The Second Congo War (1998-2003) involved armies from seven African nations. The peace process that terminated the war and the involvement of most of the foreign states failed to end foreign-sponsored insurgencies and the involvement of Rwanda and Uganda in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
Despite these limitations, the case suggests that a multi-pronged approach, which covers the proximate states at the regional level as well as the domestic belligerents at the national level, may be a viable strategy to achieve a settlement in regionalized intrastate conflicts.
This case study explores how the regionalization of the DRC conflict affected, and was addressed by, international mediation. More specifically, it examines the mediation efforts that were undertaken by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) AU / African Union (AU), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the United Nations (UN) between the outbreak of the Second War in
1998 and the 2006 elections that concluded the transition to democracy.
The Mediation in Regionalized Intra-State Conflict project focuses on international mediation in intra-state conflicts that have significant regional conflict dimensions. The problem of conflict regionalization arises most acutely where neighboring states provide military support to domestic conflict parties and may even be involved in hostilities. These dynamics constitute a worrying trend because they tend to make the conflicts more protracted and less amenable to resolution through mediation.
The project is led by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.