Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe

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Oxford University Press, Dec 31, 2008 - Political Science - 576 pages
The Rwandan genocide sparked a horrific bloodbath that swept across sub-Saharan Africa, ultimately leading to the deaths of some four million people. In this extraordinary history of the recent wars in Central Africa, Gerard Prunier offers a gripping account of how one grisly episode laid the groundwork for a sweeping and disastrous upheaval. Prunier vividly describes the grisly aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, when some two million refugees--a third of Rwanda's population--fled to exile in Zaire in 1996. The new Rwandan regime then crossed into Zaire and attacked the refugees, slaughtering upwards of 400,000 people. The Rwandan forces then turned on Zaire's despotic President Mobutu and, with the help of a number of allied African countries, overthrew him. But as Prunier shows, the collapse of the Mobutu regime and the ascension of the corrupt and erratic Laurent-Désiré Kabila created a power vacuum that drew Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and other African nations into an extended and chaotic war. The heart of the book documents how the whole core of the African continent became engulfed in an intractible and bloody conflict after 1998, a devastating war that only wound down following the assassination of Kabila in 2001. Prunier not only captures all this in his riveting narrative, but he also indicts the international community for its utter lack of interest in what was then the largest conflict in the world. Praise for the hardcover: "The most ambitious of several remarkable new books that reexamine the extraordinary tragedy of Congo and Central Africa since the Rwandan genocide of 1994." --New York Review of Books "One of the first books to lay bare the complex dynamic between Rwanda and Congo that has been driving this disaster." --Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times Book Review "Lucid, meticulously researched and incisive, Prunier's will likely become the standard account of this under-reported tragedy." --Publishers Weekly
 

Contents

1 Rwandas mixed season of hope July 1994April 1995
1
2 From Kibeho to the attack on Zaire April 1995October 1996
37
3 The congo basin its interlopers and its onlookers
73
4 Winning a virtual war September 1996May 1997
113
5 Losing the real peace May 1997August 1998
149
6 A continental war August 1998August 1999
181
7 Sinking into the quagmire August 1999January 2001
227
the wars confused ending January 2001December 2002
257
Congolese transition and conflict deconstruction January 2003July 2007
285
the Congolese conflict and the crisis of contemporary Africa
329
Seth Sendashongas Murder
365
Notes
369
Bibliography
469
Index
515
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About the author (2008)

Gerard Prunier is a widely acclaimed journalist as well as Director of the French Centre for Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa. He has published over 120 articles and five books, including The Rwanda Crisis and Darfur.

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