One of the recurring themes of transitional justice studies is the way in which measures designed to promote national reconciliation can themselves become sources of conflict, particularly if a significant interest group or leader is unwilling to accept the terms on offer. That drama is now playing itself out in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the transitional parliament enacted a general amnesty covering the entire period of the civil war. The bill was opposed, however, by partisans of President Joseph Kabila, on the ground that it would pardon his father's assassins:
"We cannot agree on granting an amnesty to people who killed President Laurent Kabila," said Jean-Pierre Kanga Boongo, an MP and member of Kabila's Parti du peuple pour la reconstruction et le d?veloppement. Moreover, he said: "The debate on the amnesty law was inappropriate, since we had to finish work on the elections before moving to another point on the agenda."
Boongo led the exit of his colleagues from the National Assembly, forcing National Assembly President Olivier Kamitatu to prematurely end the meeting and reschedule it for the following day.
Some 85 out of 336 MPs at the meeting walked out. Under the law, two-thirds of the members of the National Assembly are required to attend a session during which a draft law is being examined for the first time.
The amnesty was enacted anyway, but the Kabila bloc's walkout is hardly a good sign for a country that is still trying to end a war that has killed 3.8 million people and hold a referendum on a permanent constitution. In a way, the DRC is faced with a catch-22 in which the remaining factions won't lay down their arms without amnesty but other influential groups may see the general pardon as a reason to obstruct or withdraw from the political process.
The impasse in the DRC may also point to another contradiction, between transitional justice mechanisms and the grand-coalition method of state-building. Grand coalitions comprised of all major factions are often installed to manage post-conflict transitional periods, both because input from all parties is seen as necessary during this critical time and because the major players are likely to demand a voice as the price of ending the conflict. However, according to a recent study by Norwegian researcher Helga Binningsbo, grand coalitions are statistically the least effective device for post-conflict reconciliation and nation-building.
This is borne out by the fact that, while a national unity government may create an institutional framework in which all parties can participate, it does nothing by itself to bring them into agreement. In some cases, the grand coalition becomes an instance of government taking the place of diplomacy as a continuation of war by other means. Unity governments in post-conflict countries like Sudan and Somalia have become institutions in which the participants have paid more attention to jockeying for advantage than to making a good faith effort to rebuild the country. The DRC, which has experienced an especially devastating war and where the resentments and grievances of the conflict continue to run deep, has seen more than its share of walkouts and abortive returns to arms. That it is happening again this close to the end of the transitional process doesn't augur well for the construction of a stable country.
[Crossposted to The Head Heeb]
the DRC is faced with a catch-22 in which the remaining factions won't lay down their arms without amnesty but other influential groups may see the general pardon as a reason to obstruct or withdraw from the political process.
This strikes me as indicating a real failure in Kabila's pursuit of the intra-faction politics of his peacemaking with the opposition. If he's a leader, he has to do the hard work of persuading his own supporters of the need to make the concessions necessary to make a peace agreement with the many "insurgents" there work. (Some parallels with various leaders on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, perhaps?) If he's unable to do that, then he probably has a lot more political work to do-- both with his own supporters and in the negotiations with the armed opposition.
I can only start to imagine how very difficult this task probably is.
The point you raise here about the (dis-)utility of grand coalitions is another potentially very significant one.
Finally, the DRC is of course one of the locations where the ICC has a judicial investigation going. Do you, Jonathan, or anyone else know how that effort has so far intersected with the internal-DRC politics?
If he's a leader, he has to do the hard work of persuading his own supporters of the need to make the concessions necessary to make a peace agreement with the many "insurgents" there work.
"Kabila" and "leadership" probably shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence.
The point you raise here about the (dis-)utility of grand coalitions is another potentially very significant one.
Yes, I wish Binningsbo or some other researcher would elaborate on her statistical analysis and look into some of the reasons why grand coalitions don't work. I suspect that, in addition to the factors discussed in the main post, part of the problem is that many grand coalitions aren't all that grand. In the DRC, for instance, the government is heavily weighted toward the armed factions at the expense of political parties, so it represents a cross-section of the groups that could fight their way to the table rather than the country as a whole. This can freeze power structures in place and forestall peaceful political change, as in Sudan where the interim government won't have to face an election for four years. I can't imagine this being good for the development of democratic politics.
I can think of several substitutes for a grand coalition: nonpartisan government (like Mikati's caretaker administration in Lebanon), temporary international administration (as in Cambodia or East Timor) or multi-party politics with constitutional power-sharing requirements (as in New Caledonia). They all have their flaws, but that's a discussion in itself.
Finally, the DRC is of course one of the locations where the ICC has a judicial investigation going. Do you, Jonathan, or anyone else know how that effort has so far intersected with the internal-DRC politics?
I'll have to check into that. I've been writing a good deal about the DRC lately, so I might put something together on this subject.
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