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

View

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: Jason K. Stearns
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691194084
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 328

View

Book Description
"The Congolese conflict has been dubbed a "forever war," a conflict that defies resolution. As of 2016, the Congo was experiencing its twentieth year of violent conflict, one of worst humanitarian calamities of our time and climbing the all-time charts. According to one study, 5.4 million people have died between 1998 and 2007 alone, largely from disease, though fighting and violence is ongoing to this day. This study aims to explain the most recent phases of the conflict, why it has lasted for so long, where diplomats and peacemakers have gone wrong in their approach to solving the violence, and how the Congo can help us understand contemporary armed conflict more broadly. Using the Congolese conflict as an illustrative case study, the author argues that three factors determine why conflicts there have persisted in some places while dwindling elsewhere: the cohesion, political culture, and constituencies of the belligerents. He finds that the more fragmented the belligerents, the more protracted the conflict becomes, and as they shift to see the conflict as an end in itself and to perceive violence as an acceptable and necessary tool of politics, the longer the conflict lasts. Finally, he develops a theory for how social constituencies shape negotiations between belligerents and the government by providing guarantees, brokering contacts, and presenting commitment problems"--

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

View

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: Séverine Autesserre
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 113948799X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 345

View

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 (2003–6). 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 Wallace Nest
Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 172

View

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

Author: Zoë Marriage
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136176721
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 199

View

Book Description
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.

Author: Thomas Turner
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745656722
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

View

Book Description
The Democratic Republic of Congo has become one of the world's bloodiest hot spots. 2003 saw the end of a five-year war in which millions lost their lives - one of the deadliest conflicts since World War II. Despite recent peace agreements and democratic elections, the country is still plagued by army and militia violence. Congo remains deeply troubled, since the deep-rooted causes of conflict have not been adequately addressed. The conflict in the DRC has divided opinion; some call it a civil war, or a war of aggression by the country's neighbours; others a continuation of Rwanda's Hutu-Tutsi conflict on Congolose soil, and a war of partition and pillage. The prevalence of rape and sexual violence has led some analysts to mark it out as a hidden ‘war against women'. Tom Turner's insightful book reveals how each of these descriptions accurately captures the separate elements of this complex and multidimensional political conflict. In exploring each of these contributory factors, he shows how current attempts to rebuild the shattered state and society of DRC are doomed to fail. So long as the full complexity of the Congo crisis is not taken into account and a clear consensus as to its precise dimensions reached, the future looks bleak. The DRC, he argues, will likely remain a global hot spot for some time to come.

Author: Rita Milios
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1422294358
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 80

View

Book Description
The name Democratic Republic of the Congo is a misnomer: the country has never been truly democratic or a republic. For decades this country in central Africa, which was once known as Zaire, was ruled by a brutal and corrupt dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. Since the mid-1990s, when Mobutu's government was overthrown, various groups within Congo have been fighting for power. Although a peace agreement was signed in 2003 and a new constitution adopted in 2006, fighting has continued in the eastern part of the country. Overall, the Second Congo War involved nine African nations and caused more than 5.4 million deaths, making it the deadliest conflict since World War II. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the second-largest country in Africa and possesses a wealth of natural resources. However, the government still has no control over large areas of the country, and the years of fighting have devastated the economy. Although the prospects for peace have improved, it will take years for Congo to fully recover from its devastating civil war.

Author: Howard Adelman
Publisher: Africa World Press
ISBN: 9781592211319
Category : Congo (Democratic Republic)
Languages : en
Pages : 374

View

Book Description
The 1994 Rwandan Genocide continues to have serious repercussions for peace and stability in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Here, the contributors look at the continuation of the conflict in the territory of Zaire, ultimately asking how best to handle a problem which has been a source of instability for years - the problem of refugee warriors.

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

View

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.