and should be embraced and encouraged.
At the war end of the continuum are the conflict entrepreneurs. These are the actors who deliberately hatch conflicts to create situations of chaos upon which they capitalize. An interesting case is that of Mark Thatcher and others who, in 2004, plotted the invasion of Equatorial Guinea to capture oil-fields but were intercepted by South African and Zimbabwean security forces.
In between these two extremes are the peace-opportunists. This is an enigmatic and unpredictable group of actors. They may promote peace as easily as spoiling it. They may gain or lose through protraction or termination of the conflict and may support peace when it serves their interests and obstruct it when it blocks their interests. These include the ambulance chasers, imperialist countries, warlords, blue berets, etc. These may be converted to peacemakers through the judicious use of appropriate incentives.
Finally the peace-blockers (or spoilers). These are actors whose interests are promoted by the existence and prolongation of the conflict or whose interests would be threatened by the termination of the conflict. Peace threatens their interests. These include gun runners, mercenaries, plunderer, warlords, private militaries, etc. These should be exposed, isolated, condemned and sanctioned through international criminal procedures.
It should be stressed that this is essentially a heuristic device and the list of actors is by no means exhaustive. This is work-in-progress which attempts to simplify reality but capture the essentials, hopefully without being too arbitrary or judgmental. The list of types of actors may grow as the model becomes more refined. The peace orientations are also neither static nor mutually exclusive. Actors and, in particular, the opportunists may vacillate between categories or may be difficult to place in one category at any one time.
It is note-worthy that according to our categorization out of a total of fifteen actor types eight are spoilers; six are opportunists and only three are oriented towards peace making. This suggests that conflict prevention and peace building are formidable tasks with the balance of possibilities lying between spoilers and opportunists. It should however be realized that each of these orientations combines strategic as well as non-strategic actors. Opportunists, for example, include some of the most powerful actors capable of influencing, regulating, controlling or even sanctioning many of the blockers and spoilers. These are the strategic actors. Between the imperialists, money bags and blue berets lies a lot of power and influence to affect the behavior of plunderers, gun runners, drug barons and mercenaries. The challenge for peace negotiators, therefore, is how these actors, in their interest, can be persuaded to embrace peace.
By Prof. Mwesiga Baregu
Professor, Faculty Member at the School of Graduate Studies at St. Augustine University of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam.