Marceline Kongolo

Marceline Kongolo

Meet Marceline Kongolo.  Marceline is the founder and executive secretary of SOS Femmes en Danger, a grassroots organization that seeks to improve the situation of women in Eastern Congo through education and assistance.  SOS Femmes en Danger primarily works in Fizi Territory, where women are routinely abducted and subjected to sexual violence by numerous armed groups, both state and non-state.

Marceline is only 22 years old, but she has grown up amid the violent upheaval that has affected her homeland since the mid-90s.  Her personal story of flight and loss is quite incredible.

“I was born and grew up in Kindu, in Maniema Province,” Marceline told us, “In 2001 my family and I fled Kindu because of the war.  We were on the road for a long time, and in the process my father and brother were killed.  After that, we were five: my mother, my siblings, and me.  We fled then to Kisangani, but there life was difficult because of all the violence, war, and killing.  After Kisangani, we went to Bukavu, then to Uvira, and we finally ended up in Fizi.   Because of all the problems I saw around me during this period, I saw it was necessary to start helping women.”

Marceline’s story is unfortunately not too uncommon in Eastern Congo.  The circumstances under which her brother and father were murdered are also sadly familiar to the area.

“When we were fleeing Kindu,” said Marceline, “the Congolese soldiers were taking girls as young as 13 and forcing them to be their wives.  They would take girls into the forest, and after they had finished with them they would simply discard them.”

“This became a problem for me too, as a local commander wanted to take me as his wife.  He was going to take me, but my mother refused, saying that I was too young.  So, he sent men to kill my father and brother as we left Kindu.  The commander put my sister and me in prison.  After two days we were freed and we continued our flight to Kisangani.”

Stories similar to Marceline’s are still common in this part of Congo, and SOS Femmes en Danger faces an uphill battle in trying to break the cycle of sexual violence.  However, Marceline remains positive.

“I will continue my work and will not be discouraged,” she said, “I work little by little to help women in the Congo, and things will change.”

Since SOS Femmes en Danger is a very small local organization, it has difficulty in responding to the need for assistance in Fizi.  Marceline hopes that her organization will continue to grow and that women will be able to live without the constant fear of violation.

“We want to increase the number of women we are able to help.  Today, perhaps we can work with 30 victims, tomorrow maybe 60, after that maybe 70, 150, and so on.  That is the vision of SOS Femmes en Danger.  For women in general, we want peace, development, an end to the fighting and violence, and the ability to go about our business without being threatened.  Really, we just want women’s lives to be better.”

Marie Bashishibe

Marie Bashishibe

Meet Mariamu “Marie” Bashishibe.  Marie is the site director of the SOS Femmes en Danger reception center in Mboko, Fizi Territory.  This reception center shelters up to 30 women who are victims of sexual violence, domestic abuse, and marginalization by the community.  Many of the women at the center were abducted and raped by one of numerous armed groups that infest Fizi Territory.  Many of the women are the widows of soldiers and have no means of support.  All the women at the center are objects to cruel derision and marginalization in their communities.  They are called “prostitutes” and other harsh names, even if their experience was by no choice of their own.

 ”There are some women here that were kicked out of their homes by their husbands because they were raped,” said Marie, “Their husbands claim that since they were raped, they are now infected with viruses and sickness, and so they simply throw them out.”

“The community here neglects and derides these women,” she continued, “They are subject to neglect and derision.  Even their families reject them.  Even their country rejects them.”

 Indeed, the situation of women in Congo is very poor.  Marie spoke at length about this unsavory aspect of Congolese society.

“Women here are very neglected, even if they do all the work and are essentially the breadwinners of the family,” said Marie, “Women educate the children, feed them, clothe them.  They are responsible for everything.  Husbands sit under the trees and play Ludo [a popular board game] all day.  All the while their wives work in the fields, bring back the food, and prepare the food.  Men will forget they haven’t put forth any effort to provide the food, but they will certainly eat it!”

