WEBVTT 00:00:00.862 --> 00:00:03.714 I want to speak about a forgotten conflict. 00:00:03.714 --> 00:00:07.350 It's a conflict that rarely hits the headlines. 00:00:07.350 --> 00:00:11.790 It happens right here, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:11.814 --> 00:00:16.492 Now, most people outside of Africa don't know much about the war in Congo, 00:00:16.492 --> 00:00:20.291 so let me give you a couple of key facts. 00:00:20.291 --> 00:00:21.939 The Congolese conflict 00:00:21.939 --> 00:00:25.887 is the deadliest conflict since World War II. 00:00:25.887 --> 00:00:29.207 It has caused almost four million deaths. 00:00:29.207 --> 00:00:31.993 It has destabilized most of central Africa 00:00:31.993 --> 00:00:33.851 for the past 18 years. 00:00:33.851 --> 00:00:39.261 It is the largest ongoing humanitarian crisis in the world. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:39.261 --> 00:00:42.372 That's why I first went to Congo in 2001. 00:00:42.372 --> 00:00:45.298 I was a young humanitarian aid worker, 00:00:45.298 --> 00:00:47.504 and I met this woman who was my age. 00:00:47.504 --> 00:00:50.058 She was called Isabelle. 00:00:50.058 --> 00:00:54.469 Local militias had attacked Isabelle's village. 00:00:54.469 --> 00:00:57.227 They had killed many men, raped many women. 00:00:57.227 --> 00:00:59.224 They had looted everything. 00:00:59.224 --> 00:01:02.057 And then they wanted to take Isabelle, 00:01:02.057 --> 00:01:03.404 but her husband stepped in, 00:01:03.404 --> 00:01:06.422 and he said, "No, please don't take Isabelle. 00:01:06.422 --> 00:01:09.859 Take me instead." 00:01:09.859 --> 00:01:12.900 So he had gone to the forest with the militias, 00:01:12.900 --> 00:01:16.871 and Isabelle had never seen him again. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:16.871 --> 00:01:20.841 Well, it's because of people like Isabelle and her husband 00:01:20.841 --> 00:01:23.860 that I have devoted my career to studying this world 00:01:23.860 --> 00:01:26.808 that we know so little about. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:26.808 --> 00:01:31.592 Although there is one story about Congo that you may have heard. 00:01:31.592 --> 00:01:35.214 It's a story about minerals and rape. 00:01:35.214 --> 00:01:38.000 Policy statements and media reports 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:42.644 both usually focus on a primary cause of violence in Congo 00:01:42.644 --> 00:01:47.752 -- the illegal exploitation and trafficking of natural resources -- 00:01:47.752 --> 00:01:50.399 and on the main consequence 00:01:50.399 --> 00:01:55.693 -- sexual abuse of women and girls as a weapon of war. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:55.693 --> 00:02:00.639 So, not that these two issues aren't important and tragic. 00:02:00.639 --> 00:02:03.680 They are, but today, 00:02:03.680 --> 00:02:06.118 I want to tell you a different story. 00:02:06.118 --> 00:02:09.856 I want to tell you a story that emphasizes a core cause 00:02:09.856 --> 00:02:12.573 of the ongoing conflict. 00:02:12.573 --> 00:02:16.520 Violence in Congo is in large part driven 00:02:16.520 --> 00:02:19.632 by local bottom-up conflicts 00:02:19.632 --> 00:02:25.645 that international peace efforts have failed to help address. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:25.645 --> 00:02:30.568 The story starts from the fact that not only is Congo notable 00:02:30.568 --> 00:02:35.235 for being the world's worst ongoing humanitarian crisis, 00:02:35.235 --> 00:02:38.671 but it is also home to some of the largest 00:02:38.671 --> 00:02:42.572 international peacebuilding efforts in the world. 00:02:42.572 --> 00:02:44.685 Congo hosts the largest 00:02:44.685 --> 00:02:50.420 and most expensive United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world. 00:02:50.420 --> 00:02:54.739 It was also the site of the first European-led peacekeeping mission, 00:02:54.739 --> 00:02:57.293 and for its first cases ever, 00:02:57.293 --> 00:02:59.615 the International Criminal Court 00:02:59.615 --> 00:03:03.771 chose to prosecute Congolese warlords. 00:03:03.771 --> 00:03:08.670 In 2006, when Congo held the first free national elections 00:03:08.670 --> 00:03:10.365 in its history, 00:03:10.365 --> 00:03:14.034 many observers thought that an end to violence in the region 00:03:14.034 --> 00:03:16.425 had finally come. 00:03:16.425 --> 00:03:18.051 The international community 00:03:18.051 --> 00:03:22.300 lauded the successful organization of these elections 00:03:22.300 --> 00:03:26.967 as finally an example of successful international intervention 00:03:26.967 --> 00:03:29.335 in a failed state. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:29.335 --> 00:03:31.123 But the eastern provinces 00:03:31.123 --> 00:03:34.490 have continued to face massive population displacements 00:03:34.490 --> 00:03:37.833 and horrific human rights violations. 00:03:37.833 --> 00:03:40.318 Shortly before I went back there last summer, 00:03:40.318 --> 00:03:42.709 there was a horrible massacre 00:03:42.709 --> 00:03:45.217 in the province of South Kivu. 00:03:45.217 --> 00:03:47.585 Thirty-three people were killed. 00:03:47.585 --> 00:03:49.977 They were mostly women and children, 00:03:49.977 --> 00:03:53.436 and many of them were hacked to death. 00:03:53.436 --> 00:03:56.269 During the past eight years, 00:03:56.269 --> 00:04:00.007 fighting in the eastern provinces has regularly reignited 00:04:00.007 --> 00:04:03.444 full-scale civil and international war. 00:04:03.444 --> 00:04:07.995 So basically, every time we feel that we are on the brink of peace, 00:04:07.995 --> 00:04:10.897 the conflict explodes again. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:10.897 --> 00:04:12.615 Why? 00:04:12.615 --> 00:04:15.587 Why have the massive international efforts 00:04:15.587 --> 00:04:19.186 failed to help Congo achieve lasting peace 00:04:19.186 --> 00:04:22.391 and security? 00:04:22.391 --> 00:04:25.014 Well, my answer to this question 00:04:25.014 --> 00:04:29.287 revolves around two central observations. 00:04:29.287 --> 00:04:35.347 First, one of the main reasons for the continuation of violence in Congo 00:04:35.347 --> 00:04:38.365 is fundamentally local, 00:04:38.365 --> 00:04:39.782 and when I say local, 00:04:39.782 --> 00:04:42.823 I really mean at the level of the individual, the family, 00:04:42.823 --> 00:04:47.072 the clan, the municipality, the community, the district, 00:04:47.072 --> 00:04:49.951 sometimes the ethnic group. 00:04:49.951 --> 00:04:54.479 For instance, you remember the story of Isabelle that I told you. 00:04:54.479 --> 00:04:59.123 Well, the reason why militias had attacked Isabelle's village 00:04:59.123 --> 00:05:01.793 was because they wanted to take the land 00:05:01.793 --> 00:05:06.878 that the villagers needed to cultivate food and to survive. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:06.878 --> 00:05:11.708 The second central observation is that international peace efforts 00:05:11.708 --> 00:05:15.492 have failed to help address local conflicts 00:05:15.492 --> 00:05:20.601 because of the presence of a dominant peacebuilding culture. 00:05:20.601 --> 00:05:23.967 So what I mean is that 00:05:23.967 --> 00:05:26.150 Western and African diplomats, 00:05:26.150 --> 00:05:29.377 United Nations peacekeepers, donors, 00:05:29.377 --> 00:05:32.001 the staff of most nongovernmental organizations 00:05:32.001 --> 00:05:34.787 that work with the resolution of conflict, 00:05:34.787 --> 00:05:37.295 they all share a specific way 00:05:37.295 --> 00:05:39.594 of seeing the world. 00:05:39.594 --> 00:05:43.611 And I was one of these people, and I shared this culture, 00:05:43.611 --> 00:05:47.813 so I know all too well how powerful it is. 00:05:47.813 --> 00:05:51.482 Throughout the world, and throughout conflict zones, 00:05:51.482 --> 00:05:55.290 this common culture shapes the intervener's understanding 00:05:55.290 --> 00:05:57.774 of the causes of violence 00:05:57.774 --> 00:06:00.357 as something that is primarily located 00:06:00.357 --> 00:06:04.513 in the national and international spheres. 00:06:04.513 --> 00:06:08.298 It shapes our understanding of the path to world peace 00:06:08.298 --> 00:06:12.106 as something again that requires top down intervention 00:06:12.106 --> 00:06:16.099 to address national and international tensions. 00:06:16.099 --> 00:06:19.838 And it shapes our understanding of the roles of foreign actors 00:06:19.838 --> 00:06:25.619 as engaging in national and international peace processes. 00:06:25.619 --> 00:06:29.334 Even more importantly, this common culture 00:06:29.334 --> 00:06:32.144 enables international peacebuilders 00:06:32.144 --> 00:06:35.557 to ignore the micro-level tensions 00:06:35.557 --> 00:06:40.410 that often jeopardize the macro-level settlements. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:40.410 --> 00:06:42.941 So for instance, in Congo, 00:06:42.941 --> 00:06:46.795 because of how they are socialized and trained, 00:06:46.795 --> 00:06:49.651 United Nations officials, donors, diplomats, 00:06:49.651 --> 00:06:52.600 the staff of most nongovernmental organizations, 00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:59.240 they interpret continued fighting and massacres as a top-down problem. 00:06:59.240 --> 00:07:01.864 To them, the violence they see 00:07:01.864 --> 00:07:06.554 is the consequence of tensions between President Kabila 00:07:06.554 --> 00:07:09.224 and various national opponents, 00:07:09.224 --> 00:07:14.217 and tensions between Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda. 00:07:14.217 --> 00:07:17.978 In addition, these international peacebuilders 00:07:17.978 --> 00:07:20.509 view local conflicts 00:07:20.509 --> 00:07:26.081 as simply the result of national and international tensions, 00:07:26.081 --> 00:07:28.496 insufficient state authority, 00:07:28.496 --> 00:07:31.840 and what they call the Congolese people's 00:07:31.840 --> 00:07:35.764 so-called "inherent penchant for violence." NOTE Paragraph 00:07:35.764 --> 00:07:39.316 The dominant culture also constructs intervention 00:07:39.316 --> 00:07:42.149 at the national and international levels 00:07:42.149 --> 00:07:45.702 as the only natural and legitimate task 00:07:45.702 --> 00:07:49.649 for United Nations staffers and diplomats. 00:07:49.649 --> 00:07:51.971 And it elevates the organization 00:07:51.971 --> 00:07:54.037 of general elections, 00:07:54.037 --> 00:07:56.057 which is now a sort of cure-all, 00:07:56.057 --> 00:07:59.981 as the most crucial state reconstruction mechanisms 00:07:59.981 --> 00:08:03.116 over more effective state-building approaches. 00:08:03.116 --> 00:08:05.113 And that happens not only in Congo 00:08:05.113 --> 00:08:09.176 but also in many other conflict zones. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:09.176 --> 00:08:11.753 But let's dig deeper, 00:08:11.753 --> 00:08:15.283 into the other main sources of violence. 00:08:15.283 --> 00:08:18.092 In Congo, continuing violence 00:08:18.092 --> 00:08:22.875 is motivated not only by the national and international causes 00:08:22.875 --> 00:08:27.542 but also by longstanding bottom-up agendas 00:08:27.542 --> 00:08:31.373 whose main instigators are villagers, traditional chiefs, 00:08:31.373 --> 00:08:34.601 community chiefs, or ethnic leaders. 00:08:34.601 --> 00:08:40.406 Many conflicts revolve around political, social, and economic stakes 00:08:40.406 --> 00:08:43.354 that are distinctively local. 00:08:43.354 --> 00:08:46.210 For instance, there is a lot of competition 00:08:46.210 --> 00:08:48.718 at the village or district level 00:08:48.718 --> 00:08:52.294 over who can be chief of village or chief of territory 00:08:52.294 --> 00:08:54.848 according to traditional law, 00:08:54.848 --> 00:08:58.006 and who can control the distribution of land 00:08:58.006 --> 00:09:01.465 and the exploitation of local mining sites. 00:09:01.465 --> 00:09:05.436 This competition often results in localized fighting, 00:09:05.436 --> 00:09:09.220 for instance in one village or territory, 00:09:09.220 --> 00:09:13.423 and quite frequently, it escalates into generalized fighting, 00:09:13.423 --> 00:09:15.292 so across a whole province, 00:09:15.292 --> 00:09:19.031 and even at times into neighboring countries. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:19.031 --> 00:09:21.608 Take the conflict 00:09:21.608 --> 00:09:23.698 between Congolese of Rwandan descent 00:09:23.698 --> 00:09:26.879 and the so-called indigenous communities 00:09:26.879 --> 00:09:29.084 of the Kivus. 