The Bureau d’Études, de Recherches, et Consulting International (BERCI) and the Congo Research Group (CRG) at New York University conducted a nationally representative political opinion poll across the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Between May and September 2016, researchers interviewed 7,545 people in face-to-face interviews. Some of our main findings are:
Congo Research Group (CRG) is an independent, non-profit research project dedicated to understanding the violence that affects millions of Congolese. It carries out rigorous research on different aspects of the conflict. Its first report, for example, investigated who is behind a series of massacres in the Beni region, while others reports look at links between elections and conflict, and at armed groups in the Kivus region. All of its research is informed by deep historical and social knowledge of the problem at hand, and it often invests months of field research, speaking with hundreds of people to produce a report. Based at CIC, the CRG publishes in English and French.
Four months before the end of the mandate of President Joseph Kabila, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is on the edge of a deep political crisis. The government has created multiple artificial delays in the electoral process, making it impossible to respect the constitution and hold fair and transparent elections before the end of the year. Furthermore, the Constitutional Court has issued a controversial interpretation of the constitution that authorizes President Kabila to remain in power until his successor is elected.
DR Congo president Joseph Kabila may remain in power past his constitutionally mandated two-term limit if the December election is delayed, say Jason Stearns of the Congo Research Group and Kambale Musavuli of Friends of the Congo. The full video and transcript are available below.
The Center on International Cooperation is deeply concerned by the expulsion of Jason Stearns from the Democratic Republic of Congo on April 7, 2016.
The official reason for the expulsion by the Congolese authorities was the “undesirability” of Mr. Stearns, the director of CIC’s Congo Research Group (CRG). They also referred to the recent report by CRG on the massacres around Beni.
Since October 2014, the region around the town of Beni in north eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has been the site of some of the worst massacres in the country’s recent history. Over five hundred people have been killed and tens of thousands have fled their homes. The UN mission and the Congolese government have publicly stated that the massacres are the work of Ugandan rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
The International Criminal Court found Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former rebel leader and presidential candidate in the Democratic Republic of Congo, guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
“The chamber finds that Bemba is criminally responsible for murder, rape, pillage and war crimes” in the Central African Republic in 2002 and 2003, Judge Sylvia Steiner said in a ruling read at The Hague-based court on Monday. Bemba had faced two counts of crimes against humanity and three counts of war crimes related to murder, rape and pillaging committed by his troops in the country.
Members of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s army have been involved in attacks on civilians in the country’s northeast that have left more than 500 people dead since 2014, the Congo Research Group said.
Congo’s government and the United Nations previously blamed the assaults on the Allied Democratic Forces, an insurgent group originally based in Uganda that has operated along Congo’s border since the late 1990’s.
A pro-democracy group in the Democratic Republic of Congo said it will lead a protest Tuesday to demand the release of two youth activists who’ve been held in prison for 12 months awaiting sentencing.
Nineteen years after the beginning of the Congo wars, armed conflict still affects millions in the east of the country. This essay by CRG director Jason Stearns and our senior fellow Christoph Vogel accompanies a map of armed groups, compiled by researchers across North and South Kivu, in which we catalogue over seventy groups. This is far from a static picture, and we highlight key shifts that have emerged over the past two years: a decline of regional involvement, a fragmentation of armed groups, and a modest drop in the political manipulation of armed groups.
Report: The Perilous Election Battle
Four months before the end of the mandate of President Joseph Kabila, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is on the edge of a deep political crisis. The government has created multiple artificial delays in the electoral process, making it impossible to respect the constitution and hold fair and transparent elections before the end of the year. Furthermore, the Constitutional Court has issued a controversial interpretation of the constitution that authorizes President Kabila to remain in power until his successor is elected.