Great Lakes Course 2011
The second Great Lakes Course was held in Bujumbura, Burundi from 9 to 15 July. The course was directed by Jason Stearns of Yale University, author of the recent Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, and Ben Shepherd, former Great Lakes specialist at the UK Foreign Office. New teaching staff this year included Filip Reyntjens, Mvemba […]
Burundi crisis gets serious for regional leaders
NAIROBI, 14 July 2015 (IRIN) – Burundi’s political crisis is centred on a leader who is refusing to leave office after almost 10 years. The man sent in to mediate has been in power for almost 30. Apart from that irony, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s arrival in Bujumbura underlines just how high the stakes are […]
Top Picks: The Arab Spring, arms to Yemen and why Myanmar wins
LONDON, 18 December 2015 (IRIN) – Welcome to IRIN’s reading list. Every week our global network of specialist correspondents share their top picks of recent must-read research, podcasts, reports, blogs and in-depth articles to help you keep on top of global crises. We also highlight key upcoming conferences, book releases and policy debates. … Untangling […]
Recrutement des miliciens en période pré-électorale : le cas des Raïa Mutomboki à Bunyakiri
In the course of 2015, recruitment for certain factions of the Raia Mutomboki armed group intensified in the area of Bunyakiri, located in Kalehe territory in the province of South Kivu (Democratic Republic of the Congo). In this blog, Lebon Mulimbi suggests that the reasons for this recent upsurge in recruitment are primarily to be […]
The Making of Conflict in the Eastern Congo: Trouble in the Ruzizi Plain
Foyer de conflits et d’activités de groupes armés, la Plaine de la Ruzizi, dans la province du Sud Kivu, connait de fortes tensions entre leaders Bafuliiru et Barundi, surtout après l’assassinat du Mwami (chef coutumier) de la communauté Barundi en 2012. Lors d’une visite à Luberizi en avril 2014, Judith Verweijen se pencha sur un […]
Great Lakes Course 2013
The Great Lakes Course covered Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The 2013 course examined the current crisis in the Kivus, the prospects of institutional reform in the DRC, and political developments in Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. The course was in English and French with simultaneous translation. It was held […]
Un chef coutumier abattu : des spéculations à la crise sociopolitique en groupement de Kalonge, territoire de Kalehe
On 10 May 2013, Teso Ntarubibi, the village chief of Chifunzi, located in Kalonge groupement (in Kalehe territory, South Kivu province) was assassinated. The murder plunged Kalonge into a severe crisis and promoted the mobilization of armed groups, yet those who killed the mwami remain unidentified. In this blog, Emery Mudinga analyses four hypotheses concerning the assassination […]
Les FDLR dans le sud du Sud Kivu après l’opération Sokola II
In January 2015, the Congolese army launched the Sokola II operations against the Rwandan rebel group FDLR. In this blog, Juvénal Twaibu discusses the effects of these operations in the southern part of South Kivu—Fizi, Uvira and Mwenga territories. Sustaining limited casualties, the FDLR dispersed into the Hauts Plateaux mountains and Itombwe forest. Although destabilized, the […]
Blog series on armed groups and local governance in the eastern DRC
The eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is home to dozens of armed groups. Studying these groups and the way they affect local governance and conflict dynamics is challenging. How can we gather reliable data on these groups? And how do we ensure our analysis is adequate? In the coming months, researchers of the second […]
Relire les motivations d’une attaque des miliciens Mai-Mai à Misisi
In this blog, Claude Iguma analyses the rumours and events surrounding an attack by an armed group on the gold mining site of Misisi in Fizi, South Kivu. These rumours, resulting from uncertainties about the perpetrators and their motives, reveal the complex ways in which business and security interests are entwined in the eastern DRC’s […]