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On February 19, 2008, the World Peasants/Indigenous Organization kicked off its three-month-long Ten for One Peace Campaign. The Ten for One Peace Campaign discourages modern slavery and promotes respect for human rights.
Since historically, slavery involved the buying and selling of people and their transcontinental shipment and since the world largely abolished the slave trade in the 19th century, modern practices of slavery are often described as discrimination. However, the current conditions of this widespread practice subject upon pygmies, or indigenous peoples, and the underprivileged, are those of slavery.
Across Africa, masters force pygmy communities and poor peasants, including the women and the children, to labor and sexually exploit these vulnerable populations for little or no pay. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the pay for one week, long hours from Monday through Sunday, consists of basic food supplies or 500 Congolese Franks, equivalent to $US 1. These payments allow slaves to survive and to provide for their families’ shelter. And although the masters do not call such exploitation slavery, the conditions are the same.
In 2008, twenty-five individuals, including WPIO staff, volunteers, local and religious leaders, teachers, and students will visit two hundred and forty families and companies in five territories in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Already, the Ten for One Peace Campaign staff have visited one hundred and twelve families, with positive results.
The Ten for One Peace Campaign has inspired the community of Ishungu. Not only have the people volunteered to contribute one kilo of beans to each formerly indentured family, but also on March 4, 2008 students’ cheers for members of the campaign interrupted lessons at Ishungu High School. Student exited the building shouting "paix, paix,paix pour tous, liberte et justice pour tous", which means "peace, peace, peace for all, freedom and justice for all."
The Campaign ends in Kalonge in the Bunyakiri forest on April 19, 2008. As the campaign’s conclusion, WPIO Director, Mr. Wangabo, and Reverend Father Theodore CIMANUKA will spend two days with the Batiri indigenous community in an area frequently occupied by the Rwandanese Interahamwe armed militia group. During the stay, Mr. Wangabo will urge the Batiri and the Interahamwe to live peacefully together.
For more information about the Ten for One Peace Campaign, please our partner page.
The Sad Story of an Indigenous Family in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
Despite a democratically elected parliament and president, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remains unstable. Several provinces, especially in the country’s eastern regions, suffer from sporadic violence. Arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, extrajudicial executions, and torture and occur with such regularity that the people view these human rights violations as normal. Decades of neglect, mismanagement of resources, and poor governance, compounded by the DRC’s civil war, caused the collapse of essential services and infrastructure, including the justice, health and education sectors.
In this civil war, roughly five million individuals, mostly civilians, lost their lives, and countless others suffered human rights violations, for which the perpetrators have yet to be held accountable. Militiamen and soldiers raped to control women, to humiliate families, and to terrorize communities. And this rape continues in the much of the eastern DRC. Unfortunately, social discrimination and rejection and inadequate medical treatment awaits the few survivors, who then live the rest of their lives with the physical symptoms and psychological scars of the abuse.
During the civil war, government forces and militiamen targeted the indigenous population or pygmies. Starved militiamen sexually enslaved pygmy women and reportedly resorted to eating pygmy flesh. In peacetime though, world governments have demonstrated limited respect for indigenous rights, traditions, and values. Bad governance, particularly in Africa, threatens this population’s existence. Pygmies suffer serious human rights violations by the government responsible for their protection.
The sad story of Mrs. Leonne Espe, a peasant living in the eastern DRC until her recent flight, exemplifies the pygmies’ plight. She tells her sad story:
“My main concern is security and safety for my children and myself at the moment. It all started with Mr. Ruzuba who owned a piece of land near ours and was not happy with our family. He used to say that it is a taboo for a pygmy to possess land. He cannot accept that a pygmy, a Mumbuti, owns land next to his. I am a Mushi by tribe [but] married to a pygmy (Mumbuti), Mr. Kulimushi Emile, with whom we had 9 children. Mr. Ruzuba promised to do all his best to stop this situation. He started first by getting rid of my father in law in 2006 and burnt him and his family in his hut.
As by our tradition and culture, my husband inherited his father's property including his land. This did not please Mr. Ruzuba, whose aim was not only to avoid having a pygmy close to him since this could, according to local belief, bring a curse to his household, but also he wanted [to] possess our land which was larger than his. He started making my husband's life difficult. He made sure that my husband was taken to the local police post without charge, beaten, tortured times and again. They would not release [my husband] unless he bribes them with a goat. At some point all our life stocks [livestock] as well as our other belonging were looted.
Then last year on 7th June 2007, the same neighbor of ours, Mr. Ruzuba, came with a group of Interahamwe militia whose number I could not count, armed with machine guns, knives and machetes and found us at home. He asked me where my husband was, this time I was really scared and I told them that he has gone to church. They immediately jumped on me and pushed me on the ground, they all started raping me one by one. My son Pascal Eliya was hit with a gun butt and sustained a broken arm and nearly lost his life but he was spared. When they realized that I had lost consciousness and I had started bleeding profusely, they abandoned me down there for dead in a very critical condition, and they went back in the bush. I learned later that my 10 years old son (Eliya) did run to the village nearby to call for help; [he] thought that I was dead.
The neighbors came and found that I had regained consciousness while lying on the ground. They curiously had mixed feeling about me. Some were of the opinion that they should leave me [to] die there in punishment for having married a pygmy. Others contrary to the preceding did sympathize with me and made arrangement to take me to the hospital on 8th June 2007. Since I married Kulimushi Emile, my relatives, friends and neighbors did not stop to put pressure on me to leave that 'pygmy'. I did not bow to their pressure because I really loved him as my husband. That day after a long debate they decided to take me to Mpanzi hospital where I was admitted for 3 months after undergoing surgery to repair my genitals that were damaged.
In September 2007, I was discharged from the hospital to attend to our young children as the school was about to start. The same Interahamwe came back again and they found our family taking our supper at around 9 pm. This time around my husband was at home. Other children escaped in the bush around our home, except our 2 first daughters, they hid inside the house. After they found them, they first got hold of my husband, tied his arms on the back and then the legs, they put him on the side. Then they moved toward our 17 years old first born daughter, they gang raped [her] then they slaughtered her like a sheep and placed her head on the table in front of all of us saying that this your meat for today, then afterward they sliced her body all over. They moved to our 15 year old second born daughter and did the same thing to her.
We were just there, I and my husband tied with ropes right in our presence, watching our daughter being slaughtered without compassion. This was the very sad, shocking and traumatizing memory of my life that keeps on coming back in my mind. At time I wonder whether life is worth living. That same day, after they killed our two daughters, although I was still recovering from the surgery, they pulled me and tied my legs apart with ropes, they all raped me again right in presence of my children and my husband. I was totally finished, without power. I was really down morally, mentally and physically. Then they left me there down in a pool of blood, and took all the belongings in the house and they went a way with my husband.
I don't know what happened to my husband [still] now. I have never seen or heard anything about him since. I am just worried since that day some among the Interhamwe were talking about eating him; they said that the meat of a pygmy is better and very tasty than any meat they have ever eaten… I just don't know why Bambuti, pygmies are not liked in our tradition. I am going through this ordeal because I married a pygmy. My own relatives have never accepted I am married because getting married to a pygmy is taboo in my culture.
On 5th /10/2007 I took my 7 remaining children we ran to the Kanyola centre for protection. Then we moved to Bukavu where a Good Samaritan Mr. Stefano, hosted us in his home. Three days after our arrival, Mr. Ruzuba came again with his people we all ran away and took cover in the neighbors’' homes. They got hold of two of our host's children and killed thinking that they were mine. When we came back, Mr. Stefano chased me and my children saying that I had caused him problems. On the same day, with the help of a driver working with a company called TMK, we proceeded to Goma, then to Bunagana border on the 6th /10/2007. He took us to Kampala and left us in Congolese church in Nsambya on 7th /10/ 2007.
I did not know that I was pregnant from the first rape incident. With my husband we used preservative (condom) I know that this child I am carrying is from the Interhamwe. Now I am in my late 8th month I really feel I am hopeless in this world, I wish I depart this life rather than continue living this kind of disgraceful life. I have seven children but I am unable to feed them, even not educate them. Some time an idea [came] into my mind to abandon my 7 children in a public place then ill myself because I am worth nothing. I don't even want to see myself giving birth to this child. I don't want it. Every single day I wakeup I feel I don't even like myself.
Fellow Congolese countrymen who know that my husband was a pygmy do not accept me or my children among them simply because I was married to a pygmy. They always tell me that I shamed my family. Mr. Ruzuba who is the cause of all our suffering, swore that he will do his best to kill me and my kids wherever I go, because he never feel in peace as long as there is steel one single person of my family living who can claim that piece of land of ours. I have no hope. I have a lot to say but I am tired, I can't say much.”
