Laurent Nkunda 
et la rébellion du Kivu, 
Stewart Andrew Scott, 
336p. Karthala

Of two serious books on the Democratic Republic of Congo recently published, this one deserves more attention than it probably will receive. The other, “From Genocide to Continental War” by Gérard Prunier, seeks to place the two Congolese wars of 1996 and 1998 into their historical context and has become an instant standard text on the conflict. Stewart Andrew Scott gives us, by contrast, a tight focus on a key player from that period, the renegade General Laurent Nkunda, from his beginnings, wanting to become a priest, to his studies in Rwanda that were cut short by massacres of Tutsi friends sparked by the arrival of Paul Kagame’s forces in 1991. The seeds of future preoccupation with the safety of the Banyarwanda are sown. The war is seen from the perspective of the Kivu provinces and the churning mass of claims and counter-claims on land and identity that places this region at the heart of past and future clashes. The evolution of his Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple party from a simply pro-Tutsi body into a more inclusive movement that “takes up the security issues dear to all the residents of the Kivus” is well-traced. As are the phoney attempts by President Joseph Kabila’s party to attack the génocidaire Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda, who often fight alongside the Congolese national army in clashes with Nkunda’s troops. A must-read to understand the current fighting in eastern Congo.