Feature
DRC: No end to war on women and children
Months after a peace agreement to end conflict in North Kivu province, easter Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) civilians are still being killed, raped, abducted and tortured by armed group and government forces. Amnesty International has found substantial evidence that armed groups in North Kivu have continued to commit crimes under international law, including unlawful killings, rape, torture, and the recuritment and use of child soldiers, even after the armed groups promised to immediately end these abuses in a 23 January 2008 "Act of Engagement" ...
Humanitarian catastrophe in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo: Overview
Over the last ten years the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has been the scene of the most deadly conflict since the Second World War. Up to four million people have died as a result of fighting among the armies of five different countries, the remnants of the Rwandan forces responsible for the genocide there in 1994 and various local militias and warlords. Countless thousands of women have been raped and approximately 30 000 children have been forcibly recruited into armed groups. In the last few months a fresh round of fighting has broken out and made as many as 200 000 refugees.
A Decade of Conflict
In 1997 Congolese rebels led by Joseph Kabila, with the help of Rwandan and Ugandan forces, toppled the regime of the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. Rwanda argued then, as it does now, that its intervention was primarily motivated by the need to prevent the remnants of those responsible for the 1994 genocide from launching attacks on Rwanda from Congolese territory.
In spite of the hopes for a brighter future for the DRC after the fall of Mobuto and the successful national elections of 2006 the temptations of the mineral riches of the country were too much for some and conflict has been more or less continuous since 1997. At one time or another the armies of the DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, various proxies armed and supported by each of these countries as well as any number of indigenous militias have been involved in fighting over control of the country’s mines and oilfields.
In addition to the direct effects of armed conflict the civilian population of the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri have suffered tremendously from the war. Hundreds of thousands have been made refugees in their own country, often several times over. Rape is used as a tactic by all sides to intimidate local populations. All the forces have recruited and employed child soldiers as combatants, forced labour and sexual slaves.
Since August 2008 Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi and former Rwandan army officer, has been carrying out an offensive against government forces around Goma in North Kivu. Nkunda accuses the FARDC (the DRC’s national army) of working with and protecting the FDLR – a group of Rwandan Hutus involved in the 1994 genocide. Nkunda’s accusations may have some basis in fact but his forces are not blameless either and have been responsible for many abuses of the rights of civilians. Nkunda is also alleged to be receiving covert support from the government of Rwanda.
Failed Peace Deals
International mediation and political pressure has resulted in a series of cease-fires and peace deals none of which seem very durable. 17 000 United Nations troops are mandated to protect civilians, enforce an arms embargo and monitor peace agreements over an area as large as Western Europe. In addition, a large number of aid agencies are active in the area. Despite this international presence, armed clashes and the brutalization of the civilian population are still part of daily routine.
At the heart of the conflict is the enormous mineral wealth of the Congo. Military personnel of all parties to the conflict are involved in mining operations (often using forced labour) and use the profits both to enrich themselves as well as to finance the further expansion of their military capability.
The minerals of the Congo are of course worth nothing without a market and in this respect the mining companies directly involved as well as those of us consuming the end products around the world contribute in at least an indirect way to this conflict.
More Resources Required from the International Community
If the people of the eastern DRC are ever going to emerge from the shadow of all this violence the international community is going to have to do substantially more than it has to date. UN troops in place are poorly equipped and too few to realistically carry out their mandate. Countries such as Canada, the US and members of the European Union need to commit themselves to doing what is required to put a definitive end to the violence and to properly enforcing the UN arms embargo on militias in the DRC.
A real long-term solution will also require that those responsible for crimes and atrocities be held to account for their actions in local or international courts. It will also be necessary to put an end to the diversion of the country’s mineral wealth into the pockets of armed forces and militias. In this, Canada, as a leader in the world’s mining industry, can play a useful and constructive role by ensuring that Canadian companies doing business in the DRC respect international standards of human rights.
In response to the immediate crisis Amnesty International is urging:
- that MONUC (the UN peacekeeping force in the DRC) be given the necessary resources to carry out its mandate to protect the civilian population
- all parties to the conflict to ensure that humanitarian aid agencies are not hindered in their work to provide humanitarian aid to displaced people
- the UN Security Council to continue to press the governments of the DRC and Rwanda to abide by the commitments made in the Nairobi joint communiqué of November 2007, to refrain from providing support to armed groups
- that justice and an end to impunity must now have a central place in the search for durable peace in the Great Lakes Region, and that deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians and peacekeepers carrying out their duty of protecting civilians are war crimes, punishable under international law
- army, police units and all other armed groups to protect civilians and refrain from all forms of sexual violence and human rights violations
- that armed groups immediately release all children associated with their forces and all women and girls held as sex slaves
- greater action to end impunity for rape by ensuring that all allegations of rape and other forms of sexual violence are properly investigated and perpetrators are brought to justice
Posted: 10 November 2008