Economic Survival and Borderland Rebellion: The Case of the Allied Democratic Forces on the Uganda-Congo Border
One of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s oldest, most organized, and traditionally best-trained—but, arguably, least known—rebel groups is the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Its resiliency and particularly its economic survival skills have largely been understood through the prism of Islamic extremism. Yet this narrative has proven to have serious inaccuracies and flaws. Explanations focused on terrorism, for example, do not take into consideration the ADF’s pivotal business ventures, such as cross-border trade, agriculture, and the taxing of timber forests. They not only ignore these activities but are unable to explain how the ADF was able to practice, and become successful at, these ventures in the first place. This study specifically looks at the economic activities of the ADF, namely, its financial strategies and methods of procuring and retaining weapons, equipment, foodstuffs, and, importantly, territory/land. It argues that the sources of the group’s economic resiliency do not only lie, as many have argued, in its Islamist leanings. Rather, we need to also look at the particularities of borderlands and how the ADF has been able to adopt various local material resource practices and integrate into cross-border economic networks.
Demilitarising militias in the Kivus (eastern Democratic Republic of Congo)
The devastating conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which resulted in a tragic humanitarian catastrophe that claimed the lives of four million people, officially came to an end in 2003. Since then the country has been undergoing post-conflict reconstruction. A fragile peace has been achieved with the organising of elections, the withdrawal of foreign troops, and the implementation of the demilitarisation process. However, the eastern regions of the country, specifically North Kivu and South Kivu (the Kivus), continue to be plagued by endemic violence which has had calamitous effects on civilians, including forced displacement, death, economic and physical insecurity, and sexual violence. The main spoilers to the peace process, and
European Neutrality in Historical Perspective
This chapter places the neutrality policies of the established European neutral states—Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland—in historical context. It explores the origins of neutrality in the idea of non-belligerency in war and the history of neutrality in modern European international politics, highlighting the way in which quite a wide variety of states were or sought to be neutral at various points in the nineteenth century or the first half of the twentieth century. The chapter then shows how the Cold War division of Europe resulted in Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland (along with Yugoslavia) emerging as a distinctive neutral group of states between the two blocs. The chapter also reviews how the European neutral states’ foreign and security policies have adapted since the end of the Cold War. It finishes with some conclusions about neutrality in general and the neutrality of the established European neutral states in particular.