Despite the billions of dollars spent on bringing about peace in
Democratic Republic of Congo, violence still wracks the country’s east,
where conflicts have displaced hundreds of thousands of people this year alone. So what’s the solution?
London-based peacebuilding organisation International Alert (IA)
believes the answer lies in tackling the causes of the conflicts,
supporting local attempts at keeping the peace, and bringing people
together across ethnic and political divides.
This may seem obvious, but IA says international efforts to build
peace in a country recovering from years of war have misdiagnosed the
reasons for the east’s tensions. These include lack of access to land,
and political and economic marginalisation.
"Standard post-conflict interventions are simply not working; what is
needed is a truly context-specific response based on a frank analysis
of the real causes and dynamics behind this prolonged and multi-faceted
conflict,” IA secretary general Dan Smith said in a statement.
In a report, Ending the Deadlock: Towards a new vision of peace in eastern DRC,
published Thursday, IA cites peace initiatives such as disarmament
programmes, the reintegration of displaced people and curbs on the
region’s mineral trade.
Attempts to stop rebels funding their operations through Congo’s
mineral trade have had some success, but armed groups have simply
diversified their sources of financing as a result. The curb on minerals
has also hurt civilians who depend on the trade for a living, the
report says.
Although tens of thousands of former militants have been disarmed,
many have not found alternative work partly because they did not receive
enough support to reintegrate into civilian life, IA says.
In addition, programmes helping refugees return to Congo tend to be
run using “individualistic and technical approaches”, and don’t take
enough account of local tensions and conflicts which can worsen when
people come home.
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