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.”

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

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

My border crossings in Congo have become rather intricate afffairs with the complexity of the process increasing in proportion to the amount of time spent in Congo. I really had not realized exactly how bizarre this seemingly simple (and ‘official’) process had become until this last week, when three very typical border crossings led to accusations that I am: 1) participating in the arms trade, 2) traveling with a fake passport, and 3) carrying (and producing!) fake visas. It seems that the longer I stay in Congo, the more explaining I have to do in terms of justifying my existence. Unlike a worker for a large NGO or a consultant with a clearly defined arrival/departure date, I just sort of keep ‘sticking around’, which has led to lots of stories forming in officials’ heads about why exactly I prefer to spend so much time in Congo rather then spending more time in more ‘familiar parts of the world.’

As Congo has been thoroughly upset through the last few decades by the gamut of foreign threats, it is not so surprising that border guards and soldiers could be extremely cautious. But, these guys in Congo take it to a while new level. One of the complicating factors, in my opinion, is my designation as a ‘student’ which leaves a lot of room for people to fill in what ever they think might be your real intentions here. If you say you are a student, guards often test out a hypothesis of you being engaged in intelligence gathering for a number of countries, typically including Rwanda and Uganda. If this theory is quickly dismissed by some well-placed manufactured stupidity (e.g. asking the guard, ‘Where is Uganda?’) then other theories quickly surface, such as mineral trading or political ‘agitating’. Education in eastern Congo is looked on as a tool for outsiders to become better plunderers, better critics of the government, or better informed as to the atrocities going on daily in Congo. In this unique circumstance, Western education doesn’t open many doors, but can keep you from going through ones you have a right to pass through.

The truly disturbing part for me, however, is how ready and willing the border guards charged with curbing foreign threats from arriving on Congolese territory are to accepting any small amount of money to let any possible trumped up violation vanish into thin air. After any accusation, an offer will eventually arise hinting that a few dollars will make all these problems disappear. Accused of moving AK-47s in checked baggage? ‘Irrigate’ the guard a bit and this baggage goes through without so much as a once-over. Has your passport’s validity been questioned? Pay a little and you could pass the border with bar coaster with your name scribbled on it in purple crayon. No one is undertaking the heavy questioning and suspicion I meet at border crossings for any reason except to get paid off and any questions of legality or protection of civilians, even in cases where guards might find someone doing something less than above board, will always be quickly swept under the rug by border guards looking for a quick payout. I consider it a point of pride to refuse these and all bribes, and rely on a healthy does of patience and competitive spirit (‘I can wait out even the most persistent corrupt guard’). Getting accused of horrendous things isn’t scary. However, understanding how easily these things occur in this atmosphere of complete impunity (despite a well-manned border patrol) is the scary part. The fight against small arms, counterfeit money, and all other undesirable inputs will always be futile if it only takes a little money and negotiation to bring them onto Congolese soil.

Ned Meerdink