00:09:29.084 --> 00:09:34.425 This conflict started in the 1930s during Belgian colonization, 00:09:34.425 --> 00:09:36.668 when both communities competed 00:09:36.668 --> 00:09:39.547 over access to land and to local power. 00:09:39.547 --> 00:09:43.007 Then, in 1960, after Congolese independence, 00:09:43.007 --> 00:09:45.932 it escalated because each camp 00:09:45.932 --> 00:09:48.928 tried to align with national politicians 00:09:48.928 --> 00:09:52.782 but still to address their local agendas. 00:09:52.782 --> 00:09:57.240 And then, at the time of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, 00:09:57.240 --> 00:10:03.509 these local actors allied with Congolese and Rwandan armed groups, 00:10:03.509 --> 00:10:08.849 but still to advance their local agendas in the province of the Kivus. 00:10:08.849 --> 00:10:14.283 And since then, these local disputes over land and local power 00:10:14.283 --> 00:10:16.163 have fueled violence, 00:10:16.163 --> 00:10:18.509 and they have regularly jeopardized 00:10:18.509 --> 00:10:23.872 the national and international settlements. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:23.872 --> 00:10:27.657 So we can wonder why in these circumstances 00:10:27.657 --> 00:10:29.979 the international peacebuilders have failed to help implement 00:10:29.979 --> 00:10:35.017 local peacebuilding programs. 00:10:35.017 --> 00:10:40.543 And the answer is that international interveners 00:10:40.543 --> 00:10:44.026 deem the resolution of grassroots conflict 00:10:44.026 --> 00:10:50.110 an unimportant, unfamiliar, and illegitimate task. 00:10:50.110 --> 00:10:54.939 The very idea of becoming involved at the local level clashes fundamentally 00:10:54.939 --> 00:10:58.677 with existing cultural norms, 00:10:58.677 --> 00:11:02.810 and it threatens key organizational interests. 00:11:02.810 --> 00:11:06.997 For instance, the very identity of the United Nations 00:11:06.997 --> 00:11:10.503 as this macro-level diplomatic organization 00:11:10.503 --> 00:11:12.941 would be upended 00:11:12.941 --> 00:11:16.447 if it were to refocus on local conflicts. 00:11:16.447 --> 00:11:21.996 And the result is that neither the internal resistance 00:11:21.996 --> 00:11:24.573 to the dominant ways of working 00:11:24.573 --> 00:11:26.826 nor the external shocks 00:11:26.826 --> 00:11:29.658 have managed to convince international actors 00:11:29.658 --> 00:11:32.398 that they should reevaluate their understanding 00:11:32.398 --> 00:11:36.020 of violence and intervention. 00:11:36.020 --> 00:11:39.573 And so far, there have been only very few exceptions. 00:11:39.573 --> 00:11:43.056 There have been exceptions, but only very few exceptions 00:11:43.056 --> 00:11:46.214 to this broad pattern. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:46.214 --> 00:11:49.696 So to wrap up, the story I just told you 00:11:49.696 --> 00:11:54.735 is a story about how a dominant peacebuilding culture 00:11:54.735 --> 00:11:56.732 shapes the intervener's understanding 00:11:56.732 --> 00:11:59.611 of what the causes of violence are, 00:11:59.611 --> 00:12:01.283 how peace is made, 00:12:01.283 --> 00:12:04.905 and what interventions should accomplish. 00:12:04.905 --> 00:12:08.504 These understandings enable international peacebuilders 00:12:08.504 --> 00:12:11.662 to ignore the micro-level foundations 00:12:11.662 --> 00:12:16.421 that are so necessary for sustainable peace. 00:12:16.421 --> 00:12:19.254 The resulting inattention to local conflicts 00:12:19.254 --> 00:12:23.062 leads to inadequate peacebuilding in the short term 00:12:23.062 --> 00:12:27.358 and potential war resumption in the long term. 00:12:27.358 --> 00:12:30.214 And what's fascinating is that this analysis 00:12:30.214 --> 00:12:34.834 helps us to better understand many cases of lasting conflict 00:12:34.834 --> 00:12:39.803 and international intervention failures, in Africa and elsewhere. 