The new role of some key peripheral countries after the fall of the Berlin wall: the case of Democratic Republic of Congo

The first international african war is going on. From august 1998 on 2.5 million people have been killed directly or indirectly in this media-silent war 1, this is almost one tenth of all 'casualties' incurred by the Soviet Union during the second world war. A first important but partial explanation is the change within the world-system after the demise of the Soviet Union. I.Wallerstein wrote immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall 2 that with the end of the cold war violence and international warfare would change in nature because "The emperor (the US or capitalist hegemony) stood naked after he lost his figleaf (of the communist countries)". The end of the east-west competition would open new arena's of threats to peace and in his almost profetic analysis he predicted that violence and new conflicts would rather increase because underdevelopment and regress could not anymore be imputed to the wrong policies. However since the same international environment (the so-called globalisation) leads to very different outcomes in this world-system , the geo-political explanation should be complemented by other factors. Why do most of the violent conflicts occur in Africa where also economic regression is most prominently going on ? We shall explore some of the recent and influential theories in the second part of our paper. In the third and last part of the paper, I will focus more specifically on one of the once key-peripheral countries of the african continent.: DRCongo. More specifically, we'll tackle some questions concerning the first international african war. Is this war the product of the new geo-political role of Arica in the world-system? Translating the Huntington thesis on the "Clash of Civilisations" that means that the unconditional help for the invading countries Uganda and Rwanda by the US is nothing else than reinforcing the regional agents of US-hegemony against the increasing influence of Islam fundamentalism (Sudan). Or should this war be seen as nothing else than a second scramble for Africa's wealth, reproducing the old good world imperialism thesis? We'll see that history never reproduces itself but is continually old and new producing new and unforeseen realities.