Attached is a picture of Ms. Leonne Espe and her children.
The World Peasants/Indigenous Organization recommends that the international community pressure on the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the involved militia groups:
1. To protect civilians, including peasants, pygmies, and any other indigenous community;
2. To end torture, slaughter, mass killings, consumption of human flesh, and all crimes against humanity.
The World Peasants/ Indigenous organization (WPIO) calls for the support from all who have human rights at heart to advocate for the protection and the rehabilitation this African population.
Earthquake in the Great Lakes Region
Two earthquakes have affected the following areas:
These territories In these affected areas are Gathered also Pygmy communities
On February 3, 2008, at 07:35 GMT, a 6.1 magnitude earthquake and its aftershocks occurred 20km north of Bukavu, killing seven individuals and injuring 447 others. The neighboring Rwandan town of Cyangungy reported another 22 death and many more injured. 1729 families, 1050 families in Bukavu alone and 679 in the surrounding areas, now receive survivors assistance. The earthquake damaged 250 buildings in the Idjwi, Kabare, Kalehe, and Walungu territories and another 99 buildings in Bukavu proper, according to the Mayor of Bukavu.
On Tuesday, February 14, 2008 at 02:07 GMT, another earthquake, of a 5.4 magnitude, occurred 25km north, injuring another 44 individuals and damaging a total of 3,465 buildings. Thankfully, since February 3, 2008, local hospitals have treated 524 injured individuals, but after this second quake, 2,849 families from Bukavu and its surrounding areas now receive assistance in the form of non-food item (NFI) kits. In fact, the International Red Cross’ Rapid Response Mechanism and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees’ local partner organization, ADSS, have assisted 1,040 families in Bukavu proper and another 1,809 families in the Idjwi and Kabare territories. Also, 169 patients have received food. Unfortunately, survivors in South Kivu and southwestern Rwanda lack adequate shelter and other basic necessities.
While international humanitarian agencies, like the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the World Food Program (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO), have responded to the crisis, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ignores these conditions. “Many families, we are now living in one tent and others are living in crowded halls,” said Gerome MADUWA, a father of twelve, who lost his him in Kadutu, Bukavu. In affect areas, families crowd into commercial buildings, school dormitories, and storage sheds. In fact, one hundred people occupy a dormitory intended for ten students.
The government initiated a response, but corruption has halted relief efforts. Government aid workers and medical officers sell food and medicine, instead of providing the aid free to the devastated populations. A doctor from Bukavu, Mr. BAHOZI, sold medication to the director of Bukavu’s private clinic, Mr. HAMULI, and on February 15, 2008 Bukavu’s general clinic turned away fourteen injured individuals because corruption had deprived the clinic of the necessary resources. Also, since corruption affects the government’s monitoring of home construction, the stability and safety of these homes.
Natural disasters, such as these recent earthquakes, reveal the poverty and vulnerability of peasants and indigenous populations.
In Bukavu, a plot of land measuring ten meters by ten meters costs $20,000, but the majority of country lives on less than one dollar a day. Thus Peasants, having abandoned their villages in search of to pursue a better life in the cities, now crowd into old and run-down buildings, which the earthquakes devastated. Those that remain in the villages live in traditional, hand-made houses from tree leaves, which the earthquakes also affected.
While these recent earthquakes surprised the people of Bukavu, natural disasters affect the indigenous populations living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s mountains with some regularity. In 2003, the volcano on Mountain Nyamulagira erupted, likely killing the twenty-seven families living below it. Unfortunately, pygmies live in these dangerous areas after the government evicts them from their ancestral lands and national parks.
The World Peasants/Indigenous Organization (WPIO) reminds the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo of its first responsibility to protect its citizens. WPIO recommends that the government protect human rights by implement the instruments and protocols designed to end discrimination and to protect these. Similarly, the government should consult the community and reach an equitable solution before evicting indigenous populations and establish emergency response programs to help the country recover from natural disasters.
World Peasants / Indigenous Foundation March 2008 Newsletter
March 10, 2008
- Ten for One Peace Campaign in progress
- The Sad Story of an Indigenous Family in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
- Earthquakes in the Great Lakes Region.
On February 19, 2008, the World Peasants/Indigenous Organization kicked off its three-month-long Ten for One Peace Campaign. The Ten for One Peace Campaign discourages modern slavery and promotes respect for human rights.
