A recent report issued by the American Medical Association (AMA) has had me and SOS FED’s staff thinking about some possibly unexploited “entry points” in the fight against sexual violence in Congo. The AMA report revealed that 74% of reported rapes in the Kivus and Ituri Province in 2009 occurred during active combat. This is not surprising, as conflict breeds insecurity and vulnerability in a manner more potent than possibly any of the other factors of the rape epidemic in Congo under current scrutiny. It’s evident that when chaos takes root, the most vulnerable of the population, in Congo the women and children, suffer disproportionately. These cases represent three-fourths of the cases of rape in Congo.

However, SOS FED beneficiaries being interviewed by our field staff have begun to tell a different story concerning their vulnerability which draws a bit of our focus towards the remaining quarter of cases from the AMA study-the women being raped in areas where conflict isn’t a daily reality. While fighting occurs semi-regularly in SOS FED program areas (some areas worse than others), the majority of the rapes SOS FED beneficiaries report occur while they are pursuing the most mundane of daily tasks under relatively peaceful regional circumstances. Often, the rapes occur in broad daylight in villages deemed more secure than others in Fizi Territory. The beneficiaries report to us that cultivation, collection of firewood, and taking water from Lake Tanganyika have gone from predictable work to be done on a daily basis to frightening and risk-filled work. This forms a troublesome question to consider: Why exactly does the number of rapes continue to increase in areas where fighting has lulled, accounting for nearly a quarter of the cases of rape reported in eastern Congo in 2009?

One major factor to consider in answering this question is the presence of soldiers across eastern Congo, even in areas not directly involved in current fighting. Contrary to widespread perception of Congo, there are areas in which gunshots don’t regularly provide the evening soundtrack. Nevertheless, in these areas we encounter no shortage of FARDC troops. These soldiers have been brought up and trained in the Congolese military system in which impunity and lack of oversight are the norms. MONUSCO supports them with medicine, food, ammunition, but has not yet come to the point where monitoring of what they do with these materials occurs in any clear fashion. Thus, we see large brigades of underpaid, well-armed, soldiers not necessarily involved in defense (because of lack of a clear enemy or lack of a will to protect civilians) of a community. The stage is set in this way for even secure villages to be overtaken by sexual violence and other crimes against civilians as these soldiers not only lack a clear mission but also lack the oversight necessary to ensure that undisciplined soldiers do not feed off the population.

Civilian rape is possibly a more compelling point of interest in assessing the vulnerability Congolese women face, even when residing in more secure regions of the country. A recent study by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) shows nearly a 17-fold increase in the incidents of civilian rape reported to organizations working with victims of sexual violence between 2004 and 2008. One of the contributors to this study, which was conducted in South Kivu, commented that, “Before [rape] was like a gun in a war. Today, though things have cooled down, the mindset remains in people…” Thus, we see that rape has becoming increasingly normalized among civilians. If it’s true that violence begets violence, by the same logic rape begets rape. Civilians have not only viewed rape on an immense scale throughout the years, but also seen that very few violators are punished for their crimes. The international community has a controversial role in this regard; MONUSCO’s extensive support to the FARDC is on shaky ground given that nearly 80% of the rapes reported in the region occur at the hands of their troops. Does this not send the wrong message to soldiers and civilians alike across Congo?

It is possible that the insufficient focus has been place on the “25%” of the AMA study. If nearly 75% of rapes occur during active conflict, then a quarter of the rapes occurring in eastern Congo occur in areas enjoying periods of relative peace. For those hoping to stop sexual violence in Congo, this quarter of cases demonstrates a key point of entry. Steven Levitt noted in Freakonomics that arms are simply a way to upset the “natural order” of things, and nowhere is this more evident in Congo. A woman who knows her rights, knows how to stay safe, and does not expose herself to vulnerability-increasing behavior still will fall when it comes down to an armed man with an intent to rape. In a conflict-ridden Congo, this is a given despite the best efforts by NGOs and civil society groups. Perhaps an emphasis on prevention (collective cultivation, education, rights training, etc.) among women in areas not rife with fighting is a means of eliminating the cases of sexual violence which represent the 25% of the non-conflict related rapes occurring across eastern Congo ever year.  These cases being eliminated would surely represent the most significant reduction of sexual violence which has occurred in Congo to date since the epidemic came to be in the early years of the conflict.

Working to eliminate the 25% of cases occurring in non-conflict situations could have significant implications on the 75% of cases occurring in conflict. First, the empowerment of a group of women who otherwise would have been victimized forms a potent tool in the regional effort to eliminate sexual violence. Secondly, and more importantly, if and when the conflict in eastern Congo comes to a close, the prevention of rape in non-conflict situations will be valuable to ensure that civilian rape is curbed. It would be ill-advised to assume that rape in Congo will end because of the end of the conflict, given that numbers of civilian rape are on the rise.

