Im Kongo findet einer der größten Blauhelmeinsätze der UN statt. Seit 1996 ringen dort die Armeen mehrerer afrikanischer Länder und Dutzende bewaffnete Gruppen um die Macht. Am Beispiel des Distrikts Ituri untersucht Alex Veit die Mikropolitik von Krieg und humanitärer Intervention. Er zeigt, warum die historisch gewachsene Machtstruktur von den internationalen Helfern, trotz ihrer reformerischen Absichten, nicht überwunden werden kann.

Alex Veit forscht am Institut für interdisziplinäre Konflikt- und Gewaltforschung der Universität Bielefeld.

Content

Acknowledgements11
Introduction14
Intermediary Rule and International Intervention 16 * Armed Groups and Liberal Statebuilding 19 * Conflict and Intervention in a Local Space: The Case of Ituri 23 * An Approach of Figurational Sociology 27

I. Refiguration: International Politics and Societies-at-War37
Discourse and Practice of Intervention 38 * Democracy without Demos 42 * The Legitimacy of Violence 48 * The International Community and its Other 50

II. Intervention and Invention: The Establishment of Indirect Rule53
Only Cattle, Clans and Clients? Ituri's Pre-colonial Past 56 * The Creation of Inter-mediaries: Colonial Rule 67 * De-Structured Domination: In the Post-colony 82 * Ituri's Trajectory in the 20th Century 102

III. New Chiefs in the Far West? Armed Groups in Ituri's Civil War105
Armed Groups as Figurations 107 * Ituri's Armed Groups in the Congo Wars 110 * Unwieldy Intermediaries: The UPDF and its Partners 120 * The New Chiefs? Armed Groups' Leadership 125 * Pressures and Choices: Armed Groups' Membership 136 * The Power of Armed Groups 143

IV. Figuration of Uncertainty: International Challenge to Local Militias 146
Intervention Effect: A New Gaze on National Politics 149 * Basic Legitimacy by Force: Operation Artemis 151 * The New Hegemon? Monuc in Ituri 155 * No Gun, No Voice: Ex-Combatants as Civil Society Organisation 163 * Matryoshka Rebels: Playing Hide and Seek with Monuc 169 * The Perils of Uncertainty 182

V. The Uneasy Community: International Agencies on the Ground187
"Monuc Has No Intelligence" 193 * Ituri's International Community 199 * Jumble in the Jungle 203 * A Society of Organizations 207

VI. Statebuilding and Intermediary Rule209
Local Institutions and International Intervention 210 * The "Unhappy Marriage": Monuc and FARDC 220 * Indirect Rule and 21st Century Statebuilding 236

VII. Conclusion: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? Intervention, Rebels,
and Rulers239
Continuity and Modifications of Indirect Rule in Ituri 240 * Exception and Rule: Comparing Ituri 249 * Colonialism Re-invented? 253
Appendix257

Maps 259 * Abbreviations 263 * Interviews 266 * Bibliography 269 * Index 290