Kasai Map

Kasai is a large and historical region in the south-central section of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It is geographically referred to as Kasai River, which is a significant tributary of Congo River and is today subdivided into five provinces; Kasai, Kasai-Central, Kasai-Oriental, Sankuru as well as Lomami.

History

The history of the Kasai region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a miniature of the tumultuous history of this country, characterized by colonialism, brutal fight against independence, and decades of warfare based on ethnicities and political sidelining.

Kasai region, originally situated in the greater Congo-Kasai province, was united under one administration during Belgian colonial rule (1908-1960). Most importantly, the colonial government used the differentiation policy on different ethnicities, especially the Baluba in education and other administrative opportunities. Such policy unintentionally aggravated ethnic fault lines, particularly among such population groups as the Bena Lulula, which developed resentment that later erupted in violence during the post-independence period. The abundance of resources in the region more so its huge reserves of industrial and gem grade diamonds were exploited by the colonial state immensely with very little trickling down to the locals.

As soon as DRC gained independence in June 1960, it put the Kasai region in the heart of the consequent Congo Crisis. In a countrywide collapse of law and order and with the secession of the resource endowed Katanga province, a local political group commanded by Albert Kalonji declared secession of the Mining State of South Kasai in August 1960. The secession was driven by ethnic hatred and a desire to establish a Baluba-dominated state independent of the central government.

The Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, with the central government initiated a military operation to suppress the secession. The attack on South Kasai that followed was very violent, with massacres being perpetrated by the national army on the population of the Baluba that resulted in thousands of deaths and condemnation by the international community. The secession was later ended but not the ethnic and political grievances when the central government regained power once again at the end of 1961. This area was further split consciously during the Mobutu regime to prevent the possibility of separatist wave returning.

Under the decades long reign of Mobutu Sese Seko (1965-1997), the Kasai region, and particularly, Kasai-Oriental was a place where the political opposition in the country, particularly, the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) party found a stronghold. This opposition status brought about political and economic marginalization, thereby deepening the poverty in the region despite the diamond wealth. The smouldering ethnic conflict, especially in the adjacent Katanga province, led to a forced mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of Kasaians (primarily of Luba descent) back to the Kasai provinces in the 1990s, congesting the cities and worsening resource shortages.

The most recent modern tragedy of the area started in 2016 with the Kamuina Nsapu rebellion. It was initially triggered by a local dispute in Kasai-Central where the central government denied a customary chief Jean- Pierre Mpandi (titled Kamuina Nsapu). His disciples with conventional ideologies of invincibility created an insurrection against state symbols. In August 2016, when Mpandi was killed by the government forces, the violence quickly poured out of control as the militia fragmented, and the war began to take place in all five provinces of the Greater Kasai region.

The combat was characterized by the horrors of ethnic cleansing, mass displacement, extensive use of child soldiers, and other atrocities carried out by government forces and other militia groups. Despite the fact that the active combat was largely stopped with the election of a new president Félix Tshisekedi, a son of the Kasai, in 2019, the war left ethnic wounds, ruined infrastructure, and a severe humanitarian crisis that has resulted in severe food insecurity and remains characteristic of the region today.

Culture

Traditions of the Baluba people who comprise the majority ethno-linguistic group of the Kasai region have extensive influence on the culture and society of the region, which consists of five provinces. It is a community that values lineage, close ties to communities, and traditional authority in life shaping social order and current politics.

The traditional governance in Kasai is quite serious, which can function in parallel to the official state government. It is also represented in the visage of the so-called Mulopwe (king) or supreme chief especially in the case of Luba. This is an essential aspect of traditional leadership because it ensures social unity, serves justice within the local community, and resolves conflicts in the community. Individuality has been strongly linked with family background and clan membership, which ascertain the rights to community lands, govern marriage practices and prescribe the attendance of all other rites that are similar to others. This dependence on traditional and ancestral structures often leads to conflict mostly when it comes into conflict with the legal and administrative regime of the centralized Congolese state.

