by Robert Ojambo Abstract The Great Lakes region has, in the recent past, been awash with numerous border conflicts/or threats to conflict among the member states. Whereas various studies have endeavored to explain the emergence of such conflicts, many of them lay the blame on colonial cartographical errors and territorial hegemony that developed after independence. […]
by William Reno Introduction Zaire’s (1) real political system operates outside conventions of formal state sovereignty. As formal state bureaucracies collapsed under Zaire’s president Mobutu Sese Seko (1965-97), the country’s ruler increasingly exercised authority through control over markets, rather than bureaucracies. Control became less territorial and more centered on domination of an archipelago of resources […]
Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Africa of the Committee on International Relations House of Representatives One Hundred Fourth Congress Second Session July 17, 1996 The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:05 p.m. in room 2200, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (chair of the subcommittee), presiding. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. The subcommittee will come […]
by Thomas Turner Introduction Since the 1960’s, Laurent Kabila had led a group of insurgents against the dictatorial Mobutu Sese Seko government in Kinshasa, operating along Zaire’s eastern border (1). Kabila’s group was one of the many rebel movements in the East that had arisen with the aim of furthering the political program of Congo’s […]
by René Lemarchand Introduction In a matter of days last October, a large swathe of eastern Zaire erupted into an orgy of violence, sending tremors through the Great Lakes region and beyond. What brought Armageddon to the shores of Lake Kivu were the search and destroy operations launched by units of Rwanda’s Armée Patriotique Rwandaise (APR) […]
Introduction by Michael Chege In the third week of October this year, the “Cobra” militia, commanded by the former president of Congo-Brazzaville, Dennis Sessou-Ngueso, took control of the national airport and the presidential palace in Brazzaville thus bringing to an end the two-way civil war that pitted him against the forces of the democratically-elected president […]
by Tatsuro Suehara Abstract In this essay, I attempt a comparison of two labor exchange systems employed respectively by Japanese and Congolese (Tembo) peasants. The Japanese system is known as yui, while the Tembo system is called likilimba. Yui and likilimba have several basic principles in common: (1) mutual assistance, (2) exchange of equal amount of labor, and (3) no use of […]
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