This report analyses the history and causes of the escalation of violence on the Hauts Plateaux, a mountainous area located in South Kivu Province, eastern Congo. It argues that this violence can be ascribed to four mechanisms.
The first is discourses of ‘ethnic conflict’ and ‘autochthony’. Yet the tendency to see all violence as linked to ethnicity is problematic as it obscures other drivers of conflict and violence and leads to attributing collective responsibility, revenge violence and the blurring of boundaries between armed groups and civilians. The second mechanism is the security dilemma. In part due the perceived partiality of the Congolese army, the presence of armed groups considered ‘ethnic’ prompts counter-mobilization. The third mechanism is militarization, or the tendency of local, national and regional politico-military elites to resort to force to win disputes. The fourth mechanism is the multilayered nature of dynamics of conflict and violence, as local, provincial, national and regional developments alike shape the crisis on the Plateaux.
Stemming the violence requires addressing all four mechanisms. However, stabilization initiatives neither account for militarization nor the multiplicity of drivers for conflict and violence. To tackle the crisis, interventions need to acknowledge the role of political-military elites at all levels, including national and regional dynamics
