Background
Current Situation
Human Rights
Rape as a Weapon of War
Economic Dimension
Australia’s and the DRC
NGOs in the DRC
The Democratic Republic of Congo has been in a state of continuous conflict since 1996, despite comprehensive peace agreements reached in 2001 between DRC, Rwanda and Uganda, in 2003 between the Congolese government and the multiple guerilla groups operating in eastern Congo, and again in 2007 between the government and militia groups. The fighting continues in a confusing and often-shifting configuration of alliances between the government forces (FARDC), major rebel groups and their international backers. This conflict is often referred to as “Africa’s World War” due to the involvement of neighbouring countries of Rwanda, Uganda, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Burundi.
The war in the DRC has been the deadliest conflict since World War II, with nearly six million casualties as a result of the ongoing violence. More than two million people have been displaced by the conflict and over 200,000 women have been raped by members of warring factions. The human rights abuses are being perpetrated against civilians by the national army and members of armed groups.
Background
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (formally Zaire) an estimated 1,200 people have died every day from conflict-related causes since 1997. According to Caritas and the UN, nearly six million people have died in the Congo in the last 10 years as a direct result of the fighting between government forces and insurgent groups, which has continued unabated despite the latest ceasefire signed in January 2008. The human rights situation is particularly severe, with abuses perpetrated against civilians by the national army, members of armed groups, and the United Nations peacekeeping force, MONUC.
Control over the country’s vast mineral wealth has been a significant factor in the conflict. The country’s history has been largely shaped by exploitation of these resources from colonial times. The current violence has its roots in the politics of colonization and King Leopold II of Belgium’s administration of the Congo Free State. From the first treaties signed with Kongo chiefs in 1878 until the Belgian government took control of the Congo from the king, Leopold exploited the people and resources of the Congo Free State, using slave labour to harvest rubber and ivory, harbouring the profits for himself without any investment into the country.
In 1908, the Belgian government took control of the colony and renamed it the Belgian Congo. Along with political administration, the Belgian government also took control of the Congo’s rich supplies of diamonds, gold, copper, rubber, and palm oil. Following independence from Belgium on 30 June, 1960, the fragile state institutions established under colonial rule collapsed.
After independence in 1960, an army mutiny and secessionist movements in the resource-rich regions of Katanga and Southern Kassai resulted in an internal conflict in the country. The first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, unsuccessfully attempted to quash the Kasai uprising with Soviet support. Lumumba was dismissed by President Joseph Kasavubu and later assassinated in 1961 by troops believed to have been complicit with Belgium.
Returnees go back to their destroyed villages. More than two million people are internally displaced, most of whom are in eastern DRC. Photo: Tineke D'haese
Army chief Colonel Joseph Mobutu seized state power in 1965. For the next 32 years (during which time he renamed the country Zaire in 1971), Mobutu used the country’s natural resources to fortify his power base and personal wealth.
The end of the Cold War brought an end to international aid and Western support for Mobutu. No western country intervened when Laurent Kabila overthrew Mobutu in 1997 with the support of Rwanda and Uganda (under Kabila, the country changed its name to the Democratic Republic of Congo). However Kabila’s unwillingness to comply with Rwandan influence in his government led to tensions between the two countries. Rwandan troops invaded in 1998, seeking to purge the eastern DRC of Hutu soldiers who had conducted the Rwandan genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994.
In the ensuing conflict, which saw Namibian, Zimbabwean and Angolan support for Kabila, an estimated 4 million people died between 1998-2004.
Despite the signing of a ceasefire in 1999 and the deployment of a UN Security Council peacekeeping mission (MONUC) in 2000, fighting continued in the eastern provinces of the DRC. In 2003, a transitional government was formed, in which Joseph Kabila (son of Laurent Kabila who was assassinated in 2001) shared power with former dissidents. With the assistance of MONUC, the DRC’s first free and fair elections in 40 years were held in July and October 2006, returning Joseph Kabila to the presidency.
In an attempt to stop the violence in the eastern DRC, the Goma agreement was signed in January 2008 between General Laurent Nkunda, leader of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP, sympathetic to the Congolese Tutsis and supported by the Rwandan government) and Kabila’s government. However, full scale fighting broke out again in August 2008 and lasted until January 2009, when Nkunda was apprehended by Rwandan officials while visiting Kigali. He has been held in an undisclosed location in Rwanda since. Most of the CNDP members have been offered amnesty and have been integrated into the national Congolese army (FARDC). Nkunda’s second-in-command, Bosco Ntaganda, has been promoted to the rank of general in FARDC despite being wanted by the International Criminal Court on an arrest warrant for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been investigating crimes in DRC from June 2002. It has issued arrest warrants for four DRC insurgency leaders, three of whom are currently in custody and facing trials for war crimes.
