The Canon

The texts you need to read to understand the situation.

Ethnicity and Unrest in Africa's Great Lakes

In this book, Lemarchand, a preeminent scholar on ethnic strife and genocide in Africa’s Great Lakes, analyzes Central African politics in terms of the separate—but very much interrelated—Rwandan, Burundian, and Congolese conflicts. This work is key to understanding the war in the Congo, through the author’s adoption of a comparative perspective that allows for the reader to fully comprehend the regional context. Lemarchand refutes the popular notion of natural resources as a cause of conflict, instead arguing that political and social exclusion are the true roots of the prolonged unrest. An important insight is Lemarchand’s use of social capital as an explanatory factor in the conflict, in that it may foment hatred of those outside a constructed community. He highlights how social capital might be used by political leaders through the harnessing of ethnic identities to create social movement and discontent.

Book: University of Pennsylvania Press

King Leopold's Brutal Conquest

In a 2003 BBC documentary investigating King Leopold’s colonial conquest of the DRC, director Peter Bate compiles evidence of Leopold’s atrocities in the Congo and examines the development of an international movement aimed at awakening Europe to the deadly consequences of imperialism. Firsthand accounts from missionaries, Belgian soldiers, international diplomats and citizens of the Congo aid the film as it explores Leopold’s policy of extractive imperialism in the colony. The film presents a compelling critic of the continued royal mystique of King Leopold II, highlighting the propaganda efforts undertaken to mask Leopold’s violent imperialism behind the veil of humanitarianism. The film offers an encompassing introduction to the variety of primary sources available from the period of the conquest. It also provides an introduction to prominent European figures of the early reform movement in the Congo Free State such as John Harris, Edmund Morel, Roger Casement, and Joseph Clark.

Video/Multimedia: BBC Four Storyville

The UN Mission in DRC: A Failure to Protect

On November 4-5, 2008, approximately 150 civilians were killed in Kiwanja, eastern DRC. The majority of killings were summary executions performed by the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), and the Mai Mai militia. Continued violence against civilians included rape, killings, forcible recruitment of children, and the displacement of 27,000 people. Kiwanja civilians sought refuge at the MONUC base located a half-mile away. MONUC’s 120 peacekeepers in Kiwanja did little to protect Congolese civilians from attack. Instead, priority was placed on protecting humanitarian workers and other observers. MONUC’s primary focus remains on Goma, leaving minimal protection for Kiwanja civilians. The UN Security Council authorized an increase of 3,100 MONUC forces in the Congo. The UN Secretary-General appealed to the EU to provide a short term “bridging force.” It is hoped that additional EU forces in Goma will allow MONUC to prevent further threats to civilians in remote areas.

IO / NGO Report: Human Rights Watch

Dexatrese in 1960-64 UN Congo Mission

This chapter by Canadian military historian Sean Maloney profiles the career of soldier Jacques Albert Dexatrese, concentrating on the United Nations ONUC (Organization des Nations Unies au Congo) mission and the background of the 1960’s Congo independence conflict. This chapter discusses the courageous actions of Dexatrese in using controversial preemptive force exceeding UN rules of engagement (ROE) due to the situation on the ground. The UN 1960-64 Congo mission is presented as a good example of the economic and Security Council veto power of the Soviets. The chapter also portrays ONUC participants as choosing Cold War driven national foreign policies and/or economic mining interests (uranium) over UN mission impartiality or Congolese human security, leading them to back different parties to the conflict This chapter gives only a brief overview with less content on the internal politics beyond the military perspectives. The bibliography readings provide complete analysis.

