Andrette

Andrette

Andrette is 38 years old, and has 2 children.  In 2010-2011, she spent three months at the SOS FED center in Mboko.  Andrette is from Chonu, a small village near Mboko.  She is a survivor of sexual violence.  When I met Andrette, she was seated in her front yard with her mother-in-law, slicing up chunks of chalky manioc.

Andrette had been raped by three men while alone in her fields.  After the incident, her husband expelled her from their home, and then soon left for Misisi, Fizi Territory, to work in the mineral mines.  Before leaving, Andrette’s husband told her that he would probably “find himself another wife” in Misisi.

Unfortunately, husbands abandoning their wives is a fairly common phenomenon in South Kivu, not necessarily limited to survivors of sexual violence.  Since men enjoy nearly total impunity in Congolese society in terms of sex and relationships, they are not often held accountable for spousal abandonment, extra-marital pregnancy, infidelity, polygyny, or domestic violence.  This demonstrates the value of SOS FED’s reintegration work as not only beneficial to survivors, but also fighting against the gender inequality that is rampant in Fizi Territory.

Andrette stayed with an aunt for one and a half months, rarely venturing outside the house.  She had also become an object of derision in the community, and people would often point fingers at her and say “there is the woman who is the wife of the soldiers”.  After hearing about SOS FED from a radio advertisement, Andrette went to the SOS FED center in Mboko to receive psychosocial and socioeconomic assistance.

In order to reintegrate Andrette, Wilondja met with both Andrette’s family and the family of her husband.  Wilondja said that this work was difficult, since Andrette’s husband still was not present.  On 3 occasions, the mwami brought the two families to the SOS FED center so that Mariamu and Wilondja could speak with them and convince them that the incident was not the fault of Andrette, and that she should be re-accepted into their family.  Andrette was present at one of these sessions.

Eventually, both Andrette’s family and the family of her husband were convinced to re-accept Andrette and not blame her for her rape.  However, there was still the question of Andrette’s husband, who was still in Misisi and appeared to have possibly abandoned his wife and children for good.  Andrette’s younger brother traveled to Misisi and confronted his brother-in-law, telling him that since he already paid the daute (sum of money a groom must pay to his bride’s family) for his sister, he needed to resume his responsibility as a husband and father, instead of shaming both families by abandoning his wife for no good reason.  Andrette’s husband returned to Chonu, and met with the two families, Wilondja, and the mwami.  There were 4 sessions between all the concerned parties before the husband was convinced to re-accept his wife, and Wilondja accompanied the woman to Chonu so she could be reunited with her husband and the rest of her family.  Currently, Andrette’s husband has returned to Misisi to work, but Andrette lives in her house and is very close to her in-laws.  Both her brother-in-law and mother-in-law expressed their satisfaction that she has returned home.

Andrette continues to practice communal cultivation, with two of her friends who are not former SOS FED beneficiaries.  In addition, due to sewing skills learned while working on the Ahadi Quilt project, Andrette has begun sewing and embroidering sheets as an income-generating activity.  She is still in contact with two other women who were SOS FED beneficiaries with her.

With the money earned from SOS FED communal cultivation, Andrette invested in the necessary capital to sell palm oil in the market, thus earning even more income for herself and her children. She says that in the past she was the object of scorn, but now people in her community see her as a “femme initiatrice”, a resourceful and inventive woman who uses her ingenuity to seek out development opportunities and provide for herself and her children.

It is quite the difference to see Andrette, once confined to the house and too shamed to even be seen on the streets, now a woman who is a beacon to her community, perhaps inspiring other women to reject gender inequality and a mentality that always blames the victim for acts of rape.  As well as healing, SOS FED is producing advocates, women who can return to their communities and serve as examples of feminine strength and courage.

When I asked Andrette’s mother-in-law if I could ask her a few questions about the return of her daughter-in-law, she chuckled and said that I should give her some money for food if I wanted to ask questions.  I pointed to the heap of manioc in front of her, but this did not cause the woman to even blink.  She said, “Look, I have manioc, but no fish to go with it!”

In keeping with the joking nature of our dialogue, I offered to go to the lake and catch some fish for her.  The elderly woman grinned and shrugged.

“Better just to give me the money, then I can go to the market and get the fish myself,” she said.  Everyone present had a good belly laugh.

Andrette with members of her extended family

Andrette with members of her extended family

Mwacha Malisho

Mwacha Malisho

Mwacha Malisho Felix is 38 years old and the father of 7 children.  He is the mwami of Lo’Ochyo II, a quartier of Mboko.  He has been mwami since 1995, when he succeeded his grandfather.  I interviewed Mwacha outside of his home on a hill overlooking Lake Tanganyika.  As we spoke, we were soon surrounded by perhaps two dozen curious children, who jostled to get closer and hear the conversation between the strange mzungu and their neighborhood mwami.

