Paper short abstract:

Using memories about 19th century military campaigns in the Kivus this paper shows that discourses about the pre-colonial past are still relevant within the protracted conflict in the DRC, simultaneously shaped by the conflict, and shaping territorial claims about borders within the conflict.

Paper long abstract:

This paper looks at the expansion of the Rwandan kingdom and military campaigns under mwami Rwabugiri in what is nowadays the DRC at the end of the 19th century. These campaigns left behind material sites such as camps and residencies, which could be considered as markers of Rwabugiri's symbolic appropriation of the landscape and of what was claimed as Rwandan territory.

During interviews in both the DRC and Rwanda, memories about these residencies and other traces were apparent, but they were heavily influenced by the social present and often reframed within contemporary discourses about conflict, and especially within discourses on borders.

The distance in time and especially the contested nature of Rwandan claims over territory in the eastern Congo today (e.g. Pasteur Bizimungu of Rwanda using 'historical' arguments to legitimate Rwandan's military presence in the region, or Nkunda claiming that without colonialism, Kivu would have been within the borders of the current Rwandan state), make it difficult to analyse the meanings of these places and traces, as they become contested sites of former Rwandan presence in the eastern DRC.

As such, the paper firstly shows how the protracted conflict in Kivu ramifies historical narratives about territorial claims in the past and secondly it looks at the way historical arguments are used to legitimate territorial claims and claims about borders within the region today. It will show that discourses about the (pre-colonial) past are still relevant, simultaneously shaped by the conflict, and shaping claims to legitimize exclusion and violence within the conflict.