In some Democratic Republic of Congo schools, teachers and senior authorities are using their status to abuse girls who do not know their rights, according to the African Association for the Defence of Human Rights.

Both ignorance of the law and victims’ fear of exposing their abusers are furthering sexual abuse in the DRC’s capital Kinshasa, and Matadi, one of the main cities in the western province of Bas-Congo.

“Many cases still go unreported because of the victims’ fear and ignorance of their rights. Ignorance is the main reason for the silence kept by victims, who are often intimidated by teachers and other school authorities. It will be necessary, from this point forward, to monitor and punish these authorities,” Dora Zaki, lawyer and vice president of AADHR, a local organisation, told IPS.

The organisation released a report on Jul. 6 detailing approximately 100 cases of rape, which occurred between April and June, in 45 schools in Kinshasa and Matadi. The local police provided statistics for Matadi, while AADHR conducted the survey in Kinshasa.

“Young girls are regularly raped in schools with authorities and the justice system remaining silent,” stated the AADHR report entitled, “School and sexual abuse in DRC: knowledge is power”.

Mado Mpezo, National Police Chief Commissioner in charge of child and women protection and sexual abuse in DRC, warned about the “increasingly frequent cases of sexual abuse in the town of Matadi.”

She reported that “on the nights of Jun. 27–28, a 50-year-old man raped a 14-year-old girl” and that “in the month of June alone, 40 cases of rape were reported in that town.”

Zaki said: “In order to effectively fight against sexual abuse in schools, students need to be urgently made aware of their rights by the publicising of the two laws on sexual abuse.”

According to two DRC laws passed in 2006, sentences for those who sexually assault children are now much harsher. These laws define rape and include classifying sexual relations with a minor under the age of 16 as rape. They also outline procedures for judging these crimes.

But Romain Mindomba, national vice president of the Congolese Association for Access to Justice, told IPS that these laws alone were not enough.

“The government must put in place a mechanism to make school children and even school authorities aware of all sexual offences punishable by law, and the heavy penalties faced by the perpetrators of these crimes.

“It is important to compel students to expose any person who tries to compel them to have sexual relations. Educating potential victims will strengthen their capacity to speak out and lodge their complaints,” Mindomba said.

Dieudonne Baderha, head of Nakiyinga private secondary school in Kinshasa, told IPS that it was difficult when a teacher was accused of sexual assault as in many cases “there is never any proof or actual witnesses.”

“After dismissing a mathematics teacher last year, the school’s management realised that it had been misled by a student claiming to be a victim, who wanted to take revenge on a teacher she believed didn’t like her because she was not doing well in that subject,” he said.

However, according to Thiery Sabi, deputy state prosecutor in the Gombe High Court in Kinshasa, “increasingly, there are cases of sexual abuse of young students being brought to the Public Prosecutor’s Office.”

“On average, the Public Prosecutor’s Office here receives 10 to 15 complaints per week,” he said, adding that among the victims was a 10-year-old girl who had been allegedly raped by a lawyer.

Congolese Minister of Primary, Secondary and Vocational Education Maker Mwangu told IPS: “The government is aware of the urgency with which it must act to put an end to these crimes.”

He added that meetings were organised in May with members of the legislature’s Socio-cultural Commission, to chart the way forward on “improving protection of children from sexual abuse.”

Despite the health risks, officials say hundreds of families are living in a cemetery in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa. Municipal authorities seem powerless to act.

However, visiting the Kinsuka cemetery in early December, IPS counted 100 families, including around 500 children aged from less than a year old to 10.

The first structures sprang up here in 2010. Fridolin Kaweshi, the minister in charge of land-use planning, urbanisation and housing, told IPS that the government has repeatedly banned the construction of homes on this site.

In April, houses in the cemetery were demolished on orders from the provincial governor, but late at night, the occupants rebuilt their small shelters of earth and wood.

“We have nowhere else to go,” resident Cynthia Bukasa told IPS. “The government has to take steps to protect us and give us a place where we can build.”

Bukasa explained that her husband, a police officer, is stationed in Bas-Congo Province, in the western part of the country. He had built a small house for her here and then left. She added that living on his salary of around 50 dollars, the family doesn’t have the resources to pay rent elsewhere.

