Conflicts and Post-Conflicts Dynamics (DRC and Rwanda): Occult Beliefs versus Modern Politics, Truth versus Justice and Justice versus Peace

SERIES TITLE
Conflicts and Post-Conflicts Dynamics (DRC and Rwanda): Occult Beliefs versus Modern Politics, Truth versus Justice and Justice versus Peace
SPEAKER
Alex Ntung

In this talk, co-sponsored by the Centre for International Studies (CIS), the African Studies Centre, and the Oxford Transitional Justice Research Group, Alex Ntung provides insight into the significance of occult beliefs dynamics in the construction of modern political ideologies and discusses examples of transitional justice mechanisms - Truth versus Justice (Rwanda genocide) and Justice versus Peace (DRC peace building).


Alex Ntung was born into a family of cattle-herders, semi-nomadic and pastoralists in South Kivu. Growing up he survived extreme poverty and hardship, child spying, and violence at a terrifying scale. His hunger for education took him to a school in Uviraand then university in Rwanda. Here he was witness to the 1994 genocide and the subsequent violence and conflict in the region fuelled by Tutsi and Hutu ethnicity. He became a humanitarian workerfor UN related NGOs and then came to the UK where he underwent a stringent asylum process and later gained an MA in Anthropology of Conflict, Violence and Conciliation at the University of Sussex. He is currently an author, DRC analyst and is involved in peace and political mediation work for civil society organisations. He is an experienced speaker and lecturer with an honest insight into issues of war and human security, cultural insensitivity and conflict resolution.