CENTRAL AFRICA: Inadequate land reform fuels conflict

Analysis

Economic inequalities resulting from unequal access to, and control over land, are more acute than ever across the Great Lakes region. Many of these differences trace back to unfair colonial land policies. However, basic structural inequalities have been greatly exacerbated by:

• more than a decade of wide-scale armed conflict and its accompanying large scale population displacements;
• economic plundering, especially in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); and
• the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

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Recent attempts to reform existing land laws in Burundi and Rwanda have worsened the situation. Moreover, remaining rebel groups -- including the Forces Nationales de Liberation (FNL) in Burundi and the Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR) in the DRC -- are using the land issue to justify their armed insurgencies (see BURUNDI: Election shifts focus to new challenges - August 22, 2005; and see RWANDA: Potential rebel return pressures government - June 15, 2005).

Increasing landlessness. As a result of these factors, the last decade has seen an unprecedented expansion of the landless class throughout the Great Lakes region. Furthermore, recent events suggest that male members of this class are particularly prone to political suggestion and exploitation, and are the most likely candidates to take up arms as part of an ethnic struggle:

1. Burundi. Burundi is currently experiencing a land crisis, one of the legacies of the 'regroupment' policy that began in the context of an intensifying civil war. Between 1996 and mid-2000, as many as one in seven rural Burundais were forcibly relocated from their homes to a 'protected' regroupment camp (see BURUNDI: Civil war intensifies - January 31, 2000). However, such movements also served the war aims of the government by enabling them to pursue rebel forces across rural terrain without impediment.

   The regroupment programme created a sharp increase in rural landlessness. With the closure of the camps in 2000 as part of the peace process, many attempted to return home. However, they commonly found their former properties destroyed (a result of scorched-earth tactics) or re-occupied (often by closely-related kin who may themselves have claimed ownership of the land). This is a particular problem for female-headed households:

   • As many as 40% of all households in the camps were female-headed, due to widowhood (to war and AIDS), or single parenthood caused by rape or divorce.
   • Upon returning home, many of these women found their holdings under the control of their former husband's kin, who claim it under a patriarchal system of customary tenure.
   • Given that sources of additional, off-farm income are limited, many women have been forced to enter into concubinage or commercial sex work, while their sons now constitute a key reservoir for FNL recruitment.

   In addition to these internal dynamics, the conclusion of the current peace process raises the possibility of a return to the country of as many as 2 million Burundais refugees currently residing in neighbouring countries. It is anticipated that many of the returnees will face problems similar to those encountered by the return of those internally displaced. The response of the transitional government has been a partial opening of the land market, to enable the dispossessed to buy new plots. However, this approach is unlikely to help the most marginal groups, especially those facing landlessness.

2. Eastern Congo. Contemporary problems of landlessness date back to colonial times, when agents of the Belgian authorities alienated tens of thousands of small-holder families from their land in pursuit of industrial plantations and national parks. In addition, many of the displaced were forcibly recruited into the new enterprises. Only those families with connections to ruling groups were exempted from such forms of land and labour expropriation. This general pattern continued, indeed intensified, during the 31-year rule of Mobutu Sese Seko. In the Masisi Highlands by 1991, a mere 500 well-connected families controlled 60% of all land.

   However, throughout the colonial and Mobutu years, the key importance of landless labour to the plantation economy held in check the worst effects of landlessness. Therefore, landless labourers often would be incorporated into plantation owners' households, or else allowed to squat nearby. In addition, the easy availability of off-farm incomes offset further economic hardship. These included:

   • artisanal prospecting of the region's abundant natural resources;
   • informal trade with, and short-term labour migration to both Rwanda and Uganda; and
   • employment in the country's massive bureaucracy (to a lesser extent).

   All of this changed with the onset of war from 1997. Former mechanisms of social protection largely have dissolved in the context of armed strife, in which labour can be coerced in other, more direct ways. Opportunities for artisanal prospecting and informal trading have ceased, as both mining operations and trade routes have fallen under military control. The borders with both Rwanda and Uganda have closed, and the bureaucracy has all but collapsed (see CONGO-KINSHASA: Transition faces severe challenges - July 4, 2005).

   As such, the effects of landlessness are more strongly felt now than ever before. This is evidenced by recent events in Ituri, in which the very suggestion of further land alienation by the political leadership led to an outbreak of 'ethnic' violence in which several thousand people lost their lives (see CONGO-KINSHASA: Worsening violence threatens elections - February 3, 2005).

3. Rwanda. The situation in the eastern DRC cannot be understood without reference to land issues in Rwanda itself. Since 1996, the Rwandan government has been pursuing a policy of 'villagisation' whereby rural inhabitants are grouped together in communities for purposes of 'proper' land utilisation and service provision. As in Burundi, this policy began as a response to an emergency situation, though it has since evolved into a long term development programme.

   The villagisation programme explicitly aims to alienate farmers from their land. By relocating them to far away centres, it is hoped that their emotional attachment to the land will reduce, thereby making them more likely to sell up and accept alternative plots closer to the relocation site. The ultimate goal is for a small class of 'capable professional farmers' to rationalise all small plots into viable large scale commercial farms, which their former owners will then work.

   However, the effect of this policy has been the expansion of the landless class. Those selling up have found themselves poorly compensated and few have received their full land allocations in the new settlements. The land market's ethnic dimension has exacerbated resulting antagonisms: a majority of the buyers are Tutsi, a majority of the sellers Hutu. A significant result has been that growing numbers of the landless group -- especially its young men -- are now leaving the village settlements to join the FDLR insurgency in Congo.