“In addition,” continued Marie, “Men will beat their wives, saying ‘don’t you know how to cook?  You used too little oil in the meal!”

“The men forget their women.  In Fizi, to be a wife is to be forgotten.  These women have nothing.  Men try to play us like pieces in their board game, doing whatever they want whenever they want it.”

 Marie also told us about how girls are held back from opportunities for education by their families, and how the only future considered for girls is to be married off at a young age.  If a woman’s husband runs off or dies, she is expected to marry again and keep making children, or else she will be considered a prostitute.  To make matters worse, the government does little to improve the lives women in Congo, despite the fact that the Congolese constitution guarantees equal rights to women.

“In the case of the government,” said Marie, “I haven’t seen anything at all working to help us here.  There is nothing here.  We don’t see any improvements.”

Women at the SOS FED reception center in Mboko

Women at the SOS FED reception center in Mboko

 In this atmosphere, it is easy to see how marginalization is a terrible sentence for a woman in Congo.  Thus, the center is available to these women so they have a bed to sleep in, food, basic medical treatment, and shelter from the abuse of their community.  However, Marie feels that there needs to be more to change the overall situation of women in Congo.

 ”Education is the start,” said Marie, “This has to be given to girls as well as boys.  Secondly, our soldiers need to be reeducated, so that they can learn to respect our women.  Thirdly, women should be able to control their finances, so women can monitor their household and keep their own money.  If women are able to drive their households, men will then recognize our value and begin respecting the work we do.”

 It should now be obvious that Marie is a fearless woman, speaking out against deeply entrenched chauvinist traditions and a war that has had a particularly devastating impact on women.  Not often does one find someone with Marie’s candor.

 Marie has been working at the center in Mboko for two years.  She hopes that in coming years, SOS Femmes en Dangers will be able to provide education to the women of Fizi, giving them the skills necessary to end sexual violence and promote equality for women in their communities.

“When women know their rights, they know how to defend themselves.  A woman can’t defend herself without this knowledge.  An educated woman applies this to her life, and thus the situation can change.”

Rose Shukurami and her family

Rose Shukurami and her family

Songolo asked Rose if she wanted to return to Rwanda.  Rose shook her head no.  This may seem strange, since Rose is ethnic Rwandan, and being married to the FDLR she is hardly a member of accepted society in the Congo.  However, once you look at the bigger geopolitical and historical picture, it makes a bit more sense.  Kagame’s Rwanda would be hardly peaches and cream for a “Hutu” attached to the Interahamwe like Rose, even if she had nothing to do with the genocide in 1994.  Rose had been in Congo even before the genocide; her daughter and grandchildren were born here, and they’ve never seen their “homeland”.

Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and his allies, such as Yoweri Musevini in Uganda, toppled Mobutu’s regime in 1997, intending on installing Mobutu’s wily old opponent Laurent-Désire Kabila as their puppet.  The excuse for the invasion was that the Interahamwe had fled into then-Zaire and were plotting their return, with support and shelter from Africa’s consummate troublemaker Mobutu.  While this was somewhat accurate, it was also a cover for Rwanda’s neocolonialist plans for Eastern Congo.  Since the international community was very ineffectual in stopping the Rwandan genocide, and since their post-Cold War realpolitik no longer needed Mobutu, they were shamed and manipulated into playing along with and even supporting Kagame and Museveni.

While Kagame and Museveni succeeded in pillaging Congo’s resources and terrorizing the population, they did not count on Kabila père being an extremely incapable ruler, even for a puppet, and he eventually turned his back on his Rwandan and Ugandan supporters.  In 2001, Kabila père was assassinated by one of his own child-soldiers, which precipitated another power vacuum that Congo’s neighbors tried to fill.  Instead, Joseph Kabila, the son of Kabila père, became president and rallied international support to regain Kinshasa’s control over the eastern provinces.  He even won a national election in 2006, the first real election in Congo’s history.

