Kalemie, 19 October 2012 - The Civil Affairs office of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) in Kalemie, on 18 October 2012, conducted a workshop on the mapping of conflicts in this territory of Katanga province that need urgent or priority intervention.

The workshop participants included civil society actors, reprensentatives of the international NGO Search for Common Ground, six local conflict mediation and peaceful resolution experts, and officials from the provincial Planning Division and the Internal and Customary Affairs Division, representing the district administrative authorities.

In an earlier workshop held between 10 and 15 September 2012, the Civil Affairs section of MONUSCO trained local experts in conflict mediation and transformation techniques.

The 18 October workshop sought to update the conflict matrix in the territory of Kalemie, by including new conflicts after identifying, categorizing, analysing and ranking them in order of priority, the aim being to sort out which one of these conflicts the trained experts should address .

In the matrix updating exercise, two conflits were removed from the list as they were considered resolved. On the other hand, seven new conflicts were listed. Basically, these conflicts are those arising over the exercise of traditional customary power, the control of land use or distribution managment , and issues of political and administrative control.

Based on the updated matrix, the experts were able to identify a conflict to address, i.e, the conflict between the traditional chief Emillingombe and the Committee on Displaced Persons in the Tumbwe chiefdom, village grouping of Miketo (28 km northwest of Kalemie), in the territory of Kalemie.

Next the Civil Affairs section of MONUSCO will extend its ctivities of categorizind identified conflicts in order of priority to Katanga's territories of Manono and Kongolo, where local experts were also trained for mediation and peaceful transformation of conflicts.

Maheshe Shahar / MONUSCO