ABSTRACT
In the first week of December 2006, dignitaries from all over the world arrived in Kinshasa to celebrate the inauguration of Joseph Kabila as the Democratic Republic of Congo’s first democratically elected president in 46 years. Heading in the other direction were convoys of military trucks with the European Union insignia of gold stars on a blue background, at the end of a four month mission. The EU’s objective was to provide security for the presidential election. One of its most visible achievements had been to defuse a confrontation between private militias which had threatened to derail the election process and catapult the country back into factional violence. Yet as the EU convoys rolled out of the capital towards Boma at the mouth of the Congo river, the boulevards of Kinshasa remained adorned with barbed wire, UN tanks lurked on side streets and hundreds of workers drafted in to paint the central reservation on the road from the airport to impress dignitaries attending the inauguration faced a return to unemployment and an uncertain future.
