Part II, 6 The Democratic Republic of the Congo 1993–2010 »
Louise Arimatsu
From: International Law and the Classification of Conflicts
Edited By: Elizabeth Wilmshurst
On 30 June 2010, the Democratic Republic of the Congo celebrated its fiftieth anniversary of independence from Belgian rule. But if independence had promised to be an opportunity for disavowing violence as a way of life that had been the Congo’s history under one of the most brutal manifestations of European colonialism, the following five decades were to disappoint.1 To describe the Congo as a site of perpetual violence marked by recurring full-scale armed conflict and lost opportunities is to risk repeating—with no excuse2—the trajectory paved by Conrad with the...