00:12:39.803 --> 00:12:45.074 Local conflicts fuel violence in most war and post-war environments, 00:12:45.074 --> 00:12:48.905 from Afghanistan to Sudan to Timor-Leste, 00:12:48.905 --> 00:12:52.806 and in the rare cases where there have been comprehensive, 00:12:52.806 --> 00:12:55.453 bottom-up peacebuilding initiatives, 00:12:55.453 --> 00:13:01.257 these attempts have been successful at making peace sustainable. 00:13:01.257 --> 00:13:03.997 One of the best examples is the contrast 00:13:03.997 --> 00:13:08.548 between the relatively peaceful situation in Somaliland, 00:13:08.548 --> 00:13:13.378 which benefited from sustained grassroots peacebuilding initiatives, 00:13:13.378 --> 00:13:17.766 and the violence prevalent in the rest of Somalia, 00:13:17.766 --> 00:13:21.295 where peacebuilding has been mostly top-down. 00:13:21.295 --> 00:13:23.246 And there are several other cases 00:13:23.246 --> 00:13:26.961 in which local, grassroots conflict resolution 00:13:26.961 --> 00:13:30.420 has made a crucial difference. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:30.420 --> 00:13:34.182 So if we want international peacebuilding to work, 00:13:34.182 --> 00:13:37.874 in addition to any top-down intervention, 00:13:37.874 --> 00:13:41.635 conflicts must be resolved from the bottom up. 00:13:41.635 --> 00:13:46.627 And again, it's not that national and international tensions don't matter. 00:13:46.627 --> 00:13:48.253 They do. 00:13:48.253 --> 00:13:51.155 And it's not that national and international peacepbuilding 00:13:51.155 --> 00:13:52.757 isn't necessary. 00:13:52.757 --> 00:13:54.150 It is. 00:13:54.150 --> 00:14:01.255 Instead, it is that both macro-level and micro-level peacebuilding are needed 00:14:01.255 --> 00:14:03.972 to make peace sustainable, 00:14:03.972 --> 00:14:06.363 and local nongovernmental organizations, 00:14:06.363 --> 00:14:09.312 local authorities, and civil society representatives 00:14:09.312 --> 00:14:11.402 should be the main actors 00:14:11.402 --> 00:14:14.026 in the bottom-up process. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:14.026 --> 00:14:16.371 So of course, there are obstacles. 00:14:16.371 --> 00:14:18.786 Local actors often lack the funding 00:14:18.786 --> 00:14:22.663 and sometimes the logistical means and the technical capacity 00:14:22.663 --> 00:14:27.307 to implement effective, local peacebuilding programs. 00:14:27.307 --> 00:14:32.253 So international actors should expand their funding and support 00:14:32.253 --> 00:14:36.200 for local conflict resolution. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:36.200 --> 00:14:39.056 As for Congo, what can be done? 00:14:39.056 --> 00:14:40.890 After two decades of conflict 00:14:40.890 --> 00:14:43.073 and the deaths of millions, 00:14:43.073 --> 00:14:46.695 it's clear that we need to change our approach. 00:14:46.695 --> 00:14:49.853 Based on my field research, I believe that international 00:14:49.853 --> 00:14:51.733 and Congolese actors 00:14:51.733 --> 00:14:55.379 should pay more attention to the resolution of land conflict 00:14:55.379 --> 00:15:00.069 and the promotion of inter-community reconciliation. 00:15:00.069 --> 00:15:02.321 So for instance, in the province of the Kivus, 00:15:02.321 --> 00:15:06.059 the Life & Peace Institute and its Congolese partners 00:15:06.059 --> 00:15:09.124 have set up inter-community forums 00:15:09.124 --> 00:15:13.606 to discuss the specifics of local conflicts over land, 00:15:13.606 --> 00:15:15.951 and these forums have found solutions 00:15:15.951 --> 00:15:18.551 to help manage the violence. 00:15:18.551 --> 00:15:22.290 That's the kind of program that is sorely needed 00:15:22.290 --> 00:15:25.517 throughout eastern Congo. 00:15:25.517 --> 00:15:27.235 It's with programs like this 00:15:27.235 --> 00:15:31.925 that we can help people like Isabelle and her husband. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:31.925 --> 00:15:34.828 So these will not be magic wands, 00:15:34.828 --> 00:15:40.516 but because they take into account deeply rooted causes of the violence, 00:15:40.516 --> 00:15:43.280 they could definitely be game-changers. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:43.280 --> 00:15:45.764 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:45.764 --> 00:15:48.736 (Applause)