This thinking has really informed our approach to sexual violence in Congo for 2011. We hope to stress prevention in areas where prevention can work. This is not to say that we ignore areas where conflict induced vulnerability reigns supreme, but means that we place equal value in the effort to prevent rape where possible through programs and education as we do in our effort to treat women who suffer rape in Fizi Territory’s more dangerous conflict zones. It is a fine balance, but focusing a bit on the 25% of cases which don’t occur at the barrel of a gun might make significant progress in the fight against sexual violence in Congo.

Ned Meerdink

A recent report issued by the American Medical Association (AMA) has had me and SOS FED’s staff thinking about some possibly unexploited “entry points” in the fight against sexual violence in Congo. The AMA report revealed that 74% of reported rapes in the Kivus and Ituri Province in 2009 occurred during active combat. This is not surprising, as conflict breeds insecurity and vulnerability in a manner more potent than possibly any of the other factors of the rape epidemic in Congo under current scrutiny. It’s evident that when chaos takes root, the most vulnerable of the population, in Congo the women and children, suffer disproportionately. These cases represent three-fourths of the cases of rape in Congo.
However, SOS FED beneficiaries being interviewed by our field staff have begun to tell a different story concerning their vulnerability which draws a bit of our focus towards the remaining quarter of cases from the AMA study-the women being raped in areas where conflict isn’t a daily reality. While fighting occurs semi-regularly in SOS FED program areas (some areas worse than others), the majority of the rapes SOS FED beneficiaries report occur while they are pursuing the most mundane of daily tasks under relatively peaceful regional circumstances. Often, the rapes occur in broad daylight in villages deemed more secure than others in Fizi Territory. The beneficiaries report to us that cultivation, collection of firewood, and taking water from Lake Tanganyika have gone from predictable work to be done on a daily basis to frightening and risk-filled work. This forms a troublesome question to consider: Why exactly does the number of rapes continue to increase in areas where fighting has lulled, accounting for nearly a quarter of the cases of rape reported in eastern Congo in 2009?
One major factor to consider in answering this question is the presence of soldiers across eastern Congo, even in areas not directly involved in current fighting. Contrary to widespread perception of Congo, there are areas in which gunshots don’t regularly provide the evening soundtrack. Nevertheless, in these areas we encounter no shortage of FARDC troops. These soldiers have been brought up and trained in the Congolese military system in which impunity and lack of oversight are the norms. MONUSCO supports them with medicine, food, ammunition, but has not yet come to the point where monitoring of what they do with these materials occurs in any clear fashion. Thus, we see large brigades of underpaid, well-armed, soldiers not necessarily involved in defense (because of lack of a clear enemy or lack of a will to protect civilians) of a community. The stage is set in this way for even secure villages to be overtaken by sexual violence and other crimes against civilians as these soldiers not only lack a clear mission but also lack the oversight necessary to ensure that undisciplined soldiers do not feed off the population.
Civilian rape is possibly a more compelling point of interest in assessing the vulnerability Congolese women face, even when residing in more secure regions of the country. A recent study by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) shows nearly a 17-fold increase in the incidents of civilian rape reported to organizations working with victims of sexual violence between 2004 and 2008. One of the contributors to this study, which was conducted in South Kivu, commented that, “Before [rape] was like a gun in a war. Today, though things have cooled down, the mindset remains in people…” Thus, we see that rape has becoming increasingly normalized among civilians. If it’s true that violence begets violence, by the same logic rape begets rape. Civilians have not only viewed rape on an immense scale throughout the years, but also seen that very few violators are punished for their crimes. The international community has a controversial role in this regard; MONUSCO’s extensive support to the FARDC is on shaky ground given that nearly 80% of the rapes reported in the region occur at the hands of their troops. Does this not send the wrong message to soldiers and civilians alike across Congo?
It is possible that an undue amount of attention has been focused on the implications of the AMA study. If nearly 75% of rapes occur during active conflict, then a quarter of the rapes occurring in eastern Congo occur in areas enjoying periods of relative peace. For those hoping to stop sexual violence in Congo, this quarter of cases demonstrates a key point of entry. Steven Levitt noted in Freakonomics that arms are simply a way to upset the “natural order” of things, and nowhere is this more evident in Congo. A woman who knows her rights, knows how to stay safe, and does not expose herself to vulnerability-increasing behavior still will fall when it comes down to an armed man with an intent to rape. In a conflict-ridden Congo, this is a given despite the best efforts by NGOs and civil society groups.
Perhaps an emphasis on prevention (collective cultivation, education, rights training, etc.) among women in areas not rife with fighting is a means of eliminating the cases of sexual violence which represent the 25% of the non-conflict related rapes occurring across eastern Congo ever year. These cases being eliminated would surely represent the most significant reduction of sexual violence which has occurred in Congo since the epidemic came to be in the early years of the conflict.
Working to eliminate the 25% of cases occurring in non-conflict situations could have significant implications on the 75% of cases occurring in conflict. First, the empowerment of a group of women who otherwise would have been victimized forms a potent tool in the regional effort to eliminate sexual violence. Secondly, and more importantly, if and when the conflict in eastern Congo comes to a close, the prevention of rape in non-conflict situations will be valuable to ensure that civilian rape is curbed. It would be ill-advised to assume that rape in Congo will end because of the end of the conflict, given that numbers of civilian rape are on the rise.
This thinking has really informed our approach to sexual violence in Congo for 2011. We hope to stress prevention in areas where prevention can work. This is not to say that we ignore areas where conflict induced vulnerability reigns supreme, but means that we place equal value in the effort to prevent rape where possible through programs and education as we do in our effort to treat women who suffer rape in Fizi Territory’s more dangerous conflict zones. It is a fine balance, but focusing a bit on the 25% of cases which don’t occur at the barrel of a gun might make significant progress in the fight against sexual violence in Congo.

