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

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.”

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

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

Yesterday, I was traveling to Lubarika, a small village on Uvira’s Haut Plateau. The Haut Plateau is a mountainous region of South Kivu which begins just east of Bukavu (somewhere near Shabunda) and flows south into Fizi Territory. The villages of the Haut Plateau surrounding Uvira have recently been the site of large movements of IDPs Iinternally displaced persons) fleeing the advance of FDLR troops in their area. Arche d’Alliance was working in Lubarika in order to get a sense of the amount of IDPs moving in the area in light of FDLR attacks over the last week, as well as to attempt to establish a more unified procedure for registering the IDPs moving into Lubarika. Lots if interesting aspects to the IDP crisis around Uvira were made abundantly clear during the visit.

First, the FDLR is quite active in the area. The morning of our arrival, the FDLR rebels had attacked villages just 3 or 4 km from Lubarika. They burned and pillaged houses and sent a large exodus of IDPs fleeing for Lubarika, where Kimya II forces are providing some sense of security. More details of these attacks will probably come to the surface over the next few days, but as we were in the area the morning of, we were given extremely limited amounts of information.

Secondly, we learned that in Lubarika the Kimya II troops, while not trusted by everyone, are making efforts to keep calm in the region. Interviews with newly arrived IDPs revealed that the current FARDC Kimya II soldiers in the area are overwhelmed but have not recently been involved in any extensive pillaging or sexual violence (this is as well just partial information, as not much time has passed to reveal any possible violations by the Kimya II force). We saw their patrols on the road, and they looked, frankly, worn out and ill-prepared to do much more than patrol. The fact that the FDLR was pillaging and burning villages at 3 km seems to corroborate this observation.

In addition, we saw first-hand the importance of an analysis of ‘carrying capacity’ of a community when considering IDP movements. One of the problems beginning to show in Lubarika is that IDPs will arrive from as far as Mwenga (100 km west) with almost nothing at all. They will then look to the Lubarika community to offer what they can in terms of food and shelter. Many have no family in the area and have fled village after village as FDLR attacks have continue to push them further east on the Haut Plateau. The Lubarika population extends the natural amount of Congolese hospitality, but as we were told, it gets to be a major problem. One man interviewed told us that just that following the FDLR attacks of that morning, 12 IDPs arrived at his residence in need of some shelter and food. The impoverished community of Lubarika is working to cater to these arriving IDPs, but there is a clear conflict in the making when people with nothing arrive to ask for help from communities with very little to offer. Each quartier we saw had families of IDPs, some only arriving half-intact, who are now reaching out to their neighbors for everything they need to live.

Further considering the difficulties of supporting the new IDPs, it seems as if NGOs and the international community have a necessary role to play. Taking the burden off families now sharing the very little they have with IDPs and offering more consistent support to the arriving IDPs is a clear way to maintain some semblance of calm in Lubarika. The reality, however, is the there are no efforts of the sort occurring in the region. Each interviewee we spoke with mentioned that there were no other NGOs in the area attempting to aid Lubarika to cope with the IDPs in the area. Simple steps like counting the number of new arrivals, asking where they are coming from, and registering them to be eligible for eventual aid are being performed not by NGOs with sufficient funding but by small field clinics. These clinics, in addition to responding to the ever-increasing problems with malaria and diarrhea among new arrivals in Lubarika, are also charged with writing the names of new arrivals and trying to keep them organized. Not only is this not part of their job description, but they are not paid for this work and understaffed to make serious efforts to properly carry the work out. This is one of the aspects that Arche d’Alliance is attempting to step in on, making them unfortunately the first NGO to be helping Lubarika to care for the overwhelming number of IDPs coming into their community each day.

Finally, we spoke with residents of their plans in light of the continuing attacks near their homes. Most in Lubarika said that if the security situation continues to deteriorate they will be forced to flee themselves towards Uvira (first towards Sange and Kiliba villages immediately below the Haut Plateau). Considering this possibility, it is easy to understand the way in which a refugee/IDP crisis multiplies. Those formally receiving and aiding IDPs become IDPs themselves due to spreading insecurity, and pass the difficulties of supporting a fleeing community onto another village which might be about to flee as well. It is a disastrous cycle, and very troubling to see played out so close to home.

