In the volatile urban landscape of Beni, North Kivu, a local initiative in Mulekera commune is attempting to mend a critical fracture: the broken trust between civilians and the state security forces meant to protect them. On Saturday, December 27, civil society leaders convened a day of reflection and a public forum, issuing a direct appeal for both the population and defense forces to collaborate in the active pursuit of peace. This event represents more than a simple community meeting; it is a microcosm of the profound governance and security challenges facing the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where state authority is often viewed with suspicion and fear.
The forum, organized between residents of the Kuka neighborhood and heads of local security services, had a specific and urgent catalyst: the population’s outright rejection of a proposed police station. This refusal is not an isolated act of defiance but a symptom of deeper systemic issues. In contexts like North Kivu, where armed groups proliferate and state institutions are weak, security forces can be perceived not as protectors, but as another predatory actor. The forum aimed to reconcile these divided layers of society by creating a rare space for direct, accountable dialogue.
The initiative followed a series of violent altercations that laid bare the community’s grievances. Residents levied serious accusations against security personnel, alleging their involvement in a pattern of insecurity characterized by extortion and nocturnal armed incursions into homes. These incidents, which resulted in recorded injuries, transformed abstract distrust into tangible trauma, making the establishment of a formal police post—typically a symbol of state order—a flashpoint for conflict rather than a solution.
Joseph Sabuni, president of the Mulekera commune civil society, articulated the delicate outcome of the dialogue: “We are here regarding the recent incident concerning the refusal of the presence of police officers… People of bad faith misled the youth. After this community dialogue… we have identified some possible solutions: we will not refuse the presence of police officers, but we plan a second meeting with the authorities to find a solution so that the police can be established here and play its role of protecting civilians and their property.” This statement reveals a crucial shift from blanket rejection to conditional acceptance, a compromise forged through negotiation.
This local drama unfolds against a broader strategic backdrop. For two weeks prior, police troops had been deployed across Beni’s thirty neighborhoods in a top-down effort to bolster security. The crisis in Kuka demonstrates that such deployments are doomed to fail without local buy-in. Sustainable security cannot be imposed; it must be co-constructed with the community. The Mulekera model, therefore, offers a practical blueprint: using structured dialogue to address specific grievances (like accountability for extortion) before negotiating the terms of state security presence.
The deeper value of this event lies in its demonstration of community-led conflict resolution. Instead of allowing resentment to fester into further violence or support for armed alternatives, civil society mediated a process that identified shared interests. The path forward—a second meeting to define the rules of engagement for the police—acknowledges that the community itself must be a stakeholder in its own security architecture. This approach moves beyond demanding peace to actively designing its foundational pillars: transparency, accountability, and reciprocal commitment between the protected and the protectors.