A doctrine for regional cross-border stability
An analytical, strategic and forward-looking study for lasting peace in the security space of the DRC and its nine neighbours
From confrontation to cooperation: innovative strategies for lasting cross-border peace between the DRC and its nine neighbours
A geopolitical opinion article by Fernandez MURHOLA, a defender of international human rights law and practitioner of peacebuilding, conflict prevention and resolution, national resilience, human security and territorial planning.
The author holds an international certificate in positive conflict management from the University of Peace in Namur, Belgium; a certificate in defence and resilience strategies from the DRC's Higher College of Strategy and Defence (second SS/CHESD); and a diploma in conflict resolution from the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, Sweden. He is a member of CENADEP (DRC), CIDI (DRC) and CIRID (Switzerland). He previously worked with CETRACO, CEPOST, CNPD and the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ).
Contents
General introduction: the geopolitical imperative of prevention
Chapter 1: Integrated prevention strategies and border governance
Chapter 2: The DRC and its nine neighbours: differentiated risks and sustainable strategies
Chapter 3: Prevention, mediation, verification and peaceful settlement mechanisms
Chapter 4: Collective security and border stability
Chapter 5: Border governance, local development and regional integration
Chapter 6: Geopolitical assessment and multilateral proposals
Chapter 7: Cross-border pastoral mobility and the Mbororo question
Chapter 8: Legal and technical mapping of border disputes
General conclusion and ten recommendations
General introduction: the geopolitical imperative of prevention
1.1. The DRC's geographical destiny
The Democratic Republic of the Congo occupies an exceptional geographical position at the heart of Africa. Its territory, covering approximately 2.345 million square kilometres, borders nine states: the Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia and Angola.
This configuration makes the DRC a hinge between Central, East and Southern Africa and, through certain corridors, the Great Lakes region.
It represents a major geostrategic advantage, an exceptional opportunity for regional integration, a structural source of security vulnerability and a permanent imperative of border governance.
Congolese borders can therefore no longer be treated as mere administrative lines. They must be understood as spaces of sovereignty, security, mobility, exchange, development and international cooperation.
1.2. Three decades of crises
Since the regional wars that began in 1996–1998, the DRC has faced recurring cycles of armed violence, forced displacement, external interference, illegal exploitation of natural resources and weakened institutions in several border areas.
The frequently cited estimate of 5.4 million excess deaths covers August 1998 to April 2007 and comes from the International Rescue Committee's mortality surveys. It must not be presented as a consolidated count of people directly killed by war from 1996 to the present.
The strategic lesson nevertheless remains clear: an exclusively reactive approach to crises has failed to create a lasting architecture of prevention.
The DRC must move from reaction to a national doctrine of permanent prevention, border protection and cross-border cooperation.
1.3. Legal foundations of the doctrine
This doctrine rests in particular on:
- The United Nations Charter, especially Article 2(4), which prohibits the threat or use of force against a state's territorial integrity or political independence.
- The Constitutive Act of the African Union, whose Article 4 provides, among other principles, for respect for borders existing at independence, peaceful settlement of disputes and the prohibition of the threat or use of force among member states.
- The Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes Region, adopted in 2006 and in force since 2008. Its legally binding protocols concern, among other matters, non-aggression and mutual defence, judicial cooperation, illegal exploitation of natural resources and prevention of international crimes.
- Article 215 of the DRC Constitution, which gives duly concluded international treaties and agreements authority superior to that of laws, subject to their application by the other party.
- The case law of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), notably its judgment of 22 December 1986 in the Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso/Republic of Mali), which affirmed the importance of uti possidetis juris and the stability of inherited colonial borders in African decolonisation.
1.4. The central question and thesis
The question is how the DRC can sustainably prevent cross-border conflicts, safeguard its territorial integrity, settle disputes through law and turn its borders into spaces for economic cooperation and collective security.
The thesis is that the DRC should adopt a state doctrine of permanent border prevention built on six pillars: integrated border governance; continuous preventive diplomacy; peaceful and judicial settlement of disputes; collective security and verification mechanisms; economic development in border areas; and regional cooperation with jointly managed cross-border mobility.
Chapter 1: Integrated prevention strategies and border governance
1.1. A fragmented system
Border management involves many state bodies: defence, security, immigration, customs, intelligence, agriculture, the environment, transport, animal health, foreign trade and provincial authorities. The strategic problem is not simply the number of actors, but inadequate coordination, information-sharing and procedural consistency. Fragmented responsibilities must give way to integrated border governance.