Ned Meerdink

When I think about all of the lessons I have learned in three years in Congo, one comes to mind as the most important of them all: The basics of life are 1) difficult to come by and 2) never to be taken for granted. Across the world, people struggle for water, food, and fuel, but never have I seen a daily struggle for the basics burn as it does in eastern Congo.

Standing by the side of a dirt track my colleagues and I took turns cutting a broken radiator fan out of our truck with a razor blade I meant to use for a much needed shave, I was forced again to think about the difficulties in collecting the basics of what it takes to live in Congo. Surrounded by nothing but forest and hoping the truck would eventually start again, I saw nothing much worth looking at besides the occasional woman passing by, always carrying one of the following loads: 1) a plastic container of water, 2) a bunch of cut wood, or 3) a basket of just-harvested manioc or beans. It would be nice to say that these women went about these daily tasks with a certain joie de vivre in recognition of a job well done, but all I saw was perspiration and grit, and the women’s knowledge that the closest village was a long stretch ahead. “Whistle while you work” did not come to mind in the 90 F weather. I watched as the most fundamental of the building blocks of life-food, water, fuel-were passing en route to their final destination on women’s heads and backs, yet only through sweat and drudgery of the highest degree.

I was traveling to a village called Kikonde, a place I have been numerous times before, where SOS FED has kept a reception center for rape victims going despite constant insecurity and logistical challenges. In Kikonde, the sacrifices Congolese women make to achieve the most basis necessities of life were further emphasized in 40-or-so interviews with SOS FED beneficiaries about the situations that have led them to become victims of sexual violence. As Kikonde is now crawling with former CNDP rebels from Laurent Nkunda’s psychotic pack now on the Congolese government’s payroll, we got a predictable number of women reporting that their rapes occurred during the night when soldiers simply kicked in their doors and took and did what they pleased. This is all too common in the epoch of President Kabila’s Amani Leo Operation. However, what took us a bit by surprise during the interviews was the sheer number of women saying that they were attacked and raped during their efforts to bring fuel, water, and food back to their homes for their families. The stories were shockingly unanimous: A woman was walking by herself to a well, by herself to her fields, or by herself to cut wood for her fires, and was taken by soldiers hiding out in the rural areas where these resources are concentrated throughout Congo. We had heard this in other interviews conducted throughout the years and certainly read it in policy papers, yet for some reason the stories stuck out like a sore thumb this time around.

So, if you are working as SOS FED is to prevent women from being overly vulnerable to rape, where is the key point of intervention? These interviews proved that if we ensure that the basics can be achieved by women without increasing their vulnerability to rape, significant strides would be made in the battle against sexual violence. When we asked what women thought would decrease their vulnerability while getting water, wood, and food the answer was as unanimous as the answers to the previous question. Collective management of these resources and strength in numbers in taking these resources to women’s homes would prevent rape. Women offered us examples of their experiences in collective fields, where roving militia members encountered women working in large groups and realized that a large group has an uncanny ability to identify assailants to local authorities. These would-be-rapists were forced to go elsewhere to find more isolated victims. What if there were no isolated would-be victims left to attack?

Thus, an elementary connection between rape in eastern Congo and isolation while bringing home the basic elements of life was made infinitely clearer by our time in Kikonde. It’s another example of the overwhelming truth that local communities know most about the ways to improve their lives. Far too few people, NGOs, and research tanks take the time to ask. Want to know how to stop the war being waged on Congolese women? Just ask the women who have already fallen victim to it.

