Deadly conflict ravages Congo
For more than a decade, one of the deadliest conflicts in recent history has raged in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Millions of Congolese have perished as a result of the ongoing conflict in the central African country.
In their time of need the Congolese people feel "forgotten" by the rest of the world, says Darrell Desrosiers, a Canadian pastor who recently returned from a brief mission to eastern Congo.
Hundreds of thousands of families have been driven from their homes by soldiers who plunder towns and villages and by murderous rebels bent on destroying Congo's society.
Seeking shelter in displaced persons camps, neighbouring villages and the forest, the people of eastern Congo are under constant threat of death. And the girls and women in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu are being systematically raped and sexually tortured by combatants.
After two wars and years of constant fighting in eastern Congo involving at least 22 rebel groups and seven African countries, a peace agreement was finally negotiated in 2003. But the conflict never really ended.
"The overall peace process has been in jeopardy since the beginning," explains Wendy Gichuru, the United Church of Canada's regional coordinator for East and Central Africa.
When the deadlines for the disarmament and demobilization of the rebel forces were missed, the peace process began to unravel. Last summer, a shaky ceasefire between the DRC government and rebel forces collapsed, precipitating a major escalation of the conflict in eastern Congo, which in turn created a new wave of displaced persons.
Humanitarian disaster
War has taken a heavy toll on the population of the DRC, which is mostly Christian. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), approximately 5.4 million people have died as a result of the conflict since 1998. And the struggle continues to claim the lives of an estimated 1,000 people every day.
According to Francesca Fontanini, the UNHCR's external relations officer on the ground, the "situation for over a million internally displaced [persons] in DRC is very desperate. We are really in front of a humanitarian crisis."
In a December 18 email, Fontanini reported "fighting in eastern Congo has driven some 250,000 from their homes during the last eight weeks, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis." A total of 1.35 million people have been displaced by the ongoing conflict in North Kivu.
Approximately 142,000 displaced persons are receiving humanitarian assistance at six camps around Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu.
However, Fontanini says that thousands of others are living in the forest or in areas off limits to humanitarian workers due to security concerns. These displaced persons are totally cut off from humanitarian relief and are "in dire need of assistance, mainly food, water and medicines," she says.
The flames of violence engulfing the Congo, a former Belgian colony, are fuelled from several sources. "Some of it is the ongoing legacy of decades of despotic rule of the late president Mobutu [Sese Seko] and the huge impact that's had on the country," explains Gichuru. Mobutu bequeathed a weakened central government to the people of Zaire, which later came to be known as the DRC.
The DRC's current government, led by President Joseph Kabila, doesn't exercise effective control over much of its territory. Various rebel groups and foreign-backed militias operate freely in eastern Congo, particularly in the war-torn province of North Kivu. "These various militias function in the region and continue to try to amass wealth, power and influence," says Gichuru.
For example, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)—Uganda-based rebels waging a bloody rebellion against the Ugandan government—stalks the forests of North Kivu. On Christmas Day of 2008 the LRA raided several villages, reportedly slaughtering189 civilians—mostly women, children and the elderly. Two Catholic priests were also among the victims.
The leader of the LRA, Joseph Kony, has been indicted by the International Court for war crimes, including the recruitment of child soldiers.
Genocide and greed
The DRC is also haunted by the ghosts of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. To avoid prosecution for slaughtering an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, Rwandan Hutu militias fled to the forests of eastern Congo, where they continue to wreak havoc.
Rebel commander Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) is described by Human Rights Watch as the "most significant" rebel group in the DRC. Nkunda, the self-appointed protector of the Congolese Tutsi minority, uses the presence of Hutu militias in eastern Congo as justification for waging war against the central government and imposing a reign of terror on territory captured by the CNDP.
However, at the Goma peace conference in January 2008, representatives of the Congolese Tutsi communities in North and South Kivu unanimously rejected Nkunda's claim that he would ensure their safety.
There is more to the conflict in eastern Congo than just lingering tribal animosities, however. Greed is also fuelling the violence.
Even as the conflict rages, foreign mining companies are reaping profits from the extraction of the DRC's rich mineral reserves, which include copper, diamonds and gold. Coltan, which is used in mobile phones, is another of the DRC's much sought after commodities.
How big a role does the struggle for control of the DRC's mineral wealth play in the conflict? "It's basically everything," says Jim Davis, the Africa partnerships coordinator for KAIROS, the Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiative.
