University of Antwerp
        <freyntje@ruca.ua.ac.be>

[H-AFRICA is very pleased to present the first specially
commissioned response to AFRICA FORUM #7, from a leading
writer on Central Africa, Professor Filip Reyntjens -- the
editors]

    [RESPONSE TO "TOWARDS A STATE-LESS CENTRAL AFRICA? SOME
    THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS" of Stefaan Smis and Saskia Van
    Hoyweghen]

                by Filip Reyntjens*

Smis and Van Hoyweghen present the state of the art with
regard to the crisis of the African state, findings which
they then apply to Central Africa. While weak states and
poor citizen-state relations exist all over the continent,
this has become particularly visible in Central Africa.
However, even there the situation is by no means monolithic:
the Congolese state has collapsed many years ago and has
virtually disappeared, but Rwanda, for example, is all but a
failed state.

The authors invite us to go beyond state failure, and to
focus on social realities on the ground. Their plea for
"politics from below", echoing efforts conducted for the
last twenty years by the French group around "Politique
Africaine", is certainly justified, but should not make us
ignore the fact that there exists no neat demarcation
between state and society. Not only is the phenomenon of
"straddling" well known, but state (and state-like) actors
weigh upon social relations and strategies on the ground,
while nonstate actors in turn penetrate the state.

After having insisted on the need to recognise realities on
the ground, when outlining four crucial issues Smis and Van
Hoyweghen however revert to a state focused approach. For
the sake of this discussion, I should like to take issue
with some of their suggestions.

1. I agree that borders in Central Africa are different from
borders in, say, Europe. They are not even zones, as
suggested by Smis and Van Hoyweghen: empirically speaking,
they simply do not exist, ignored as they are by local and
regional actors (populations, refugees, warlords, government
armies and rebel groups, "entrepreneurs of insecurity").
This absence of defined borders is just one element of the
absent state. In the 1980s Jackson and Rosberg opposed the
"juridical" and the "empirical"  state: the fact that
territories, but also populations, are undefined means that
two juridical elements of the state -a defined territory and
a fixed population- are empirically absent.

2. The plea for a pluri-national citizenship is contradicted
by the "reality on the ground" in the Great Lakes Region.
The situation of the Kinyarwanda speakers (the so-called
Banyarwanda), of which the Banyamulenge have become famous
in 1996, in the Congo shows the point. What other Congolese
in Eastern DRC expect of them is that they replace what is
perceived as an ethnic and transborder loyalty by a local
and national loyalty. This is what the Banyarwanda actually
claim themselves: they insist that their Congolese
citizenship be recognised and respected. During the last
couple of years, most Banyamulenge leaders have actually
sought to distance themselves from Rwanda and have insisted
instead on their being Congolese. The issue of
pluri-national citizenship would not come up were it not for
the discrimination the Congolese Banyarwanda (Hutu and Tutsi
alike) have suffered and the extraterritorial extension into
the Congo of the Rwandan civil war. It must be noted
incidentally that Smis and Van Hoyweghen mix two types of
Rwandans in the Congo. The Rwandan diaspora -the post 1959
Tutsi refugees- felt "homesick" and never accepted the
perspective of eternal exile, but the Congolese Banyarwanda
do not and have never considered Rwanda their homeland.

3. The emergence and even creation of categories of
"strangers" is indeed a major challenge, with profound
political and humanitarian implications.  Smis and Van
Hoyweghen are right to stress this worrying trend. Thus,
there is for example the instant ethnogenesis of "Bantu", as
opposed to "Hamites", "Hima" or "Nilotics", in the Great
Lakes Region, an instrumentalisation that may well prove a
major obstacle to peace in the future. The fact that,
scientifically speaking, the idea of "Bantu" being a super
ethnic group makes no sense at all, is rather irrelevant in
the face of the "realities on the ground". This only shows
once again how fluid ethnicity and ethnic categories are. It
should be noted in passing that the ruthless occupation and
plunder of Eastern Congo by the Rwandan army (RPA) is a
major contributory factor to this ethnogenesis.
Paradoxically, in the longer run, this threatens the
survival of those, the Tutsi, which the RPA claims to
protect.

The issues raised by Smis and Van Hoyweghen are relevant
ones. They must now be addressed in an operational manner,
in the multiple contexts of empowerment of citizens, state
reconstruction, regional co-operation, conflict prevention
and post-conflict management. Given the situation in the
region and the instability and violence which continue to
affect the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi (and most other
countries in the wider region), this now seems a distant
perspective.

____________________

* Filip Reyntjens is a Professor of African Law and Politics
at the University of Antwerp and Chairman of the Centre for
the Study of the Great Lakes Region of Africa. He has
published several books and numerous articles on Central
Africa. His latest book is "La guerre des grands lacs.
Alliances mouvantes et conflits extraterritoriaux en Afrique
Centrale", published by L'Harmattan (Paris) in 1999.
____________________

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