Though the chance of reversing this trend is extremely small, Arche d’Alliance hopes to continue to be able to work with these communities to, at the minimum, be able to accurately register those fleeing in order to await aid which could come in the near future for IDPs living on the Haut Plateau. Communities like Lubarika are doing their best to support their fleeing neighbors while waiting to see if they will have to flee as well, but they are completely overwhelmed. Hopefully, interventions by those with the means to take some of the burden off these communities and combine resources with Congolese (who are already giving everything they have to work with arriving IDPs) will provide some eventual relief within the ongoing problems in South Kivu.

Ned Meerdink

Where in the world is the FDLR?

That seems to be the question going around Uvira recently, as the current government military operation called Kimya II (which means something like ‘quiet’ or ‘invisible’ in Swahili) is taking hold in South Kivu. Kimya II is being conducted against the usual suspects-the Rwandan FDLR rebels, who have at their leadership certain participants in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The operation is more than confusing, as it combines battalions of former enemies like the Mai Mai and CNDP (formerly led by Laurent Nkunda) with the Congolese FARDC forces in order to form a force capable of tracking the FDLR rebels and bringing an end to their long-standing presence in eastern Congo. The success of Kimya II seems unlikely for a number of reasons, primarily because the force meant to fight off the FDLR is composed of forces which have traditionally been extremely antagonistic to each other. For example, just last December, the CNDP was literally within spitting distance of taking Goma from the FARDC forces, with the Mai Mai lingering in the era and periodically attacking both the CNDP and FARDC. Massacres, pillaging, and rape were committed by all three forces involved in the Goma fighting-even by FARDC soldiers fleeing the occupation of their city. Additionally, the now reintegrated CNDP soldiers were part of the battalions which attacked and occupied Bukavu in 2004, raping and pillaging indiscriminately. No one has forgotten this. Now, the Congolese government is hoping all three will work together in harmony to throw out the FDLR, which is marked as an enemy of all armed groups involved.

FDLR positions in eastern Congo. Uvira is located about 30km south of Sange. (courtesy: MONUC)

FDLR positions in eastern Congo. Uvira is located about 30km south of Sange. (courtesy: MONUC)

The population here is obviously almost unanimously against Kimya II and the threat it poses to civilians in South Kivu. First, there is little proof that the FARDC is capable, even with its new found ‘friends,’ of threatening the FDLR rebels. The FDLR rebels are well-entrenched throughout South and North Kivu and commonly regarded as more adequately trained than the FARDC. The Kimya II force seems merely to anger the rebels, then flee their attack, leaving civilians exposed to FDLR ‘revenge.’ Going further, all the groups intended to force the FDLR out are more used to acting directly AGAINST the best interests of the civilian population. Recent investigations by Oxfam (interviews in 20 communities within South Kivu) and Human Rights Watch (interviews throughout North and South Kivu) in the East have commented on the massive abuses by both the FARDC soldiers and their Mai Mai allies, most surveys concluding that communities here have at least as much fear of ‘their own’ troops as the FDLR rebels. These interviews included many of the reintegrated forces (combining former rebels with FARDC) which form the Kimya II force. Finally, no one in the community is neglecting to mention the obvious truth that when the FDLR are being hunted down, the massacres of civilians invariably increase in frequency.

Recent killings across South Kivu have revealed a clear pattern. First, the government forces attack a particular FDLR rebel stronghold as part of Kimya II operations. The FDLR then recedes into surrounding forest areas in order to regroup and plan a counter-attack. This counter-attack occurs, the FARDC troops flee, and the FDLR is left to attack the civilians. This just happened in Busurungi village in South Kivu, with at least 100 civilians killed. A Washington Post article commented that the attacked FDLR rebels recaptured Busurungi village ‘…without resistance from the government forces, who had already moved to another area,’ and then simply arrived to massacre the civilian population. These types of attacks have created the current IDP (internally displaced person) problem in eastern Congo, with at least 900,000 fleeing their homes in North and South Kivu since January. Add to that the 300,000 which fled in December 2008, and you have over 1 million new IDPs in the last 7 months or so.