Mwacha first had contact with SOS FED in 2010, when he first spoke with Mariamu Bashishibe, the center manager in Mboko.  At first, Mwacha cooperated with SOS FED in helping bring survivors of sexual violence come to the SOS FED center to receive assistance.  Eventually, Mwacha began working with SOS FED to help reintegrate beneficiaries in his community.  Together with SOS FED reintegration officer Wilondja Lubunga, Mwacha has helped reintegrate 12 women back into his community.

In order to change a family’s attitude on survivors of sexual violence, Mwacha will pay the family a visit and speak with them.  Mwacha said that he gives the family “advice”, telling them that the rape was not the woman’s fault, and therefore they have no motive to reject and ostracize her.  In speaking with husbands, Mwacha often uses an example to show them the reason of his argument; if the husband was the one who had been raped in the fields, how would he feel if his wife rejected him?  This is often a rather convincing argument, according to Mwacha, especially since there have been reported cases of male members of armed groups committing acts of sexual violence against male civilians.

In doing pre-reintegration visits to families in Lo’Ochyo II, Wilondja is always accompanied by Mwacha.  However, Mwacha also visits members of his constituency on his own to further lobby for the re-acceptance of survivors of sexual violence.  In any case, Mwacha said that multiple visits are always required before a family is convinced to re-accept a survivor.

Mwacha said that before he began raising awareness and educating his community with SOS FED, many husbands would expel their wives if they had been raped.  However, he now says that much fewer men in his community ostracize their wives if they have been violated.

Do the members of his constituency re-accept survivors of sexual violence simply because of the authority of their mwami, or do they truly see the wisdom of their mwami’s counsel?  Mwacha firmly believes the latter.  He says that his best form of counsel is living by example; years ago, he told me, his own wife was raped by Burundian rebels, and yet he has stayed with her and has never held her responsible for the incident.

“You see,” Mwacha gestured to his wife, seated beside him with a child in her lap, “my wife is right here, I never left her!”

To Mwacha, his own example is a powerful witness to his constituency, destroying the myth that a survivor of sexual violence brings shame to a family.

The foothills of the Moyen Plateau in Mboko

The foothills of the Moyen Plateau in Mboko

Bitangingwa and Mirungi

Bitangingwa and Mirungi

Mirungi Ekyiamba is 35 years old and is married to Bitangingwa, a very petite, pretty 24-year-old woman.  Mirungi is the mwami of the village of Mukwesi, several kilometers north of Mboko.  He has been mwami since 2008, when he succeeded his grandfather.  I interviewed Mirungi and Bitangingwa in a tiny hut, the walls blackened by smoke from years of cooking fires.  Beside Bitangingwa was a squat charcoal stove with a pot of sombe bubbling away.

Mirungi first came into contact with SOS FED in 2010, when SOS FED field officer Amisi Mas came to see him.  With SOS FED, Mirungi has helped reintegrate 5 women back into his community.  In addition, Mirungi has been cooperating with SOS FED to send survivors of sexual violence to the SOS FED center in Mboko to receive assistance.  In total, Mirungi has helped 9 women seek assistance at SOS FED.

In order to convince families to re-accept survivors of sexual violence, Mirungi will go and give them “advice”, although he said that sometimes families come to him seeking his advice on matters relating to sexual violence.  Mirungi said that he likes to have “one-on-one” conversations with husbands who have rejected their wives.  He tells husbands that the rape was not the fault of their wife, and therefore they should not blame her for her violation.  Mirungi often uses himself as an example, as he has stayed with his wife despite the fact she was raped by Mai Mai rebels a few years ago.

Mirungi also gives the same counsel to families who have not experienced sexual violence.  He said that rape could happen to anyone, and therefore families need to be informed on the correct treatment of survivors of sexual violence even if such an incident has not happened to them.

Mirungi accompanies SOS FED reintegration officer Wilondja Lubunga on all pre-reintegration visits to families, but he says that he very often goes on his own to speak to families and exhort them to change their attitudes on survivors of sexual violence.  After women are reintegrated, Mirungi and Wilondja will often visit them to make sure they are well adjusted back into the community.

Mirungi said that the experience of his family makes him a powerful witness to his constituency.  When Mirungi’s wife was raped, he says members of his own family and some of his neighbors spoke to him and convinced him to stay with his wife, and to help her seek badly needed medical attention.  Bitangingwa, had been pregnant when she was raped, and suffered a miscarriage soon after the incident.  Bitangingwa was sent to Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, where she was operated on to repair extensive physical damage attributed to her rape.  Bitangingwa is in good health today, but is now unable to bear children, leaving the couple childless.