Nonetheless, the government of Kabila fils is still a kleptocratic mess, and its military is now accused of committing the grand majority of sexual violence in Eastern Congo.  The armed groups kicked out of Rwanda and Burundi still operate within Congolese territory with some impunity.  In addition, international mining companies are exploiting Congo’s mineral resources with a very heavy human toll.  Joseph Kabila is definitely anything but a national hero.  In other words, things still suck.

If you are Rose Shukurami, you have to worry about your fate if you are deported back to Rwanda, where you don’t know anyone and your chances of being persecuted for being attached to the Interahamwe.  When Kagame’s RPF took over Rwanda, they immediately started intimidating, persecuting, massacring, and assassinating anyone they felt stood in the way, both Hutu and Tutsi.  People who had sheltered Tutsis during the genocide found themselves the targets of the RPF.  The “coalition” government formed in Rwanda after the genocide did not last as a diverse coalition for very long.

If you are an ordinary Congolese person who isn’t married to the FDLR, you not only have to worry about Rwandan FDLR and Burundian FDD marauders, but also your own notoriously brutal and predatory military, the FARDC.  To complicate things, the homegrown Mai Mai militia does not hesitate in abusing the civilian population as well.  Your country is being drained of its mineral resources, and you do not see a red cent of it.  Infrastructure is crumbling, “modern” healthcare is terrifying, and there are no jobs.

War, violence, exploitation, and death are what these people have known for almost 15 years.  Rose’s grandchildren have never known anything different.  People in Congo are played like pawns, while we in the States yawn and flick off our televisions.  Probably not a lot of Americans know that the U.S. government gave military support to Kagame’s invasion of the Congo in 1996.  Not a lot of Americans could tell you about Congo’s state of war and upheaval from 1996 onwards, but here it is everyday life.

Two days after our visit, Rose Shukurami, her daughter, and her grandchildren were released to the UNHCR refugee camp in Sange.

Rose Shukurami and her family

Rose Shukurami and her family

Rose Shukurami is a woman with striking cheekbones, challenging eyes, a jagged scar on her temple, and a hoarse whisper for a voice.  Ordinarily, she would seem like any other Banyarwandan-Congolese woman, but there is something different about Rose: her husband is a member of the FDLR.  Rose, her daughter Julienne, and her daughter’s two small children, were captured by the FARDC in a village near Luvungi.  When I met Rose, she was being kept in the FARDC military post in Luvungi, a sad group of crumbling buildings with soldiers in red tinsel milling about aimlessly, automatic rifles slung around their shoulders. I was with Arche inqueteur Juvernal Twaibu and Arche field supervisor Iledephonse Masumbuko Songolo to monitor the situation of POWs at the jail; however, on this visit there were no POWs, just Rose, her daughter, and the grandchildren, the youngest of whom was ill.  Thank goodness, they were not confined to the horrible cachot, or cell, but were instead only confined to the compound.  The family slept in a shabby room next to the cachot, but was given no food, and Rose was not permitted to seek medical assistance for her sick grandchild.

 Of course, it may seem ridiculous to imprison two women and two malnourished youngsters, but such is the logic of the Congolese military.  Mr. Songolo told the officer-in-charge that since Rose and her family were civilians, they needed to be taken to UNHCR’s reintegration program in Sange, where they could find food, medical treatment, and be taken out of Congo to Rwanda.  The officer-in-charge needed to release Rose and her family into his custody immediately, said Songolo, so he could bring them to Sange.

 We can’t just let her go,” sputtered the officer-in-charge, “She will rejoin her husband in the bush! The child that is ill may go to Sange to receive medical treatment, but the women and the other child must stay.”

 And so, a peculiar argument erupted, with Songolo and Juvernal pointing out the obtuseness of the officer’s position.  Somehow the officer did not comprehend that this thin grandmother and her descendents really posed little threat to the state of general security in the Congo, especially once in the custody of UNHCR and on the way back to Rwanda.  Finally, Michel Nguale, the section chief for the 8^th Brigade arrived.  Sangolo and Juvernal once again presented their case for the release of Rose and her family, but Commander Nguale would only make vague, non-committal statements, all along the lines of, “come back tomorrow and maybe I will release her”.  However, he did allow Songolo and Juvernal to ask Rose some questions before we left.