Olivier Mandja, mayor of Mont Ngafula Commune, within whose boundaries the cemetery lies, told IPS, “The structures on this site are the work of soldiers and members of the police force over which the commune has no authority.”

Approached by IPS, soldiers and police officers at Kinsuka refused to speak, preferring to let their wives answer questions. Even the higher-ranking officers preferred to remain silent.

Other residents were happy to speak. “We got official authorisation from the authorities to build houses here and live in them,” said Jean Mbulu, a resident at the cemetery and father of three little girls, the oldest of whom is six.

Mbulu said he bought the plot from Eddy Mambuya, the traditional chief of Mont Ngafula – though he declined to show IPS the documents proving this. “I was stunned when people said we were illegally occupying this land,” he said.

Reached by IPS, Chief Mambuya, stated that while he is an authority established and recognised by the law, he denied all responsibility for the sale of land for construction on the site.

“It’s thanks to us that the cemetery is regularly cleaned up,” said Michel Aveledi, another Kinsuka resident. “We pull up the grass and pick up the plastic bags which invade the place from time to time.”

He said he wanted to see the government decommission the cemetery and build a school for the children next to the houses that are already there.

But experts believe the health of the families who live on this site is at risk, and have called on the government to take urgent steps to protect the children in particular.

Jean Myasukila is an epidemiologist based in Kinshasa. “The health risks for people living in houses built in a cemetery are enormous,” he told IPS.

“When bodies decompose, they give off odours and gases which are very harmful to health, especially of children,” he said.

“We also have to consider the flies which land on particles of bodies or bones which become unearthed, which can then alight on food or kitchen utensils. These flies are vectors for harmful microbes,” according to Myasukila. “It’s not acceptable to leave these families there, if only for reasons of hygiene.”

Chancey Maroy, a member of civil society and an environmental protection expert, told IPS that the land the graveyard is built on is not stable, as it is on a slope that is not protected by any anti-erosion mechanisms. “The structures on the burial site could also accelerate landslides, which have already been seen there. This adds to the dangers faced by the families who live there,” he said.

Kinsuka residents have also come into conflict with those using the graveyard for its intended purpose. In early December, a group of people coming to bury a body encountered strong resistance from the cemetery’s residents. On the eve of the burial, residents built a shack on the spot purchased by the bereaved family of the interment. The family was forced to bury their loved one elsewhere in the cemetery, but the authorities took no action.

Damas Balinga, director of the DRC’s Ministry for Planning and Monitoring the Implementation of the Revolution of Modernity, told IPS, “In the framework the five-year plan of action, the government is preparing the implementation of its programme to modernise the city of Kinshasa. New housing developments are in the process of being created. Families in distress need only have confidence in the government in order to benefit.”

A rash of recent rape cases has sparked local criticism of the weakness of the justice system in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where inadequate resources and simple incompetence mean survivors of sexual violence hold little hope of obtaining justice.

“In the final week of July, we recorded more than 12 cases of rape committed against very young girls – some of the victims were just six years old,” said Father Jean Okutu, the parish priest at Sacré Cœur Church in Mushie Territory.  “The perpetrators were adults, all civilians.”

A total of 16 rapes of young girls have been reported in recent weeks in this remote administrative district of western DRC, and the mothers of the survivors have joined forces to complain about the failure of the local and provincial judicial system to prosecute their assailants.

Maria T.*, whose eight-year-old daughter was one of the victims, told IPS that despite being treated at the Sacré Cœur parish dispensary, her little girl still complains of pain in her genitals and abdomen. “We have to go to a bigger medical centre to be sure that we won’t face more consequences later on. But we don’t have money,” she said.

Elodie K.’s ten-year-old daughter was also raped. “We need strong measures to protect young girls in Mushie. We also need the identities of all the victims to be carefully protected to ensure that they can grow up normally and have a chance to get married one day,” she said.

“The government should even consider relocating these children, or letting them study overseas at the state’s cost, to ensure they are protected from taunts and isolation by other children their age.”

According to Bandundu’s attorney general, André Mvunzu, the province has already put in place a programme to fight impunity for sexual violence.

