In His Own Words: Reflections on a Scholarly Career with Rene Lemarchand

by Ashley E. Leinweber Abstract What is the role of scholars in envisioning the continent and bearing witness to historic events? This paper is based on an interview with Professor Rene Lemarchand, renowned scholar of the former Belgian colonies of the African Great Lakes. His earliest book Political Awakening in the Belgian Congo is based […]

Conventional Wisdom and Rwanda’s Genocide: An Opinion

by Tony Waters Certain thoughts about the Rwandan genocide of 1994 are commonly accepted. For the most part, these ideas have been used to explain the causes of the genocide and, by implication, propose solutions to Rwanda’s continuing problems. The status of these ideas within the media and policy circles, however, is problematic. Despite the […]

Kabila Returns, in a Cloud of Uncertainty

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 […]

Patterns of State Collapse and Reconstruction in Central Africa: Relfections on the Crisis in the Great Lakes

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) […]

The Great Lakes Crisis

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 […]

Judicial Responses to Genocide: The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Rwandan Genocide Courts

by Paul J. Magnarella, University of Florida Abstract Following Rwanda’s 1994 appalling eruption into genocide, the UN Security Council, having created an international criminal tribunal for humanitarian law violators in the European States of the former Yugoslavia, decided it could do no less for African Rwanda. Because the Rwandan conflict was internal rather than international, the […]

From Genocide to Regional War: The Breakdown of International Order in Central Africa

by Christian R. Manahl Introduction The 1999 crisis in Kosovo has been interpreted as the end of an era of international relations ruled by the UN Charter and the Security Council, and the beginning of a new world order [1]. NATO’s air raids against Yugoslavia in order to halt ethnic cleansing and oppression of the Kosovars […]

African Studies Quarterly

Tag: Genocide