 Rose said that they had not been subject to any gross mistreatment by the FARDC soldiers at this post, but she had difficulty finding food.  In effect, if the situation did not change soon, they might starve.

 In Part Two, we will learn a bit about how Rose’s curious circumstances are related to the big picture in the Great Lakes Region.

Rodrigue Rukumbuzi

Rodrigue Rukumbuzi

Meet Rodrigue Rukumbuzi.  Rodrigue is an animateur/inqueteur for Arche d’Alliance.  He works around the town of Bijombo, deep in the Haut Plateau.  A trip from Uvira to Bijombo takes two days, and half of the journey must be taken on foot, since after a certain point there are no roads suitable for vehicles.  I was able to interview Rodrigue at Arche’s offices, the day before he was to leave for an extended field visit to Bijombo.

I asked Rodrigue on how Arche works on mediation between members of different ethnic and tribal groups.  Rodrigue is a member of the Banyamulenge ethnic group.  In Bijombo, the majority of people are Banyamulenge, but there are also large groups of Bafulero [sin. Mufulero], Babembe, Bahungu, and Pygmies.  Each ethnic group has its own language and a history of problems with other ethnic groups.  Ethnic differences have often been the catalyst of violence and instability in this region, especially since cultural and ethnic territories flow across the national boundaries set by colonial powers so many years ago.

Rodrigue’s work primarily consists of educating people on the importance of living at peace with your neighbors, regardless of ethnicity, language, or tribal affiliation.

“There are Banyamulenge who do not understand the Bafulero,” he says, “so there are often problems.  Thus, we educate the people on peaceful cohabitation and peaceful conflict resolution.”

Arche d’Alliance’s sends out “integrated” teams to places like Bujimbo, so a Banyamulenge like Rodrigue will work on peaceful conflict resolution with members of his ethnic group, whereas his Bafulero colleagues will work with the Bafulero, etc.

“During the Rwandan invasion, a lot of Bafulero fled Bijombo into the forest, towards Kamitunga,” says Rodrigue, “So some of the Banyamulenge stole the cows, goats, and land that they left behind.  Consequently, repatriating Bafulero have had difficulties getting their property back.”

“In addition,” he continues, “The Mai Mai attacked some Banyamulenge villages and stole their cows.  Now, when a Mufulero meets a Banyamulenge, they will both accuse the other of stealing their cows.”

Rodrigue believes that in order to stop ethnic conflict, everyone needs to set aside their differences and recognize the benefits of peaceful cohabitation.

“We should all live together peacefully,” he says, “Since after all, we are all human beings, we are all Congolese, we live in the Congo, we are under the same constitution, we must all respect each other.”

Rodrigue and his colleagues in the Haut Plateau are working to form a CMC (Comité de Médiation et Conciliation) in Bijombo.  Since the CMC will have balanced representation from each ethnic group, it will hopefully provide a means of alternative conflict resolution in an area where violence is often the rule rather than the exception to resolving conflicts.

“In the Haut Plateau, everyone has a gun in his home,” says Rodrigue, “So if they hear of trouble, the Banyamulenge and the Bafulero immediately get their guns out and start shooting each other.”

Obviously, working in the Haut Plateau is dangerous, especially since those who profit from the instability will not hesitate to use violence to maintain the status quo.  One wishes safe passage for Rodrigue and his colleagues as they attempt to bring peace to a region rife with violence.

FARDC soldiers guard the "jail" of Luvungi

FARDC soldiers guard the "jail" of Luvungi

After visiting the FARDC prison in Luvungi, I interviewed Arche inqueteur Juvernal Twaibu on what he had observed in the Luvungi jail and elsewhere.  Juvernal said that the jail in Luvungi was in “flagrant violation of its prisoners’ rights”.  Sanitation was bad, the prisoners had a very hard time getting food, wounded prisoners were refused medical treatment, and it was often hard for humanitarian workers to gain access to the prisoners.  Indeed, the visit we just had was the exception rather than the rule.

