Executive summary
Since mass violence broke out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo thirty years ago, various theories have been put forward to explain the conflict and to find ways to stop it. Some have emphasized minerals; others have placed the onus on the weakness of Congolese state institutions or on meddling by its neighbors. This report serves as a summary of and intervention into this debate as conflict continues to escalate. We make two main points. First, we argue that more attention needs to be paid to restraint, focusing on places and moments when conflict has been ratcheted down, as well as on escalation. This leads us to our second point — that conflict cannot be explained by a single cause. Instead, escalation and restraint emerge from the interaction of political, economic, social, and historical factors. We argue that structural conditions — such as state weakness, unresolved land disputes, elite manipulation, and the legacy of past wars — shape how local triggers ignite into wider crises.
The case of Ituri illustrates these dynamics. Between 1999 and 2005, conflict intensified as foreign armies, ethnic militias, and shifting alliances between Uganda, Rwanda, and Kinshasa converged in the province. A long period of relative stability followed, supported by military pressure, demobilization programs, and local peacebuilding efforts. Yet structural inequalities and unresolved historical resentments allowed violence to resurface in 2017 with the rise of CODECO, whose decentralized organization and spiritual mobilization made de escalation difficult. This account of escalation and restraint suggests that these phenomena cannot be conceived as separate from broader conflict dynamics — interventions such as early warning systems, human rights training, and communal reconciliation projects  will have little lasting impact if they are not connected to national and regional frameworks. We conclude that what is above all needed is a national peace process, a framework that can link local peacebuilding to national political processes, strengthen institutions, and bring an end to foreign meddling in domestic conflicts.