Me, SOS FED, and AP are now thinking on how exactly to urge communities to collectively work to get these resources where they are needed without putting women in harm’s way. Surely civilians in an area under control of sordid militias are always potential victims of those who carry the AK-47s, but a collectivity of organized civilians working together at key places of vulnerability, such as in their fields or near isolated sources of water, forms a significant “check” against a soldier looking for a lonely and therefore vulnerable target. This is where we need to be focusing our attention to help reduce women’s vulnerability to rape in Congo.

Ned Meerdink

A Kikonde woman's embroidered image of her rape, which occurred while she was alone, cultivating her fields in an isolated field. Her story was in sync with many other stories we heard in Kikonde.

**Caption for photo above-blog portal being difficult with my photo captions-”A Kikonde woman’s embroidered image of her rape, which occurred while she was alone, cultivating her fields in an isolated field. Her story was in sync with many other stories we heard in Kikonde.”

Anyone doubting the gravity of the situation women in eastern Congo face and the constant threat of sexual violence that exists throughout this region ought to take a glance at the recent happenings in and around a mining town called Walikale.

As both the New York Times and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recently reported, the weekend of July 30th was truly one to remember (or possibly one to forget) in Walikale. Raids in the villages surrounding this mining town and FDLR (Rwandan rebel) base began on a Friday night. By the end of the weekend, at least 200 FDLR rebels who previously stated that they were just arriving to the villages for rest and food had raped 180 women, with the number of reported cases rising since according to local radio. Most women reporting their violations also reported that the rape was committed by up to six FDLR soldiers at a time. UN peacekeepers 20km from the villages being pillaged and violated mentioned that they were simply unaware this was happening over the three days of raids. Following the raids, the FDLR simply slunk back into the forest to wait, presumably vindicated in their success due to the lack of opposition they met and the clear inability of both the UN, the Mai-Mai militias, and the Congolese FARDC soldiers the protect the civilians in and around Walikale.

Is this story shocking anyone? It should force us to recognize the sheer vulnerability women in Congo suffer from, despite the group of ‘allies’ in place throughout eastern Congo to help prevent rampant violence and rape. Additionally, it forces us to look towards civil society groups like SOS FED, who realize the constant threat and continue to fight vulnerability in their own ways despite the inability of even armed protection to stem the rape crisis. Groups like SOS FED have an enormous weight on their shoulders, and their continual courage in light of stories like this weekend in Walikale is admirable. Finally, we must note the clear link between minerals and violence in Congo. The FDLR is not in Walikale by chance, but partially because of the lucrative business to be done there in tin ore. Bisie Mine near Walikale is infamous for the fact that it is regularly exploited by the most unsavory of armed groups. AP Fellow Sylvie Bisangwa recently blogged about the Financial Reform Bill and a rider attached concerning controlling the minerals coming from eastern Congo, which will hopefully make it more difficult (eventually) for armed groups to profit from Congo’s mineral wealth. But for now the crisis rolls on unabated.

The last question that came to my mind in reading this news was: Who is sitting on their hands while this happens? Congo’s government has long been doing more or less nothing to prevent rape. It’s no news that the majority of rapes occurring in Congo are committed by Congolese FARDC soldiers. The fact is that the current Amani Leo operation to crush the FDLR has merely added to the instability in the region. Additionally, the UN undoubtedly will come up with some justification for what is becoming a pattern of inactivity in response to crises occurring at their doorstep. I’m waiting to hear some explanation on this incident besides the UN Military spokesperson’s comment that ‘information is still being gathered.’ They are certainly charged with a daunting task in bring security to a very insecure place, but surely a base 20km from the scene of a weekend long rape spree ought to have had some idea it was occurring. When we consider that the UN is currently scaling down their troop concentration in eastern Congo, the confusion only grows.

The article I’m speaking about, written by Josh Kron, is here. It’s certainly worth reading closely.

I recently arrived back in Bujumbura after a productive, albeit dusty and tiring, séjour in Mboko village, South Kivu, Congo. The SOS FED field team, having come together from all corners of Fizi Territory, had some interesting things to share, and really brought me up to speed on the progress of the current campaign of rape prevention they have put into place. The journey to Mboko was remarkably free of problems, and a little bit of planning kept us moving quickly through the road blocks and security check points. Thanks very much to SOS FED’s Uvira team for that. Here is a quick recap of what went during the Mboko meeting.

