Kitagi miyazi, rafiki yangu.  So, I am headed back to the Congo.  After three months of documenting and reporting on the work of several civil society organizations, I left Uvira in August 2009 with a bad case of dysentery.  However, the violence and oppression in Eastern Congo has never been far from my mind.  I have tried to keep track of the human rights situation in the region, and now I am presented with the opportunity to work with SOS Femmes en Danger, a courageous local NGO based in South Kivu province that assists survivors of sexual violence.  Over the summer of 2009 Ned Meerdink and I produced a mini-documentary that showed the importance of SOS FED’s work.  Now, The Advocacy Project, SOS FED, and Zivik are embarking on an ambitious risk-reduction campaign, helping women decrease the probability of attack and enslavement.  Ned Meerdink has been laying down the groundwork for this project for months, and now I will be switching spots with him for about 12 months or so.

Here are some news articles and reports that give some background on the current situation in the Congo:

-UN peacekeepers ‘failed’ DR Congo rape victims

BBC News article on Atul Khare’s report to the UN Security Council on shortcomings of UN peacekeepers in preventing sexual violence committed by the FDLR, highlighted by the August 2010 mass rape in Luvungi.

__________________________________________________________ Read the rest of this entry »

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.

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.

During our visit to Lubarika, the inqueteurs of Arche d’Alliance interviewed several refugees.  Among them were two village women; we will call them Rehema and Furaha.

Rehema

Rehema

Rehema’s household consists of two adult men, three adult women, and numerous children.  When Rehema’s family started hearing gunshots in their village of Buhembe, they decided to move the women and children to the relative safety of Lubarika.  The men in her family went to Uvira to find work.  Rehema says that they survive on food the neighbors give them.  Rehema has been a refugee numerous times, ever since the war started in the mid-90s.

Furaha

Furaha

Furaha is from the village of Kaziba.  She has nine children, and this is her first time being a refugee.  Fortunately, her husband has found work in a manioc field in Lubarika, so they are able to eat.

These women will return to their home villages when they hear that the security situation is safer.  However, the cycle may start over again at any moment.  Constant internal displacement is hard on the local economy, limits food production, and puts stress on public health resources.  In addition, sexual violence is used as a weapon against the civilian population by both sides of the conflict.

Posters on the wall of the clinic in Lubarika

Posters on the wall of the clinic in Lubarika

Since 1994, the Congo has had to deal with pillaging invaders from Museveni’s Uganda, Kagame’s Rwanda, and Burundi; rebel groups that use the chaos to despoil the civilian population; and a weak Congolese government that has done little to protect its citizens.  In the broader global community, the response to the Congolese crisis has been lost in realpolitik and manipulated by regional players.   The constant internal displacement caused by armed conflict has contributed to millions of deaths in Eastern Congo since 1994; it is estimated that only a fraction of the approximately 5.4 million deaths caused by the war were from bullets or machetes, the grand majority instead were caused by disease and starvation.

One hopes that there will be a quick response to help the community of Lubarika and its population of IDPs.  However, if the security situation further deteriorates, everyone in Lubarika may have to flee to the town of Luvungi.  This, of course, would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the region.  Time will tell.

The Arche d'Alliance team in Lubarika

The Arche d'Alliance team in Lubarika

Lubarika

Lubarika

On July 21^st, I traveled with a team from Arche d’Alliance to the village of Lubarika to observe and report on the refugee situation there.  The dirt road to Lubarika splits off from the road and travels through steamy thickets and into jagged hills that resemble dragon’s teeth.  We pass soldiers in sweat-stained uniforms carrying rusty AK-type assault rifles.  The road is lined with fields of manioc and coffee.  Most of the houses are made of locally prepared mud bricks, which make the houses look like they have spontaneously sprouted from the earth.

The first stop we made was at the local clinic, or poste de sante.  Here, the medical staff, though strapped with shortages of medicine and medical equipment, combats disease and injury.  The clinic has registered 1635 refugees since July 15^th, some traveling as long as six days by foot, but also some coming from villages as close as Buheba.  From the front door of the clinic I can see the village of Buheba perched on a neighboring hill.  A few days previous the FDLR attacked there and burned ten houses.  Lubarika is indeed right on the precipitous edge of the conflict.  Upon interviewing several of the men of Lubarika, they revealed that they feel somewhat safe, since there are two brigades of FARDC stationed on two sides of their village.  However, in the Congo such things can change in a terrible instant.

The Poste de Santé of Lubarika

The Poste de Santé of Lubarika

The Congolese way is one of hospitality, so the citizens of Lubarika have opened up their homes to the refugees.  Most of the refugees have come to Lubarika because they have family there, but there are some who are lodging with strangers.  One man I spoke with has twelve refugees living on his property.  Some of the refugees have found work in the fields, while others have had to depend on the charity of the villagers for food.  Despite the hospitality and karibu of the citizens of Lubarika, the influx of refugees presents the tiny village with a grave problem.  Work and food are hard to come by, and the clinic staff informs me that the rise in cases of malaria, diarrhea, and malnutrition are taxing the already-stressed resources of their tiny clinic.

Arche d'Alliance's Martin Masumbuko (left) interviews IDPs in Lubarika

Arche d'Alliance's Martin Masumbuko (left) interviews IDPs in Lubarika

Mr. Sambuko and his team of inqueteurs interview several of the refugees and ask the clinic staff what kinds of medicines and medical supplies they desperately need.  Among the refugees, they want to know about the numbers of elderly, physically disabled, children without parents, and victims of sexual violence.  Arche’s final report will enable other NGOs quickly assist the refugees and the communities hosting them.

In Part III, we will look at the lives of two women who have fled their home villages as a result of the recent FDLR attacks.

For a little over a week now the FDLR has been on the offensive across Uvira territory.  The first incident we heard about in Uvira town was an attack on a village called Lumera, about an hour drive north.

The FDLR (Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda) is a Hutu rebel group made up of remnants of the old Interhamwe that ignited the infamous 1994 genocide in Rwanda.  Few of the FDLR are actually genocidaires from ’94, but now, decimated in numbers, lacking resources, and in exile, they ravage the civilian population of the Congo.  Since the FARDC (the Congolese military) and the Mai Mai (the Eastern Congolese militia) are preoccupied with shooting each other and not with protecting civilians, the FDLR still control quite a bit of territory in remote areas of North and South Kivu.  For more information on why the FDLR is in the Congo, please refer to my esteemed colleague Ned Meerdink’s AP blog and Gerard Prunier’s excellent book, Africa‘s World War.

A list of registered IDPs in Lubarika; with this information Arche d'Alliance will write a report on the humanitarian crisis in the area

A list of registered IDPs in Lubarika; with this information Arche d'Alliance will write a report on the humanitarian crisis in the area

Since the FDLR has started burning villages again, people in northern Uvira territory have been fleeing their homes.  Those who can afford it roll up their mattresses and take a truck to the relative security of Uvira town.  However, UNHCR and other NGOs are also concerned with the situation of villages closer to Lumera, where refugees are streaming in and burdening the area’s already-fragile subsistence state.  Enter Arche d’Alliance; Arche’s inqueteurs collect information from these villages: refugee counts, security-related incidents, violations of human rights by combatants on both sides, and issues involving food security and public health.  The information they collect is published in a report that is made available to the Congolese government and the NGO community in order to facilitate quick cooperative action to help alleviate internal population displacement.

Lubarika

Lubarika

In Part II, we will travel with an Arche team to Lubarika, a village that is on the periphery of the current conflicted area, and therefore inundated with refugees.