Abstract
The ongoing crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is known as one of the worst since World War II because of the number of deaths that have occurred and are still occurring. Since 1998, an estimated 5.4 million people have died (International-Rescue-Committee. Mortality in the democratic republic of the Congo: an ongoing crisis. http://www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/resource-file/2006-7_congoMortalitySurvey.pdf, http://www.rescue.org/sites/default/files/resource-file/2006-7_congoMortalitySurvey.pdf, 2007). As of April 2010, at least 1.8 million people were displaced, a displacement which constituted the fourth largest in the world. 1.4 million of these were displaced in the provinces of North and South Kivu in Eastern DRC, an area that borders Rwanda (HRW. Always on the run: the vicious cycle of displacement in Eastern Congo, September. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2010/09/14/always-run-0, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2010/09/14/always-run-0, 2010). The time has come to understand the factors underneath the chaos to enable us to address the root causes of conflict effectively. This paper seeks to investigate the deeper systemic issues that affect or sustain conflict by focusing on the collective identity and relationship to the land of one specific group, the Banyamulenge of South Kivu.
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Notes
- 1.
Collective identity in this study will entail ethnic, religious, racial and cultural identities.
- 2.
Twa is another group in Rwanda and Burundi (Newbury 2009).
- 3.
There was also an extensive Tutsi diaspora in Uganda and Tanzania (Mamdani 2002).
- 4.
There were other Tutsis who tried to claim place-based identities in different regions, for example the Banya-tulamo and Banya-minembwe. Like the Banyamulenge, they moved into areas and attempted to entrench their identity to the land to be seen as indigenous. See Mamdani (2002).
- 5.
The language that has been used in the Congo since 1996 depicts Rwandophones in derogatory terms, calling them anything from vermin, insects or cockroaches. See Jackson (2006).
- 6.
Haut Conseil de la RÕpublique/High Command of the Republic – transition parliament in Zaÿre.
- 7.
Alliance des Forces DÕmocratiques pour la LibÕration.
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Saibel, P.Y. (2014). Land and Identity in Africa: A Case Study of the Banyamulenge of the Eastern Drc. In: Asuelime, L., Yaro, J., Francis, S. (eds) Selected Themes in African Development Studies. Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06022-4_4
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