1.2. Strategic proposal 1: a national High Commission for Borders
The author proposes a national High Commission for Borders (HCF), with a clear interministerial mandate and sufficient institutional standing to coordinate strategy. Its tasks would include developing a national border strategy; coordinating institutions; mapping and documenting borders; tracking cross-border incidents; preparing bilateral negotiations; coordinating regional cooperation; and publishing an annual report on the state of the DRC's borders.
The body should not abolish existing responsibilities. It should connect them within a national coordination chain.
1.3. Strategic proposal 2: permanent preventive diplomacy
Congolese diplomacy must act before a major incident, not solely in its aftermath. The author proposes nine permanent joint border-cooperation commissions, one for each neighbouring state. Their working groups would address security, demarcation and mapping, natural resources, movement of people, cross-border trade, environmental protection, pastoral mobility and judicial cooperation.
1.4. Guiding principle
Prevention is neither weakness nor a surrender of sovereignty. It is the state's ability to identify, document, address legally and defuse a crisis before it becomes military.
Chapter 2: The DRC and its nine neighbours
2.1. A dynamic risk classification
It would be scientifically unsound to assign all nine neighbours permanently to fixed categories of “threats”. The doctrine instead proposes a dynamic matrix based on four indicators: security risk, territorial risk, economic risk, and humanitarian and migration risk. This avoids permanent political labels and allows each frontier to be reassessed periodically.
2.2. Borders under intense security pressure
Particular attention is needed along the eastern and north-eastern borders, notably those with Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and South Sudan. Vigilance must rest on documented facts, verified incidents and monitoring mechanisms rather than generalisations.
ICJ case law concerning Uganda's military intervention in the DRC illustrates the importance of judicial settlement of disputes involving the use of force. In 2005, the Court found, among other things, that Uganda had not obtained the DRC's consent to the presence of its troops on Congolese territory, apart from a limited exception.
2.3. Borders facing humanitarian and migration pressures
Policy on the borders with the Central African Republic and South Sudan should combine protection of populations, refugee management, action against trafficking, control of armed movements and local cooperation.
2.4. Borders with economic integration potential
The borders with Angola, Zambia and Tanzania offer substantial possibilities for economic, logistical, energy and commercial integration. Conflict prevention must therefore be linked to cross-border economic corridors.
Chapter 3: Prevention, mediation and dispute settlement
3.1. Peaceful settlement first
The DRC should strengthen its national ability to document disputes and bring them before competent courts or arbitral mechanisms. A “regional border court of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR)” must not be presented as an existing institution. Instead, the ICGLR could study the possible creation of a specialised regional border-dispute mechanism, or strengthen available judicial and arbitral procedures. The ICGLR Pact already has a protocol on judicial cooperation.
3.2. Community mediation and customary authorities
Customary authorities can help prevent local conflicts, particularly where communities have long lived on both sides of a border. Their contribution must supplement, not replace, state institutions and international mechanisms. They can assist with early warning, community mediation, pasture management, seasonal movement and prevention of land conflicts.
3.3. Technology and verification
The DRC should reinforce existing verification mechanisms with satellite imagery, geolocation, geographic information systems, drones where legally authorised, incident databases and environmental remote sensing. The goal is a geospatial evidence chain that distinguishes an alleged incident from a verified incident, attribution, legal characterisation and the appropriate settlement mechanism.
3.4. An automatic documentation protocol
Every serious border incident should trigger a record, geolocation, preservation of evidence, diplomatic notification, independent verification where necessary and activation of the appropriate bilateral or regional mechanism.
Chapter 4: Collective security and border stability
4.1. Nine strategic border-security sectors
The length and diversity of the DRC's borders require security planning adapted to each area. The author proposes nine strategic sectors corresponding to the nine border spaces. These need not be nine additional autonomous brigades: they would be an inter-service planning and coordination framework bringing together the FARDC, the Congolese National Police (PNC), specialist services, territorial administration and provincial authorities.
4.2. Cooperation tailored to each frontier
Rwanda: Strengthen monitoring, verification, protection of populations and the application of international law.
Uganda: Maintain properly governed security cooperation, notably in lake areas, while continually clarifying responsibilities and rules of engagement.