First, AP and Zivik have provided much needed support for SOS FED’s community fields program, which was a key agenda for the days of meetings in Mboko. The program, in a nutshell, encourages survivors of sexual violence working with SOS FED to form cooperative cultivation teams, then rents them the necessary hectares of land and monitors their production. Money made in the fields is divided among the cooperative cultivation teams, with each woman benefiting directly from their work. This may sound basic, but the key difference from traditional cultivation in Congo lies in the ‘cooperative’ aspect of the current program. Far too many SOS FED beneficiaries have found themselves in their current place-that is, trying to recover from violent sexual violence-because of their need to cultivate fields in often remote regions of Fizi Territory, where land can be rented at the lowest price. So, AP and Zivik have begun providing fields to women once two conditions have been met. First, a field must be located near a principal route or well-traveled footpath. Second, a field must not be worked by one woman, but by her cooperative group. In this way, vulnerability is reduced in that women are cultivating together (strength in numbers) and doing so in areas of Fizi Territory that are not so isolated as to provide ideal striking grounds for the regions roving militias. This slight modification has been showing positive signs of reducing vulnerability and protecting Congolese women trying to put food on their table. We all gave a big ‘bravo’ to this program, and are currently toying with numerous ways to precisely monitor field output in order to determine which types of crops in which areas provide the most profit to SOS FED’s beneficiaries.

Amisi from SOS FED and I in Mboko village

Amisi from SOS FED and I in Mboko village

In addition, the much awaited ‘Ahadi’ program has been given wings as of this last meeting. Though the program is well underway, the AP Fellow working from Bujumbura and I will be saving details on this until a later date. The program involves art as a means for advocacy, and places SOS FED beneficiaries in the driver’s seat of their own advocacy campaign. More on that will be available later. Materials are in place and the wheels are in motion.

Finally, the SOS FED field teams and I touched base on the current situation in and around the three SOS FED reception centers in Fizi Territory. The news is bleak, in that all of the centers are currently above capacity and receiving new visitors looking for a safe space to stay daily. The current Amani Leo operation in South Kivu has not ended the rape crisis as one might think from listening to Congolese Radio. Surely, Amani Leo is forcing FDLR militias deeper into the forests, but that doesn’t stop them from raping local women. It merely moves the sites of these violations to much less traveled areas of South Kivu where the Amani Leo force ceases to hold influence. Additionally, as the Amani Leo force is formed of FARDC [Congolese soldiers-reportedly responsible for 80% of the rapes in eastern Congo] and the ex-CNDP [notoriously violent militia soldiers once commanded by war criminal Laurent Nkunda], the population is not necessarily much better off than if the FDLR roamed free in the region. Correct me if I am wrong here, but rape is rape, regardless of the militia du jour that commits it. A perfect example lies in the fact that the SOS FED Mboko center was pillaged and forced to empty not too long ago at the hands of the state-sponsored protectors of Congo, the FARDC. No militia necessary. Thus, not a jovial ending to this blog, but a hopeful one in that the work continues.

None of the SOS FED field staff in attendance at Mboko gave any signs of the weariness a life in Congo can inspire. Quite the opposite, their presence at the meeting was a testament to their strength and commitment to improving their region. This will involve making good use of scant resources, staying organized, pulling from that never-ending well of patience and resilience, and keeping SOS FED moving towards their admirable goals. This is a lot easier said than done, especially in such an ‘interesting’ zone of eastern Congo. But, like I said, the work continues.

Ned Meerdink

This evening, I returned home from my most recent series of planning meetings with AP’s DRC partner, SOS Femmes en Danger (SOS FED). This time, our meetings were logistical in nature, as we are currently organizing a large meeting/training session/organizational update for the SOS FED staff and have to figure out how exactly to get the staff from each SOS FED reception center to Mboko village in South Kivu to rendez-vous. SOS FED currently has 3 reception centers for survivors of sexual violence in South Kivu spread throughout the province in the villages of Mboko, Kikonde, and Kazimia.

300 kilometers of no roads and questionable security conditions through numerous rebel-held villages separate Center Kazimia, the southernmost from the SOS FED installation, from the northernmost Center Mboko. The SOS FED village field workers are preparing to arrive by a confusing combination of motorcycles, boats, and transport lorries normally reserved for corn and manioc in order to get to our meeting on the 2nd of August to speak face-to-face and truly begin putting the ‘Combating Sexual Violence in Eastern Congo’ campaign into action.

So, next time you are considering the horrible inconvenience of your two hour layover in Indianapolis or even your ten hour wait in Addis Ababa en route to somewhere else, consider the following itinerary for our SOS FED representative working in Kazimia, South Kivu:

1. Take the dugout pirogue from Kazimia towards Yungu. Estimated time of travel is anywhere between 5 hours and 2 days, depending on the load of fish being ferried and the availability of gas in Kazimia to power an unpredictable outboard motor. The captain of the ship has failed to sympathize with our plea to get our colleague to Yungu in time to meet and thus can’t even guarantee the day he might be on his way. Quote: ‘When gas costs $3/liter, we can’t really move without the boat being full of fish to sell to pay our way back. So, I’ll send a message once we get enough fish.’ This is more than understood by everyone on our end, but there are no cell phone networks in Kazimia, so we are unsure how the message will reach us.