Binwa

Binwa

Binwa is 40 years old and has 5 children. In 2010-2011, she spent three months the SOS FED center in Mboko. Binwa lives in Quartier II, a neighborhood in Mboko. She is a survivor of sexual violence. I interviewed Binwa at her home in Mboko, on a beautiful September evening. Unfortunately, her husband could not be present, as he was at the hospital looking after a sick child.

Binwa had been raped by armed men while alone in her fields. When her husband’s family found out about the incident, they counseled Binwa’s husband to leave her, as she had “become the wife of another man in the forest”. Binwa’s husband heeded his family’s advice, and forced her to leave their home. Binwa attempted to explain to her husband that she had been raped and therefore the incident was not her fault, but to no avail. Binwa resided for several months at the home of a neighbor, and then went to the SOS FED center in Mboko to receive psychosocial and socioeconomic assistance.

Wilondja Lubunga, the SOS FED Mboko reintegration officer, met with Binwa’s husband three times while she was at the center; two of these times, Wilondja was accompanied by the mwami (traditional chief) of Mboko Quartier II. Wilondja and the mwami counseled the husband to reunite with his wife, explaining that the woman was not at fault for her rape and that her value as a wife, mother, and human being was not diminished by her violation. At first, said Wilondja, he heard some very “bizarre” commentary during the sessions with the husband, but he said that after 3 sessions he was able to break through and convince the husband that he needed to re-accept his wife and not blame her for the rape.

At the date on which Binwa was to be reintegrated, her husband arrived at the SOS FED center in Mboko to be reunited with her and to bring her home. The mwami was also present at the reunification.

While Binwa is happily reunited with her husband and children, she does not speak anymore with her husband’s family. Binwa also said that she is not harassed or impugned by other members of her community anymore, thanks to interventions from the mwami.

Binwa continues with communal cultivation with two of her neighbors, neither of which are former SOS FED beneficiaries. Binwa said that she has informed many of her neighbors and friends about the risk-reduction methods she learned at the SOS FED center. She still remains in contact with several of her fellow SOS FED beneficiaries.

With the income she earned from participating in group cultivation at the SOS FED center, Binwa paid for school fees for her children and for food for the household. According to Binwa, she is “very happy” to be reunited with her husband.

“I am able to live as I did before,” said Binwa.

For survivors, the experience of sexual violence causes painful and often chronic physical problems, including (but not limited to) STDs, fistulas, irregular bleeding, and chronic abdominal pain.  However, perhaps an even more distressing outcome of rape in the Congo is the social stigmatization that survivors of sexual violence endure at the hands of their families and communities.  Attitudes towards survivors of sexual violence are quite indicative of the second-class status of women in Congolese society, particularly in underdeveloped, rural areas such as Fizi Territory.

After having suffered from an act of sexual violence, oftentimes a survivor will be banished from her family and derided by her community.  The husband of a survivor may expel her from the home, leaving her without support, kinship, or protection.  A survivor will be labeled (quite erroneously) as the “wife of the soldiers” or a “prostitute”, and openly mocked or shunned.  Thus, the post-rape social ramifications in Fizi Territory are devastating for survivors, especially in a society that places a premium on social interaction.  The shame and rejection may prevent a survivor from participating in income-generating activities (agriculture, commerce), and oftentimes will prevent her from seeking assistance.

SOS FED staff work very hard at encouraging survivors to come to SOS FED for assistance, and work with civil, traditional, and religious authorities to find survivors in the area who need assistance.  Once a survivor has entered a SOS FED center, she can receive group therapy and individual counseling sessions, as well as participate in group income-generating activities that also teach risk-reduction behavior.

However, what happens to a woman once she has completed the 3-month course of assistance provided by SOS FED?  Will she be re-accepted by her family and/or community?  The reintegration process, implemented in 2011, addresses this question.  Each SOS FED center has a male reintegration officer, who acts as an advocate for reintegrating beneficiaries.  Thus far, SOS FED has 3 reintegration officers: Luandja Eca Ricardo (Kikonde), M’Munga Selemane (Kazimia), and Lubunga Wilondja (Mboko).

The reintegration officer is tasked with breaking down the misconceptions about survivors of sexual violence within Congolese society, at least to the point where a survivor is able to rejoin her family and resume her life.  The reintegration meets with the family, in particular the husband, of the soon-to-be reintegrated beneficiary.  The reintegration officer educates the family on the rights of survivors of sexual violence, breaks down the myth that the survivor is to blame for the rape, and tries to convince them to re-accept the survivor back into the family.

