Which exit out of the crisis in DRC? Ivan Lewis got it wrong.

You know something is wrong when a parliamentarian representing 75,140 souls some thousand miles away claims to have found the magic stick to a conflict affecting more than 50 million people.  This of course brings back some memories where a self-illustrated expert would brief the ‘Royal Geographical Society’.

Fortunately today, a new dawn is in the making with the experience of a rising Africa. The only country practicing self-denial of sovereignty is the Democratic Republic of Congo, which since independence has outsourced its instruments of power to private and public actors from various backgrounds. From Malayasia in the 1960s to Paraguay in the 2000s, the DRC has seen soldiers from around the globe patrolling its soil and exercising authority on behalf of the Congolese government and in the name of the international community. The refusal to control its territory, through effective organization, has caused security challenges for neighboring countries, and at the same time left Congolese at the mercy of whoever can handle a gun. The DRC is a country that is a mixture of the Wild Wide West and the 30 years old war: where all geographical conditions are present to have a self-perpetuating conflict.

The DRC is also a good illustration of the limits of power: the whole international community is there with the most expensive UN mission ever, yet there is nothing they can do on a territory as vast as Western Europe without infrastructure or political organization. Thus far, the easiest way out has been to blame it on neighboring countries and in case of doubt to try again a vain mission of military prowess. The problem is that given DRC’s vast natural resources there is no agreement on how to share the cake among UN Veto powers. Thus the status quo and distracting games will continue until there is a minimum of common understanding at international level on how to share DRC‘s wealth. But even then, this agreement won’t replace the legitimate aspirations of Congolese, thus another condition is the emerging of a political dispensation that seeks freedom through taking responsibility.

The emergence of an international consensus on DRC is however unlikely to happen anytime soon without the involvement of the region. Why? Whoever will try to install a henchman in Kinshasa will attract the malevolence of other competitors and in any case DRC can’t be govern from Kinshasa alone.

Thus balance of power, the true definition of international or regional peace, can only be achieved through the regional interface. The regional mediation will allow the emergence of a federal entity with different local growth poles linked to 9 different regional capitals. This is the only way the imbroglio of geography and power games can be solved.

Equally, the legitimate aspirations of Congolese will be difficult to channel in the absence of a polity. Obtaining a legitimate polity is the solution to internal peace. Legitimacy of a political dispensation is not achievable through hate speech as the government in Kinshasa believes but through inclusive governance and effective service delivery. Thus far, Kinshasa has practiced a weird concept of inclusion without governance let alone service delivery. To be fair, it should be obvious for everyone to see that Kinshasa cannot service the continent-country. Only a decentralized polity with local autonomy but central coordination can do it.

The UN Veto Powers that produce the arms used in DRC and have the ability to process its natural resources have thus far refused to contemplate a win-win solution. They have opted to reduce a complex geopolitical setting into a case of sex crimes, terminator and child soldiers. Don’t get me wrong, but what would you expect if you have arms, vast rich territory without control and some crazy folks who just committed genocide next door? What would you expect if you distribute arms to the death row inmates of an American prison and then let me have a walk through Las Vegas without police?

All this is bad business, for the regional countries who would gain from intra-regional trade and regional infrastructure and for the international community which misses a market. Who would benefit more from a peaceful and prosperous DRC than regional countries? None, why then assuming they are only interested in trouble? The truth is, they are not and the UN Veto Powers shouldn’t find such ridiculous explanations for their lack of common ground. It’s high time the UN Security Council Veto Powers discuss the future of DRC alongside the regional framework for peace instead of the future of MONUSCO.

The recent visit by the UN Secretary General  and World Bank President is a courageous step by two international bureaucrats; they should be joined by national bureaucrats from the powerful capitals. It is a shame that instead the DRC has become a PR-tool for popularity hungry politicians in the West.  You really know something is wrong when there is no difference between Lambert Mende and Ivan Lewis, strange pals indeed. While some UK politicians have linked their political views to one of the most successful administration in terms of development others obviously prefer the most corrupt and inapt one. Only schizophrenia can accommodate the view that the government responsible for ground-breaking development and poverty reduction is at the same time sponsoring killing and looting.

