Ben Wisner: a new kind of city?
Ben Wisner, a hazards specialist with the Environmental Studies programme at Oberlin College, Ohio, poses a series of questions raised by the eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano iin the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He looks at the history of the town of Goma beneath the volcano and asks: is it a lifeboat or a death trap?
A series of questions come to mind in the face of the damage to a large town in a volcanic eruption.
Why is Goma where it is? What was its function in the days of Belgian colonialism? Under Mobutu? In 1994? Now? Is it a lifeboat for people in a sea of economic and security threats? Or is it a death trap?
Another question concerns "disaster diplomacy" in the broad sense. This is a very unstable region where there are several armed groups dating from the terrible events in Rwanda in 1994 and also the civil war in Mobutu&${esc.hash}39;s Zaire and, after his downfall, in the new Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The last war became internationalised as a number of African countries became involved on one side or the other. For now there is a ceasefire supervised by the United Nations. Will armed groups take advantage of this to do more than loot, possibly beginning hostilities again? Will people displaced by the volcano be in danger from armed gangs?
The national government of the DRC has offered assistance, which the rebels in control of Goma have so far refused. Is there an opportunity for peace-making or only posturing and business as usual?
To what extent has this long history of war and instability undermined the capacity of local government, at municipal level such as that in the sizeable town of Goma with its population of 500,000? Would greater municipal capacity have provided clearer, more timely and credible warnings and instructions?
The Nyiragongo volcano is well known among volcano experts. It killed 2,000 people in 1977 and has been active since 1994.
RISK COMMUNICATION
A third cluster of questions surrounds the issue of risk communication. Why have the population movements sea-sawed back and forth between Rwanda and Congo? Why don&${esc.hash}39;t displaced persons want to stay in the camps that have been established for them farther from the volcano, deeper in Rwanda? What efforts at risk communication have been undertaken?
Is the reluctance of Goma&${esc.hash}39;s residents to resort to U.N. camps 20 km inside Rwanda to do with their first-hand experience of refugee camps for Rwandans who fled the genocide? Between 1994 and 1996, Goma&${esc.hash}39;s residents witnessed outbreaks of cholera and armed violence in those camps. Maybe their image of a "refugee camp" is not a positive one.
What was the status quo ante? Is that to be the goal of recovery? What was municipal capacity before? What was scientific capacity? If the prior situation was in itself a human development disaster, what should the goal of recovery be?
In the future there will be an ongoing volcano threat. With the next heavy rain will there be mass movements of cement-like ash called lahar? Are there more and less exposed sites in greater Goma? Have they been mapped? Will people be resettled there? How?
Many cities live with volcanoes. There are dozens of examples in the Caribbean, Central America, the Andes, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Japan. Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington, sits within view of Mount Rainer, and Quito in Ecuador is just below Pinchicha. Think of Hilo, Hawaii; San Salvador, El Salvador; Puebla, Mexico; or Kagoshima, Japan. What can they teach Goma? What are the preconditions for Goma&${esc.hash}39;s being able to institutionalise such lessons?
INTERESTING COMPARISON
In this context an interesting comparison presents itself. As one looks back a few years at the recovery process on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, where the principal city was destroyed, and the recovery of Goma, how will the two compare? Politically the British government was not allowed to "forget" Montserrat. Might it be easier for the community of nations to "forget" Goma and move on to the next crisis or media scandal?
On a more philosophical note, a few questions about urbanism and urbanisation suggest themselves. Throughout history cities have served regions of towns, villages, homesteads. They have had links with other cities of the same size and larger ones. They have been parts of networks.
Cities have had economic, administrative, military, and social functions.
Presumably Goma has been such a city. Has it slowly ceased to be a city in any of those senses since 1994, as an economy of aid dependency, smuggling, and a mini arms economy took hold? It has been a regional transportation hub (road, water and air) and an important market for sugar, bananas and cassava (manioc). Can it be such a city again?
Does one perhaps need a new name for a new kind of city, one that is isolated by disintegration of the national state administrative and economic network? Cities maintained by the economic activity of foreign relief agencies, militias, and peacekeepers? Cities at risk to a wide variety of natural and technological hazards because of the deterioration of managerial capacity, economic viability and infrastructure?
Banja Luka (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Kandahar (Afghanistan), Baidoa (Somalia), Dili (East Timor), Huambo (Angola) and now Goma?
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