Since historically, slavery involved the buying and selling of people and their transcontinental shipment and since the world largely abolished the slave trade in the 19th century, modern practices of slavery are often described as discrimination. However, the current conditions of this widespread practice subject upon pygmies, or indigenous peoples, and the underprivileged, are those of slavery.
Across Africa, masters force pygmy communities and poor peasants, including the women and the children, to labor and sexually exploit these vulnerable populations for little or no pay. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the pay for one week, long hours from Monday through Sunday, consists of basic food supplies or 500 Congolese Franks, equivalent to $US 1. These payments allow slaves to survive and to provide for their families’ shelter. And although the masters do not call such exploitation slavery, the conditions are the same.
In 2008, twenty-five individuals, including WPIO staff, volunteers, local and religious leaders, teachers, and students will visit two hundred and forty families and companies in five territories in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Already, the Ten for One Peace Campaign staff have visited one hundred and twelve families, with positive results.
The Ten for One Peace Campaign has inspired the community of Ishungu. Not only have the people volunteered to contribute one kilo of beans to each formerly indentured family, but also on March 4, 2008 students’ cheers for members of the campaign interrupted lessons at Ishungu High School. Student exited the building shouting "paix, paix,paix pour tous, liberte et justice pour tous", which means "peace, peace, peace for all, freedom and justice for all."
The Campaign ends in Kalonge in the Bunyakiri forest on April 19, 2008. As the campaign’s conclusion, WPIO Director, Mr. Wangabo, and Reverend Father Theodore CIMANUKA will spend two days with the Batiri indigenous community in an area frequently occupied by the Rwandanese Interahamwe armed militia group. During the stay, Mr. Wangabo will urge the Batiri and the Interahamwe to live peacefully together.
For more information about the Ten for One Peace Campaign, please our partner page.
The Sad Story of an Indigenous Family in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
Despite a democratically elected parliament and president, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) remains unstable. Several provinces, especially in the country’s eastern regions, suffer from sporadic violence. Arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, extrajudicial executions, and torture and occur with such regularity that the people view these human rights violations as normal. Decades of neglect, mismanagement of resources, and poor governance, compounded by the DRC’s civil war, caused the collapse of essential services and infrastructure, including the justice, health and education sectors.
In this civil war, roughly five million individuals, mostly civilians, lost their lives, and countless others suffered human rights violations, for which the perpetrators have yet to be held accountable. Militiamen and soldiers raped to control women, to humiliate families, and to terrorize communities. And this rape continues in the much of the eastern DRC. Unfortunately, social discrimination and rejection and inadequate medical treatment awaits the few survivors, who then live the rest of their lives with the physical symptoms and psychological scars of the abuse.
During the civil war, government forces and militiamen targeted the indigenous population or pygmies. Starved militiamen sexually enslaved pygmy women and reportedly resorted to eating pygmy flesh. In peacetime though, world governments have demonstrated limited respect for indigenous rights, traditions, and values. Bad governance, particularly in Africa, threatens this population’s existence. Pygmies suffer serious human rights violations by the government responsible for their protection.
The sad story of Mrs. Leonne Espe, a peasant living in the eastern DRC until her recent flight, exemplifies the pygmies’ plight. She tells her sad story:
“My main concern is security and safety for my children and myself at the moment. It all started with Mr. Ruzuba who owned a piece of land near ours and was not happy with our family. He used to say that it is a taboo for a pygmy to possess land. He cannot accept that a pygmy, a Mumbuti, owns land next to his. I am a Mushi by tribe [but] married to a pygmy (Mumbuti), Mr. Kulimushi Emile, with whom we had 9 children. Mr. Ruzuba promised to do all his best to stop this situation. He started first by getting rid of my father in law in 2006 and burnt him and his family in his hut.
As by our tradition and culture, my husband inherited his father's property including his land. This did not please Mr. Ruzuba, whose aim was not only to avoid having a pygmy close to him since this could, according to local belief, bring a curse to his household, but also he wanted [to] possess our land which was larger than his. He started making my husband's life difficult. He made sure that my husband was taken to the local police post without charge, beaten, tortured times and again. They would not release [my husband] unless he bribes them with a goat. At some point all our life stocks [livestock] as well as our other belonging were looted.