“Twelve perpetrators of the rapes recently recorded in Mushie have been arrested and are currently in detention there. They will face trial and the court’s rulings will send a clear message to all,” he told IPS.

Mushie resident Jean Pierre N.* is sceptical. “When we hear the attorney general on the radio, we get the impression that he doesn’t have a clue about how his own judicial administration is working. Of the 12 accused that he stated are in detention, eight have escaped – including the two men who raped my daughter.”

Nzundu told IPS that security at Mushie’s prison needed to be improved, as it was not the first time detainees had escaped.

Jacques Katchelewa is head of a non-governmental organisation working to promote gender equality and food security in Mushie. He fears that if the judicial system fails them, the families will turn to informal arrangements for compensation for the crimes committed against their daughters.

“This runs counter to the law in terms of ending sexual violence,” he said. “The only way victims and families can get justice is if the local court is strengthened. In Mushie, the court has just one magistrate who cannot, all by himself, sit and rule on cases of sexual violence. We need to reinforce the team of judges.”

Congolese law requires a panel of three judges to hear such cases.

Father Okutu shares Katchelewa’s concerns about the effectiveness of the justice system in Bandundu. “I’ve appealed for justice to be served in these rape cases. The provincial attorney general has responded by sending a second magistrate to support the one who is here.”

Mushie’s local prosecutor’s office is subordinate to the provincial attorney general’s office in the provincial capital, the city of Bandundu, 500 kilometres away. It is intended to bring justice a bit closer to the people, but it lacks resources – as do local residents.

“The victims’ families are too poor to pay court costs. I’ve already had to take on the cost of medical care for most of the girls,” Okutu told IPS.

“Litigants who experience problems should write to the Minister for Justice and Human Rights and to the High Council of the Judiciary to explain their difficulties in order to obtain justice and so that magistrates will be deployed to Mushie,” said Jean Paul Nyumba, an advisor to the justice minister’s office.

But Nyumba, himself a lawyer, lamented the fact that there is a shortage of magistrates in many parts of the country while there are many idle magistrates in the capital, Kinshasa.

Joseph Ntayondezandi Mushagalusa, a lawyer and former national attorney general, said a dose of realism is required.  “The problems with the justice system are the same across the country,” he told IPS.

For example, Mushagalusa told IPS, “Even with the recruitment of 2,000 new magistrates in March 2012, the DRC’s judiciary has only 4,000 members. With the population standing at nearly 80 million, we have just one judge for every 20,000 residents of DRC.

“And that’s without accounting for the many magistrates who are not working, such as those who are assigned new posts, but for unresolved logistical and practical reasons, never report to their new assignments or abandon them.”

The provincial governor, Jean Kamisendu Kutaka, has appealed for help from the broader population. “Everyone needs to help the government fight against the different forms of criminality that are raging in the province. It calls for more vigilance. Every citizen has the obligation to expose crimes. It’s the only way to make criminals afraid,” he said.

Non-governmental organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo province where Thomas Lubanga Dyilo used children as fighters in his militia in 2002 to 2003 have slammed his 14-year sentence as inadequate – and potentially dangerous.

The International Criminal Court sentenced Lubanga, a former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, to 14 years in prison for recruiting children during a bloody conflict in the northeastern DRC province of Ituri.

“Fourteen years is a joke. Taking into account the six years he has already spent in prison (since his arrest in 2006), he will serve only eight more,” Joël Bisubu, from the NGO Justice Plus, told IPS.

“For his victims – and their families – who agreed to testify in court, Lubanga’s return to DRC will spark fear of reprisals. It would be good for him to be tried for other crimes he committed in Ituri, in addition to the recruitment and use of minors as combat troops in his militia.”

Bisubu, a human rights defender, said he was worried by the idea that Lubanga could finish serving his sentence so soon. “Lubanga’s early return (to DRC) makes me afraid, since he could well return as a hero. Many people in his community feel that it was wrong that he was sent to the ICC in the first place, since in their view he fought to protect them.”