The reintegration officer works very closely with the mwami to achieve these goals.  The mwami is a traditional position of authority, also known as the chef coutumiere.  The mwami/chef coutumiere is a hereditary position, passed down from father to son.  A mwami may have a constituency ranging from a village, a quartier, or an entire town.  While having no civil or state authority, traditional authorities are still regarded as important figures in Congolese society.  Ordinary citizens often consult a mwami for counsel on important decisions, the resolution of disputes, or just for simple advice.  State authorities often have to work with the cooperation of the mwami in order to carry out state business.

As a person of authority who is respected by the community, the counsel of a mwami can go a long way in assisting with the integration process.  Before beginning reintegration efforts in a village/town, SOS FED reintegration officers have several meetings with the local mwami to educate them on the principles of reintegration and to gain their support and trust for the reintegration process.  Including the mwami in the reintegration process also helps educate the community at large about the rights of survivors of sexual violence.

SOS FED reintegration officers accompany reintegrating women, often over great distances, to their home villages.  Reintegrating beneficiaries are encouraged to continue the risk-reduction activities they learned at the SOS FED center, as well as disseminate this information among their friends and neighbors.

The success of the reintegration process is quite evident.  According to all three reintegration officers, there has only been one case where a woman was abandoned by her husband after reintegration was carried out.  As of the end of the month of September, 21 beneficiaries have been reintegrated from Kikonde/Kazimia, and 19 beneficiaries have been reintegrated from Mboko.

My next few blog entries will be profiles of several people from in/near Mboko who are involved in the reintegration process: 2 former SOS FED beneficiaries and 2 mwami working closely with SOS FED.

SOS FED beneficiary in Mboko

SOS FED beneficiary in Mboko

Two nights ago, a group of gunmen walked into a bar in Gatumba, Burundi.  The armed men ordered everyone to lay down, and then started shooting.  So far, 39 people are dead from this brutal attack.

Gatumba is a small town right on the border between Burundi and the Congo.   It used to be a part of Congo (Zaire), but back in the 1980s, Marshal Mobutu gave the area to Burundi “as a gift”.  In order to get to Bujumbura from Uvira, one must drive through the town of Gatumba.  It is a thriving border post, with butcher shops, bread stalls, and many, many cows wandering in the roads.  The bar in question where the massacre occurred, is one that I am used to seeing from the windows of a taxi on my way to Buj.

The BBC news account does not mention the affiliation of the gunmen, but I have my strong suspicions that they belong to the FNL.  The FNL is a Burundian rebel group that fled the country after Pierre Nkurunzize and the FDD took power back in 2005.  Burundi still has continued political problems, and the FDD uses violence and intimidation to retain power, even in the midst of “free elections”.  Human Rights Watch has labeled the Burundian government as “repressive”, and most observers regard the last Burundian elections in 2010 as a sham.  As such, political/armed opposition groups such as the FNL have been forced to re-locate elsewhere.  Not surprisingly, the FNL is present in scads in the Congo, where the state is too weak to effectively object to their presence.

As the BBC article says, there are suspicions that the perpetrators of this massacre came over the border from the Congo.  The FNL is still based in the Congo, particularly in the Ubwari Peninsula in Fizi Territory.  Over the past few months, the Burundian military has had several confrontations with the FNL in the Ruzizi Plain near Kiliba, about 5-10 minutes outside of Uvira.  The border region in the Ruzizi Plain is rather porous, and cattle herders regularly shuttle their cows back and forth between Congo and Burundi on a daily basis.  This border area also used to be a major arms smuggling locus.

Overall, while the Burundian government is pursuing the FNL across the border, there seems to be a bit of a lack of acknowledgment of the FNL’s base within the Congo.  Of course, it is a well-known fact within the Congo that the FNL is alive and well, and it allying itself with other non-state armed movements, such as the FDLR and Mai Mai Yakutumba.  However, many ordinary Burundians do not seem to be aware of FNL presence in the Congo, or else are glad that the frontlines of the combat have been moved outside of their borders.   Again, another sad example of how neighboring nations’ problems seem to seep their way into the Congo.

It seems logical that the FNL insurgency would strike back at the Burundian government after their continued pursuit in the Ruzizi region.  However, the pattern of retaliation is all too predictable in this part of Africa: instead of confronting your enemy’s soldiers, massacre helpless civilians instead.

Capt. Issokelo Didier, FARDC Magistrate

Capt. Issokelo Didier, FARDC Magistrate

On Thursday, September 1st, I arrived at the military tribunal of Uvira, based on an invitation from the head magistrate, Captain Issokelo Didier. In terms of what I focus on (the fight against sexual violence), there was not too much to learn. However, I found some aspects of the experience to be quite interesting:

-While waiting in the courtroom for the judges to arrive, I struck up a conversation with the three prisoners whose cases were to be heard that day. The three men, decked out in faded orange jumpsuits, were accused of being members of an “insurrectionist movement”, the Mai Mai; these accusations were the basis for their appearance in a military court as opposed to a civilian court. They had all been arrested in December 2009, and they said that this day in court was only the second time they had appeared before a judge since being arrested.

