The world's deadliest war and most pronounced use of rape as a weapon continue to rage in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The Enough Project's latest report on eastern Congo, by Co-founder John Prendergast and analyst Noel Atama, argues that this multi-layered and immensely complex conflict can only end when the international community abandons its piecemeal approach to conflict management and adopts a new approach that focuses on five basic tasks: protecting civilians, implementing an effective counterinsurgency strategy against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, ending the trade in conflict minerals, promoting regional peace and economic cooperation, and promoting accountability.

"A revamped approach requires a careful combination of all the tools available to policymakers, from aggressive multilateral diplomacy and conditioned foreign assistance to targeted sanctions and, in rare cases, carefully planned military action," says Atama. However, the report further argues that generating the political will to leverage these tools effectively also requires action from activists and concerned citizens.

"Congo's stain on our collective conscience is deep, but so too is the connection between our daily lives and those of Congolese people fighting to break the cycle of conflict and misery," says Prendergast. "Policymakers must fully acknowledge the role that the Congolese government and its neighbors-particularly Rwanda and Uganda-play in fuelling violence and profiteering from Congo's state weakness and chronic conflict." Prendergast concludes: "Citizen pressure on policymakers and the corporations that benefit from the trade in conflict minerals-including American and European cell phone, laptop, and jewelry manufacturers-is a critical element of a worldwide effort to end the crisis in eastern Congo once and for all."

READ the strategy paper.