Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T19:31:02.608Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Displacement and ethnic reintegration in Ituri, DR Congo: challenges ahead

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 August 2008

Johan Pottier
Johan Pottier*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, United Kingdom
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the ethnic character of Ituri's complex emergency. It considers the local context in which the IDP predicament has unfolded, asking questions about the prospect of, and responsibilities for, post-conflict reintegration. As militia disarmament and peace are linked but not coterminous, it is argued that militant ethnic agendas at the core of the conflict must be scrutinised for their ongoing significance. Revealing the past to be a contested terrain, these agendas call for an apartheid-style solution along lines of segregation first envisaged by Belgian colonialists. To move towards ethnic reintegration, Iturians face the challenge that they must create a common history freed from the stranglehold of extremist interpretations.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , September 2008 , pp. 427 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Africa Initiative Programme & FEWER International (AIP/FEWER). 2005. ‘Ituri watch: insecurity persists at the end of 2004’, Nairobi: AIP/FEWER.Google Scholar
AIP/FEWER. 2006. Elections and Security in Ituri: stumbling blocks and opportunities for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Nairobi: AIP/FEWER.Google Scholar
Alexander, J. 2006. ‘Legacies of violence in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe’, in Kaarsholm, P. ed. Violence, Political Culture and Development in Africa. Oxford: James Currey, 105–21.Google Scholar
Amnesty International (AI). 2002. ‘Open letter to the United Nations Security Council’, London: AI press office, 17 October 2002.Google Scholar
Atlas Logistique, 11.7.2005. Available on <www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EVIU-6E7KQN?OpenDocument&r=1&cc=cod->>Google Scholar
Brookings Institution & University of Bern (Brookings/Bern), eds. 2007. When Displacement Ends: a framework for durable solutions. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Cohen, R. 2001. ‘Exodus within borders: the global crisis of internal displacement’, Macedonia, Skopje: Balkans Lecture Series, cited in Mooney 2007.Google Scholar
Colson, E. 2003. ‘Forced migration and the anthropological response’, Journal of Refugee Studies 16, 1: 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Communauté Hema. 2002a. ‘Mémorandum de la Communauté Hema élaboré sur demande de son Exc. Le Gouverneur de la Province de l'Ituri concernant les hostilités des Lendu contre les Hema’, Bunia, 10.3.2002.Google Scholar
Communauté Hema. 2002b. ‘Mémorandum de la Communauté Hema relatif aux massacres des Bahema en Ituri depuis 1999 à ce jour à l'intention du Ministre des Droits Humains et de la délégation du Gouvernement de la République Démocratique du Congo en mission officielle à Bunia du 1er au 06 juillet 2002’, Bunia, 1.7.2002.Google Scholar
Deng, F. 2000. ‘The global challenge of internal displacement’, Journal of Law & Policy 5: 141–55.Google Scholar
ENTE, Association Culturelle de la Communauté Hema. 2002. ‘Les massacres des Hema en Ituri (RD Congo) 1999–2002: décryptage des mensonges qui ont servi de justificatifs à ces massacres. Le génocide des Hema est-il un complot à dimension international?’, Bunia, 18.8.2002.Google Scholar
German Agro Action (GAA). 2003. ‘Situation Report Ituri, 1–16.9.2003’, Bunia, unpublished.Google Scholar
Hovil, L. 2003. ‘Displacement in Bundibugyo district: a situation analysis’, Kampala: Makerere University, Refugee Law Project Working Paper 10.Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch (HRW). 2002. ‘The war within the war: sexual violence against women and girls in eastern Congo’, Washington, DC: HRW.Google Scholar
HRW. 2003. ‘Ituri: “covered in Blood”: ethnically targeted violence in Northeastern DR Congo’, Washington, DC: HRW.Google Scholar
HRW. 2005a. ‘The curse of Gold: Democratic Republic of Congo’, Washington, DC: HRW.Google Scholar
HRW. 2005b. ‘DR Congo: army should not appoint war criminals’, Washington, DC: HRW, press release, 14.1.2005.Google Scholar
International Crisis Group (ICG). 2004. ‘Maintaining momentum in the Congo: the Ituri problem’, Nairobi/Brussels: ICG.Google Scholar
Kälin, W. 2007. ‘Foreword’, in Brookings/Bern, eds. When Displacement Ends, 1–3.Google Scholar
Landau, L. 2005. ‘Myth and rationality in Southern African responses to migration, displacement, and humanitarianism’, paper presented at the conference on Displacement – Global Dynamics and Gendered Patterns, Bergen: Centre for Women's and Gender Research, 29.9–1.10.2005.Google Scholar
