Responding to Foreign Insurgencies in the Eastern DRC

Abstract

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been facing armed conflicts for the past two decades. It has fought national insurgencies, as well as foreign organised armed groups. This paper focuses on the latter. With a particular emphasis on the responsibility to protect civilians and the accountability of foreign organised armed groups, this paper suggests summarising the history of each of these movements and appraising the responses from the international and regional organisations, as well as from states. The paper aims at highlighting the preoccupying effects of foreign organised armed groups in the east of the DRC because the attention of the countries and the international community seems more focused on armed confrontation between the Congolese army and the domestic insurgents. First, it overviews the foreign armed groups in the DRC, and second, it assesses different responses to their activity on the Congolese territory.