Emmanuel de Mérode shot: an emerging saga at Virunga

Emmanuel de Mérode, head warden of the Virunga National Park  in North Kivu, DRC was shot and wounded this week while driving alone from Goma to park headquarters at Rumangabo.

de Mérode's jeep with bullet holes in windscreen

This is one of the most dangerous areas in DRC. Congolese armed forces with international support are gradually regaining control of the area but armed rebel groups and militias are still present. Some carry out illegal exploitation of natural resources.

The attack is not surprising. More than 130 park rangers have been killed in Virunga since 1996.

Loved by his staff and well-respected by conservationists, the Belgian warden also made powerful enemies. Poachers are shot and charcoal makers who are illegally active in the park are systematically routed out.

MONUCSO boss Martin Kobler and Belgian ambassador to DRC Michel Lastschenko travelled to Goma to be with de Mérode, proving the high-profile nature of the attack.

The attack on de Mérode, qualified as a seemingly ‘targeted ambush’ by the Belgian ambassador in a confidential cable, may have something to do with his longstanding battle against British oil company SOCO.  SOCO has been given oil exploration rights in the park. This contravenes DRC’s commitments to conservation and is in flagrant violation with UNESCO which has listed the Virunga park as a National Heritage Site. It also reveals the fragmented nature of Congolese power systems. The Ministry of the Environment is a featherweight compared to the far more powerful Ministry of Oil.

Head warden de Mérode deposited a legal complaint against SOCO at the Goma public prosecutor’s office the morning of the ambush. One of the items in the complaint relates to bullying of local populations by SOCO sub-contractors. A similar complaint is about to be lodged in London with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

SOCO is suspected of being behind the attack – a suspicion that they reject. Belgian MP François-Xavier de Donnea qualified the coincidence as ‘extremely worrisome’ as reported in La Libre Belgique.

SOCO is an international oil and gas exploration and production company, headquartered in London, traded on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. The Company also has interests in Vietnam, the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) and Angola.

 Billionaire son of Warren Buffet, Howard G. Buffett is the Executive Producer of a film about park rangers in Virunga to be previewed at the Tribeca Film Festival today. Buffet has been involved in infrastructure development and peace-building initiatives in and around the park in recent years.

Nature conservation is dangerous business in DRC. This is just one of many violent incidents. The presence of armed groups is an ongoing conservation and human tragedy. The deadly Lord’s Resistance Army has been active in Garamba (where de Mérode did his PhD fieldwork in the mid-1990s), as was the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army. Virunga has been threatened by multiple armed forces such as the M23 rebel group, the Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda and other Mayi Mayi militia. At the Epulu Reserve, militia chief Morgan and his men stormed the main station with AK47 assault rifles killing seven people and all but one of the 16 okapis in June 2012.

These events testify to the legacy of armed conflict in the Congo that continues to haunt people and wildlife. Even when armed conflict ends, negative impacts persist.

Emmanuel, get well soon. The Virunga staff needs you, the gorillas need you, conservation needs you. All the best and bon courage.

Motorcycles and agricultural innovation

Mobile phone use took off in Congo in the late 1990s. It transformed society in general while also providing a much needed boost to food production and marketing. It helped communities organize collective transportation which reduced costs and increased security. Farmers became better informed of price fluctuations and market opportunities so were less likely to be taken advantage of by unscrupulous traders and intermediaries. The mobile continues to revolutionize access to banking services such as credit and payments, which still constitute bottlenecks in commodity chains.

The relatively inexpensive motorcycle made in India or China is the social innovation today that is contributing to change in the lives of rural farmers, especially those that live in isolated communities far from feeder roads. Eastern Congolese cities first introduced motorcycles for individual transport and as taxis. Usage has spread rapidly throughout the country. Reluctant at first, Kinshasa’s population has now embraced them for their efficiency in navigating through the capital’s infamous traffic jams. These easily maintained motorcycles are cost efficient and well adapted to the laterite tracks that criss-cross Congo’s rural landscape, even during the rainy season.

As poor road infrastructure is one of the major handicaps for getting crops to market, the motorcycle is a welcome novelty. The heavily laden bicycle is still the more common means of carrying produce, although a slow and exhausting form of labour. It is nonetheless increasingly frequent to see a young man on a motorcycle with a bag of cassava, a plastic jug of palm oil or even a pig or a goat en route to an intermediary drop-off point accessible to pick-up trucks or large lorries. As the purchasing power of the young villager is weak, coming up with the approximately one thousand dollars to buy a 125cc motorcycle is beyond the reach of most. But young men hanker after them, seeing them as the undeniable symbol of modernity, prestige and liberty.

Many of the motorcycles plying Congo’s rural tracks are purchased by traders who advance payment for them in exchange for promises of agricultural goods. Young men consequently enter into a kind of indentured servitude to pay off their debts. Although the motorcycle’s impact is slight in terms of agricultural marketing, it is an emerging positive trend whose ramifications are difficult to predict.While the motorcycle will unlikely contribute significantly to feeding Congo’s towns and cities, it is nevertheless already augmenting rural revenues.

Congo’s social agenda

Can logistical obstacles be overcome to allow people vote on 28 November? How will the runner-up and his supporters react to the results? Will Congo follow the Côte d’Ivoire scenario? Will the disenfranchised of Masina, Kimbanseke and other ‘zones rouges’ of Kinshasa take to the streets? These are important questions. They are timely and require immediate planning.

But focus on these questions tends to mask other priorities. The recently released UNDP report on human development indicators puts elections hype in perspective. It ranks DRC at the bottom of the list of 187 countries surveyed. The new Doing Business report also reveals Congo’s fragility. Already poorly positioned last year, DRC dropped down two points this year, ranking 178 out of 183 countries.

Some macroeconomic stability has been achieved under the aggressive tutelage of the FMI and IMF. Public works efforts at reconnecting the fragmented territory need to be acknowledged thanks to the EU and China.

Security in the Kivus remains alarming despite the UN’s largest and most expensive peacekeeping force. Five years after the election of Joseph Kabila, ordinary people have not seen social benefits. They remain hungry and poor, angry and confused. The 'cinq chantiers' development program is an unequivocal failure. The current government is reproducing the historic dynamics of institutionalizing humiliation.

Kabila or Tshisekedi (or Kamerhe or Kengo) as president matters little. The way that power will be structured to improve the well-being of ordinary Congolese after the elections is the real issue. With attention riveted on the elections and the personality politics character of the campaign, people’s needs and expectations tend to be overlooked. Holding elections is important but designing and implementing a participative social agenda is equally essential.