On the 28th of February this year, an unfortunate incident happened in Garamba National Park, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)-affected area in North-Eastern Congo. A group of Congolese soldiers went on patrol, in order to track LRA-elements; while at the

Read the rest of The (LRA) conflict: Beyond the LRA lobby & the hunt for Kony… and towards civilian protection – By Kristof Titeca »

Congo is on hold After M23 left Goma in early December, the military situation around the town stagnated. Apart from some repositioning in the hills around North Kivu’s biggest town, the situation has remained calm. People have been anxiously awaiting

Read the rest of Waiting for a miracle in Congo: a peace process with many processes and no peace – By Kris Berwouts »

There are no final or totally verifiable figures for the numbers of elephants slaughtered for their ivory in 2012. However, reports from Cameroon, DR Congo, South Sudan and the Central African Republic suggest a massive and continuing rise in killings

Read the rest of The Ivory Wars: how poaching in Central Africa fuels the LRA and janjaweed – By Keith Somerville »

In late November, two Congolese rebel fighters who chose to abandon the group revealed to the BBC the extent of Rwanda’s meddling and financial backing. Captain Rudahirwa and Colonel Bestfriend Ndozi—former members of the Congolese army turned students and activists

Read the rest of Will the Mounting Evidence of Rwandan Meddling in Eastern Congo Lead Donors to Change their Response? – By Courtney Meyer »

Weekly News and Analysis from the RAS The following is a ‘taster’ of the weekly newsletter – ‘Africa in the News’ -  available exclusively to RAS members. To find out more about becoming an RAS member click here CAR/DRC: no

Read the rest of Africa in the News – CAR/DRC: no let up in Central Africa »

Guenther von Billerbeck’s piece ‘Congo: crisis in East deflects attention from need for reforms from Kinshasa’ was voted (in a publicly accessible online poll), the best piece to appear on African Arguments in 2012. You can read Guenther’s piece in

Read the rest of Analysis of internal workings of Congo’s Kabila regime wins African Argument of the year »

More than 200 academic specialist scholars of Africa have called on President Obama to take action through the United Nations to protect civilians in the conflict zone of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The petition was released today

Read the rest of Association of Concerned Africa Scholars petitions Obama administration to protect civilians in the DRC »

The recent fall of Goma has starkly highlighted the shaky foundations of the ‘peace architecture’ that was built in the wake of the Second Congo War (1998-2002). Briefly, it once again seemed that the entire house of cards would collapse,

Read the rest of Congo: avoiding past pitfalls in a future peace deal with the M23 – By Judith Verweijen »

Kinshasa, November 27th 2012 As reported last week, the DRC’s Eastern city of Goma fell on Tuesday November 20th. The next day M23 took Sake, 25 km to the west. Many people now expected this to be the first step

Read the rest of Congo: Kabila in a Catch 22 with M23 – By Kris Berwouts »

Africa is covered in epithets, like graffiti. It has been labelled dark, lost, hopeless. But generalisations about Africa are dangerous. The only certainty is its size: it could contain the United States, China and India and still have room to

Read the rest of Congo: UK and US must play more consistent hand to end world’s worst war – By Richard Dowden »