The conflict in the DRC’s north-eastern Ituri region, lasting from 1999 until 2007, initially involved the Lendu, a group made up principally of farmers who migrated from Sudan centuries ago, and the Hema: more recent arrivals in the area.
Fighting soon spread, however, to encompass other ethnic groups such as the Ngiti, generally perceived as loyal to the Lendu, and the Gegere, seen as supporting the Hema. The bloodshed claimed at least 60,000 lives.

Militias such as the Forces de Résistance Patriotique d’Ituri (Patriotic Resistance Forces of Ituri, or FRPI) and the Front Nationaliste et Intégrationniste (Nationalist and Integrationist Front, FNI) fought on one side, claiming to defend the Lendu and Ngiti – while the UPC took up the banner of Hema supremacy.

In 2004, the DRC government asked the ICC to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on its territory since July 2002. An arrest warrant for Lubanga was issued in 2006.

On Jul. 10, the ICC sentenced Lubanga to 14 years in prison rather than the 30 years asked for by the court’s prosecutor. “Lubanga must benefit from extenuating circumstances, notably for having agreed to cooperate with the court,” said Paul Madidi, the ICC’s spokesperson in DRC.

The Office of the Prosecutor responded to the sentencing with a press statement. “By sentencing Thomas Lubanga Dyilo to 14 years in prison for the crimes of enlisting, conscripting and using children under the age of 15 to participate actively in hostilities, International Criminal Court judges have sent a clear message to perpetrators of crimes: you will not go unpunished.”

But the Prosecutor’s Office also said it was studying the judgement in detail and waiting to hear the judges’ decision on reparations before deciding whether or not to appeal.

“Fear over Lubanga’s eventual return is very much a concern for our members and their families,” said Emilie Buza, from the NGO Forum of Mothers of Ituri (FOMI), a group which includes many direct victims of abuses committed by the FPLC.

“In 2003, we decided to come together to defend the interests of mothers in Ituri and we set up our NGO to defend the rights of victims of grave violations of human rights in court,” she said.

“We have produced many investigative reports which we have sent to the ICC and the United Nations. They all bear our names.”

Franck Mulenda, a lawyer for a group of victims whose identities throughout the lengthy trial have, for their safety, remained protected by code names, said the sentence is not that important.

“At this point, what interests the victims who have been involved in the case is not the length of the sentence handed down by the court, but rather the decision on reparations that will be handed down in a few days,” said the lawyer.

“I saw at least three or four little fighters accompanying each adult soldier,” said Jean Claver Rukomeza, a resident of Runyonyi, one of the strongholds of the M23 rebellion that has rocked the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo since March.

“The adult fighters refuse to allow residents to approach or speak to these young fighters,” said Rukomeza, a former journalist with Mapendo, a private radio station, which broadcasts from Butembo in North Kivu, the DRC province that is the epicentre of the latest uprising.

He added that all the fighters speak Kinyarwanda – the language spoken in Rwanda and parts of the eastern DRC. His eyewitness account supports the serious charges made by a senior Congolese government spokesperson on national television on Jun. 24.

Speaking on national television on Saturday (Jun. 30), Lambert Mende, the Congolese Minister for Communications, denied rumours which say “DRC has armed and equipped members of the FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) and former FAR troops (Forces Armées Rwandais – elements of Rwanda’s former army) to attack the regime in Kigali”.

“Between March and April 2012, Rwanda recruited around 200 very young children which it trained and sent out as combat troops in M23,” said Mende. M23 is a group of military mutineers who have led an uprising in eastern DRC.

Mende’s remarks followed the publication, on Jun. 21, of a United Nations report on the situation in eastern DRC and the external support enjoyed by the new rebel movement, which stated that “between April and May 2012, M23 recruited numerous children to carry military equipment and to fight in its ranks”.

“(The M23 rebellion) was created by Bosco Ntaganda, a general in FARDC (the Congolese army), with support from Laurent Nkunda Batware, the former president of the CNDP (the National Congress for the Defence of the People) whose rebellion gripped the province since 2003 and other high level members of CNDP wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the French version of the report stated.

The report – based on corroborated eyewitness accounts from soldiers, active and deserting rebels, and Congolese army intelligence reports and intercepts – details the recruitment of children, as well as provision of ammunition, training, health care and the mobilisation for ex-combatants for M23 by neighbouring Rwanda.

