The Trouble with the Congo suggests a new explanation for international peacebuilding failures in civil wars. Drawing from more than 330 interviews and a year and a half of field research, it develops a case study of the international intervention during the Democratic Republic of the Congo's unsuccessful transition from war to peace and democracy (2003-2006). Grassroots rivalries over land, resources, and political power motivated widespread violence. However, a dominant peacebuilding culture shaped the intervention strategy in a way that precluded action on local conflicts, ultimately dooming the international efforts to end the deadliest conflict since World War II. Most international actors interpreted continued fighting as the consequence of national and regional tensions alone. UN staff and diplomats viewed intervention at the macro levels as their only legitimate responsibility. The dominant culture constructed local peacebuilding as such an unimportant, unfamiliar, and unmanageable task that neither shocking events nor resistance from select individuals could convince international actors to reevaluate their understanding of violence and intervention.

First published in 1998, Peacekeeping in Africa was written to help make up the shortfall in the number of books that concentrated specifically on peacekeeping in Africa. The book covers the main peacekeeping operations of Africa, and provides a wealth of background material. In doing so, it explores the policies and actions of the international organisations concerned and the participating African states. It also considers the impact of sub-regional powers and the role of the USA, Britain, and France. Comprising three parts, Peacekeeping in Africa examines world perspectives, case studies, and wider issues surrounding Africa’s peacekeeping operations.

In 1960 the Republic of Congo teetered near collapse as its first government struggled to cope with civil unrest and mutinous armed forces. When the UN established a peacekeeping operation to deal with the crisis, the Canadian government faced a difficult decision. Should it support the intervention? By offering one of the first detailed accounts of Canadian involvement in a UN peacekeeping mission, Kevin Spooner reveals that Canada’s involvement was not a certainty: the Diefenbaker government had immediate and ongoing reservations about the mission, reservations that challenge cherished notions of Canada’s commitment to the UN and its status as a peacekeeper.

To the sound of machine gun fire and the smell of burning flesh, award-winning author In Koli Jean Bofane leads readers on a perilous, satirical journey through the civil conflict and political instability that have been the logical outcome of generations of rapacious multinational corporate activity, corrupt governance, widespread civil conflict, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation in Africa. Isookanga, a Congolese Pygmy, grows up in a small village with big dreams of becoming rich. His vision of the world is shaped by his exploits in Raging Trade, an online game where he seizes control of the world's natural resources by any means possible: high-tech weaponry, slavery, and even genocide. Isookanga leaves his sleepy village to make his fortune in the pulsating capital Kinshasa, where he joins forces with street children, warlords, and a Chinese victim of globalization in this blistering novel about capitalism, colonialism, and the world haunted by the ghosts of Bismarck and Leopold II. Told with just enough levity to make it truly heartbreaking, Congo Inc. is a searing tale about ecological, political, and economic failure.

Now available in paperback! In 1961, Irish UN peacekeepers went into combat in the Congolese province of Katanga. It was the Irish Defense Forces' first experience of active service since 1923. Irish diplomat Conor Cruise O'Brien headed the UN mission in Katanga. Former chief of staff of the defense forces, Lt.Gen. Sean MacEoin, was in overall command of UN troops in the Congo. When Irish units suffered casualties and men were taken prisoner as the fighting in Katanga continued, the crisis facing Taoiseach Sean Lemass became the most delicate and dangerous chapter in Ireland's foreign relations since 1945. Based on a first-hand account of the fighting by an Irish cavalry officer, previously unseen UN archives, and the papers of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold, this book covers 18 critical months, from July 1960 to December 1961, which almost tore the UN apart and which brought the realities of UN membership to Ireland. This book is an Irish diplomatic and military perspective on a defining moment in the history of the United Nations, the Cold War, and modern Africa. Author Commandant (ret.) Art Magennis served with the Irish Defence Forces from 1940 to 1979. He undertook two tours of duty in Congo and was second-in-command of the 35th Battalion's Armoured Car Group in Elisabethville, Katanga, in 1961. [Subject: History, Military History, United Nations, Irish Studies, African Studies]

Deep inside the jungles of Congo, Samir, on his peacekeeping mission, comes face to face with all the incredible challenges Africa has to offer. Cloaked in a cover of uncertainty, his only hope for surviving the mayhem of the brutal cannibals, gun-trotting child soldiers and the bloodthirsty belligerent rebels is his wit which he finds challenged every single day. As he lives through his ordeal, Africa surfaces to life with all her magnificence, seduction, gloom and gore from the pages of the books he read back home. Death hovers over his head like a cloud yet he is awed by the beauty of Africa, humored by the non-congruity of life and excited about his job of bringing peace in the war ravaged country.

Full of politics, heart, and the sort of suspense that nobody in the world does better, The Mission Song turns John Le Carre's laser eye for the complexity of the modern world on turmoil and conspiracy in Africa. Abandoned by both his Irish father and Congolese mother, Bruno Salvador has long looked for someone to guide his life. He has found it in Mr. Anderson of British Intelligence. Bruno's African upbringing, and fluency in numerous African languages, has made him a top interpreter in London, useful to businesses, hospitals, diplomats -- and spies. Working for Anderson in a clandestine facility known as the "Chat Room,"Salvo (as he's known) translates intercepted phone calls, bugged recordings, and snatched voice mail messages. When Anderson sends him to a mysterious island to interpret during a secret conference between Central African warlords, Bruno thinks he is helping Britain bring peace to a bloody corner of the world. But then he hears something he should not have... By turns thriller, love story, and comic allegory of our times, The Mission Song is a crowning achievement, recounting an interpreter's heroically naive journey out of the dark of Western hypocrisy and into the heart of lightness.

An in-depth 2007 analysis of the sources of success and failure in UN peacekeeping missions in civil wars.