Current Situation
In January 2009, the DRC government and the Rwandan government, following a dramatic shift in political alliances, launched joint military operations in eastern Congo against the Forces Democratiques de la Liberation du Rwanda (FDLR). While it was promised that these offensives would bring peace and security to the region, thus far the violence continues unabated (as of January 2010). Two successive Congolese military operations—one conducted with Rwandan military forces, known as operation Umoja Wetu, and the second conducted with the direct support of United Nations peacekeeping troops, known as operation Kimia II— have been accompanied by serious human rights abuses committed by both government and rebel forces against civilians in the conflict affected regions.
Until very recently, much of the actual warfare was due to pro-Tutsi militia groups, accusing the Congolese government of not sufficiently protecting the Congolese Tutsis from the violence being perpetrated by the FDLR in North and South Kivu provinces, waging conflict against both the Congolese army and the FDLR. The most prominent of these groups, the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), claims to be representing Tutsi interests in the Kivu provinces. Additionally, a new rebel group, the Popular Front for Justice in the Congo (FPJC), has been raiding villages in the Ituri province and engaging in battle with government troops. The group claims it formed “to force the implementation of that deal, which included an amnesty for all those who participated in the previous fighting.”
The government army has also sent reinforcements to Ituri in response to a series of recent attacks by the Patriotic Resistance Front in Ituri (FRPI), who have refused to participate in the national peace accords and who have been fighting the government forces since 29 September 2008. Simultaneously, FARDC has been combating Lords Resistance Army (LRA) rebels from Uganda, who have sporadically invaded the province of Orientale: between 17 and 26 September, the LRA attacked at least eight villages in the region of Dungu, killing civilians and abducting more than 90 schoolchildren. Between 24 and 27 December of 2008, in what is being called the ‘Christmas massacres’, the LRA attacked at least five villages in northern Congo, killing more than 400 civilians, mutilating hundreds more, and displacing more than 20,000.
Since the dissolution of the CNDP, a new Tutsi rebel group has emerged in the eastern Congo and is launching attacks against FARDC forces. The group calls itself the Federal Republican Forces (FRF) and on 10 December 2009, the group attacked an army battalion, claiming to represent the socio-economic interests of Congolese Tutsis.
Human rights situation
As a direct consequence of this conflict, nearly six million people have been killed in the DRC. Since December 2006, over 370,000 civilians have been displaced in the Kivu region alone.
The 2008 Goma agreement did not halt the violence, according to a coalition of 64 international aid agencies and human rights groups. Between the time of the signing of the Goma agreement and the re-ignition of fighting seven months later, 150,000 people were forcibly displaced, (adding to the one million internally displaced people in the Kivu region) and the United Nations has reported at least 200 ceasefire violations in just 8 months from January 2008 to September 2008. During the same period more than 2,200 cases of rape of women and girls were recorded (with many more remaining unreported) and at least 200 civilians were killed.
In north Kivu many people found shelter with host families where they have received minimal food and assistance whereas other displaced people have sought protection in IDP camps. Acute malnutrition rates have reached 17% in some areas which are well above the emergency level.
Humanitarian workers have experienced some 36 attacks since the signing of the Goma agreement, most of which occurred when humanitarian staff tried to reach vulnerable populations.
Since the Congolese government launched military operations against the FDLR in eastern Congo in early 2009, over 9,000 homes and other buildings such as schools, churches and health centers have been burned by the FDLR and Congolese government soldiers. Satellite imagery collected by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) since July 2009 provides visual confirmation of some of the widespread destruction. In the Busurungi area of North Kivu and the surrounding 100 square kilometres, AAAS estimated that 1,494 homes and structures have been destroyed, representing an 80% destruction rate of all homes and structures in the area.
Human Rights Watch has documented the deliberate killing of more than 1,400 civilians between January and September 2009, the majority women, children, and the elderly. The attacks have been accompanied by rape; over the first nine months of 2009, over 7,500 cases of sexual violence against women and girls were registered at health centers across North and South Kivu, a figure nearly double that of 2008, and likely only representing a fraction of the total.
In addition to killings and rapes, thousands of civilians have been abducted and forcibly indentured to the competing factions, made to carry weapons, ammunition, or other baggage by government forces and FDLR militia as they deploy from place to place. Some civilians have been killed when they refused while others have died due to the extent of the burden carried. Between January and September, the attacks forced more than 900,000 people to flee, seeking safety in the remote forests, with host families, or in displacement camps. During the attacks or as they fled, FDLR combatants or Congolese army soldiers pillaged their belongings and then burned their homes and villages. Over 9,000 houses, schools, churches and other structures have been burned to the ground in North and South Kivu.
