Abstract
The second Congo war (1998-2003) was a very complex conflict that involved a vast array of actors, interests
and issues. After a stalemate was reached on the battlefield as a result of the inability of any of the warring
parties to achieve military victory, peace negotiations became the only viable option to end the war. Civil
society organisations were directly involved in both the peace process and the subsequent transitional
dispensation designed to resolve the conflict, providing some sort of popular legitimacy to these two processes
clearly dominated by politico-military forces. The central argument of this article is that while civil society
involvement in the peace and transitional processes was instrumental in resolving the conflict behind the second
Congo war, it entrenched a legacy of the politicisation of the civil society movement inaugurated in the early
1990s. Indeed, although ground-breaking, the direct involvement of civil society in the management of
transitional institutions contributed to weakening its member organisations as many of their leaders either were
directly recruited into existing political platforms or simply decided to establish their own political organisations
and join active politics.