Juvernal continued enumerating the ways in which the FARDC violated the rights of their prisoners.

“The prisoners are subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment,” he said, “There are international conventions that forbid torture of prisoners, but our army still tortures.”

Juvernal also told me of cases where the wives of imprisoned FDLR came to where their spouses were being held, only to be forced into relationships with the men who were guarding their husbands.

Does monitoring help the situation at all?  Juvernal seems to think so.

“There is a positive impact, despite the problems,” said Juvernal, “because often we arrive at the prison, we advocate on behalf of the wrongly imprisoned, and then people are liberated.”

I asked Juvernal about general human rights situation in the area.  The stories he told me were rather disheartening.

Juvernal told me that while sexual violations committed by the FARDC are not as bad as in other parts of Eastern Congo, there are still many problems concerning soldiers who marry minors, which is now against the law in Congo.  Juvernal also said that there are FARDC soldiers stationed on the Ngomo road to Bukavu who collaborate with bandits; they look the other way while the bandits waylay travelers in exchange for a cut of the plunder.

In Buhembe, FARDC soldiers came into the village in the middle of the night and set five houses on fire, with the occupants inside.  Fortunately, everyone was able to escape in time, but now these people are without homes.  The soldiers had burned the homes because they claimed the villagers of Buhembe were FDLR sympathizers who had given assistance to the rebels.  However, it can’t really be called “giving” out of “sympathy” when the FDLR are holding guns to your head.

Ten days ago, Juvernal told me, the 33^rd Brigade of the FARDC attacked a group of FDLR in the village of Kigushuwe.  Both FDLR and civilians fled the village into a nearby valley.  After a while, the FDLR sent a messenger to the commander of the 33^rd, telling him they wanted to lay down their arms and surrender.  Instead of accepting the offer to surrender, the FARDC commander began shelling the valley with mortars and killed over 60 people, many civilians included.  The commander shrugged off the civilian deaths, saying that if the civilians were in the same valley as the FDLR, they weren’t “real” Congolese.  After concluding this grisly tale, Juvernal shook his head.

“Our soldiers are not professionals,” he sighed.

The FARDC "jail" in Luvungi

The FARDC "jail" in Luvungi

Kimya-2 continues to burn up the Congolese countryside along the Haut Plateau, and lots of civilians are caught in the middle of the crossfire.  Thus, Arche d’Alliance is performing monitoring work in the war zone.  This includes following the IDP situation, inspecting jails to ensure humane treatment of prisoners, advocating for civilians who have been wrongly imprisoned, and documenting human rights violations committed by the combatants.  The information that Arche collects in the field is used by UNHCR and a host of other NGOs to assist in humanitarian efforts and to address violations of human rights.

On July 30^th I went with a team from Arche to follow the monitoring activities of inqueteurs in Luvungi and Songe.  These two towns are not too far from the front lines; soldiers in steel helmets are everywhere, and the streets are still thick with IDPs.  In Luvungi, I accompanied Arche inqueteurs Juvernal Twaibu and Camille Chekanabo as they monitored the situation of FDLR and civilian prisoners at the FARDC military post.

Since the FDLR is a Rwandan rebel group, Rwandan civilians who are caught in the zone of combat are often thrown in jail by the FARDC for simply being Rwandan.  A large part of Juvernal’s monitoring work is making sure that local FARDC commanders release civilians who have been unjustly imprisoned.  One of the goals of our visit ensure the release of a Rwandan man who, despite having lived in Congo since before 1994, had been arrested by the FARDC on the suspicion of collaborating with the FDLR.

When we arrived at the FARDC post of Luvungi, Juvernal immediately asked the commander why the Rwandan non-combatant in his charge had not been released.  The commander waved his arms in the air and insisted that the man had been released that morning.  The commander then agreed to answer some questions, but not on camera.