Davis, who is an expert on issues related to resource extraction, human rights and economic justice, returned to Canada in December from a trip to the DRC. He says many countries, including neighbouring Rwanda, have powerful business interests in eastern Congo. He believes there is reason to fear that "a weakened Congo could be balkanized in the east and split into barely viable states, [which] would be easier for plundering minerals."
The United Church's Wendy Gichuru also sees a connection between the violence in the east and the mining industry. "The fact that there is obviously significant mineral wealth in the region encourages the kind of armed movements that exploit and benefit from the kinds of instability that is ongoing in the region," she says
The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace—which is part of the Catholic Church's international web of development organizations known as Caritas Internationalis—is appealing to the Canadian government "to push for an independent study of illegal mining and its contribution to the conflict [in eastern Congo]," says Eleonore Fournier-Tombs, the group's communications officer.
According to Davis, the government of Canada simply isn't doing enough to put in place "tighter monitoring and standards for [Canadian] mining companies operating in the Congo." And he says "the Churches [in Canada] need to say something about this.
Individual Christians also have a moral duty to invest ethically, and that means closely examining pension plans and stock portfolios for links to the DRC. When investing in mining companies that do business in the Congo, Gichuru says Canadians should ask themselves one question: "Are we subsidizing our well-being at the cost of others' lives?"
Destroy relief camps
"The situation is very bad [in the DRC]," says Bagula Nanakobwa Rubasha, a native of Congo who now resides in Winnipeg. When he watches television news reports from the DRC, the Christian activist sometimes breaks down in tears, "because I was in the same situation."
Bagula works with the Winnipeg-based Organization of Young Christians of Eastern DRC in Support of Families, a fledgling humanitarian relief organization. He is a former resident of Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, where he still has family.
His sister, however, lives in a displaced persons camp in North Kivu. Contrary to international law, such camps have been targeted by the rebels. For example, after CNDP rebels took control of the towns of Kiwanja and Rutshuru in North Kivu late last fall, rebel warlord Nkunda publicly declared displaced persons camps to be havens for bandits and enemy combatants.
"Once the CNDP took control of the area," reports Human Rights Watch, "they immediately ordered the local population to destroy six camps for displaced people and sites that housed an estimated 27,000 people."
According to Fontanini of the UNHCR, "residents live in fear of attacks and looting by soldiers in the conflict." And Human Rights Watch has documented the looting of health clinics, homes, shops, displaced persons camps and the offices of NGOs by retreating national army soldiers in eastern Congo.
Congolese also fear the Mai Mai militia, a tribal group that supports the central government. In November 2008, states a Human Rights Watch report, the Mai Mai "summarily executed" six civilians at Kiwanja.
Rape as weapon of war
"Sexual violence is perpetrated on a massive scale [in eastern Congo]. Rape can occur everywhere and anytime, both day and night. Some women have also been abducted and tortured for several days," reports Fontaini.
Several years ago, Bagula's wife—then his fiancée—was kidnapped at Bukavu and held captive for almost three months before the church, the Red Cross and the UNHCR finally found her. Although the 35-year-old does not speak about the treatment his wife had to suffer in captivity, he does discuss the horrors many Congolese women must endure.
"After doing sex with the women," says Bagula, describing the rebels' sadism, "they put the gun in [the] vagina." After a pause, Bagula thunders: "It's bad!"
The web site for the Panzi Hospital of Bukavu in South Kivu, a not-for-profit Christian institution that treats survivors of sexual violence and provides childcare for children conceived by rape, confirms that extremely brutal sexual violence is common in eastern Congo. The level of sexual violence in the DRC is without parallel in the world.
"Systematic rape is seen as [a] weapon of war," explains Fontanini.
Last year, Gichuru met with the survivors of sexual violence in Goma, the capital of North Kivu. She learned that sexual violence "seems to be the modus operandi" of rebel forces when they move into an area.
Desrosiers, pastor of the New Life Assembly at Killarney, Manitoba, also met with approximately 30 survivors of sexual violence as they recovered from surgery at the Panzi Hospital. "We saw women who really had their lives ripped apart through rape and the violence that would occur after that rape," he says.
The perpetrators didn't care about the age of their victims. "I think the youngest victim that the hospital treated was three years old," says the pastor, "and the oldest were 70 or 80 years."