Waiting in court

Waiting in court

-The soldiers assigned to guarding the prisoners were a raggedy, if friendly, group of individuals. I struck up a conversation with a soldier named Jeannot, a miniscule and jocular soldier with several missing front teeth and a battered and dented AK-style assault rifle. I asked Jeannot when he joined the army, and he told me he had first joined as a soldier with the RCD in 1998. I asked him how old he was.

“I was born in 1984,” he said. If what he told me was the truth, this meant he had joined the army when he was fourteen. A year younger than me, and yet Jeannot had already marched as a soldier through 13 years of conflict.

Another soldier, Sergeant Alain, told me that he had joined as a kadogo (child soldier) with Laurent Kabila and the AFDL in 1996; again, he did not look that much older than myself.

I asked the soldiers where they were from. Jeannot told me he was a Mubembe from Fizi Territory. I found many of the soldiers were from Fizi, but there were quite a number from all over the Congo, including Bas-Congo, Nord Kivu, and Katanga. Indeed, this group of soldiers appeared to be the most diverse group of Congolese I had ever seen, from the short Babembe to the towering Katangans. They spoke with each other in an interesting mix of Kiswahili, French, and Lingala. Normally, I do not interact with Congolese soldiers, since under different circumstances they might harass me or worse, but this time it was interesting to see the ordinary FARDC foot soldier “up close”.

Jeannot

Jeannot

-The three military judges were a panel of stern-looking, stern-talking FARDC captains who seemed to speak to the prisoners only in admonishments, alternating between French and Kiswahili. During the court recess, all of them lit up noxious cigarettes, which explained the generally stale, sour odor in the courtroom. When I asked the judges about their qualifications, they simply shrugged their shoulders and said that the military had assigned them to this post.

-All three prisoners had the same lawyer representing them, and after a few opening statements, the lawyer disappeared. After a while, the judges had to call a recess, since the prisoners had no legal representation; since their conviction would carry the death penalty, the judges decided that the trial could proceed no further until the three had a trained jurist present on their behalf. The three prisoners complained that the lawyer was charging them a lot of money ($1500), but doing little work. Since no one of them could afford to hire a lawyer himself, they had pooled their resources to hire one to represent all three of them.

-When I asked Capt. Didier if the death penalty had ever been carried out in Uvira against soldiers convicted of “supporting insurrection”, he shook his head no. He told me that if someone is convicted and sentenced to die, he immediately writes a letter to President Kabila asking for amnesty on behalf of the prisoner.

-According to the new rules set out for FARDC military justice, a FARDC officer can only be tried and convicted by officers of his own rank or greater. Thus, if anyone above Capt. Didier’s rank were being investigated (say, a colonel), a group of higher-ranking judges would have to come down from Bukavu to render a judicial decision in the case.

-Capt. Didier complained quite a bit about the lack of resources allocated to him and his team at the Auditorat. He told me that if an investigator opens a dossier in Shabunda, it may take up to a month for the dossier to arrive in Uvira. I asked if he had pleaded to his superiors for more resources, and he claimed that he had, but to no avail. Capt. Didier also claimed he did not have the resources to hold more military courts or open much-needed parquets in parts of Sud Kivu far away from the tribunal in Uvira. When I look at the dismal state of military justice in Sud Sud Kivu, I wonder about all the resources that numerous organizations (United Nations, European Union, etc) have dedicated to stabilization and security sector reform, and whether any of it is reaching our far-flung corner of the Congo.

Overall, the overwhelming feeling I got from attending this trial was frustration with the Congolese judicial process, both civilian and military. However, it was an eye-opening experience, and I learned quite a bit.

One wonders if the landmark trial and conviction of Col. Kibibi Mutware earlier this year was a start of a new trend or simply an irregular blip in a region fraught with impunity for members of armed groups. Not much of what I saw and heard in my experience with the Uvira Auditorat supported the former. I am willing to give Congolese military justice the benefit of the doubt, but I also believe it is about time both the Congolese government and their international partners take a closer look at what is going on.

If you are interested more in the Congolese justice system, please refer to one of my blogs from 2009, where I visited the Tribunal de la Paix, a court where civil cases are heard. If you want to read about community justice and mediation, here is a blog about a case heard at the Comite de Mediation et Conciliation in Luvungi.