Between late January and September 2009, members of the FDLR deliberately killed at least 700 civilians in North and South Kivu provinces, with many victims chopped to death by machete or hoe, or shot. Others were burned to death in their homes. The FDLR targeted and killed village chiefs and other influential community leaders, a tactic that spread fear throughout entire communities.
On November 17, 2009, the FDLR’s president, Ignace Murwanashyaka, and his deputy, Straton Musoni, were arrested in Germany for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed between January 2008 and July 2009 by FDLR combatants under their command. They were also charged with belonging to a terrorist group.
Congolese forces have also been implicated in serious human rights abuses. They failed to distinguish civilians from combatants and targeted the former, did not give effective advance warning of attack when circumstances permitted, and made no efforts to permit civilians caught up in the fighting to flee to safety. In one of the most serious cases of abuse, Human Rights Watch reported that the Congolese army summarily executed hundreds of civilians under their effective control. Between January and September 2009, Human Rights Watch documented the deliberate killing of at least 732 civilians, including 143 Rwandan Hutu refugees, by Congolese and Rwandan army soldiers. In Ndorumo village, for example, the coalition forces began killing civilians after they had been called to a gathering at the local school. According to one witness, the soldiers told the population they were “being punished for being complicit with the FDLR.”
Rape as a Weapon of War
In the last ten years, hundreds of thousands of women and girls in the DRC have been raped. The scale of sexual violence being perpetrated in the DRC is unparalleled in any known conflict, and is being used as a particularly effective weapon to subdue, punish, or exact revenge upon communities. The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Violence Against Women has called sexual violence a “defining feature” of the conflict in the DRC, with a large proportion of civilian attacks structured around rape, sexual slavery, and forced marriage. A 2007 progress report by the UN General Assembly found that the serious abuses were occurring daily and being committed by armed forces, the police, and militia groups, alike. A study of sexual violence in South Kivu found the most prevalent form of rape against women in the province is gang rape, with an average of 4.5 attackers per victim.
The sexual violence in DRC is also particularly viscious. A condition called fistula is caused by genitals traumatized by the destructive insertion of guns and sticks into the women’s vaginas that tears the walls of the vagina and rectum and leave many permanently incontinent. After gang raping women and girls, soldiers have been piercing their labia and padlocking their vaginas shut. Hot plastic as well as sticks and bayonets are being inserted into the women. Six-month-old girls have been raped to death. To intensify the cruelty, soldiers are even shooting women in the vagina. Upon his return from visiting the Congo in 2007, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, wrote an opinion piece on the conflict in the Los Angeles Times, in which he repeated an account he had heard of a women “who was returning from working her fields when she was accosted by seven soldiers who gang-raped her. The last rapist forced the barrel of his gun inside her and pulled the trigger, literally blowing apart her genitals”.
Economic Dimension of the War
Despite the apparent ethnic or ideological agenda of particular insurgent groups in the conflict, it is clear that the parties involved have an economic interest in the war. While certain groups, such as the CNDP or FDLR, may make claims of ethnic grievances as their raison d’etre, the opportunity to control Congo’s natural resource riches appears to have directly influenced the conflict’s intensity. The ‘shadow’ economy of the DRC has grown and institutionalized to the point that the entire country is reliant on the war-based economic exploitation occurring in the country’s eastern provinces. It has been argued that the armed groups in the Congo actively maintain the chaos necessary to loot the DRC’s vast resources, particularly gold, tin, tungsten, and coltan (columbite-tantalite), a resource required for the making of mobile phones and electronics, of which the DRC holds an estimated 80 per cent of the world’s deposits. It is estimated that $1 million in coltan is illegally exported every day. The DRC is currently listed as the most corrupt country in the world, thanks in large part to foreign demand for these precious resources.
Global Witness found in field research in 2008 and 2009 that all of the main warring parties are heavily involved in the mineral trade in the provinces most affected. The two groups accused of causing the most harm are also those most involved in the illegal exportation of minerals: FARDC, which is the Congolese national army, and the FDLR. The involvement of FARDC military personnel in mineral exploitation is widespread and the system of financial compensation for that exploitation is well-organized: commanders are directly involved and the profits are channeled back up the military hierarchy.
In addition to direct involvement in the mining of minerals, the groups also kidnap locals and force them to work in the mines, and also extort illegal ‘taxes’ on the civilian population as further income-generation. The FDLR, specifically, have a stranglehold on South Kivu’s mineral trade, including extorting minerals and money from the local miners, taxing the commodities at roadblocks at a rate of 30%. And though FARDC has claimed to be fighting the FDLR in the Kivu provinces, the two groups often act in collaboration, creating agreements on controlling mining territories, and sometimes sharing in the loot. The CNDP was one group without much access to the control of mines, but was able to dominate much of the transport trade by controlling many key border posts.