South Sudan: Improve border surveillance and cooperation against armed groups and cross-border trafficking.
Burundi: Cooperate on security in the Ruzizi Plain and lake areas.
Tanzania: Deepen cooperation around Lake Tanganyika and commercial corridors.
Zambia: Work on delimitation, demarcation and economic cooperation mechanisms.
Angola: Cooperate on land and maritime borders, hydrocarbons, fishing and trade corridors.
Central African Republic: Strengthen surveillance of the Ubangi River and humanitarian and security cooperation.
Republic of the Congo: Cooperate around the Congo River, Pool Malebo, mobility and economic exchanges.
4.3. Funding
Automatically allocating 5% of mining revenue to border areas is a public-policy option to study, not a rule that can immediately be applied. A national border-security and development fund could draw on budget resources, equalisation mechanisms and earmarked contributions where legally possible.
Chapter 5: Border governance, development and regional integration
5.1. Border poverty as a vulnerability
Border regions often lack infrastructure, public services, formal employment and access to markets. Conflict prevention cannot be reduced to a military presence. It must combine three aims: SECURE, CONNECT and PRODUCE.
5.2. A cross-border trade strategy
The DRC should adopt a dedicated cross-border trade policy consistent with its regional and continental commitments. It could include a secure cross-border trader card, modernised cross-border markets, one-stop border posts, digital customs procedures, simplified arrangements for small traders, health and veterinary infrastructure, and secure payment systems.
5.3. Borders as spaces of prosperity
A border should simultaneously be a line of sovereignty, a security space, an economic corridor and a zone of human cooperation. Cross-border peace is more durable when communities gain more from cooperation than from clandestine economic activity or violence.
Chapter 6: Geopolitical assessment and multilateral proposals
6.1. Angola
Issue: Land and maritime borders, hydrocarbons, fishing and economic corridors. Proposal: Strengthen bilateral cooperation and, for any persistent dispute, favour delimitation, technical negotiation, arbitration or the competent court according to the nature of the case.
6.2. Zambia
Issue: Clarification of certain border segments, movement and economic activity. Proposal: Accelerate joint delimitation and demarcation based on legal titles, maps and technically validated coordinates.
6.3. Tanzania
Issue: Lake Tanganyika, security, commerce and mobility. Proposal: Strengthen bilateral and regional cooperation in prevention and mediation.
6.4. Burundi
Issue: Border security, population movements, agriculture and shared resources. Proposal: Strengthen joint security arrangements, local mediation and economic cooperation.
6.5. Rwanda
Issue: Security, armed groups, population movements, natural resources, territorial integrity and international obligations. Proposal: Take a firm legal approach, systematically document incidents, use verification mechanisms, pursue individual responsibility where the elements of an international crime are established, and cooperate where doing so genuinely protects people's interests. The DRC has relevant judicial experience: the ICJ ordered Uganda to pay USD 325 million in reparations for harm arising from the violations it found.
6.6. Uganda
Issue: Security, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), commerce, natural resources and lake areas. Proposal: Maintain mutually agreed security cooperation while improving verification and transparency.
6.7. South Sudan
Issue: Border security, displacement, trafficking and resources. Proposal: Establish a permanent bilateral mechanism for border security and development.
6.8. Central African Republic
Issue: Armed movements, refugees, pastoral mobility, trafficking and security on the Ubangi River. Proposal: Develop an integrated mechanism for surveillance, early warning and humanitarian cooperation.
6.9. Republic of the Congo
Issue: Mobility, commerce, the environment, river navigation and management of shared spaces. Proposal: Make Pool Malebo and the Kinshasa–Brazzaville corridor a laboratory of cross-border economic and urban integration.
Chapter 7: Cross-border pastoral mobility and the Mbororo question
7.1. An essential methodological safeguard
The Mbororo question requires great rigour. The Mbororo are pastoral communities; it would be legally and scientifically wrong to equate the community as a whole with combatants, irregular migrants or a security threat.
Responsibility must be individual. Any armed individuals, irregular border crossings, cattle theft, crop destruction or alliances with armed groups must be investigated and characterised precisely.
7.2. The real problem: unregulated pastoral movement
The main strategic questions are cross-border cattle movement, access to pasture, farmer–herder conflicts, irregular border crossings, animal-health controls, possible movement of weapons and cross-border crime. Policy must not be based on community identity.
