Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN-SSR)

The Challenge of Warlordism to Post-Conflict State-Building: The Case of Laurent Nkunda in Eastern Congo

 Printable version

The enduring presence of warlords and the influence of their international supporters are inadequately addressed by current post-conflict state building practices. This paper, published by The Round Table, discusses aspects of an east Congo rebel movement to illustrate some of the challenges warlordism poses to statebuilding. The international reluctance to recognise the importance of multiple sovereignties in statebuilding, including warlords and neighbouring states, suggests attempts to create a functioning empirical state after conflict will remain deficient.

Top-down, externally-driven democracy programmes in the Congo emphasise the centrality of elections and the need to create a state monopoly on force. However, elections are not enough to build a functioning state and extend its reach across a vast territory with little infrastructure. Central statebuilding efforts flounder at the local level when confronted by warlord politics and regional interference.

Warlords generally follow a pattern of challenging the state’s monopoly on coercive force and carry out sovereign functions with tacit or explicit state consent. They use violence to reassert local power and often have links to neighbouring states and international trade.

The following aspects of Laurent Nkunda’s insurgency in the Kivus region of the east Congo significantly undermine international attempts at statebuilding:

• After his military role in both of the wars in central Africa, Nkunda refused a role in the new Congolese army; with Rwandan support, he continued to resist the authority of the state in the region. He has augmented Rwanda’s economic interests in the Kivus.
• He maintained regional military superiority over the Congolese army and the United Nations mission military unit. He justified brutal actions as a means to protect Congolese and Rwandan Hutus.
• Nkunda used international statebuilding programmes to consolidate his position in the region by temporarily agreeing to incorporate his troops into the army.
• He adopted symbolic trappings of statehood, including promises of support to communities to develop their educational, medical and infrastructure capacity.
• Nkunda switched his positions and allegiances rapidly, making it difficult to co-opt him into a post-conflict settlement. 
• His downfall may make statebuilding in the Congo easier, but it does not reflect government or international success in incorporating the region into the Congolese state. Rwanda is central to the evolution of politics and east Congo security .

The case of Nkunda illustrates that:

• Multiple sovereignties exist in poorly governed regions in Africa. International focus on the state as the one source of sovereign power is a fatal programming flaw.
• Warlords are poorly accounted for in post-conflict statebuilding; the influence of their international and regional backers has not been addressed.
• International approaches need to emphasise regional and local level governance rather than reinforcing central governments who are unable or disinclined to provide basic security.
• As long as statebuilding starts from the fiction that Africa’s states are single sovereign entities, democratisation efforts and security reform will falter.

Access full text