If anything, Kimya II is merely inciting more violence, causing more distrust and fear among the community, and creating a situation where the IDP population will continue to increase in number. I am certainly seeing this aspect of the ‘fall out’ in Uvira recently, as the constant stream of IDPs fleeing violence in surrounding villages ends in Uvira. Trucks have been coming in to town with astonishing frequency full of IDPs leaving their homes in Lemera, Sange, Livungi, and other villages with strong FDLR presence. Simple lines of those fleeing on foot carrying everything they own are now unfortunately a part of the landscape between Uvira and Bukavu. This is just another situation in Congo which seems to lack a clear military solution, as civilians always bear the brunt of these ‘efforts at consolidating the peace.’ The question I am curious is to ask those leaving their homes is whether they are fleeing the FDLR rebels, the Kimya II forces, or both. Frustratingly typical in Congo, civilians merely move from one hot spot to another, with no one reliable to turn to for protection and no time to come up for air.

Ned Meerdink

Of all the empty promises which led to the 2006 election of current president Joseph Kabila, the most potent was probably his guarantee of establishing a network of paved roads (the first in Eastern Congo) from Ituri Province down towards Katanga Province. It is no secret at all the differences an established system of navigable roads creates, which is precisely why the idea of establishing such a system in Eastern Congo carried so much weight for Kabila and his allies on their way to office in Kinshasa.

Seeing that nothing at all has been accomplished in this regard (any pavement in the East has been put down by MONUC troops), the oncoming elections in 2011 might be a scary prospect for Kabila. I personally had been wondering since 2008 how he might go about explaining away the fact that his most ambitious promise hasn’t even begun in order to ensure his reelection, and things began explaining themselves a bit this past December. Towards the middle of December, huge road graders and backhoes arrived in Uvira in a nicely arranged ceremony. The heavy machinery arrived on flatbed trucks (ironically making slow progress on the excuse for a road we find in Uvira) surrounded by a convoy of the Land Cruisers and Mercedes owned by state employees. Businesses all shut down and people began discussing the fact that finally, work was beginning on Kabila’s grand promise to the East. The amount of excitement generated by this procession of earth moving equipment was surprising and eventually extremely disheartening.

Kabila's roads

Kabila's roads

The sad (and unfortunately, distinctly Congolese) part of all this story is that nothing has happened since. The machines ended up making their tour of Uvira, dropping down towards Fizi as well to drum up more hope, then made a quick return to Uvira, where they have been sitting and rusting ever since in what could certainly be called a ‘development graveyard.’ I find myself regularly passing just to see if there are any signs of use or movement among these machines which arrived to build Kabila’s road. The only noticeable difference is that bits and pieces of the machines have begun to be picked from the originals, probably in order to get another machine up to working order. In addition, one of the backhoes is partially crushed as it fell off a flatbed near Kabimba (during the ‘publicity tour’) when the dirt road crumbled and dropped the flatbed off the side of a bridge-I’m not making this up. Another detail I have picked up on is that all the necessary equipment for using the machines (including the keys and various engine parts) are in Bukavu, as administrators there decided to donate their equipment just to generate optimism that the road would be built, with no intention of actually starting any of the machines and getting to work.

No movement since December

No movement since December

This is one of the stories I hope people aren’t forgetting in light of the elections planned for 2011. I certainly understand the enticement offered by the idea of usable roads. Commerce, aid work, security patrols, traveling and countless other necessities are made simple by a good network of paved roads. But, for the moment, nothing seems to be happening in that regard, besides the placement of more than a few expensive and increasingly useless ‘statues,’ or more accurately tributes to underdevelopment in Congo. Don’t hold your breath.

Ned Meerdink