If the sexual violence in the Congo isn't random, what is the perpetrators' objective? "It's about intimidation," explains Gichuru, "and it's about undermining the kind of links and connections among family, among community, as rebels undermine the cohesive role that women play in the communities."
Desrosiers offers a similar explanation. "It's being done on purpose, because if you can destroy the woman, you can destroy the whole household."
Failure to protect
Last year, Canada raised the issue of systematic rape in eastern Congo at the United Nations. UN Security Council Resolution 1820, sponsored by Canada and unanimously adopted, calls for "the immediate and complete cessation by all parties to armed conflict of all acts of sexual violence against civilians with immediate effect."
Canada has also "contributed $15 million to help victims of sexual violence in the DRC and to prevent further sexual crimes," says Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon via email.
Yet the sexual victimization of the DRC's women and children continues.
The UN has deployed 17,000 soldiers, the largest peacekeeping force in history, to the DRC. However, the UN mission in the DRC, known by the French acronym MONUC, has failed to protect the civilian population of eastern Congo.
Notwithstanding the fact that MONUC's robust mandate authorizes it to employ force if necessary, against rebel groups and militias in North and South Kivu, the peacekeepers have stood by while crimes against humanity were committed within walking distance of their field base at Kiwanja.
After CNDP forces took control of the towns of Kiwanja and Rutshuru, they committed "one of the worst killing sprees in North Kivu in the past two years," states a recent Human Rights Watch report. On November 4 and 5, 2008, the rebels systematically killed an estimated 150 civilians.
Acknowledging that MONUC is too weak to stop the killing, the UN Security Council has authorized the deployment of an additional 3,000 troops to eastern Congo. But those boots won't be on the ground for several months yet, leaving Congolese civilians open to further attacks in the meantime.
"These men, women and children cannot wait any longer for the international community to act," states a December 2008 press release from England's church leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams and Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Cormac Murphy O'Connor. They recommend that MONUC "be strengthened in a matter of weeks, not months."
Do more
Canadian Christian organizations are pressing the Government of Canada to do more to help the people of the DRC. To be fair, Canada isn't ignoring the crisis.
Foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon is quick to acknowledge the great suffering of the Congolese people and expresses deep concern about the recent spike in violence in the DRC. Furthermore, Cannon says he is urging "regional leaders to take the necessary steps to solve the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo."
But apart from issuing diplomatic declarations, what has Canada done to help the Congolese? "In 2008," says the foreign affairs minister in an e-mail statement, "the Government of Canada, through the Canadian International Development Agency, has provided $8.4 million in humanitarian assistance and food aid to the DRC."
Canada has also allocated more than $195 million in humanitarian and development assistance to the DRC since 1998. On the diplomatic front, Canada supports the UN-sponsored peace process as well as the Security Council's decision to strengthen MONUC. In addition, Canada co-chairs the Group of Friends of the Great Lakes Region, a conference of nations that promotes peace and security in the African Great Lakes Region.
Yet Canada could be doing more to halt the carnage in eastern Congo.
Although Canada has allocated $237.1 million to MONUC since 1997, this country, despite its peacekeeping expertise and bilingual military, currently contributes a mere 11 Canadian Forces personnel to the UN mission in the DRC, a French-speaking country.
Moreover, Canada turned down a UN request last spring to take command of MONUC. Had Ottawa granted the request, Canada wouldn't have had to contribute a contingent of soldiers to the mission; the UN only asked for a high-ranking Canadian officer (and a support staff) to lead the existing UN force.
How can Canadian Christians help the people of eastern Congo? "Be praying for them," says Desrosiers. "And find ways to support them."
For example, Caritas International is raising money to help survivors of sexual violence in the DRC. Through a Development and Peace project, says Eleonore Fournier-Tombs, "several hundred victims of sexual violence will be provided with medical care and support."
Gichuru points out that many Christian denominations are working with secular and religious groups in the DRC to help the Congolese "to reclaim their country" and to live in peace and justice as God intended.
While money can purchase much needed humanitarian supplies, it cannot buy what the people of the Congo need most--hope.
"They really need to know that they aren't forgotten," says Desrosiers. "They have no hope that the government is going to care for them or protect them." And that is why the work of the Church is so important to the Congolese. "They have no hope in anything other than the Lord."
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