Kichanga, North Kivu, DR Congo: a soldier of the Congolese Army stands guard and ensures the security of civilians around Nyanzale. Photo MONUSCO/Abel Kavanagh
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is drifting towards a dangerous precipice and far too few seem willing to acknowledge it. By arming violent militias, the government in Kinshasa is setting the country on a path that bears an unsettling resemblance to Sudan’s recent history. Anyone concerned with stability in the Great Lakes region should recognise this for what it is: a slow-burning crisis that risks spiralling out of control.
Former president Joseph Kabila recently sounded the alarm in an interview with La Libre Afrique, calling what is happening in his country “Sudanisation”. On this point, at least, he is right. The parallels are difficult to ignore. Faced with rebellion and unable to assert full control over its territory, the state turns to militias, often mobilised along ethnic lines, to fill the gaps. It is presented as a pragmatic fix. In reality, it is a deeply short-sighted gamble. Sudan learned the hard way; the Congo should have known better.
Once armed and legitimised, these groups rarely remain instruments of the state for long. They develop their own interests, their own loyalties and their own agendas. They commit widespread abuses, some of them carrying the hallmarks of targeted, ethnic-based violence, which only fuels further mobilisation. More communities arm themselves in response. The result is a fragmented landscape in which authority is dispersed among hundreds of armed actors. In eastern Congo, this is already the case, with a patchwork of militias, local defence groups and warlords competing for power.
But even the supposed allies in the fight against M23 do not operate in harmony. Clashes between the Congolese army and so-called Wazalendo groups have become increasingly common. The “enemy of my enemy” logic quickly unravels when there is no coherent command structure or shared cause beyond hatred against the designated “Tutsi” foe. What emerges instead is a steady erosion of state authority, with the risk that the state itself begins to fracture.
Sudan offers a sobering example of where this trajectory can lead. The country’s reliance on paramilitary forces ultimately contributed to its fragmentation. South Sudan’s secession was one consequence. The violence in Darfur was another warning sign of what happens when armed groups operate beyond effective state control. In time, rivalries between two powerful generals turned these forces into proxies in a brutal power struggle. The result is the devastation Sudan faces today.
Congo risks repeating these mistakes. The militias grouped under the label “Wazalendo” may be presented as army reserve forces but in practice many answer to local power brokers whose allegiance to the state is conditional and transactional. Without a serious effort to disband these groups, the country will remain trapped in a cycle of militarisation and instability.
International efforts to reverse this trend have faltered. Disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes once supported by the United Nations peacekeeping mission MONUSCO (UN Organisation Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) have effectively been reversed. Rather than winding down, MONUSCO risks becoming a permanent fixture as insecurity worsens.
Against this backdrop, the proposal to establish yet another paramilitary force, reportedly funded by external partners such as the UAE to protect mining sites, is deeply troubling. The rationale is telling: existing security forces are not trusted to safeguard mining interests. Creating a new, better-equipped force to do so may reassure investors, but it further fragments the security apparatus. It raises the prospect of an armed entity whose primary accountability lies not with the Congolese state, but with its foreign backers.
Here again, the comparison with Sudan is instructive. Fragmentation does not happen overnight. It unfolds gradually, as authority weakens and competing centres of power emerge. In the Congo, signs of this process are already visible. Calls for greater autonomy in the east are growing louder, driven by a sense that political solutions are increasingly out of reach. If rival factions within the state begin to rely on different armed groups to pursue their interests, the risk of a wider internal rupture becomes very real.
The Congo is not doomed to follow this path but it is undeniably heading in that direction. The warning signs are there for anyone willing to look. Allowing the current trajectory to continue unchecked would be a profound failure, not just for Congo but for the region as a whole and even the continent.
Lionel Manzi is a political commentator, freelance writer and editor at the Pan-African Review.