2. Arrive at Yungu whenever, and get moving on foot towards Kikonde. Believe me, a 35 km walk is a lot slower when navigating around shady road blocks in mid-day Congo sun. In the event of a nighttime arrival our colleague will have to sleep at the port, because at night the road blocks get drunker.

3. Now, hitch a ride to Baraka, which is a city center in South Kivu, on board a motorcycle making the trip without a passenger. We’ve gotten lucky in the past with drivers from larger aid organizations on the lookout for an extra passenger or two and the ‘pocket money’ that service generates for them. And make haste, because real delays are to be expected at road blocks at Kikonde and on the outskirts of Baraka.

4. Finally, get yourself on a bus for the remaining 150km towards Mboko on any truck in sight moving north. Riding on top of bean sacks with 50 other passengers here is not to be ruled out, but don’t plan on a very cushy ride or even a seat for that matter. Also, everybody out on hills and on river crossings…

After all this, our colleague will be in Mboko with us, following between 2 days and a week of traveling. And, as I’ve seen with my own eyes many times, she’ll arrive in nice clean pagne (fabric), not a hair out of place, looking like she’s on the way to a wedding—at the same time mentally poised and ready to sort out a pretty complex program. It defies all logic, but then again the Congolese women are the toughest and most resilient I’ve ever been lucky enough to work with.

Ned Meerdink

I arrived last week to Uvira, South Kivu, in order to participate in a marathon of surprisingly exhausting meetings with SOS FED field workers concerning the current rape prevention program they have partnered with AP on. The journey to Congo from Bujumbura was much the usual-annoying slow and marred with checkpoints. However, a shocking event occurring on the road into Uvira the previous week had forced me to prepare a bit for the chaos that often ensues when working in and around South Kivu, Congo. This blog, consequently, is much more about this event than the content of the meetings we held in Uvira.

Last week, a gas truck coming into town overturned on the ever-perilous excuse for a road into Uvira. The truck flipped near Sange village, which is just outside Uvira, and was reportedly trying to make good time to Uvira to avoid driving at night when the road fills with armed groups and road blocks. As many Congolese in the area of the truck converged to collect the valuable gas spilling from the ruptured tanker, the spill ignited and burned possibly 300 people to death. Many of those burned to death were not interested in the pillage of the spilling gas, but were simply watching World Cup matches on generator-powered television sets in the thatch hut bars which offer the ‘nightlife’ in any Congolese village. An exploding tanker, however, does not discriminate and a large portion of the densely populated village was reduced to ashes.

The estimates of the death toll are imprecise, but the fall-out since the original accident has been drastic as Uvira has no medical facilities equipped to deal with burn victims, and no space to keep them out of the dust and dirt. A nurse from SOS FED working in Sange temporarily commented that the death toll could easily double due to the likeliness of burn victims not killed by their wounds developing untreatable infections. He also mentioned the difficulty in counting the dead, as ‘…young kids and those closest to the truck when it exploded were just ash by the time the fire died down a bit.’ Some burn victims were sent to the already over-burdened hospitals in Bukavu, the provincial capital, but the majority of burned civilians have to make do with local services and occasional visits by Médecins Sans Frontières mobile clinics and other NGOs helping out where they can. You’ll find a recent report of the incident here.

In a place where a liter of gas’s value is a lot more than most people’s daily income, one can understand the lure of spilling gas quickly absorbing into the sand. I immediately thought of the situation a lot of people in Sange might have been in at the time and the difficult decision to be made. The opportunity to grab an empty US AID oil can and join in on a classic ‘victimless crime’-especially in order to assure another week’s meals-might be too hard to resist. In this instance, small-time theft had tragic repercussions for an area of the world which has already seen its share of tragedy.

IDPs (Internally Displaced People) on the road out of Sange village ahead of CNDP/Kimia II advances last year. This family actually ended up living in the house next to mine in Uvira for a few months.

Ned Meerdink

After an absence that ran far too long, I am happy to be back in Bujumbura, Burundi en route to Congo.

I arrived just in time to see the result of the Burundian ‘election’—there was only one candidate.  Much to the surprise of international observers, the US Department of State, and myself, the only candidate was reelected with a minimal amount of disarray in Bujumbura.  Some quartiers in Bujumbura were victims of opposition-led grenade attacks and shootings.  However, the general opinion in town was that some disturbances are only normal for a Great Lakes election.  So one experiences an air of business as usual in Bujumbura, an incumbent president successful in his campaign, and an unsettling finality to a more or less stolen election.