The inter-national blindspot in the crisis of Eastern DRC

Friends and foe of Rwanda agree that peace in DRC, especially in the East, passes through Rwanda. Friends of Rwanda argue that the efficiency of Rwanda’s institutions could leverage the geographic and demographic factors linking both Rwanda and Eastern DRC to infuse a positive outcome of the crisis. Indeed, the Eastern part of DRC host a large community of Rwandophones and needs Rwanda to access regional and world markets. Critics of Rwanda say the problems of DRC are caused by Rwanda and the international community should sanction Rwanda whenever Congo is not at peace. This Congo-conditionality is currently being administered to Rwanda. Both positions are actually grounded on an assumption that needs to be nuanced: the Rwanda factor in the eastern part of DRC is more a people’s question than an international one. The current disarray in the international politics on DRC is explained by the fact that the international community is ill-equipped in dealing with a problem that is not inter-national. This blind-spot has deadly consequences for the communities on the ground.

1.     The blindness of the international community towards  people’s rights

The inter-national community is blind to a people’s driven agenda. The fight for African self-determination was aborted by the AU insistence on colonial borders without providing for strong regional institutions. Yet colonial borders are deadly straightjackets, they were drawn based on a rationale of exploitation. Moreover, the indigenous institutions left by the colonial administration were auxiliary of that exploitation and continued to draw their legitimacy in western capitals rather than within their constituency, considered as backward.  It is without surprise that Africa is home to failed States.

Currently, the population of Eastern DRC with a large community of Rwandophones is perceived to be non-existent in their own right. The only way they are perceived by the international community is through the prism of the nation of Rwanda. Whatever happens in Eastern DRC now is linked to Rwanda, yet the problems call for a regional solution than a nation-centered one. Alternatively, the population of Eastern DRC is linked to the nation of DRC, if it accepts the status of all citizens in DRC: being citizens of a failed State without functioning institutions for security and welfare. The problem is that unlike Congolese in other parts of the DRC, absent institutions for Congolese in the East means direct threats of massacres and massive rape. In other words, the status quo is not tenable, thus the flaring up of conflicts every now and then.

The international community has reacted to this untenable status quo with the largest peacekeeping mission ever, but its blindness towards governance issues has led to trench warfare with various armed groups instead of providing answers to the people’s legitimate aspirations towards peace, security and development.

Regardless of any position on the current situation in Eastern DRC, the situation consists of a continent-country without institutions to protect civilians. In this context, the international community has confined its role in monitoring human rights violations with questionable expertise and objectivity, at occasion the international community actually committed human rights violations.

2.     The ICC as accelerator of conflict

The international community has become part of the problem since it seeks to antagonize concerned administrations within the region without providing for an alternative. Such an alternative would consist of mechanisms to deal with the underlying issues in DRC: absence of institutions to protect and promote development. Instead, the UN Security Council has abandoned state-building reforms in favor of the magic stick of the ICC.

Ironically, the ICC has been justified by the failure of the world in preventing genocide in Rwanda, yet bad governance is what caused genocide in Rwanda not the absence of a tribunal. As one of the most distinguished professor in constitutional law once said, lawyers have no role in revolutions. A legal system, however international, cannot govern the world. A legal system does not mean legitimacy on its own, legitimacy and thus the absence of a conflict is grounded in the will of the people. The current application of ICC politics to conflicts of the world reverses the French Revolution that has institutionalized the will of the people as basis of governance and the post-1945 understanding that power is limited by human rights.

For the apolitical proponents of the ICC, human rights form the basis of power and the will of the people can be ignored to impose an ICC warrant for example. Yet for that to be true, the application of sanctions against human rights violations would have to be universal and not selective. Otherwise, the ICC would be driven by a sectarian political will rather than by the universality of human rights.

Additionally, justice cannot be pronounced in a political vacuum, justice is being pronounced in the name of the people. The current insistence on arresting Bosco Ntanganda has triggered a domino effect with more war than peace, for what is at stake goes beyond his individual responsibility. What is at the stake is to know how security can be achieved in the Eastern part of DRC. As long as there is neither national nor international force able to protect civilians in East DRC there will be people like Bosco Ntaganda. DRC needs institutions to monopolize the legitimate forms of violence.

This does not mean that East Congo should seek secession. Even a secessionist State would have to come to the sobering conclusion that State building does not occur overnight and that the support of the international community is crucial. There is no magic solution for East Congo, but any solution would need to withstand the following test: How does it affect the people in East DRC?