The commander, Michel Nguale, was the SD Chief of the 8^th Brigade.  He told me that the primary objective of the FARDC was to protect the civilian population and secure the frontier.  He claimed that instances of rape were rare, and that when they occurred, both the offending soldier and his commanding officer were severely punished.

I then asked Commander Nguale if I could see the cell where he kept his prisoners.  He acquiesced, and even allowed me to take pictures, but unfortunately allowed no Flip videos.   The “cell” was in a mud-brick house that was somewhere between ruined and falling apart.  There were 7 prisoners in a space that couldn’t have been bigger than 2×2 meters.  Juvernal told me that 6 of the men had been identified as FDLR, but one was just another Rwandan civilian that had the misfortune of being caught in the combat zone.  The cell was secured by pushing a bench against the door, and tin roofing had been nailed to all the windows.  There were two soldiers with AKs milling around.  Commander Nguale told me that when the prisoners needed to relieve themselves, the guard would escort them out of the cell to a latrine.  Juvernal asked the prisoners their names and how long they had been there; they said four days.  The entire time Commander Nguale decried the poor condition of the cell, but insisted that he “did not have the means” to make improvements.

6 FDLR and 1 civilian in the jail in Luvungi

6 FDLR and 1 civilian in the jail in Luvungi

What will happen to the FDLR prisoners?  They will be taken to the Rwandan frontier at Bukavu, where they will have the choice of either integrating into the Rwandan military or demobilizing and going back to civilian life in Rwanda.  This is done by MONUC’s DDR (Désarmement, Démobilisation, et Répatriation) program.  Part of Juvernal’s monitoring work is to ensure that the FDLR prisoners are moved out of their squalid jail and into the DDR program in a quick and orderly fashion.

Later, Juvernal told me that a lot of what the commander said was bongo kabisa, i.e., a large load of horse manure.  In Part II, Juvernal will give a more accurate picture of the human rights situation around the Haut Plateau.

The women at the SOS FED center in Mboko

The women at the SOS FED center in Mboko

SOS Femmes en Dangers (SOS FED) is a local organization in South Kivu whose mission is to help women who have been victims of sexual violence.  On July 29^th Ned and I had the opportunity to visit SOS FED’s refuge center in Mboko, deep in Fizi Territory.  The center is for women who have been victims of sexual violence at the hands of the roving bands of soldiers that infest the jungles of Fizi.  The services that the center provides are simple, but women who go there are given a safe place to recover from the physical and mental trauma of their experience.

In the Congo, soldiers of all affiliations use sexual violence against women to terrorize the population into submission.  After a woman has been violated, she will often find herself ostracized by her community and rejected by her family.  In addition to the obstacles to reintegration, she may often suffer from any number of health problems stemming from physical and sexual abuse, including severe genital mutilation.

Soldiers will also abduct women and hold them as virtual slaves in military camps in “the bush”.  The women are subjected to constant physical and sexual abuse, and may be kept for as long as three years.  If a woman has had children in the bush, they are often killed before she is released.

The SOS FED field center gives women who have been violated a safe place to stay and recover.  When I visited, there were eighteen women living at the center.  One of them had just come out of the bush five days ago; she was only 19, but already had had three children by soldiers.  There are only two big bedrooms at the center, so the women are stacked nine to a room.  Some of the women are bedridden due to illness.  The center is low on food and medicine.

Along with SOS FED staff member Amisi Munga, Ned and I recorded the testimony of four of the women.  We also interviewed the site director, a tall, austere woman named Mariamu “Marie” Bashishibe.  Marie talked at length about the suffering of these women.  Marie told us about the fates of those who cannot stay at the center; the capacity of the center is very small, and therefore it can barely make a dent in helping the hundreds of women who are victimized each year.  These women in Fizi Territory can expect to receive no assistance from the government; in fact, many of them have been victimized by soldiers of their own government, and not just by militia or invading rebels from Rwanda and Burundi.

