War and Peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo PDF Download

Author: Herbert F. Weiss
Publisher: Nordic Africa Institute
ISBN: 9789171064585
Category : Congo (Democratic Republic)
Languages : en
Pages : 36

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Book Description
A report on the events in 1999 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which have transformed the country into an arena of international and internal violence and conflict involving so many participants that it can be described as the first African continental war. The study also contains a historical background to the recent events in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Author: Séverine Autesserre
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521191009
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
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.

Author: Michael Nest
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781685853587
Category : POLITICAL SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Explores the challenges that the war economy posed, and continues to pose, for peace operations and reconstruction efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Author: Kris Berwouts
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1783603712
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
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.

Author: Michael Deibert
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1780323484
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 197

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Book Description
Over the past two decades, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been at the centre of the deadliest series of conflicts since the Second World War, and now hosts the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world. In this compelling book, acclaimed journalist Michael Deibert paints a picture of a nation in flux, inching towards peace but at the same time solidifying into another era of authoritarian rule under its enigmatic president, Joseph Kabila. Featuring a wealth of first-hand interviews and secondary sources, the narrative travels from war-torn villages in the country's east to the chaotic, pulsing capital of Kinshasa in order to bring us the voices of the Congolese - from impoverished gold prospectors and market women to government officials - as it explores the complicated political, ethnic and economic geography of this tattered land. A must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Africa, The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between, Hope and Despair sheds new light on this sprawling and often misunderstood country that has become iconic both for its great potential and dashed hopes.

Author: Namakula Evelyn B. Mayanja
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This study explores people's experiences and perceptions of war and the peacebuilding processes needed for reconstructing Congo. It explains how the ongoing war has horrendous consequences for individuals and communities. There are extensive accounts of how ordinary Congolese have suffered because of the war, how they understand the causes of war, and what they think is needed to achieve peace. In my research, I endeavored to transcend theoretical abstraction, intellectualization, and rationalization to represent people's realties and experiences through their stories. The essence of my research was to explain from their perspective, what feeds the war, why current peacebuilding measures are failing and what is needed to reconstruct the Congo state to engender peace, security, and development. My hope is that people's stories will inspire greater action and engagement to ameliorate their suffering. A matrix of international, regional, and national factors must be assembled, like in a puzzle, to understand the multifaceted factors leading to Congo's wars. While the causes are multifactorial, and fundamentally rooted in colonialism, what is clear is that Congo, is the victim of the wars of plunder. Developed nations need Congo's minerals to advance their technological prowess. While in the past, colonialism enabled western power to access Congo's resources, war is the current modus operandi. The violent exploitation of Congo's resources exposes the ineffectiveness of global leadership and resource governance that propagate structures and systems that perpetuate the incessant wars. Neoliberal interventions, including two decades of UN peacekeeping and political elections have failed to create peace and security. If there is a genuine global political will to end Congo's wars, strategic and comprehensive short and long-term interventions are needed, to engage multifaceted factors and actors to address the complex national, regional and international causes and to prevent future wars. Sustainable peace also depends on engendering leadership and resource governance in Congo; involving the grassroots people and their cultures; and tackling structural and systemic poverty and unemployment, so that the impoverished people stop joining the armed groups.

Author: Séverine Autesserre
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521156017
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
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.

Author: Peter Eichstaedt
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1569769001
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Describes the "conflict minerals" mined in the Congo amidst armed conflict and human rights abuses including gold, diamonds, coltan, tin, and tungsten used in cell phones, computers, and other electronics. Explores the slave labor, violence, and disease killing millions of Congolese mining these resources, and offers ways one can help.

Author: Annika Bjorkdahl
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137550481
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
This volume brings to the fore the spatial dimension of specific places and sites, and assesses how they condition – and are conditioned by – conflict and peace processes. By marrying spatial theories with theories of peace and conflict, the contributors propose a new research agenda to investigate where peace and conflict take place.

Author: Jason K. Stearns
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069122451X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Why violence in the Congo has continued despite decades of international intervention Well into its third decade, the military conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been dubbed a “forever war”—a perpetual cycle of war, civil unrest, and local feuds over power and identity. Millions have died in one of the worst humanitarian calamities of our time. The War That Doesn’t Say Its Name investigates the most recent phase of this conflict, asking why the peace deal of 2003—accompanied by the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world and tens of billions in international aid—has failed to stop the violence. Jason Stearns argues that the fighting has become an end in itself, carried forward in substantial part through the apathy and complicity of local and international actors. Stearns shows that regardless of the suffering, there has emerged a narrow military bourgeoisie of commanders and politicians for whom the conflict is a source of survival, dignity, and profit. Foreign donors provide food and urgent health care for millions, preventing the Congolese state from collapsing, but this involvement has not yielded transformational change. Stearns gives a detailed historical account of this period, focusing on the main players—Congolese and Rwandan states and the main armed groups. He extrapolates from these dynamics to other conflicts across Africa and presents a theory of conflict that highlights the interests of the belligerents and the social structures from which they arise. Exploring how violence in the Congo has become preoccupied with its own reproduction, The War That Doesn't Say Its Name sheds light on why certain military feuds persist without resolution.