Transnational Ethnic Alliances and Armed Conflicts in the DRC: Focus on the M23 Rebellion (2012-2023)

Abstract

The thesis investigates the protracted and transnational nature of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, focusing on the March 23 rebellion from 2012 to 2023. Using the collective action analytical framework that helps to understand why people participate in violent collective actions as has been happening in Congo since the 1990s, the analysis goes beyond the prevailing academic narrative that emphasizes economic factors and proxy explanations for the conflict by highlighting the role of ideology and discursive practices promoting division and perpetuating ethnic division in Congo and the Great Lakes Region. The central argument of this thesis is that the spreading of the Hamitic ideology that labels Tutsi from the Great Lakes Region of Africa as foreigners and invaders is at the root of the protracted conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Three factors linked to the socio-political environment and conditions shaped the possibility and political opportunities of the emergence of the M23 and its predecessors. Notably,(1) ) the increasing use of the Hamitic ideological discourse as a framing strategy to spreading anti-Tutsi sentiments in the region; (2) the threat provoked by the presence in Congo of Rwandan Hutu extremists perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda—later called the FDLR who continued their project of eliminating Tutsis ; (3) combined with the continued marginalization and the lack of will on the side of the Congolese government to implement different peace agreements and a real unification of the country increased the belief within Congolese Tutsi that their interests could be defended only through armed rebellion.