The Great Lakes region has seen a series of enormously damaging conflicts in recent decades, many of which have drawn neighbours into confrontation. The 1990s and 2000s saw civil war in Burundi[1], complex internal conflict in northern Uganda, genocide in Rwanda and two catastrophic wars in the DRC, all of which spilled across the region’s internal borders. While levels of violence are far lower, these conflicts echo in the present, in non-state armed actors that continue to cause vast humanitarian suffering and in a legacy of mistrust between neighbours.
Recurrent patterns of violence have entrenched norms of destructive economic and political competition in the Great Lakes, and have undermined both the development of effective regional institutions and mutually profitable growth and development. The result has been a long-running humanitarian catastrophe, with seven million displaced in the DRC alone,[2] and a self-perpetuating cycle of underdevelopment and violence. The region is host to large legacy refugee populations unable to return home, and non-state armed actors flourishing in regional disorder and state weakness.
The latest episode of conflict in the Kivus, centred on the M23, offers the clearest example of this cycle. It has reawakened the suspicion and hostility between communities and states, notably between Rwanda and the DRC, that has been a defining dynamic in the region since the end of the Second Congo War.[3] The role of illicit trading in fuelling patterns of violence, at both grassroots and transnational levels, is a further legacy of past conflict. Norms of violence and zero-sum competition for access to resources, including land, and trade in agricultural produce, manufactured goods and minerals, have become deeply embedded in both the regional political economy and patterns of cross-border trade.
That the M23 crisis erupted just weeks after the DRC’s accession to the EAC in March 2022 underlines the challenge facing regional institutions – tension between member states undermines collective action to maintain peace and security and ambitions for increased economic integration alike, and highlights the challenge created by overlaps between regional organisations. The EAC, SADC and ICGLR all have a remit and a role in finding peace and mutual prosperity, but have different memberships, perspectives and objectives – and are themselves hamstrung by internal tensions; even the EAC, the most integrated of all of Africa’s regional organisations, faces significant continued challenges over protectionism. This institutional incoherence was demonstrated by the proliferation of peace processes seeking a resolution to the M23 crisis, successive military deployments by the EAC and SADC, dilution of resources and confusion over appropriate entry-points for external support.
[1] Burundi’s 1993-2005 civil war killed an estimated 150,000 – 300,000 people. Estimates vary, but excess deaths caused by the DRC’s second war (1998-2003) could be as many as 6 million. Some 800,000 were killed during Rwanda’s genocide in 1994.
[2] UN OCHA reported 7.2 million displaced people in March 2024. https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/democratic-republic-congo/democratic-republic-congo-internally-displaced-persons-and-returnees-march-2024
[3] For a brief overview, see ‘A Dangerous Escalation in the Great Lakes’, International Crisis Group, January 2023. https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/great-lakes/democratic-republic-congo-rwanda/dangerous-escalation-great-lakes