Despite the suffering they had endured, these women demonstrated enormous strength and courage.  I was moved by the fact that they were very open to telling their stories on camera.  They asked us to take their pictures.  Their hospitality was unparalleled; they prepared for us a large feast of rice, beans, and fish, and before I left Marie presented me with a chicken as a gift from the women.

Right now, we are working on completely translating the interviews with the women from Kibembe so we can get a clearer picture of their experiences.  Today there is no justice for them, but hopefully by giving them a voice, someone out there will listen.

(l-r) Amisi, Walter, Marie, and Karl the chicken

(l-r) Amisi, Walter, Marie, and Karl the chicken

Iledephonse Masumbuko Sangolo teaches a seminar on women's rights at the Makobola Noyaux de Paix

Iledephonse Masumbuko Sangolo teaches a seminar on women's rights at the Makobola Noyaux de Paix

Meet Ildephonse Masumbuko Sangolo.  Mr. Sangolo is the field supervisor for Arche d’Alliance, an NGO based in Uvira that focuses on human rights and building civil society in Eastern Congo.  It is Sangolo’s job to supervise the inqueteurs, or field monitors, in monitoring the human rights situation in remote parts of Uvira and Fizi.  The UN Human Rights Commission is unable to field the staff necessary to monitor the human rights situation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), repatriating refugees from abroad, and the general civilian population in South Kivu.  Thus, they have formed a partnership with the experienced staff of Arche to go out in the field and report back on the state of human rights.

Sangolo is also is in charge of the Comite de Mediation et Conciliation (CMC) and Noyaux de la Paix (NDLP) projects.

“We promote the respect of human rights to the local authorities,” says Sangolo, “but we also educate the general population on aspects of Congolese law so that they will be able to defend themselves.”

I asked Sangolo why human rights are being violated so massively in the Congo.

“First,” he said, “We have this war that will not end.  Secondly, the state is nearly nonexistent.”

Sangolo explained that since the justice system and those tasked with enforcing it are not paid enough by the Congolese government, people with guns, money, and influence are able to get away with breaking the law and violating basic human rights.  As long as they can pay off the magistrates and police, they can literally get away with murder.

“There are certain judges who do not accept corruption,” says Sangolo, “but there are others to whom money is more important than all else.  For these people who perpetuate corruption, they must be brought to justice.”

Arche has diligently worked in the Congolese justice system, representing those whose human rights have been violated.  Sangolo cited several examples where Arche intervened on behalf of people who would otherwise be ignored: a man whose land was given away by government officials who were either corrupt or inept, a 13 year old girl who was raped, and a woman who was raped by soldiers.  In all these cases, justice was served thanks to Arche’s reporting and advocacy work.

I asked Sangolo about the situation of women’s rights in the Congo.  He told me that women’s rights are being massively violated due to a combination of repressive local traditions and Congolese laws that are unfavorable towards women.  Girls are not sent to school, or even if they are, they are expected to pay their own school fees.  Husbands will tell their wives how to vote, and if a woman expresses herself in a public forum, she may face divorce or even severe physical violence.  Women are often denied the right to inheritance.

“However, this is changing due to new laws that are being written,” says Sangolo, “which will strengthen the rights of women, starting with young girls.  Right now it is a problem of application of these new laws.”

Sangolo explained that since the justice system is still weak, Arche’s work in educating the population on women’s rights is very important, and thus far the feedback has been positive.

“There are now women who can express themselves freely, without fear of retaliation,” he says, “And they are forming associations themselves to defend the rights of other women.  These are the reactions we want: women expressing themselves, women voting their conscience, and women gaining the right to inheritance.”

What does Sangolo want to see in the future for the Congo?

“I want to see a Congo where people can express themselves freely, and without violence,” he says, “For a long time it has been that the only way someone can express themselves is by taking up a gun.  When a man can simply say something to the authorities and they will listen to him; that is what I want in a new Congo.”