This policy brief is a summary of a full-length case study, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to be published in December 2004 by the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) and the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). It examines the role of land access in the conflicts which have affected Eastern Congo, especially since 1993. Based on fieldwork in Ituri Territory and Goma as well as extensive review of secondary literature, it includes a number of recommendations for the Government of the DRC, the international community, and civil society actors, for both short-term and the long-term horizons. It concludes that land shortage or exclusion has provided a conducive environment for local, national and regional actors to strengthen their control over territory, social mobility and natural resources. Since the start of the Congolese war, land has turned from a 'source' of conflict into a 'resource' of conflict. Land is a key element for the development and consolidation of new systems of power, profit and control1. Rebel leaders have mobilised existing patterns of 'unfree labour' and have turned land into an asset to be distributed among its members.2 Because of the links between control over land and conflict, the study recommends that a commission on land ownership should be established and charged with the responsibility to analyze the dynamics of land access nationwide, with a focus on areas where land access issues have been related to conflicts, and deliver a report within a limited timeframe. The commission should conduct extensive consultations, involving real community input from rural areas. Their recommendations should be approved by consensus amongst the concerned parties.
The findings of the commission would be brought to parliament for enactment of a new policy on land distribution, allocation and distribution. The policy would seek to define 'customary land rights' in order to provide the majority of Congo's people with secure access to land. On the basis of this experience, a new land law should be formulated.
Introduction
Violent conflict has engulfed parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC), principally the East, for much of the last decade, during which some 3.3 million people have died, making it the world's most deadly conflict since World War II. With the signing of the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, the Sun City Accords, and the subsequent establishment of a Transitional Government, there is optimism for the future. But areas such as North and South Kivu Provinces and Ituri Territory remain volatile, as was seen in June 2004, when opposing army factions battled in Bukavu, or in July 2004, when new clashes broke out between militia groups near Bunia.
It may be asked why this study chooses to focus on access to agricultural and pastoral land, when other factors are more commonly identified as sources of conflicts in the DRC. These include the military and economic strategies of neighbouring countries and Western powers; the nature of the state in DRC (a classic case of the 'failed state'); the historical relationships between ethnic groups; and natural resources of great value and 'lootable' character, such as diamonds, gold, cobalt, cassiterite, and coltan.
Nonetheless, land remains important for several reasons. Firstly, insecure or insufficient access to land is a significant factor in the impoverishment of thousands of rural people, and is therefore a 'structural' cause of conflict. Marginalisation as a result of land alienation has given an important stimulus to militia formation in many parts of eastern DRC. Secondly, in the case of Ituri Territory, contested purchase and expansion of agricultural and ranching concessions have been identified as one of the proximate causes of violence; the same may be true in Masisi. Thirdly, the present conflict has radically changed land access patterns, through a number of mechanisms including forced displacement; and shifts in the level of authority enjoyed by different customary and administrative leaders. Conflict is producing new competition for land, as part of a wider renegotiation of the local economic space and re-drawing of ethnic, class, and other 'boundaries' between groups.3 This is especially the case because land was turned from a 'source' into a 'resource' for the perpetuation of conflict.
The local political economy of land-access
In many parts of the eastern provinces of the DRC, land has been a source of conflict for many years. Changes introduced during the colonial period tended to politicise and exacerbate conflicts over disputed access to land. On the one hand, colonialism institu-tionalised the link between ethnic identity and land access within the political structures of the state. On the other hand, it intensified local competition for land with the promotion of migration of labour forces from neigh-bouring Rwanda. Before the colonial conquest, large parts of eastern Congo were char-acterised by markedly stratified patriarchal social structures. Access to land was regulated by a hierarchical administration based on communal territorial ownership.
The Belgian colonial power took notice of the existence of these indigenous systems and pushed them into a new regime of customary law, which, consequently 'container-ised' the local population4. The process of 'containerisation' involved a 'rigidification' and in some cases a re-definition of ethnic identities and a codification of customs. A second characteristic of the land tenure system was the introduction of a double system of property rights. Next to 'custom' existed a 'modern' system for the white settlers enabling them to establish their plantations, through application to the central state. All vacant land was declared to be the property of the colonial state. Land was expropriated for settler-owned concessions, and compensation was paid to the customary leaders (mwami), rather than to the people. The dual nature of the system allowed for 'forum shopping' in order to gain access to land, which eventually undermined the legitimacy of both the customary and statutory systems.
Footnotes:
1 See Vlassenroot, K. and T. Raeymaekers, The Politics of Rebellion and Intervention in Ituri: The Emergence of a New Political Complex?, in: African Affairs, Vol. 103, 2004, pp. 385-412.
2 Pottier, J., Emergency in Ituri, DRC: Political Complexity, Land and Other Challenges in Restoring Food Security, Paper presented at the FAO international workshop on 'Food Security in Complex Emergencies: building policy frameworks to address longer-term programming challenges', Tivoli, 23-25 September 2003.
3 See Tilly, C., The Politics of Collective Violence, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003.
4 Mamdani, M., Citizens and Subject. Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1996, p. 22.
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