Across the border in Congo, the end of June brought the celebration of their 50^th year free from Belgian colonial rule.  Amid the country-wide parades, demonstrations of military prowess, and self-congratulatory speeches given by President Joseph Kabila, a movement of discontent was visible and televised throughout the region.  Large demonstrations were organized throughout eastern Congo as counters to the enthusiastic celebration of the 50^th anniversary of independence.  Most were led by groups holding signs declaring ‘50 Years of Blood Flow’, ’50 Years Later: The Theft Continues During Our Days’ and ‘Congo Raped Before and After Independence’.  Organizers were quoted at length, and most commented on the current kleptocracy’s theft of minerals and lack of proper allocation of profit towards social services promised by the current government, the continuing violence in North and South Kivu provinces, and the feeling that war will always be a part of Congolese day-to-day life.

These protest marches were of course not meant simply to give a pessimistic air to Congo’s party, but to call attention to the overwhelming failings of the current administration to address the issues which affect all Congolese.  Of these, the issue which comes to the forefront and draws me here again is sexual violence, and the quite literal rape of Congo.

In 2007, I was fortunate enough to stumble upon the work of a Congolese NGO called SOS Femmes en Danger (SOS FED), which works to provide basic care for the ever-increasing number of rape victims in south Kivu Province.  AP was able to solidify a tight partnership with SOS FED since then, and has been working to support and draw international attention to their work.  This next year, with the help of AP and the German Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (IVF), SOS FED is unrolling a broad-based campaign of rape prevention, which is targeted towards empowering women to reduce their personal and collective vulnerability to rape.  As AP’s representative in Congo, I am charged with monitoring and reporting abroad on this ambitious project.  Marceline Kongolo, SOS FED’s Executive Director, has already been recognized by US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and scores of the ‘who’s who’ in foreign service, and I am pretty honored to be part of her excellent team again.  I’ll be blogging regularly until January, and will be providing much more in depth information as we go along.  Please don’t hesitate to follow this blog, link to it where pertinent, and help get the word out about SOS FED’s work in eastern Congo.  I’m off to Congo tomorrow morning, and I must say I am itching with anticipation over this much-awaited homecoming.

Ned Meerdink       

[Rather than write three separate entries concerning three recent items of note in Uvira, I decided to combine them for the sake of ease in posting considering an increasingly rare internet connection as of late.]

Vesta Co-op party to benefit Tunza Mazingira

Vesta Co-op party to benefit Tunza Mazingira

First, thanks to Vesta Cooperative House in East Lansing, Michigan for ‘partying with a purpose’ on behalf of an AP partner in eastern Congo. Vesta Co-op opened their doors to MSU students and community members last Friday from 9 pm to the wee hours of the morning in order to benefit AP partner Tunza Mazingira (‘Protect the Environment’ in Swahili) and the alternative cooking fuel program which was started this last year by Tunza field worker Clément Kitambala. As Tunza believes that environmental protection equates with civilian protection in the eastern Congolese context, alternative cooking fuel has become a major focus of Tunza’s work. Congolese women regularly risk their personal safety to go into the forests to collect firewood (making them increasingly vulnerable to violence and rape at the hands of the ever-present active armed groups), or sacrifice their stressed family budgets to purchase expensive traditional ‘makala’ in town to cook, which rises weekly in price in response to growing insecurity in the zones where it is produced and increasing scarcity of eucalyptus, which is used to produce makala and is being rampantly deforested.

Vesta Co-op raised over $800 for further development of Clément’s program with alternative cooking briquettes, which are composed of organic waste and offer a multitude of environmental, economic, and security-related benefits for Congolese civilians, which you can read about in greater detail here. The money will go directly to Tunza Mazingira, and will allow us to 1) build three new briquette presses, 2) offer small loans to women cooking and selling road-side food using alternative cooking fuel, 3) give work to 12 demobilized girls coming out of armed groups (which decreases the likeliness of their rejoining militias due to lack of income), who are making and selling alternative briquettes and will do so on a larger scale in the coming weeks with the new presses, and 4) spread awareness throughout Uvira on the benefits of using the briquettes in place of wood or makala-based cooking fires. Vesta Co-op’s generosity (and that of all the party goers) has jump-started Clément’s work in Uvira, and everyone from Tunza’s staff sends their sincere thanks to the co-opers and everyone responsible for organizing the party, making food, buying/drinking booze, and collecting money. All this sort of makes me wish I was still in college…To check out what an East Lansing paper wrote about the benefit, look here.

Watu wenge sana

Watu wenge sana

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Secondly, and completely unrelated, is the status of the Kimya II operation to ‘throw out or kill’ thousands of FDLR rebels in South Kivu. I could merely quote the pro-government propaganda aired each night on national radio which says that all is going well and that the FDLR are on their way to extinction, but instead I’d like to offer you a linguistic clue as to what the status of the operation is.

