It ebbed to its lowest point in 1998 after Uganda refused to withdraw its troops from parts of eastern DRC. For two decades, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda have been litigating at the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the latter’s invasion between 1998 and 2003. The ICJ will soon give its ruling on how much Uganda must pay DRC in reparations.
As the international community pushed for an end to armed conflicts in eastern DRC in 2003, “suddenly, it was Rwanda and Uganda who were seen as the obstacles to peace,” Jason Stearns said in Dancing in the Glory of Monsters. This was because about a dozen rebel groups supported by these two countries were unwilling to engage in peace talks.
But now Uganda is going back to eastern DRC, not only to pacify the region, but also to invest in infrastructure development. In the new financial year that starts in July, Uganda will begin construction of 223km of bitumen roads in eastern Congo but also deploy soldiers to the region.
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