Conflict transformation

Abstract

It was a warm, sunny day in Bukavu, capital of the South Kivu Province in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Tharcisse Kayira, coordinator of a local conflict transformation organization, took a deep breath and strolled past a fragrant rose garden, toward the conference room where some sixty community representatives from the province were filtering in. This was it, the Inter-Community Dialogue, which would bring his own community, the Banyamulenge, face to face with other communities in a secure environment for the first time. Preparations had been ongoing for nearly four years to get to this point, where these four communities were ready to sit down together and talk through the conflicts that had been troubling them for so many years.