Leopold, M. 2005. Inside West Nile: violence, history and representation on an African frontier. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Lobho, J.-P. 1971a. ‘L'influence du régime foncier coutumier sur l'organisation socio-politique des collectivités locales chez les Bahema et les Walendu du Territoire de Djugu’, Congo-Afrique 11: 563–72.Google Scholar
Lobho, J.-P. 1971b. ‘Impact de la colonisation belge sur les structures socio-politiques au Congo: le cas de la société hema en Ituri’, Revue Congolaise des Sciences Humaines 2: 85–102.Google Scholar
Lobho Lwa Djugudjugu, J.-P. 1980. Société et Politique en Afrique Traditionnelle: Bahema et Walendu du Zaïre. Kinshasa: Presses Universitaires du Zaïre.Google Scholar
Lobho Lwa Djugudjugu, J.-P. 2002. ‘La problématique du conflit ethnique Hema-Lendu en Ituri’, Mouvements et Enjeux Sociaux 7: 43–77.Google Scholar
Longman, T. & Rutagengwa, T.. 2004. ‘Memory, identity and community in Rwanda’, in Stover, E. & Weinstein, H. M. eds. My Neighbour, My Enemy: justice and community in the aftermath of mass atrocity. Cambridge University Press, 162–82.Google Scholar
LORI, Association Culturelle. 2002a. ‘Déclaration de la Communauté Lendu (Bale) à l'occasion de la communication du Chef de l'Etat en vue de la pacification de l'Ituri’, Kinshasa, 11.1.2002.Google Scholar
LORI, Association Culturelle. 2002b. ‘Guerre intercommunautaire de l'Ituri (cas du Territoire de Djugu)’, Kinshasa, 12.1.2002.Google Scholar
Mamdani, M. 2001. When Victims Become Killers: colonialism, nativism, and the genocide in Rwanda. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mooney, E. 2007. ‘An IDP no more? Exploring the issue of when internal displacement ends’, in Brookings/Bern, eds. When Displacement Ends, 15–28.Google Scholar
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, DR Congo (OCHA/DRC). 2004. ‘Monitoring de la situation humanitaire en RDC, du 20 au 26 novembre 2004’, Kinshasa: OCHA.Google Scholar
OCHA/DRC. 2005. ‘Monitoring de la situation humanitaire en RDC, du 20 avril au 6 mai 2005’, Kinshasa: OCHA.Google Scholar
OCHA/DRC. 2006. ‘Monitoring de la situation en Ituri, 4–6 juin 2007’, Kinshasa: OCHA.Google Scholar
OCHA/DRC. 2007. ‘Population movements in eastern DR Congo, January–March 2007’, Goma, DRC: OCHA.Google Scholar
Pottier, J. 1996. ‘Agricultural rehabilitation and food security in post-war Rwanda: assessing needs, designing solutions’, IDS Bulletin 27, 3: 56–74.Google Scholar
Pottier, J. 2002. Re-Imagining Rwanda: conflict, survival and disinformation in the late 20th century. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pottier, J. 2006. ‘Roadblock ethnography: negotiating humanitarian access in Ituri, eastern DR Congo, 1999–2004’, Africa 76, 2: 151–79.Google Scholar
Pottier, J. 2007. ‘Rights violations, rumour and rhetoric: making sense of cannibalism in Mambasa, Ituri (D.R. Congo)’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13: 825–43.Google Scholar
Pottier, J. forthcoming. ‘Representations of ethnicity in the search for peace: Ituri, DR Congo’, to be presented at the 16th World Congress of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), Kunming, China, 15–23 July 2008.Google Scholar
Southall, A. W. 1953. Alur Society: a study of processes and types of domination. Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons.Google Scholar
Southall, A. W. 1954. ‘Alur tradition and its historical significance’, Uganda Journal 18, 2: 137–65.Google Scholar
Thiry, E. 2004. Une Introduction à l'Ethnohistoire des Hema du Nord (Congo du Nord-Est). Tervuren: Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale.Google Scholar
Triulzi, A. 2006. ‘The past as contested terrain: commemorating new sites of memory in war-torn Ethiopia’, in Kaarsholm, P. ed. Violence, Political Culture and Development in Africa. Oxford: James Currey, 122–38.Google Scholar
United Nations Security Council (UNSC). 2002. Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of DR Congo. New York: UNSC. 16.10.2002, ref. S/2002/1146.Google Scholar
UN–NGO mission. 2001. ‘Crise de l'Ituri: mission inter-agence d'appui communautaire et humanitaire, 14–19 février 2001’, unpublished report.Google Scholar
Vlassenroot, K. & Raeymaekers, T.. 2004. ‘The politics of rebellion and intervention in Ituri: the emergence of a new political complex?’, African Affairs 103, 412: 385–412.Google Scholar
Vlassenroot, K. & Huggins, C.. 2005. ‘Land, migration and conflict in eastern DRC’, in Huggins, C. & Clover, J. eds. From the Ground Up: land rights, conflict and peace in sub-Saharan Africa. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 115–95.Google Scholar

Interviews

Chief G. Herabo, chief of the Andisoma and Nyankunde collectivités, Nyankunde, 30.4.2004.

A. Gashangi, programme officer, OCHA, Goma, 14.4.2004.

Hema refugees, Fort Portal, Uganda, 17.7.2004.

Lendu refugees, Kampala, Uganda, 14.7.2004.

Senior humanitarian worker, Bunia, 28.4.2004.

Newspapers and news reports

IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Network, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, daily reports); The New Vision, Kampala.