Congo S Violent Peace

Acronyms -- Maps -- Introduction -- The Resemblance of a State in a State of Ruin -- In Search of Root Causes -- The Elections of 2006 -- Umoja Wetu and Kagame's Brave New World -- The 2011 Election -- The M23 Misadventure -- Towards New Elections or New Violence? -- Conclusion.

The Trouble with the Congo suggests a new explanation for international peacebuilding failures in civil wars. Drawing from more than 330 interviews and a year and a half of field research, it develops a case study of the international intervention during the Democratic Republic of the Congo's unsuccessful transition from war to peace and democracy (2003-2006). Grassroots rivalries over land, resources, and political power motivated widespread violence. However, a dominant peacebuilding culture shaped the intervention strategy in a way that precluded action on local conflicts, ultimately dooming the international efforts to end the deadliest conflict since World War II. Most international actors interpreted continued fighting as the consequence of national and regional tensions alone. UN staff and diplomats viewed intervention at the macro levels as their only legitimate responsibility. The dominant culture constructed local peacebuilding as such an unimportant, unfamiliar, and unmanageable task that neither shocking events nor resistance from select individuals could convince international actors to reevaluate their understanding of violence and intervention.

The Trouble with the Congo suggests a new explanation for international peacebuilding failures in civil wars. Drawing from more than 330 interviews and a year and a half of field research, it develops a case study of the international intervention during the Democratic Republic of the Congo s unsuccessful transition from war to peace and democracy (2003 2006). Grassroots rivalries over land, resources, and political power motivated widespread violence. However, a dominant peacebuilding culture shaped the intervention strategy in a way that precluded action on local conflicts, ultimately dooming the international efforts to end the deadliest conflict since World War II. Most international actors interpreted continued fighting as the consequence of national and regional tensions alone. UN staff and diplomats viewed intervention at the macro levels as their only legitimate responsibility. The dominant culture constructed local peacebuilding as such an unimportant, unfamiliar, and unmanageable task that neither shocking events nor resistance from select individuals could convince international actors to reevaluate their understanding of violence and intervention.

This book describes and analyzes protracted conflicts in the Great Lakes Region of Africa. In doing so, it emphasizes obstacles to peace rather than root causes of conflict. Case studies are presented from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Northern Kenya, Northern Uganda, Southern Sudan, and Zanzibar. Amongst other conclusions, the book shows that, to settle or transform protracted conflicts, distinction must be made between strategic and nonstrategic actors: the former must be able to prevail upon the latter in the negotiation and implementation of peace agreements. The theme and collection of the research presented in this book is unique in the literature. The case studies all employ methods of othick description, o process tracing (following particular actors and their interests), and in-depth personal interviews. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers, undergraduate and post-graduate students, and professionals in conflict theory, analysis and resolution, African and development studies, political science and international affairs, as well as to mediators, negotiators, and facilitators in conflict resolution

Despite a massive investment of international diplomacy and money in recent years, the Democratic Republic of Congo remains a conflict-ridden and volatile country, its present situation the result of a series of rebellions, international interventions and unworkable peace agreements. In Congo's Violent Peace, leading DRC expert Kris Berwouts provides the most comprehensive and in-depth account to date of developments since the so-called 'Congo Wars' – from Rwanda's destructive impact on security in Eastern Congo to the controversial elections of 2006 and 2011; the M23 uprising to Joseph Kabila's increasingly desperate attempts to cling to power. An essential book for anyone interested in this troubled but important country.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been called the ’worst place in the world’ for women, with reports of widespread and horrific incidents of rape and sexual violence and almost complete impunity for the perpetrators of such violence. However, despite the high profile media reporting on sexual violence in the DRC, and the widely publicized responses of the international community, there is still very little real analysis of the real situation of women in the country. This book provides such detailed analysis of gender relations in the DRC, and goes beyond the usual explanations of sexual violence as a product of conflict, to examine the complex and socially constructed gender norms and roles which underlie incidences of violence. The book benefits from a comprehensive account of men’s and women’s roles in conflict, violence, peace building and reconstruction, and evaluates the impacts of national and international political responses. In doing so, this book provides valuable new evidence and analysis of the complex and multilayered conflicts in the DRC.

Northern interventions into African countries at war are dominated by security concerns, bolstered by claims of shared returns and reinforcing processes of development and security. As global security and human security became prominent in development policy, Congo was wracked by violent rule, pillage, internal fighting, and invasion. In 2002, the Global and All-Inclusive Peace was promoted by northern donors, placing a formal peace on the mass of informalised wars. Formal Peace and Informal War: Security and Development in Congo examines how the security interests of the Congolese population have interacted with those of northern donors. It explores Congo’s contemporary wars and the peace agreed on in 2002 from a security perspective and challenges the asserted commonality of the liberal interventions made by northern donors. It finds that the peace framed the multiple conflicts in Congo as a civil war and engineered a power-sharing agreement between elite belligerents. The book argues that the population were politically and economically excluded from the peace and have been subjected to control and containment when their security rests with power and freedom.

All too often in conflict situations, rape is referred to as a 'weapon of war', a term presented as self-explanatory through its implied storyline of gender and warring. In this provocative but much-needed book, Eriksson Baaz and Stern challenge the dominant understandings of sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict settings. Reading with and against feminist analyses of the interconnections between gender, warring, violence and militarization, the authors address many of the thorny issues inherent in the arrival of sexual violence on the global security agenda. Based on original fieldwork in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as research material from other conflict zones, Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War? challenges the recent prominence given to sexual violence, bravely highlighting various problems with isolating sexual violence from other violence in war. A much-anticipated book by two acknowledged experts in the field, on an issue that has become an increasingly important security, legal and gender topic.