On August 15, SOS FED and the community of Mboko inaugurated a brand-new well in the locality of Ichwi. The well, with an attractive AFRIDEV handpump, is part of SOS FED’s risk-reduction campaign in Mboko, cutting down the time it takes for women in the zone to carry water to their homes every day. The inauguration ceremony was attended by local state authorities, traditional tribal authorities, a radio journalist from Uvira, members of the ACTED engineering team that assisted in digging the well, SOS FED Mboko staff, SOS FED beneficiaries, and many other members of the community.

The sector administrator, a small man with a scraggly beard, gave a speech before cutting a ribbon in front of the well. After cutting the ribbon, he sprinkled a bottle of Primus beer around the well, a traditional Congolese blessing. Once the ceremony was completed, the well was immediately swarmed by women seeking to fill buckets, basins, bottles, and jerrycans with fresh, sweet well water.

The local administrator prepares to sprinkle beer on the new well

The local administrator prepares to sprinkle beer on the new well

Having worked on water development in Haiti back in 2007-08, I am very aware of the importance of water as a rallying point for women’s health, women’s rights, and for the general wellbeing of the community. As the splendidly wonderful Charlie Walker explains in her blog, women who rely on a water source closer to their home reduce their risk of being attacked while going to and fro on a daily basis.

AFRIDEV pump

AFRIDEV pump

Important facts about the well:

-The AFRIDEV hand pump is a sturdy piece of equipment, and should be able to sustain a few years of constant use.

-The well is a good distance away from any potential sources of contamination (latrines, mud holes, pig sties, etc.)

-The well is located on “public” land owned by local state authorities, which will avoid capture by private interests.

-The SOS FED center staff in Mboko expressed great satisfaction with the proximity of the well to the center.

Here’s wishing the best of luck to the people of Mboko and their new well!

Women and children crowding around the new well

Women and children crowding around the new well

On Tuesday, August 30, I attended the monthly meeting of the Uvira CTLVS (Comite Territoriale de la Lutte contre la Violence Sexuelle). The meeting broke down into the usual litany of complaints about lack of cooperation and initiative, since none of the member organizations in the CTLVS seem to want to work together or share their information with the CTLVS focal points.

At this particular CTLVS meeting, a captain from the FARDC showed up, wearing a crisp green uniform with polished epaulettes and gold braids. This captain was a magistrate, a member of the military justice division (“Auditoirat”) of the FARDC. Most recently, the FARDC military justice wing played a crucial role in convicting Col. Kibibi and his men for the January 1st mass rape in Fizi Centre. Every month, a number of cases are heard at the military court in Uvira, mostly stemming from incidents occurring close to Uvira town. However, in more remote, though well-documented, incidents in Uvira/Fizi (Kikozi, Nyakiele), FARDC military justice has been rather slow in even bringing the accused to trial.

I decided to ask the FARDC magistrate about his job and the history of the Auditoirat. He told me that the military justice wing had existed since 2003, when the modern incarnation of the Congolese military was created; their mandate is to investigate/redress wrongs committed by members of the military, as well as teach discipline and good behavior to the troops. In this part of South Kivu, the central Auditoriat based in Uvira is charged with military justice for the territories of Uvira, Fizi, Mwenga, and Shabunda. All cases are heard before the tribunal in Uvira before a panel of military judges; the magistrate himself serves as a prosecutor/investigator. The parquet performs investigations of infractions, prepares the legal dossiers, and presents the cases before the military tribunal. In June, a permanent military parquet opened in the town of Baraka in Fizi Territory, where several months prior a mobile military court (Audience foraine) had handed down Col. Kibibi’s conviction and sentence. Aside from the parquet in Uvira and the secondary parquet in Baraka, there are only “inspectors” present in Misisi, Kametuga, and Shabunda Centre, making the coverage of military justice fairly poor for a very large area (4 of the biggest territories in South Kivu).

I asked the magistrate if he felt that the FARDC today was a more disciplined body than it was eight years ago; his answer was an emphatic “yes”. I asked if FARDC troops cooperated with him in terms of carrying out justice and promoting good behavior within the ranks. Again, he said yes, but then he qualified his statement by saying “in any family, there is never a lack of disobedient children”.

I brought up the case of Col. Kifaru and his defected men, the alleged perpetrators of the mass rape case in Nyakiele in June, who have since been re-absorbed by the FARDC. At this point, our conversation ground to a halt. When I asked at what stage the Auditoirat was in investigating the strong allegations of rape against Col. Kifaru and his men, the magistrate became vague and elusive.

“We are still investigating,” was all he would say.

When I delicately probed further for details, the magistrate refused to divulge any more information, citing “professional secrets”. Maybe commenting on an ongoing investigation would have been a bit out of line for a magistrate, but all promises of “carrying out justice” disappeared once Nyakiele was brought up. Later, one of my CTLVS contacts told me that since the Congolese government’s stance on Nyakiele is rather clear (“ignore/discredit”), the Auditoirat probably will have no support in bringing the perpetrators to justice.