3.     Prioritizing State-building reforms

The international community has sought to impose an arrest warrant at all costs, ignoring the firepower of those who consider that the priority is not arresting Ntaganda but what substantiate his political existence. In doing so, it has chosen a self-flattering initiative over the interests of the population in East DRC. One could blame Ntaganda for making his arrest so costly, the truth is however that the international community has continued to issue arrests warrants against leaders of his community making it clear that they should accept being killed and raped within the institutional vacuum of East DRC or fight for survival. It is this international blindness towards what politically can bring peace and development that is proving to be lethal for the population in East Congo. In a study done by the London School of Economics and PriceWaterhouseCoopers on how donors can avoid doing harm and maximize their positive impact in fragile situations, the authors alludes to this blind spot: ‘Less understood among donors is the extent to which the state’s legitimacy is bolstered by the political reorganisation championed by government’. This study shows how Rwanda was able to recover from the abyss by working with development partners to restore State efficiency. This is what should inform any solution to the crisis in East Congo, what policies are going to establish State efficiency?

In November 2011, countries emerging from conflict met in Kigali under the auspice of the Peace building Commission of the UN, they declared State Building to be the other side of the peace medal. Unfortunately, for the people in East Congo, State Building is not so prone to media attraction like the business of humanitarian interventions.

Political conditionality without borders: expanding destabilization

Until recently, Rwanda was internationally recognized as a model of aid effectiveness. In 2011, the Rwandan President Kagame spoke on behalf of Africa at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness held in Busan, South Korea. At that time none was suspecting the principle of political conditionality, already fallacious within the national order, to be expanded internationally such that a country now has not only to account for its internal politics but also for the internal politics of a neighboring country.

This is exactly the situation in which the role model of aid effectiveness found itself into, when development aid was suspended because the neighboring Democratic of Congo is not at peace. Even more curious, Rwanda was made responsible for events happening within the jurisdiction of the DRC and the international community, present there with the most expensive peacekeeping mission in the world. In a sophism, unchallenged in the mainstream media, Rwanda has been charged of interfering with the territorial integrity of DRC, where such integrity did not exist in the first place. One may legitimately ask why Rwanda found herself in such uncomfortable position.

 1.     Escaping the black hole

The DRC is geographically and politically not connected; its population is spread across a territory comparable to the size of Western Europe and speaks different languages. To add insult to injury, the MONUSCO force there is equally a Tower of Babel rather than a fortress of enlightened leadership. Its military arm is composed of 49 different nationalities while its police arm consists of 27 different nationalities. In this melting pot of multilingual armed groups operating in the DRC, only the M23 speaks a language that is also the national language of a neighboring country, one of the few African countries to have one common language, the Republic of Rwanda.

This is because a significant part of Eastern DRC belonged to the Kingdom of Rwanda prior colonialism. It is therefore tempting for any observer to lift the national veil and link any activity of Rwandophone within the DRC to the neighboring Rwanda. This is even more tempting as this offers the opportunity to rationalize the power vacuum that reigns in the DRC.  Indeed, having Rwanda as scapegoat allows for any observer of the DRC to escape the DRC black hole.

The current political discourse on DRC, accusing Rwanda of sending troops there, has led everyone to forget that Rwanda was actually militarily involved in the DRC within a hybrid brigade of Special Forces. So there is nothing new: Rwanda was in past military involved in the DRC at broad day light to secure its national interests. This has been achieved; Rwanda is now a peaceful country and the negative forces operating in DRC were significantly weakened. However, Rwanda cannot be made responsible for the situation there, since it is within the jurisdiction of the international community (MONUSCO). Asking Rwandans to be responsible for the peace in DRC by sabotaging any collaboration between the DRC and Rwanda, as it has been the case with the hybrid Special Forces Brigade , amounts to a mission impossible.

2.    Running out of options  for peace

Facing the inability to rely on the institutions of DRC, its armed forces is notorious for rape, and the sabotage of Rwanda-DRC relations  one would wish to at least rely on the international peacekeepers. However, they have equally been charged of raping minors. Considering a decade of failure, these charges appear to go beyond a mere incidence; and make the case for a systemic failure of the international community: it has run out of options. Seeing the international community adopting the same language as the Congolese government is symptomatic for an unparalleled failure: imagine the doctor equally whining as the patient. Why is that so?

