The politics of rebellion and intervention in Ituri : the emergence of a new political complex?

Abstract

This article offers an interpretation of the present conflict in Ituri based on social analysis. Other than the conventional accounts which depart from the presence of foreign troops on Congolese soil, reduce the war to a struggle for natural resources or see it as the result of age-old ethnichatreds, the authors try to place this conflict into its social setting. The central argument of this article is that the outbreak of violence in Ituri has been the result of the exploitation, by local and regional actors, of a deeply rooted local political conflict for access to land, economic opportunity and political power. Firstly, it is assumed that the destruction of the local socioeconomic fabric and the emergence of ethnicity as the main basis for political mobilization has been the result of a long historical process in which access to land, education, political positions and economic dominance have played a crucial role. Secondly, it is asserted that, although foreign elements (i.e....