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.
Aid and authoritarianism in Africa: Development without democracy
N o w In 2013 almost half of Africa’s top aid recipients were ruled by authoritarian regimes. While the West may claim to promote democracy and human rights, in practice major bilateral and international donors, such as USAID, DFID, the World Bank and the European Commission, have seen their aid policies become ever more entangled with the survival of their authoritarian protégés. Local citizens thus find themselves at the receiving end of a compromise between aid agencies and government elites, in which development policies are shaped in the interests of maintaining the status quo.
Making Old Soldiers Fade Away: Lessons from the Reintegration of Demobilized Soldiers in Mozambique
The demobilization and reintegration of military personnel in Mozambique was recognized as a crucial aspect of the country's successful transition from war to peace. On this basis, the international community embarked on one of the most comprehensive reintegration programmes ever attempted in the context of a United Nations peacekeeping operation, involving four different approaches and a diversity of implementing agents that aimed to facilitate reintegration of the targeted population of ex-combatants. With the formal conclusion of the programme, reintegration was declared by all major observers to have been a resounding success. Despite this generally accepted assessment, there remain many unexamined issues, including the degree to which reintegration in fact was achieved; particular successes (or failures) associated with a given methodology; the interface between the international community's approach to reintegration and the process of reintegration experienced by ex-soldiers; and the role played by Mozambican society and tradition in facilitating this process. This article critically assesses the international community's involvement in reintegration in Mozambique and extrapolates the `lessons learned' for other reintegration programmes.