JERUSALEM — Pedestrians jam this city’s lively Ben Yehuda Street during the blindingly bright daylight hours and late into the Middle Eastern night. From the local newsstands, the papers announce an agreement between the Palestinian sides, Hamas and Fatah, to form a unity government, holding out the tantalizing prospect of progress in the quest for peace. The news sifts into conversations along this white stone road, where shops and restaurants buzz with activity and street musicians entertain the crowds even as armed guards posted at every door check restaurant and cafe patrons to keep suicide bombers from striking this, one [...]
While Congolese waited for the presidential election results last month, I heard several half-truths about Congo. The one that has stuck with me happens to be a favorite among Western diplomats. “Kinshasa is not Congo,” they say, commenting on the east-west tension surrounding President Joseph Kabila’s candidacy. Their premise is sound, but their conclusion is wrong. Kinshasa, which lies in the country’s far west, is the gate to Congo, and whoever holds the key to the city controls national politics. With more than 7 million residents and 12 percent of voters, the capital is also the country’s most ethnically integrated [...]
NAIROBI, Kenya — “Hope” is not a word used often among political and security analysts. In the face of past violence and potential genocide, it is even more rare. Yet analysts have used the term in recent forecasts of what lay ahead for the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that held its first democratic elections in four decades a month ago. Still, serious challenges remain. The open availability of small arms, unequal distribution of local resources, the political influence of foreign contractors and combatants, and, not least, the behavior of local armed factions, will also shape the future of [...]