While most reports on the illegal mining activities in eastern DRC focus on the militia groups involved in the mining and exportation, very little is written about who beyond the borders of the DRC are enjoying access to these vast riches. Very little is said of the intimate participation of Western corporate interests that form alliances with the governments behind the warring factions operating the various mines in the DRC. A UN Panel of Experts reported in 2002 that 119 different companies were involved in the mining and transportation of Congolese minerals, including a large number of British, American, Belgian and South African firms. The report also found that of the 29 companies found in violation of international laws against illegal exploitation, many of them, though registered in either Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, or Zimbabwe, were actually front operations for western firms.
Research conducted by the International peace Information Service (IPIS) into the illegal exportation of coltan has demonstrated the collusion of European corporations in the maintenance of this war economy. For example, IPIS documented a series of joint ventures between European companies and high-ranking officials in the Rwandan government and Rwandan army, who operate a commercial front called Rwanda Metals. In 1998, over five hundred tons of coltan from the Congo was exported to the United States. From this exploitation, five billion dollars in assets have been transferred from the Congolese state mining sector to Western companies and corporate networks that are linked to politicians and military groups. A 1999 UN white paper detailed how 80 percent of the Rwandan military budget was funded by stolen Congolese minerals, the exploitation of which, by 2001, was supplying the RPA with at least $20 million every month, purely from coltan. The Rwandan government is so heavily invested in the Congolese mining industry that president Kagame has created a division in its Department of External Relations to manage their mining interests in the Congo and facilitate Western contacts. Coltan extracted from mines controlled by the RPA and its allies is flown directly from numerous airstrips throughout North Kivu to Kigali in both army helicopters and commercial airplanes.
Australia’s relationship with the DRC
Australia’s contribution to the UN Security Council peacekeeping mission since 2000 has amounted to more than $30 million. In November 2008, Foreign Minister Steven Smith announced a $5 million humanitarian assistance package to the DRC, consisting of: $3 million to UNHCR (to assist nearly 250,000 IDPs), UNICEF and OCHA; $1m to Australian NGOs who have a presence in Africa; $500,000 to the World Health Organization; and $500,000 to UNICEF. The funding of these agencies will allow for the immediate needs for those affected by the violence, in particular food, health, water and the protection of women.
Contacts
Diplomatic representation
Australian High Commission, Nigeria
5th Floor, 48 Aguiyi Irinsi Street,
Maitama,
Abuja
Nigeria
Tel: +234 9 413 5226
Fax: +234 9 413 5227
There is currently no DRC embassy in Australia.
International organisations working in DRC
UN organisations
- United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC)
12 Av. des Aviateurs
Kinshasa – Gombe
DR Congo
Post Box Kinshasa BP 8811
Kinshasa 1
DR Congo
Tel: + 243 81 890 6000
Fax: +243 890 56208
Post Office Box 4653 Grand Central Station
NY 10163-4653
USA
Tel: +1 212 963 0103
Fax: +1 212 963 0205
www.monuc.org/Home.aspx?lang=en
OHCHR
United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Tel: + 243 818 90 6112
Email: howlandt@un.org
www.ohchr.org/EN/countries/AfricaRegion/Pages/ZRIndex.aspx
UNESCO
2, Avenue des Ambassadeurs, Commune de la Gombe Kinshasa
République Démocratique du Congo
Tel: +243 818 848 253
Fax: +243 999 975 361
Email: kinshasa@unesco.org
UNESCO website
WHO Avenue des Cliniques N°42
Boîte postale 1899
Kinshasa
www.who.int/countries/cod/en/
Humanitarian NGOs
Oxfam
www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/countries/drc.html
Caritas
www.caritas.org/worldmap/africa/democraticrepublicofcongo.html
Care
www.care.org/careswork/countryprofiles/115.asp
World Vision
World Vision Website
Further information
Human Development Report on DRC
United Nations Country @ a Glance – DR Congo
United Nations News Centre – News Focus: DR Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo – GDP – All Series.
References
BBC. “Country profile: Democratic Republic of Congo“.
International Crisis Group, “Conflict history: DR Congo“, 2008.
Human Rights Watch. “DR Congo: Peace Process Fragile, Civilians at Risk“, 2008.
Meger, S. “The International Political Economy of Wartime Rape: The Case of the Democratic Republic of Congo.” Chapter from unpublished dissertation. The University of Melbourne.
