Shooting the Congolese in the Foot

Violence escalates in the capital. The UN is pleading for a stop to violence. News from the Congo is not good. Yet the most alarming of the bad vibes emanating from Kinshasa has to be the fact that the Kabila-Bemba runoff is not scheduled until October 29.

Even given infrastructural limitations, how could planners not have foreseen this turn of events? We have a fundamentally unstable society that has been promised the possibility of peace, security, and stability. They hold elections with dozens of candidates knowing that only a majority tally will be acceptable for the victor to emerge with legitimacy. Those elections take place under conditions that prove palatable to outside observers. When no one emerges with a clear majority, violence sets in. That violence is escalating. And now the Congolese get to sit and wait for two months while the sitting president and a known warlord rally their supporters, may of whom have access to weaponry.

The UN has weighed in on the violence, which is about all we can expect from the UN these days. But before we lambaste the UN, let us keep in mind that hand wringing is all we will get from outsiders. Joseph Kabila, believing his cause is right and just, will almost certainly use the mechanisms of government for his own purposes and against both Bemba and the incipient democratic spirit. And so it goes in the troubled vastness of the Congo where even the best laid plans and noblest intentions founder on the shoals of chaos.