The Great Lakes region

Chronic and long-standing physical and economic insecurity has been the common experience of populations throughout the Great Lakes region of Africa for decades. Foreign military interventions have been frequent, mainly in response to requests from the post-colonial central governments in crisis when they felt themselves insecure and under pressure from popular discontent. These military interventions have involved – besides numerous African ones – the United Nations (in the 1960s, 1990s and early twenty-first century), France (in the 1970s and 1990s), Belgium (1960s and 1990s), the US (1960s and 1970s), and the European Union (2003). The outsiders’ motives have run through the gamut from Cold War confrontations to economic advantage, regional ambitions and geo-strategic concerns.