This kind of foot-dragging has also characterized the response to the Kikozi incident; investigations by the Auditoirat and MONUSCO have identified the commanding officer responsible for the unit implicated in the March mass rape (Major Shaka Nyamusalaba), but despite numerous calls from local NGOs to bring Maj. Shaka to Uvira for trial, no such action has been taken.

At the end of our conversation, the magistrate cordially invited me to attend the military tribunal in Uvira proper later in the week. I am planning on taking up his offer, so stay tuned for more.

Uvira seems to be a rather anonymous town deep in Central East Africa. The architecture: crumbling. The nightlife: sparse and risky. The inhabitants: unpretentious and lively. The sole attraction: Lake Tanganyika, although all the good beaches are over in Burundi. However, Uvira has a bit of its own dark history and intrigue, despite not having the glamour or mzungu creature comforts of Bukavu, Goma, or Beni.

In the same way, Fizi Territory has cultivated a sort of infamous reputation in the Congo, despite its rather innocuous appearance. Laurent “Mzee” Kabila operated in Fizi Territory, back when he was a Leftist rebel leader in the 1960s/70s. Che Guevara visited this area, back when he lent himself to the revolutionary cause against Mobutu; Che came away totally disillusioned by the state of the revolutionary struggle in this part of Africa that has so often resisted misguided outside attempts at transformation or analysis, of all ideological types.

Monuments in towns and villages all over Fizi Territory memorialize those slaughtered by the brutal RCD during the Second Congo War. However, I have seen no monuments marking the slaughter of the Banyamulenge that occurred in the frenzied anti-Banyamulenge hysteria in the days just before the Rwandan invasion.

In August 1996, when it was clear that the Rwandan government was arming some of the Rwandophone Banyamulenge in the Kivus in preparation for an invasion, the Kivus were swept with a wave of xenophobia. Local politicians poured out rhetoric against the Banyamulenge “traitors”, encouraging jobless and shiftless young men to “attack the Banyamulenge” and seize their assets. In Uvira, many Banyamulenge were kicked out of their houses, beaten, and thrown in jail by angry mobs. All over Fizi Territory, the “autochtone” population rose up to kill Banyamulenge and take their cows. In Bukavu in October, the provincial governor declared the Banyamulenge persona non grata and ordered their expulsion from South Kivu. The xenophobia was not limited to just the Kivus; all over Zaire, persons with “Tutsi” morphology were harassed, beaten, and even murdered.

The slaughter of the Banyamulenge pulled the trigger for the Rwandan invasion of the Congo. Up until then, the RPA had been watching the Hutu refugee camps just over the border in Zaire become rallying points for the former genocidaires, without any international intervention to stop this travesty. The regrouping Interahamwe and FAR had even begun raids back into Rwanda, and the newly installed RPF government could hardly tolerate a cross-border insurgency made up of the perpetrators of the Tutsi genocide. Several other African governments were eager to see Mobutu go, and they saw this as an opportunity to change the leadership in Kinshasa. In addition, the Rwandan military had been recruiting disaffected Banyamulenge youth and giving them arms and military training, in preparation for an invasion. The xenophobic purging of the “Tutsi” Banyamulenge in the Kivus was the final straw. Using an alliance of Zairian rebel leaders (the AFDL) as a front, the Rwandans invaded Zaire.

Uvira, in fact, was the first town to fall to the AFDL and its allies, on October 24, 1996. A mere seven months later, Kabila pere and his kadogos (child soldiers) were marching on Kinshasa. By mid-1997, Mzee Kabila was the president of the newly-christened Democratic Republic of Congo.

It is interesting to think about Mzee Kabila returning to South Kivu/Northeastern Katanga, after many corpulent years of being a smuggler in Tanzania. Here, in this eastern region, he fought against Mobutu’s agents from remote mountain camps. Here is where his son Joseph was born, in a village called Mpiki in the view of Mlima ya damu (“Mountain of Blood”). Here was where he trudged along with Che Guevara, among the gnarled trees and manioc fields and jagged piles of rocks. The aging, largely irrelevant rebel, with his Maoist tracts and monochromatic wardrobe of safari jackets, had been made ruler of Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest country, perhaps a few decades too late.

In late 1998, when Kabila decided to thumb his nose at his “minders”, the Rwandans quickly put together a new rebel movement based in the east to challenge Kabila’s authority, the RCD. Thus, the Second Congo War had begun; today, mentioning this war to most Uvirois will cause them to wrinkle their brow and sigh. While many Kivutians saw the AFDL invasion as a war of “liberation” from Mobutu’s tri-decade dictatorship, the rule of the RCD is remembered with sorrow and chagrin. The RCD soldiers were mostly Rwandans or Congolese Rwandophones (such as the Banyamulenge), and in South Kivu they did not easily forget the anti-Banyamulenge pogroms committed by the “autochtone” Congolese. Now, the Banyamulenge were in charge, and they were looking to subdue the population by violent means. In Fizi Territory, the RCD committed horrid massacres in villages such as Makobola, slaughtering hundreds of civilians at a time. When I ask Congolese people my age about what life was like in Uvira/Fizi during the RCD-era, the reply I get most often is “Well, we just survived”.