Currently, if you have severe diarrhea in Uvira, you will say (if you are up on local slang), ‘Nasikia Kimya II kabisa.’ [literally, ‘I have serious Kimya II’]. This uncomfortable, dangerous, and frequent killer of civilians used to be called ‘kuhara’ (the literal translation of ‘diarrhea’ into Swahili), but is now simply called ‘Kimya II’. This pretty much sums the operation up. N.B. According to the 2008 IRC mortality report for Congo, diarrhea is one of the primary contributors to the 30,000 or so civilians dying each month due to ‘war related’ causes in eastern Congo, which include lack of housing and clean water due to populations fleeing combat, ruined clinics and lack of medical care, and a variety of other problems intensified and unaddressed in light of the insecurity here. Thus, the sense of this recent addition to the ‘Uvira dictionary’ seems pretty clear. The people have spoken and offered a pretty candid approximation on Kimya II’s recent results. Having had no running water in three weeks, everyone in Uvira is starting to feel a bit of ‘Kimya II’ one way or another.

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Thirdly, AP partner SOS Femmes en Danger and I were finally able to arrange the much awaited arrival of the uniforms and school supplies so kindly donated by Diane Von Furstenburg in the villages of Kazimia, Kikonde, and Mboko. The uniforms and supplies benefited children of single mothers, widows, and victims of sexual violence. A small gap in fighting opened up the roads for movement South from Uvira, and now lots of kids are back in class, albeit a bit late. A bad omen for the immediate future emerged when combat resumed as the trip was coming to an end, with Mai-Mai vs. FARDC battles in Kikonde and Mboko (even in heavily populated Baraka town), and FDLR occupation and partial burning of a village 4 km from Kazimia.

One of over 200 DVF sponsored students in her school's office in Kikonde

One of over 200 DVF sponsored students in her school's office in Kikonde

Nevertheless, thanks very much to Diana Von Furstenburg for making it possible for so many kids in Fizi to continue their studies. The regulations at schools in Congo are fairly draconian concerning the requirement of new uniforms for incoming students, so ‘le rentre’ would have been impossible for a lot of kids without the DVF support. Now, if only security can improve a bit to create an atmosphere where studying can happen without fear and without firefights drowning out recitations and lessons.

Ned Meerdink

One of the more frustrating aspects of working in the regions of Congo currently under the yoke of Kimya II operations is the stopping of programs already in place due to declining security and risky travel situations. Admittedly, this is a paltry inconvenience when compared with the problems facing civilians all too often directly in the line of fire; their worries are much more significant than those NGOs face. Entire rural villages are being burned up by rebels it daily recently in South Kivu. However, when speaking of the declining quality of life and availability of services that face Congolese during active combat and operations, the blocking of NGO work definitely comes into play. Examples…

One of the AP partners in eastern Congo with whom I have been working, SOS Femmes en Danger, recently appealed to the foundation run by Diane Von Furstenburg for financing to get uniforms and supplies to children of rape victims and single mothers (many mothers themselves are still young enough to be students) in Fizi Territorry villages currently more or less run by FDLR and Mai-Mai militias. Ms. Von Furstenburg was more than generous with us, and the huge hurdle that gaining even minimal amounts of financing usually is for organizations in eastern Congo was made remarkably simple. With the money in place, we got to work putting together hundreds of uniforms and supply sets for kids who pretty much wouldn’t be able to even find their obligatory uniforms due to the cutting of supply routes in their area. This all seems to be adding up to what could be called a ‘successful intervention’ by many, n’est-pas?

Here’s the gritty part: The Kimya II operations in our area have more or less closed the roads due South. Roads that are still passable are manned by a variety of militia soldiers, obviously generally unconcerned with letting free school uniforms get through to more isolated communities. On the contrary, OCHA offices have informed me that not only will the Mai-Mai in question likely interrogate and extort us along the road, but they will likely take whatever is being carried towards Fizi and simply refuse the parcels back after ‘inspection.’ I’ve got no problem riding on a motorbike with heavy boxes for 14 hours, but not just to get robbed along the way. So, we look into taking a boat on Lake Tanganyika around the heavy combat zones, and we’re told that will cost for the moment is about $600 due to the regional insecurity and soaring gas prices (those lines have been cut off or at least limited as well). No chance…

So, as the deadline for the beginning of the school year creeps closer, this prime example of frustrations encountered by NGOs with limited financing is rearing its ugly head. Waiting and wringing our hands is an option, but can only go so far. Hopefully, we’ll be able to convince the UN helicopters moving everywhere these days to organize a good old fashioned air drop, but that seems more than a little far-fetched. Welcome to eastern Congo during the epoch of Kimya II.

Ned Meerdink