Book: Dundurn Press

DR Congo Civil War History from 1997 Mobutu Overthrow to 1998 Rebellion of Kabila

Beginning with the 1997 overthrow of the Joseph-Désiré Mobutu regime by Laurent Kabila’s forces, this article methodically navigates through the shifting of alliances and the subsequent 1998 Rebellion against Kabila’s forces by former allies Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda. This excellent article does well to explicate the crucial ethnic tensions of Hutu vs. Tutsi and Bantu vs. Nilotic ingrained throughout the 10 year conflict. It illuminates the main domestic and regional military forces and their motives leading up to the commencement of \"Africa’s Second World War\". As well, it highlights possibilities and difficulties for the future. This article was published in the peer-reviewed journal African Affairs, which is distributed on a quarterly basis by Oxford University Press. The Author, Filip Reyntjens, is a prolific writer, Belgian political scientist, and professor whose specialty is the Great Lakes Region in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi.

Journal Article: African Affairs

Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

This report focuses on sexual violence committed by soldiers and combatants in the DRC. Through interviews and past research, stories are told of women who have suffered terrible atrocities during this conflict. Recommendations are set out for a variety of groups. Sexual violence has been continuously used to terrorize and punish communities for real or supposed aid to opposing forces. Women are often abducted for sexual services, domestic help, and forced labour. Sexual violence has physical, psychological, and social affects on these women; HIV rates are high, medical resources are low and there is a social stigma attached to being raped. There is an ever growing legacy of women being victimized in the DCR. This aspect of the conflict is changing the face of the whole society and greatly influences the people of the DRC. This report sets out its methodology and reports on the major groups involved.

IO / NGO Report: Human Rights Watch

The Challenge of State-Building

“States and Power in Africa” illustrates the confused, fragmented, and ever changing nature of state authority in the region of the Democratic Republic of Congo from pre-colonial times to present. Jeffrey Herbst argues that the perpetuation of conflict in the DRC is a result of the inability of the Congolese state to broadcast its authority over great distances, particularly into the eastern hinterland. This text offers an essential study of border controls, population migration, and the artificiality of the state's legitimacy, which impedes good governance and perpetuates conflict. Herbst's analysis makes the provocative claim that colonialism did not disrupt pre-colonial patterns of spatial organization. He challenges prevailing assumptions among scholarship about the nature of state development in the Congo basin. This text emphasizes the significance of pre-colonial history to the ongoing conflict, offers a critique of the Weberian state model, and suggests new solutions rooted in the indigenous tradition.

Book: Princeton University Press

The Lord's Resistance Army in the DR Congo

The Lord’s Resistance Army, lead by Joseph Kony, has been terrorizing civilians throughout Uganda and Southern Sudan for more than two decades. In 2006, the LRA began operations in the DRC. The article, written by a team of researchers from Human Rights Watch, gives an account of how the LRA’s brief history in the DRC has unfolded. It is entitled ‘The Christmas Massacres’ because this event, occurring during the 48 hours surrounding Christmas in 2008 in which the LRA raided three villages, killing 865 civilians, and abducting at least 160 children, marked a turning point in the role of the LRA in the DRC conflict. The article is critical of the way in which key actors, including the International Criminal Court, MONUC (UN Mission), the Sudanese, Congolese, and Ugandan governments failed in protecting civilians and preventing further LRA attacks, which have not ceased since the Christmas Massacres.

IO / NGO Report: Human Rights Watch

The Root Causes of the Conflicts in the DRC from the Local Dimension

In “The Congo Wars: Conflict, myth and reality", Turner’s arguments bring our attention to the local and the national level rather than the international dimension in the study of the causes of the conflicts in the DRC. His experiences in the Congo fortify his emphasis on the role of race, identity, culture, ideology, and the Congolese politics as the major factors, compared to other sources that often solely stress the capitalist exploitation of natural resources. By examining the causes from the local context and the development of the local disputes, we are able to analyze the root causes step by step, from local to national to international, and finally find out how each of the factors has contributed to the outbreak and the continuation of the conflicts.

