APCJ_1528_Win2010_00i_122_4 12/30/10 3:22 PM Page 48 48 AFRICA PEACE AND CONFLICT JOURNAL primarily concern the legitimacy and effectiveness or limitations of any peacebuilding process. One can outline four main positions on the international discourse on peacebuilding: the conflict management, conflict resolution, complementary discipline, and transformation-oriented schools of thought.27 The management school is the oldest approach to peacebuilding and is historically linked to the cold war period. It emphasizes the use of diplomatic and military interventions and the role of international (outside) actors, rather than local actors and domestic peace initiatives. Its primary aim is to identify the leaders of the conflicting parties at the macro level and bring them together to negotiate a cease-fire and peace agreement based on the belief that ‘when a peace agreement is reached between the warring parties, it will automatically be trickled down to the entire population, because these top-leaders own their constituencies and the power to use or not to use force behind them’.28 Since the Pretoria agreement, peacebuilding in the recent DR Congo conflict—mediated by the United Nations, European Union, and African Union—is illustrative of the conflict management school. Military interventions and diplomatic solutions, such as mediation and negotiation toward power sharing, have been central in the DR Congo’s peacebuilding process under the management and coordination of the United Nations, European Union, and African Union. There has been little effort put into locally based initiatives, except the unsuccessful Goma conference in January 2008 that was called for by a new government to respond to the pressure of war against Nkunda’s forces and other armed groups in North Kivu and South Kivu. In this regard, one should also note the most recent joint Rwanda–DR Congo Umoja Wetu (Our Union) military operation launched by the government against the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in North Kivu (in March 2009), Kimya II (Second Peace) in South Kivu (since July 2009), and the ongoing Amani Leo (Peace Today) Program (since June 2010).29 Whereas the management approach has the benefit of engaging those in power who have the ability to conduct large-scale violence or end it and bring about peace, it is criticized primarily for its neglect of local problems and issues and the assumption noted above that once an agreement is reached, peace will a ‘trickle down’ through the population.30 Furthermore, the approach overlooks the roots of conflict and insists on apparent political problems.31 The conflict resolution school is a critical reaction to the management school. Its proponents advocate community-based dimensions of peacebuilding and are skeptical 27. Thania Paffenholz, ‘Understanding peacebuilding: Management, resolution and transformation’, New Routes, 14:2 (2009), 2–6. 28. Thania Paffenholz, Community-based Bottom-up Peacebuilding: The Development of the Life and Peace Institute’s Approach to Peacebuilding and Lessons Learned from Somalia, 1990–2000 (Uppsala, Life and Peace Institute, 2003), 14–15. 29. Séverine Autesserre, ‘Hobbes and the Congo: Frames, local violence, and international intervention’, International Organization, 6:2 (2009), 249–80. 30. Séverine Autesserre, ‘The trouble with Congo: How local disputes fuel regional violence’, Foreign Affairs, 87:3 (2008), 94–110; for the tendency of international mediators to concentrate solely on the top leadership of parties in conflict, see John Paul Lederach, Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies (Washington, D.C., United States Institute of Peace Press, 1997). 31. Thania Paffenholz, ‘Western approaches to mediation’ in Luc Reychler and Thania Paffenholz (eds.), Peacebuilding: A Field Guide (Boulder, Lynne Rienner, 2001); Autesserre, ‘Hobbes and the Congo’.