Exilés, réfugiés, déplacés en Afrique centrale et orientale (review)

André Guichaoua has produced an edited volume that should become the handbook for researchers specializing in forced migration in Central and eastern Africa. This is an immense collection of 1066 pages. Yet the length should not put off readers. Written by a team of Central Africa–based as well as European researchers, this book is based on extensive field research and includes a significant degree of primary sources: twelve chapters by nine contributors and twenty-eight appendixes.

This work puts forced migration into a historical and regional perspective. Guichaoua first gives us a very detailed overview of forced migration in Central Africa between the beginning of colonization and 2004. The second part of the book focuses on the political uses of refugee categorization, with two case studies on Burundi and one on Congo-Brazzaville. The third part has four chapters on refugee experiences: three on the Democratic Republic of the Congo [DRC] (two on the east, one on the west), and one on Rwandan refugees in Belgium. The fourth part focuses on public policy, with two chapters on displaced Rwandans (in Congo and in Rwanda), and one on Burundians in western Tanzania.

But this book also gives a regional and international dimension to the study of forced migration, and breaks from the custom of focusing only on the Great Lakes area. With some chapters about Congo Brazzaville, the western part of the DRC, and Belgium, this research underscores the fact that forced migration is not contained only to the Great Lakes region. Several different levels of policy analysis (international, national, and local) are considered, and the study of displacements illustrates the various interactions and relationships among them. By addressing the dynamics of forced migration (including refugees, IDPs, sinistrés, dispersés), the collection demonstrates that these categories are not rigid and that their definitions depend on the political and humanitarian interests in play at any given time. This book has successfully deciphered the strategies of international organizations, national governments, and refugee leaders facing massive movements of populations.

A review of this volume should not conclude without admiration for the wealth of information recorded in the appendixes. Twenty-eight annexes include memorandums of understanding, agreements, cease-fires, declarations, and government proposals in the regions between 1966 and 2002. These are invaluable to anyone working on issues of conflict and post-conflict in Central and eastern Africa.