Book: Oxford Journals

From Colony to War-Torn State: The Belgian Congo and the Tragic Legacy of Colonialism

In this book, anthropologist Robert B. Edgerton traces the roots of the modern conflict in the DRC back to the early colonial period in the 1800s. Of particular note is the chapter on the colonial administration of the Belgian Congo (1908-1960). Edgerton suggests that ill-planned urbanization led to profound tensions among ethnic groups who were compelled to live together despite their different customs and attitudes. Edgerton also argues that discriminatory colonial policies left in their wake a population that was deeply divided along ethnic lines and totally unprepared for independence. This book makes a valuable contribution to one’s understanding of the conflict in the Congo by offering a clear and insightful overview of the historical trajectory from colony to war-torn independent state. By highlighting the tragic legacy of colonial exploitation, Edgerton helps the reader appreciate some of the long-term causes of a brutal conflict that has claimed millions of lives.

Book: St. Martin's Press

Leave Your Western Assumptions Behind: An Analysis of Peace, Conflict, and Identity in Central Africa

Starting with aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, Gérard Prunier charts the rise, peak, and apparent “deconstruction” of conflict in and around the DRC until 2008. Prunier asserts that, contrary to popular myth, European manipulations are not responsible for what has transpired in Central Africa. He meticulously illustrates that instead, this is almost exclusively an African conflict driven by complex ethnic, economic, military, and historical factors that differ from country to country, tribe to tribe and person to person. Ironically, Prunier suggests this has not prevented the “international community” from attempting to impose its own poorly fitted “solutions” to ongoing problems. Indeed, the book contributes enormously to literature on the conflict because it elucidates that making both positive and normative judgments on conflict in Africa from an exclusively Western-IR-theory perspective will only confuse and mislead. The end result is a book that is both an excellent historical narrative and a bold analytical step forward in the field.

Book: Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2009

Dynamics of Insurgency during the Second Civil War in the Democratic Republic of Congo

This chapter delineates the political trajectory of a rebel group, the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie (RCD) during the second civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The historical account of the RCD reveals that its organizational survival was predicated on the support of Rwanda. The paper argues that power-sharing deals such as the Inter-Congolese Dialogue have been privileged as the preferred instrument of conflict resolution. The recognition of the RCD as a legitimate stakeholder in the Lusaka accords reflects the limitation of peace agreements that pursue stability at the expense of justice. Furthermore, the peace agreements have incentivized the militarization of politics and the opportunistic leadership of the insurgency which seeks reintegration into judicial statehood. By decoding the dynamics of the insurgency in the civil war, the chapter is indispensable in conceptualizing the role of the RCD as agenda-setter during the peace agreements.

Book: Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers

Democracy and Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Past and Present

Ostensibly a narrative history of democratic mass movements in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nzongola-Ntalajas’s work is notable for the sense of continuity it creates, rooting the contemporary conflict in a history of violence. In particular, he highlights the implications of Leopold II’s reign (1885- 1908) in creating a template of personal political rule based on economic self interest that has resounded throughout Congolese history against an international background ranging from apathy to negative interference. He observes the effect of Leopold’s rule in depriving the Congo of a genuine democratic culture, replacing it with a tradition of casual violence and oppression. These two points act as the subtext for the rest of the book and establish an historical perspective on the current conflict, even if Nzongola-Ntalaja does not always make these links explicit. The book is also rare as an English language work with a Congolese perspective.

Book: Zed Books

Mobutu's Kleptocracy in the Post-Colony

Michel Theirry’s 1999 three-part documentary, “Mobutu: King of Zaire,” profiles one of Africa’s most influential post-colonial leaders. Chronicling Mobutu Sese Seko’s rise to power, his reign as leader of Zaire, and finally, his overthrow and exile, the film depicts the transformative era between Belgian colonialism and the contemporary Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This critically acclaimed documentary is essential for understanding the DRC’s transition from a colony to an independent state, as well the significant role the country played in pivotal historical events, such as the Cold War and the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Additionally, it shows Mobutu's political and social influence on the DRC as one of the most corrupt African leaders in history. Perhaps most importantly, Thierry’s documentary demonstrates the importance of Mobutu’s legacy pertaining to the current state of affairs in the DRC, and the conflict that continues today.

IO / NGO Report: Les Films de la Passerelle