From war to peace in the DRC RESEARCH NOTES

Refugees International finds problems associated with the "material support" clause of the PATRIOT and ID Acts, primarily in relation to refugees from Colombia, Burma and Malaysia. As RI points out, refugees also have to be re-integrated when they finally return home. RI also critiques DDR in Afghanistan.

The arrest of Thomas Lubanga was reported by Reuters and the story was repeated in the March 20-24 issue of the Global Policy Forum newsletter.

Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR)


"Freetown Conference urges improvements in disarmament, demobilization, reintegration programmes in Africa," ReliefWeb, June 23, 2005.

"Warlord Management in Afghanistan," Strategy Page, March 9, 2006.

"In the balance: Measuring progress in Afghanistan," Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 2005.

"Colombia: Demobilizations legitimize paramilitary power," Human Rights Watch, August 1, 2005. were also useful for the DDR emphasis of this report.

Aldo Pigoli's analysis of elections in the DRC goes beyond the failure of its DDR program. He concludes that "DRC may be too large of a territory to be considered a single political and administrative unit."

Al Jazeera proves its mettle over and over with stories that no one else gets. The one about the Congolese soldiers who starved to death while they were being trained to reintegrate into the government's army is one of those.

The UN study of gender perspectives has a good bibliography without links and lots of good questions to ask. The UN also has a DDR Resource Centre. Another major international effort is the Stockholm Initiative on DDR.

DDR in Afghanistan is called Afghanistan's New Beginnings Program (ANBP).

Massimo Fusato's essay for Beyond Intractability (July 2003) also has an extensive annotated bibliography with some links.

Véronique Aubert's report from North Kivu is described in "Democratic Republic of Congo: Alarming resurgence in recruitment of children in North-Kivu," Amnesty International, March 31, 2006.Recommend this Post

Sphere: Related Content