7.3. The proposed doctrine
A specific law or regulation on cross-border pastoral movement should define entry conditions, authorised routes, required documents, health rules, owners' obligations and sanctions for violations.
Secure pastoral corridors: Establish controlled cross-border pastoral corridors negotiated with neighbouring states.
Livestock identification: Create a suitable digital and veterinary system for identifying and tracing cattle.
A strict policy on weapons: Anyone carrying a weapon unlawfully must answer for their own conduct under applicable law.
The rule must be individual responsibility for individual acts, never collective guilt based on community membership.
Chapter 8: Legal and technical mapping of border disputes
8.1. A fundamental distinction
The DRC must distinguish internationally established and uncontested borders; segments requiring technical delimitation or demarcation; and legally documented territorial or interpretive disputes. This distinction prevents every local incident from being inflated into an “international dispute”.
8.2. A national border-disputes matrix
For each disputed or insufficiently demarcated segment, the government should compile a record of applicable legal instruments and treaties, historical maps, geographic coordinates, demarcation minutes, relevant administrative acts, recorded incidents, the official positions of the states concerned and available settlement mechanisms.
8.3. Scientific demarcation
Demarcation must bring together international law, historical cartography, geodesy, remote sensing, geographic information systems, archives, diplomacy and the participation of local administrations. ICJ case law shows that legal titles, colonial documents, maps and the actual exercise of authority can have distinct roles in determining a border.
8.4. A Directorate-General for Border Disputes
The author proposes a Directorate-General for Borders, Delimitation and Territorial Disputes within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It would bring together international lawyers, diplomats, cartographers, surveyors, historians, GIS experts and natural-resource specialists. Its mandate would be to maintain the DRC's evidentiary record for each of its borders.
General conclusion: from borders endured to borders governed
The DRC can no longer see its borders as mere administrative peripheries. They are lines of sovereignty, security spaces, economic corridors, zones of human mobility and diplomatic interfaces. Congolese strategy must move beyond the false choice between permanent militarisation and cooperation without safeguards.
The proposed doctrine is one of firm peace through law, prevention, verification, deterrence and cooperation.
Ten recommendations for the DRC
- Constitutional: In national constitutional deliberations, recognise cross-border cooperation and border protection as components of national sovereignty.
- Institutional: Establish a national High Commission for Borders to coordinate strategy and early warning.
- Diplomatic: Convene a Kinshasa summit of the ten states concerned—the DRC and its nine neighbours—to adopt a charter for cooperation, prevention and border peace.
- Security: Establish nine strategic border-security sectors without institutional duplication, supported by an integrated chain of intelligence, alert and response.
- Economic: Gradually turn major border posts into integrated economic corridors with modern cross-border markets, one-stop facilities and digital procedures.
- Legal: Systematically document every alleged violation of international law and bring the case before the appropriate court, arbitral body or diplomatic forum. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is not a general court for border disputes; its jurisdiction concerns crimes covered by the Rome Statute. The DRC situation referred to the ICC includes crimes within its jurisdiction committed since 1 July 2002. A further referral concerned, among other matters, North Kivu from 2022; the renewed 2024 investigation forms part of the existing DRC investigation.
- Historical and scientific: Create a permanent national border atlas bringing together archives, maps, treaties, geodetic coordinates, demarcation records and satellite data.
- Pastoral mobility: Adopt a specific legal framework for cross-border pastoral movement, with controlled corridors, livestock identification, health checks and individual sanctions for unlawful possession or movement of weapons.
- Disputes: Create a Directorate-General for Borders, Delimitation and Territorial Disputes and launch a national delimitation and demarcation programme in cooperation with neighbouring states and relevant regional organisations.
- Firm peace: Remain firm on territorial integrity, international law, documentation of violations, disarmament of unlawful actors and protection of populations, while remaining open to legal dialogue, mediation and economic cooperation.
Final word
A state that does not precisely know, document, protect and develop its border spaces leaves its sovereignty open to challenge. The DRC must do more than react to crises: it must prevent them. It must do more than defend borders after incidents: it must govern them continuously. It must stop setting security against development and bring both together in a single state doctrine.
DELIMIT, DOCUMENT, PREVENT, SECURE, COOPERATE AND DEVELOP.
From borders endured to borders governed: this should become the new Congolese doctrine of peace and cross-border sovereignty.
Kinshasa, 1 October 2026.
Fernandez MURHOLA