Three key obstacles to sustainable peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo are administrative incompetence, political illiteracy and severe amorality. They are as conspicuous as horns; and two are bloated by the historically failed but reoccurring third limitation.
Administrative incompetence is the primary impediment because of its strategic role as an encompassing resolution. Ineptitude in administration is the inability to identify, extract and administrate resources. It is the absence of entrepreneurial thinking; the inability to systematically manage; and the inadequate supply of abstract, systemic demands.
These failed directorial skills are housed within a second barrier of political illiteracy an incapacity for non-military rule caused by a lack of successful, non-military, political models and training. The inaccurate administration of Congolese politics is also shown in an inability to see the "big picture," comprehensively approaching the DRC's problems, and a deficit in long-run thinking. Further exhibition of this deficiency is seen in the independent jostling of governments-within-governments that have little accountability or interdependent functions. This disconnect ensures that sector wealth streams into executive coffers and is bottle-necked to the people. Political illiteracy, not only impoverishes, but entrenches poverty; breeds discontent; decelerates production; and triggers the aggressive pillaging of scarce end-products by common people and elite politicians alike.
Prolonged ineffectiveness in the DRC opens into the third obstacle to sustainable peace the flawed belief that personal or marginal dogma is effective political policy. This unfortunate judgment permits the use of violence as an administrative tool; and there are little to no checks and balances for amorality. This brutal executive creed has so ravaged the nation that incompetence and illiteracy are grossly amplified at every level of government.
Peace talks, rather than economic talks, have taken the forefront as the sole resolution to revitalization. The necessary focus on these talks has caused a general abandonment of commercial planning that genders peace for families and towns; and the violence that fills the gap becomes the premiere strategy of leaders who are administratively and politically deficient and frustrated by the task ahead of them. The exacting of violence and the inability to control its executors in the DRC is evidence of incompetence. There must be educated and un-inflamed leadership; a rejection of correction and punishment' as a means of coping; and departure from the speedy and temporary gratification of national-scale lusts.
The reliance on force is an evident path to societal degradation, resulting in an increasingly cruel and wealthy military elite; work stoppages because of population flight; diplomatic breakdown of trade relations; and crippling welfare relationships with NGOs. Overcoming these hurdles means prevailing over the depravity of equating governance with fear. This can happen through town-by-town development, in which the problems of local villages are addressed for sovereign, incubated trade, as though each village is a nation. In this, DRC leadership must eagerly communicate and reasonably manage. It must have the faculty to view the country as a corporation and the aptitude to apply business principles in the utilization of resources and the provision of government services. These skills should be validated in a corporate mindset, envisioning systems linked to systems; in mandatory, short-run, physical implementation and be spearheaded by leader-stakeholders, who are culturally and intellectual (not ideological) vested in the DRC's citizenry.
Redefined leadership can provide administrative choreography by developing a plan that reaches beyond departments and individual terms in office. It cannot be a scheme that supports ideological fears; and it should incorporate all sectors. This innovative leadership must visibly sever its corrupt, permissive ties to violent controls; "think" compassionately and systematically about its territory; and include realistic measures for peacefully implementing market concepts. It must design, develop and carry out inclusive, anti-war blueprints for methodical, simultaneous, multi-sector development, in order to begin traveling the road from continuing conflict. And, finally, it must give the same priority to finding operational common ground that is given to peace talks.