Already in 1963, the renowned scholar of international politics, Hans J. Morgenthau, explained in a brilliant article about the ‘Political Conditions for An International Police Force’ the importance of a UN force in Congo composed of interested African nations: ‘..what has remained as the distinctive feature of the United Nations force in the Congo is the numerical predominance of contingents from African nations, which have a special interest in the pacification of the Congo without the intervention of non-African nations’. This status quo has unfortunately been challenged; today the majority of the troops of the MONUSCO are non Africans from places as far as Peru and Pakistan. It is not complicated to see that a force which is predominantly Esperanto has limited incentives to fight for peace in the jungle of DRC. In the equally stateless Somalia, it is estimated that 2700 African peacekeepers have died to pacify their trade corridor.

Critics argue that neighboring countries, like Rwanda and Uganda,  don’t have interests in peace because of economic interests, but it is sobering to see that same donor countries that produce weapons and process minerals are also engaged in the MONUSCO.  While it is obvious that cheap minerals and demand for weapons benefit those countries, it is equally obvious that neighboring countries would benefit more from the free movement of goods and services that only can come with peace.

Indeed, in the above mentioned article, Hans Morgenthau explains that ‘an international police force cannot be more efficient than the political interests and military capabilities of the nations supporting it allow it to be’. By focusing on blaming Rwanda instead of fixing the shortcomings of the MONUSCO, the international powers behind the MONUSCO have demonstrated that they could not agree on allowing MONUSCO to be effective. Out of this disagreement on how to fix problems in DRC, like the government of Kabila they have resorted to a well tested option: Rwanda bashing.

Rwanda is being defined with a political conditionality, a peaceful DRC, that neither the government of Kabila nor the international community have ever fulfilled. Moreover, both have prevented Rwanda to be of any help. It is not clear what the international community wants, but the current international politics certainly neither lead to a stable DRC nor to a stable region.

The recent crisis in Eastern Congo: a case for regionalism

Like other parts of Africa, the great lakes region has been shaped by the colonial legacy with communities sharing the same culture living in different countries. The only way African countries can deal with this colonial legacy is through regional integration. Unfortunately, the international community has adopted a wrong approach in dealing with a problem of its own making. With disastrous consequences within countries and the region, the international community has gone against the best practice of regional solutions to global challenges through direct crisis management. However, the direct crisis management by the international community is marked by a poor analysis on the root causes of conflict in DRC and will thus not yield any results.

1. The jurisdiction over the Democratic Republic of Congo

The situation in eastern DRC is increasingly analyzed through the prism of Rwanda, the difference in governance of the two countries are worlds apart, as often described by travelers, differences are to be seen just by crossing the border: at the one hand one of the most corrupt country with the worst performance in human development index (DRC). At the other hand one of Africa’s least corrupt country, 12% poverty reduction in five years, on track of all MDGs and a model of post-conflict nation building (Rwanda).

This lack of governance within the DRC is treated like a constant variable by international actors who prefer not to address the complex questions of governance. Instead, they analyze the problems in DRC through the prism of her neighboring countries, especially Rwanda. Unknowingly, this approach equals to an extension of Rwanda’s jurisdiction to the Eastern part of DRC. In other words, international actors deny Congo’s sovereignty by constantly excusing her from her sovereign rights and duties.

Ironically this extension of Rwanda’s jurisdiction is done by the same people accusing Rwanda of interfering within the DRC. Hence the paradoxical call from the international community: ‘Rwanda should play a positive role in solving the conflict within the DRC’, in other words Rwanda should be involved in the DRC. How should Rwanda demonstrate she is not interfering in the DRC by getting involved?

The extension of Rwanda’s sovereignty to DRC is argumentatively backed by an ethnic approach to sovereignty: Since eastern DRC is Rwandophone, whatever happens there is also Rwanda’s responsibility. If transposed to the rest of Africa, this would have disastrous consequences: whatever the people from Mali are doing in Ivory Coast is Mali’s responsibility. Another variation would also be that since the Kenyan Prime Minister is a Luo, whatever the Luos are doing in Uganda is Kenya’s responsibility. We would end in a medieval order with fragmented ethnic leaders, a curious version of ‘divide and rule’ promoted by the same powers that have created national borders where Africans saw fluid regions.

