Saturday 16 June 2012

Disappointing European Parliament Resolution


The European Parliament published a resolution on the follow-up of the elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo on 14 June.

It is a disappointing benediction of Kabila’s struggle to hold on to power. Kabila is gradually securing an important diplomatic objective as time goes by: European recognition as Congo’s de facto leader. The question of electoral legitimacy is fading out of the diplomatic debate.

European MPs lack either the political will or the understanding of the Congolese political landscape to issue a more meaningful declaration. The only relatively harsh statement in the resolution is that results of the November 28th elections remain ‘questionable’ due to ‘the lack of proper monitoring of these key electoral processes’.

Given the honest and critical report of the EU monitoring team led by Maria Nedelcheva, we could have expected European MPs to take a firmer stance.

Their resolution can be interpreted as wishful thinking for improved governance, utopian sentiments about Kabila’s good intentions, or worse – outrageous cynicism (we don’t really approve of Kabila but given his vulnerability we can deal with him and can carry on with business-as-usual).

Does anyone really care about the Congolese? Apparently European Members of Parliament do not.

1 comment:

  1. Sir. As for your interpretations of Europe's attitude to the Congo (and Africa in general) I'd put my money on outrageous cynicism, the coltan flows so it's business as usual.

    ReplyDelete