Then last year on 7th June 2007, the same neighbor of ours, Mr. Ruzuba, came with a group of Interahamwe militia whose number I could not count, armed with machine guns, knives and machetes and found us at home. He asked me where my husband was, this time I was really scared and I told them that he has gone to church. They immediately jumped on me and pushed me on the ground, they all started raping me one by one. My son Pascal Eliya was hit with a gun butt and sustained a broken arm and nearly lost his life but he was spared. When they realized that I had lost consciousness and I had started bleeding profusely, they abandoned me down there for dead in a very critical condition, and they went back in the bush. I learned later that my 10 years old son (Eliya) did run to the village nearby to call for help; [he] thought that I was dead.
The neighbors came and found that I had regained consciousness while lying on the ground. They curiously had mixed feeling about me. Some were of the opinion that they should leave me [to] die there in punishment for having married a pygmy. Others contrary to the preceding did sympathize with me and made arrangement to take me to the hospital on 8th June 2007. Since I married Kulimushi Emile, my relatives, friends and neighbors did not stop to put pressure on me to leave that 'pygmy'. I did not bow to their pressure because I really loved him as my husband. That day after a long debate they decided to take me to Mpanzi hospital where I was admitted for 3 months after undergoing surgery to repair my genitals that were damaged.
In September 2007, I was discharged from the hospital to attend to our young children as the school was about to start. The same Interahamwe came back again and they found our family taking our supper at around 9 pm. This time around my husband was at home. Other children escaped in the bush around our home, except our 2 first daughters, they hid inside the house. After they found them, they first got hold of my husband, tied his arms on the back and then the legs, they put him on the side. Then they moved toward our 17 years old first born daughter, they gang raped [her] then they slaughtered her like a sheep and placed her head on the table in front of all of us saying that this your meat for today, then afterward they sliced her body all over. They moved to our 15 year old second born daughter and did the same thing to her.
We were just there, I and my husband tied with ropes right in our presence, watching our daughter being slaughtered without compassion. This was the very sad, shocking and traumatizing memory of my life that keeps on coming back in my mind. At time I wonder whether life is worth living. That same day, after they killed our two daughters, although I was still recovering from the surgery, they pulled me and tied my legs apart with ropes, they all raped me again right in presence of my children and my husband. I was totally finished, without power. I was really down morally, mentally and physically. Then they left me there down in a pool of blood, and took all the belongings in the house and they went a way with my husband.
I don't know what happened to my husband [still] now. I have never seen or heard anything about him since. I am just worried since that day some among the Interhamwe were talking about eating him; they said that the meat of a pygmy is better and very tasty than any meat they have ever eaten… I just don't know why Bambuti, pygmies are not liked in our tradition. I am going through this ordeal because I married a pygmy. My own relatives have never accepted I am married because getting married to a pygmy is taboo in my culture.
On 5th /10/2007 I took my 7 remaining children we ran to the Kanyola centre for protection. Then we moved to Bukavu where a Good Samaritan Mr. Stefano, hosted us in his home. Three days after our arrival, Mr. Ruzuba came again with his people we all ran away and took cover in the neighbors’' homes. They got hold of two of our host's children and killed thinking that they were mine. When we came back, Mr. Stefano chased me and my children saying that I had caused him problems. On the same day, with the help of a driver working with a company called TMK, we proceeded to Goma, then to Bunagana border on the 6th /10/2007. He took us to Kampala and left us in Congolese church in Nsambya on 7th /10/ 2007.
I did not know that I was pregnant from the first rape incident. With my husband we used preservative (condom) I know that this child I am carrying is from the Interhamwe. Now I am in my late 8th month I really feel I am hopeless in this world, I wish I depart this life rather than continue living this kind of disgraceful life. I have seven children but I am unable to feed them, even not educate them. Some time an idea [came] into my mind to abandon my 7 children in a public place then ill myself because I am worth nothing. I don't even want to see myself giving birth to this child. I don't want it. Every single day I wakeup I feel I don't even like myself.
Fellow Congolese countrymen who know that my husband was a pygmy do not accept me or my children among them simply because I was married to a pygmy. They always tell me that I shamed my family. Mr. Ruzuba who is the cause of all our suffering, swore that he will do his best to kill me and my kids wherever I go, because he never feel in peace as long as there is steel one single person of my family living who can claim that piece of land of ours. I have no hope. I have a lot to say but I am tired, I can't say much.”
Attached is a picture of Ms. Leonne Espe and her children.
