Africa Contested Borders

• 1700s: European powers began to colonise Africa and aimed to create a system of raw material extraction for export and made little productive investment in African countries.
• Legacy of colonialism is a host of unstable states that often lack cultural coherence.
• Large territory of DRC is home to 240 ethnic groups who jointly came under Belgian rule in the late 1800s and finally gained independence in 1960. Such cultural diversity has posed a huge challenge to post-colonial unity and has been a major factor contributing to conflict in the DRC.
• Problems still continue due to the way that boundaries between DRC, Uganda and Rwanda were established by Belgium, Great Britain, and Germany as the geographical regions occupied traditionally by the Tutsi and Hutu people became fragmented, resulting for 'transnational' identity of both groups. This causes ongoing political instability and violent territorial skirmishes in central Africa.
• 1990s: conflict in Rwanda between Tutsi and Hutu people spread quickly into neighbouring Uganda and DRC.

  1998 - 2008: > 5 million people died in the 'African World War' that ensued.
• 1998 - 2008: armies and militia groups from DRC's 9 neighbour states repeatedly entered DRC on grounds that ethnic groups with whom they claimed kinship required support.