After nearly three decades of warfare, armed conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has only intensified. The Rwanda-backed M23 rebellion – which claims to control the main eastern DRC city of Goma since January 26 – has been at the centre of attention in recent years. However, eastern DRC is home to more than 100 other armed groups, which are a major source of instability too. The question of their demobilisation has haunted the country ever since the end of the Second Congo War in 2003.
A new chapter in this long-standing conundrum started in 2022 when the government decided to form an alliance with armed groups to fight their common enemy, the M23 and its Rwandan backers. At around the same time, it launched an initiative to create an army reserve, known as the Reserve armée de la défense (RAD). This formalised the Congolese army’s established practice of using armed groups as auxiliaries.
The creation of the reserve army – which remains on paper at this stage – allows the government to reward armed group allies with integration while bringing them under institutionalised control. But will it actually work?
Our past and ongoing research on army integration and demobilisation in eastern DRC casts doubt on the plan, for three reasons.
The first risk is that armed groups will boost their numbers to gain a stronger bargaining position once integration does occur. This is already happening in anticipation with numerous armed groups stepping up their recruitment.
Secondly, reservist forces may compete with the army over territorial control and limited resources and turn against those who created them.
Finally, merely absorbing armed groups into a reserve force does little to address the long-standing grievances that underlie conflict in the east.
The Wazalendo: eastern DRC’s predatory patriots
On 9 May 2022, in a secretive meeting in the town of Pinga in North Kivu, the Congolese armed forces and several Congolese armed groups agreed to cease hostilities against each other and instead form an alliance to fight their common enemy, the M23.
As a result, these groups became quasi-official and increasingly presented themselves as defenders of Congo’s territorial integrity. They started to call themselves Wazalendo or patriots in Kiswahili. Fuelled by President Félix Tshisekedi’s supportive rhetoric, the Wazalendo became symbols of Congolese resistance against foreign aggression. This benefited the president’s 2023 electoral campaign.
Across North and South Kivu provinces, armed groups have rebranded themselves Wazalendo, even when not part of the coalition fighting the M23.
As the Congolese army’s attention is on the M23, these armed groups have benefited from the lull in operations against them. Most Wazalendo groups are allowed to roam around freely and have dramatically expanded their zones of influence and violent systems of revenue generation.
This includes taxation at markets and rapidly proliferating roadblocks, but also ransom kidnappings and contract killings. There is also evidence that Wazalendo groups are engaged in torture, sexual violence and arbitrary arrests, and frequently recruit child soldiers.
Chequered history of integration
A few months after the Pinga meeting, Congo’s government launched a new national defence policy that mentioned the establishment of the reserve army. Though it was passed unanimously in parliament in April 2023, MPs voiced concerns that the new army reserve risked repeating mistakes of the past.
The army is itself the product of the painstaking integration of former belligerents after the Second Congo War (1998-2003). But rebel-military integration became an open-ended process. Armed group officers alternately integrated into and deserted from the army in the hope of gaining higher ranks and positions in a next round of integration.
Unending rebel integration also weakened the national army. It reinforced parallel command chains, facilitated intelligence leaks and created a lopsided hierarchy.
The first iteration of the M23 rebellion in 2012 was the result of rebel integration gone wrong. In its aftermath, the Congolese government banned the wholesale negotiated integration of armed groups into the army.
Hurdles to integration
The reserve army risks unleashing the same dynamics of rewarding rebellion by doling out positions to armed group leaders and granting them impunity for past violence. In April 2024, the leaders of many Wazalendo groups were flown to Kinshasa where the army reserve leadership told them to start preparing lists of their combatants ahead of their integration.
This has prompted numerous armed groups to step up recruitment.
The prospect of integration has also triggered fierce competition for positions between Wazalendo commanders. This risks worsening animosities between groups.
Other hurdles, some of which have been faced before, include:
Unity of command. Forcing smaller armed groups into a hierarchical mould doesn’t always work. Most have deep local roots, with their recruitment and influence limited to a relatively small area. Used to calling the shots in their home areas, these commanders tend to be reluctant to take orders from higher-placed outsiders.
Ethnic competition. Armed groups may resist full integration if they feel their rank and positions in the reserve army will be lower and that this will hamper their ability to protect members of their ethnic community. Such “local security dilemmas” have obstructed army integration and demobilisation efforts in the past.
Resources. Armed groups currently enjoy substantial income, and considerable freedom in obtaining it. Will the reserve army command allow its members to engage in illegal taxation, kidnapping for ransom, robbery and ambushes? If not, how will it compensate for their lost opportunities? In addition, the reserve army is likely to compete with the army over revenue-generating opportunities. And some of its members may leak intelligence to fellow armed groups.
Painkiller or cure?
The army reserve may be read as the latest attempt at solving the decades-old problem of getting rid of the many armed groups in eastern DRC, this time by bringing them into the fold of the state yet not into the army.
However, this solution does risk unleashing many of the same detrimental dynamics as army integration. It may fuel armed mobilisation and militarisation rather than contain it.
Wazalendo groups are currently in a comfortable position and there are no repercussions for not integrating the reserve force. To contain them, both the DRC’s army and the military justice system would need to be professionalised.
Even if the reserve army did not have negative ripple effects, it would be an unlikely cure for armed mobilisation. That requires comprehensive, bottom-up peace efforts that tackle deep-seated grievances related to past violence and conflict over belonging, territory and local authority. Barring such efforts, the reserve force will remain a painkiller at best.