2. Transnational resources

The focus of Rwanda is a tree hiding complex issues of internal and regional governance. DRC is home to transnational resources including gas, oil and fisheries. Rwanda shares with the DRC the methane gas of the Lake Kivu, which will be jointly exploited through the Economic Community of the Great Lakes. But Rwanda is frequently being accused of exploiting the minerals in DRC, however it is the only country that has adopted mineral tagging in the region. Rwanda upsurge as mining exporter is explained by a dormant mining sector until recently. Before the 1994 genocide only one company was monopolizing the sector in Rwanda, after the privatization a boom in the three strategic minerals has unfolded (Tin, Tungsten, and Tantalum occurring in the Coltan mineral).  Against this background, DRC is currently in dispute with all her neighboring countries over transnational resources as a recent report by the International Crisis Group indicates. The report entitled Black Gold in the Congo: Threat to Stability or Development Opportunity? Countries published in July 2012, accounts of current conflicts between DRC, Angola, Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda over oil reserves.  How come the United States member of the NATO and NAFTA and the countries forming the EU are not supporting the ICGLR, when all of these powers avoided the zero-sum game competition among nation-States through regionalism? Is peace the aim in DRC or the promotion of zero-sum game between DRC and her neighbors, especially Rwanda?

The discovery of oil in the hinterland of DRC against the background of Kinshasa’s orientation towards China might explain the aggressive common tone expressed by Western countries. There is a new scramble for Africa and blame-shifting the problem of DRC to Rwanda, a country 80 smaller, seems to be motivated by a desire to rationalize the conflict. As European diplomats often say, there is no counterpart to talk to in the DRC, thus there is no way to influence the DRC, it is a chaos. The only way to influence the DRC is to drag in a rational acting actor by extending its jurisdiction as seen above. Rwanda is being forced as auxiliary of the West to shape things in DRC. Notably, to consider removing Kabila who is giving long-term concessions to the Chinese.

Unfortunately, the West relies on very poor analysis when it comes to DRC, thus the West cannot consider treating the DRC as a new market once well governed. In view of the West, the DRC is good for cheap minerals and humanitarian interventions. It is in this context that the myth of external aggression to the DRC has emerged, although it is obvious that the DRC is a threat to herself without external assistance.

3. The futility of external support

In actual fact, the DRC is a country with an administration unable to exercise authority over its territory and people. Looking at all indicators, the sovereign in DRC, its people have resisted its leadership whenever the occasion for a vote of confidence arose. The FARDC is an army that deserts at any operation which indicates the lack of trust in the commander in chief. The last presidential election was not recognized and post-election violence followed the proclamation of the results, the election was even contested by the Catholic Church.

The mainstreamed corruption is also an indication of a lack of faith in national institutions. This has direct consequences on the battlefield. Officers steal the pay of their soldiers and food is scarce. The faits d’armes of the congolese army chiefs are telling: the former army chief Gen. Amisi was supplying arms to rebels, including FDLR,  the current one is an experienced bar tender.

In a nutshell FARDC is fighting a mutiny of battle hardened Eastern Congolese in their own stronghold without pay or reliable supply chain. Needless to say that it is a lost battle, especially given  the presence of FDLR, M23 fears nothing less than extermination. To make matters worse, the indictments of the ICC do not incentivize any rebel leader to lay down the arms. In view of this situation, it is evident that M23 does not need support to defeat militarily the FARDC.

4. The significance of war in Eastern DRC

Given the structural inability of FARDC to fight, Kinshasa has made the choice of a media war against M23 grounded on legitimacy. The idea being that M23 cannot survive without international recognition. This strategy would have been successful, if Kinshasa would have used the media war as a bargaining tool against M23. However, Kinshasa refused to talk to M23. This deadlock motivates in turn M23 to seek for an incontestable status through military means. What currently prevent a large scale war between M23 and mercenaries hired by Kinshasa including FDLR, to replace FADRC, are the regional peace negotiations under the auspices of the international conference on the Great Lakes Region. One can only wonder why the UN and its European powers are so reluctant to support this initiative.