The World Peasants/Indigenous Organization recommends that the international community pressure on the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the involved militia groups:
1. To protect civilians, including peasants, pygmies, and any other indigenous community;
2. To end torture, slaughter, mass killings, consumption of human flesh, and all crimes against humanity.
The World Peasants/ Indigenous organization (WPIO) calls for the support from all who have human rights at heart to advocate for the protection and the rehabilitation this African population.
Earthquake in the Great Lakes Region
Two earthquakes have affected the following areas:
- North Bukavu region, particularly the rain forest, which is home to peasant and indigenous populations
- Kahuzi Biega Forest and National Park, particularly Kamakombe, Stshombo, Tshabarabi, and Tshibinda
- Areas surrounding Lake Kivu, including Birava and Butorangwe
- Areas surrounding the island of Idjwi and the Nyungwe Forest, including Cyangungu and Nyakalengwa
- Idjwi, Kabare, Katana, and Walungu territories
These territories In these affected areas are Gathered also Pygmy communities
On February 3, 2008, at 07:35 GMT, a 6.1 magnitude earthquake and its aftershocks occurred 20km north of Bukavu, killing seven individuals and injuring 447 others. The neighboring Rwandan town of Cyangungy reported another 22 death and many more injured. 1729 families, 1050 families in Bukavu alone and 679 in the surrounding areas, now receive survivors assistance. The earthquake damaged 250 buildings in the Idjwi, Kabare, Kalehe, and Walungu territories and another 99 buildings in Bukavu proper, according to the Mayor of Bukavu.
On Tuesday, February 14, 2008 at 02:07 GMT, another earthquake, of a 5.4 magnitude, occurred 25km north, injuring another 44 individuals and damaging a total of 3,465 buildings. Thankfully, since February 3, 2008, local hospitals have treated 524 injured individuals, but after this second quake, 2,849 families from Bukavu and its surrounding areas now receive assistance in the form of non-food item (NFI) kits. In fact, the International Red Cross’ Rapid Response Mechanism and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees’ local partner organization, ADSS, have assisted 1,040 families in Bukavu proper and another 1,809 families in the Idjwi and Kabare territories. Also, 169 patients have received food. Unfortunately, survivors in South Kivu and southwestern Rwanda lack adequate shelter and other basic necessities.
While international humanitarian agencies, like the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the World Food Program (WFP), and the World Health Organization (WHO), have responded to the crisis, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ignores these conditions. “Many families, we are now living in one tent and others are living in crowded halls,” said Gerome MADUWA, a father of twelve, who lost his him in Kadutu, Bukavu. In affect areas, families crowd into commercial buildings, school dormitories, and storage sheds. In fact, one hundred people occupy a dormitory intended for ten students.
The government initiated a response, but corruption has halted relief efforts. Government aid workers and medical officers sell food and medicine, instead of providing the aid free to the devastated populations. A doctor from Bukavu, Mr. BAHOZI, sold medication to the director of Bukavu’s private clinic, Mr. HAMULI, and on February 15, 2008 Bukavu’s general clinic turned away fourteen injured individuals because corruption had deprived the clinic of the necessary resources. Also, since corruption affects the government’s monitoring of home construction, the stability and safety of these homes.
Natural disasters, such as these recent earthquakes, reveal the poverty and vulnerability of peasants and indigenous populations.
In Bukavu, a plot of land measuring ten meters by ten meters costs $20,000, but the majority of country lives on less than one dollar a day. Thus Peasants, having abandoned their villages in search of to pursue a better life in the cities, now crowd into old and run-down buildings, which the earthquakes devastated. Those that remain in the villages live in traditional, hand-made houses from tree leaves, which the earthquakes also affected.
While these recent earthquakes surprised the people of Bukavu, natural disasters affect the indigenous populations living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s mountains with some regularity. In 2003, the volcano on Mountain Nyamulagira erupted, likely killing the twenty-seven families living below it. Unfortunately, pygmies live in these dangerous areas after the government evicts them from their ancestral lands and national parks.
The World Peasants/Indigenous Organization (WPIO) reminds the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo of its first responsibility to protect its citizens. WPIO recommends that the government protect human rights by implement the instruments and protocols designed to end discrimination and to protect these. Similarly, the government should consult the community and reach an equitable solution before evicting indigenous populations and establish emergency response programs to help the country recover from natural disasters.
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