In the days since the end of the Second Congo War, Uvira/Fizi has been one of the sites of the ongoing struggle between state-sanctioned armed forces (the FARDC) and the remaining non-state armed groups (in Uvira/Fizi, the FDLR, FRF, FNL, and various Mai Mai groups). Occasionally, events here make small waves in foreign journals, but sadly mostly related to tragedy and continuing human rights abuses committed by armed groups.

And thus, events that occurred in Uvira and Fizi Territory have been extremely pivotal in Congo’s recent history. The easygoing nature of Uvirois makes it easy to forget how much the region has been through, and in a way it is a bit encouraging that there are very strong efforts at ethnic conflict transformation going on in Uvira/Fizi.

Nonetheless, the Dark Side does persist. Anti-Rwandan sentiment can still be fairly strong here in Uvira/Fizi (just like xenophobic anti-Congolese sentiment can be fairly strong across the border in Rwanda). In this area, many Congolese people hate Joseph Kabila because he “made a deal” with the Rwandans to end the Second Congo War, and political discussions with Uvirois often result in absurd statements about a “double genocide” and about Joseph Kabila being a Rwandan puppet. Down in Fizi Territory especially, the tendency seems to be to blame outsiders for all the problems, whether it be Rwanda, Belgium, the United States, or even just Congolese from other parts of the country. This may explain a lot of the success of Mai Mai Yakutumba; despite their documented violations of human rights, they remain strongly tied to the community of Babembe political elites in Fizi.

For an outsider like myself who is relatively new to the Kivus, the simmering ethnic/political/class tensions may seem silly and superficial, and very often we non-Africans try to make what Jason Stearns calls “simplistic solutions to complex problems”. However, there are years of economic decay, local power struggles, political manipulation, warfare, colonial social restructuring, and oblivious international involvement that have formed the image of what we see in this particular section of South Kivu today.

I have always found it a bit interesting the independent nature and identity of Uvira and Fizi, even within South Kivu. The two territories are also very different from each other, most starkly when it comes to ethnic makeup and topography. In Fizi, the Babembe are dominant. In Uvira, it is much more diverse, with Bafulero, Bashi, and Bavira. In terms of geography, Uvira has the great Rusizi Plain, which borders with Burundi, whereas Fizi has massive forests high in the hills. The Rusizi looks like something straight out of The Lion King, a broad and burnt-red stretch of savannah where cows roam free. For sure, I have always preferred Uvira to, say Bukavu, the sophisticated (if rather pretentious) provincial capital of South Kivu.

Each part of the Congo has had a different story; in northern Congo in Ituri and Equateur, the story includes the MLC and fighting between Rwandan and Ugandan troops over Congolese territory and resources. In Katanga and Kasai, the story is of the large-scale exploitation of minerals such as gold, diamonds, and copper. In Kinshasa, the story includes bizarre tales of nuclear reactors built by priests, spectacular examples of corruption, and the fast-fading majesty of what used to be one of the most exciting cities in Africa. All over the Congo, there are stories, all interlinked at some point, but all possessing an individual spirit. Point being, the Congo is very big, but it is still fascinating at how events starting in somewhere like Uvira can change the course of history for the behemoth of Central Africa.

I know Uvira by its labyrinth-like markets (Mulongwe, Kalmabenge), the hordes of moto-taxis clogging the main road, the signs with the various NGO acronyms (AVSI, AJID, PSVS, SOFIBEF, 8eme CEPAC), the quick geographic orientation of the rising hill on one side and the turquoise lake to the other, the piles of fetid garbage that line the streets, the crowds of boys smacking their lips and croaking “goomawneng” (good morning) to get my attention, the ravines and vine-covered cemeteries, the crates of Primus bottles outside the Depot Bralima, the colorful pagne dresses and oddly-tailored western-style suits, the huffing Mitsubishi flatbed trucks, the groups of money-changers sitting under umbrellas, the trucks full of green-clad soldiers wielding Norinco 56s and RPGs, the women rolling chapatti next to a crackling pan of oil under the shade of a tree, the thumping of manioc leaves being crushed in a pestle, each bridge and river and ronde-point. I know Fizi Territory mostly by just the utter sense of remoteness it inspires whenever I visit. This is my home in the Congo.