One reason behind the lack of support to a regional solution is that it would prevent former colonial powers like Belgium to free ride on the conflict in Eastern Congo in view of recovering international appeal. With prolonged economic crisis in the West, such an international prestige is needed to convince an increasingly skeptical electorate. Equally, the UN fears a loss of raison d’être, if ICGLR proves to be more useful than the 1 billion USD heavy MONUSCO, whose mandate’s renewal always surprisingly coincidences with renewed fighting in DRC. Indeed, any neutral observer analyzing the M23 crisis and other would find a strange pattern: always before June, when the 1 billion question is going to be asked at the UN Security Council, the MONUSCO finds ways to publish a report blaming Rwanda and insists at asking Kinshasa to implement policies with conflictual ending. With tax free salaries up to 200 000$ car of 75 000 rent of 5000 $ the UN staff on the ground informing the world have no incentive for peace.

In view of the above, the international community and the government in Kinshasa have a stake in prolonged conflict in Eastern DRC. Against conventional wisdom, Rwanda has stubbornly refused to be dragged into this war. Lazy analysts blinded by ethnicity ignore that if Rwanda was really militarily supporting M23, than M23 would be at the doors of Kinshasa. Indeed, Rwanda has never been shy to admit being military involved in Congo.

Neither the UN nor western powers are willing to sacrifice troops by intervening in a guerilla war in the deep forests of the DRC. Only countries in the region would see an intervention as prevention against threats to their national security. However, countries from the region will avoid to be dragged into this conflict on a large scale, since this would make them responsible for a situation only Congolese can address. Thus, war will not solve the real issues at hand, in the words of President Kagame ‘you cannot shoot your way into a solution’.

5. Impunity of transnational non  state actors  

Interestingly, the recent DRC crisis is said to have been provoked by the quest to end impunity.  The international Criminal Court sought to exercise its jurisdiction over the DRC by calling for the arrest of Gen. Ntaganda. One can note already here, that one of the enforcement mechanisms of the ICC is to wage a war and freeze aid, in other words terrorizing millions of people who never met Ntaganda.  In procedural terms, this pill is administered through the corporate veil of non-state actors such as a Group of Expert report or Human Rights Watch, since it goes against rules and practices of inter-states cooperation. In a very interesting article by Alan Chong posted in the Review of International Studies in October 2002, this reality in foreign policy is being described as ‘plus non-state politics’ or ‘multi-actor reality’. The problem however, is that the new corporate actors in global affairs are neither elected nor held responsible for the mayhem they cause. As Alan Chong rightfully asks, ‘Yet, one wonders what the implications are of displacing the pre-existing foreign policy mandate of states, grounded in domestic systems of legality, however determined as opposed to self-appointed transnational crusaders of conscience’.

Ironically, it is the privilege of the weak to share the ringside seat of the winds of change with the powerful: Non-State Actors are aggressively advancing ‘causes of conscience and normative ideals’ on Africa (NGOs) and on powerful western countries alike (religious hegemony). Like in the old days of the civilization mission by European countries, moralism is invoked to put established principles of international affairs out of order and to impose on other societies an agenda defined in the opaque headquarters of transnational corporations (kandhar or New York).  This is not an argument for cultural relativism; rather it is an appeal against cultural imperialism, the root cause of international wars since it denies freedom in the name of morality. In that respect Al Quaeda Inc is not so different from Human Rights Watch and ICC, in the sense that in the name of moral all hell can break lose.

In a globalized world with instant communication, countries cannot leave the power of setting the international agenda, war or peace, to Non-State Actors that never have to bear the burden of governance. As a Rwandan proverb goes, Ingoma ntihora irahaka (power cannot have a private purpose). The solution for a post Westphalian order of nation-states is a world of regions and there is no better place for regionalism than Africa, the continent with European borders imprisoning growth and innovation.

It is obvious that Rwanda can only achieve a free movement of people, goods and capital in her relations with the DRC through peace. Rwanda does not need war to enforce what geography already has provided for. How come then Rwanda is labeled as war monger? It has more to do with the image moral crusaders have created to fund-raise and set their own agenda. This image describes the Great-Lakes region as passive agent at the mercy of Rwanda, the root of all evils.  Targeting Rwanda is convenient for lazy analysts who find an organized State they can punch into instead of the complexities of the continent-country that is DRC. While this NGO generated world view might be complaisant to a West with a complex of moral superiority, it does not augur well on the long term.  China is at Africa’s door with no other message than trade with a sovereign agenda resilient to partisan interests. It is evident that the West risks losing the continent of growth, by viewing it only as a playground for its non-for-profit but power-hungry moral crusaders. A power which they exercised in the last century without empowering the African citizen they claim to fight for.