Kasai is a region in the world that is known to have very colorful traditional arts. Luba art is unique and well cherished, especially its complicated wooden sculptures, its ceremonial masks, and the famous lukasa (memory board). The lukasa is a very elaborate mnemonic tool, beaded, shell encircled and carved into designs, which the Mbudye community of historians use to tell and remember the complex history of the Luba kingdom, its royal family and political myths. The ancient religious and mystic stereotypes are deeply rooted in everyday life, and they are centered around the worship of blood spirits of the ancestors, the utilization of potent fetishes, and a ceremonious process of initiating secrets. Such beliefs commonly confer perceived divine power and even invincibility to established leaders and cult figures, which proved to be tragically applicable in the organizing of youth in the 2016-2017 Kamuina Nsapu wars.

Language

The main characteristic of the Kasai region is that Tshiluba (also referred to as Ciluba or Luba-Kasai), a significant language of the Bantu language, is the language of mass communication, used in the five provinces of the Greater Kasai region. Its great impact is officially accepted when Tshiluba is one of four national languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), others are: Lingala, Swahili, and Kituba. It is also the native language of millions of residents, especially the vast Luba-Kasai and Bena Lulua ethnicities. Although the Luba and Lulua people use a different dialect, which is eastern and western dialects respectively, the difference between them is not significant, and these two groups of people can easily understand each other anywhere in the region.

Although Tshiluba is common, the Kasai region is a multilingual region. There are also smaller ethnic groups with their local languages, and these include Tetela in the Sankuru and some parts of Kasai-Oriental and the Songye in Lomami.

In the formal and institutionalized world, nevertheless French is the language of power. The French language is the only official language in the DRC and is used only in the government, judiciary system, and institutional education. Living in cities, educated people are usually bilingual and can move about their daily routine using Tshiluba and their working day using French. Moreover, in large urban areas such as Mbuji-Mayi, a so-called fluid type of Tshiluba adopts words of French origin, along with words of other national languages such as Lingala and Swahili, which is a characteristic feature of cultural convergence that defines the Congolese cities.

Geography

The South-Central African plateau is a common topography in the Kasai region. It is an area that is mostly a vast, undulating area of savannah grasslands with interspersions of gallery forests on the riverbeds. Its total elevation is usually 500-1000 meters above sea level and slopes smoothly down to the west and north. The geography of the region is not mountainous but composed of wide valleys and hills of low elevation, which naturally sustained big agricultural farms and trade systems.

The Kasai River system empties out the whole region and its major tributaries are the Sankuru, Lulua, and Lubilanji rivers. These rivers are local transport arteries, frequently broken by rapids and falls, especially as they leave the plateau, permitting only through navigation along definite distances. These large river basins help to support the equatorial climate of the region characterized by a long rainy season and a decreased dry season keeping the region relying on its typical humid savannah ecosystem.

It is typically a tropical humid climate, specifically, a tropical wet and dry climate (Aw on the Köppen classification). Temperatures are always elevated all year round with a considerable seasonal change in rainfall, thus concentrating the agricultural calendar. It has mainly the Miombo woodland savannah, a combination of open grasslands and trees, which give rise to thick forest-like regions, referred to as gallery forests, on the river banks.

The Kasai River system drains the entire region and has some other significant tributaries such as the Sankaru, Lulula, and Lubilanj rivers. These rivers are of importance to the local mode of transportation, but river navigation is usually limited by rapids and falls, especially where the rivers drop off the plateau. These extensive river basins support the humid savannah ecosystem of the region.

Geologically, Kasai is very endowed especially in the eastern region as it is one of the largest producers of industrial and gem quality diamonds in the world, the largest mining region of which falls on the city of Mbuji-Mayi. Other minerals have deposits in the plateau, and they have made the region to be of permanent economic and political significance. Nevertheless, the state of the infrastructure (such as unpaved road networks and poor rail networks) prevents the easy movement of products and people across the expansive area, which shapes the humanitarian issues afflicting the area. Though it has certain limitations, the rivers will still be much needed transport corridors since there are no good road networks.

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