In the report and an Annex published on Jun. 27, the United Nations Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo names high-ranking individuals in the Rwandan army as well as Bosco Ntaganda, a general in FARDC (the Congolese army), and Laurent Nkunda Batware, the former president of the CNDP (National Congress for the Defence of the People) whose earlier uprising has smouldered in the province since 2003.

The experts note that in convicting Thomas Lubanga Dyilo for the war crime of conscripting and enlisting children to fight in Ituri Province in 2002-2003, Ntaganda was named as a co-perpetrator. “The verdict triggered further calls for the arrest and transfer to the International Criminal Court of Gen. Ntaganda, who is charged with the same war crimes as Mr. Dyilo.”

In a Jun. 18 letter addressed to Li Baodong, the president of the U.N. Security Council, by Mukongo Ngay Zénon, chargé d’affaires for the DRC’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, which IPS has seen a copy of, the Congolese government “drew the attention of the Security Council to the support coming from Rwanda for M23 and to the existence of a recruitment chain for fighters in that country”.

The letter added: “Following an inquiry carried out by the government and the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), the conclusions allow us to state that many of the recruited combatants are returning Rwandese, amongst whom there are around 200 minors and very young people”.

Days earlier, the Congolese foreign affairs minister, Raymond Tshibanda N’Tungamulongo, wrote to Li asserting that M23 “in addition relies on unholy alliances” with the support of Rwanda. “Among the combatants captured by FARDC are members of the FDLR, many of whom were repatriated to Rwanda by MONUSCO.”

The FDLR is a Hutu rebellion which has fought against the Tutsi regime in Kigali since 1996 and which maintains rear bases in the eastern parts of neighbouring DRC.

But for Jonathan Kavugho, a former fighter with the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL), the rebel group led by Laurent Désiré Kabila, which seized power in Kinshasa in May 1997, the presence of FDLR fighters in the ranks of M23 is not the principal concern.

“It’s the decision taken by the government in March 2012 to suspend military operations in the region which is causing problems, since it has allowed some FDLR units already sent back to Rwanda to slowly regain their former positions – abandoned by M23 and FARDC at the same time.”

Responding to the charges of Rwandan support for M23 during a Jun. 21 visit to the Congolese capital, Louise Mushikiwabo, the Rwandan Minister for Foreign Affairs, denied any involvement by her country, dismissing the suggestions from Kinshasa as “rumours”.

Speaking later at United Nations headquarters in New York on Jun. 25, she said, “Rwanda is neither closely nor remotely involved in the destabilisation of the DRC and the two countries have already exchanged ambassadors to show the whole world that it’s no longer possible to base a suspicion on this idea.”

The Security Council has made a resolution encouraging DRC to continue with its efforts to end the M23 rebellion, and condemned governments providing support for the rebels without citing any countries by name.

By Emmanuel Chaco and - -
KINSHASA, Mar 23 2012 (IPS)

A report by the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office has slammed the government and security forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo, condemning electoral violence linked to the Nov. 30 elections which led to at least 33 deaths in the capital, Kinshasa.

The report, looking into serious rights violations committed by security forces in the capital alone at the end of last year, said a further 16 people had gone missing and that around 90 people were injured by live rounds fired by the police and army. All the presumed victims were civilians.

Published on Mar. 21, the report called on the government to “conduct an independent, credible and impartial investigation into all the cases of serious human rights violations committed in Kinshasa between Nov. 26 and Dec. 25, 2011, and to bring all the alleged perpetrators of the abuses to justice, whether they are members of the Republican Guard (the army unit closest to DRC president Joseph Kabila), other FARDC (national army) soldiers or PNC (national police) officers, irrespective of their rank.”

Addie Kitona, a mother of three, was personally caught up in violence that took place in Kinshasa’s Bandalungwa commune following the challenging of provisional results of the presidential elections.

“The police fired teargas at us, paying no attention to bystanders, who included children. As I was running away, I tripped and fell on top of my four-year-old. She broke her collarbone,” said Kitona. “After I fell, the police chasing after youth who had attacked them, trampled on me with their boots and struck me several times on the back and stomach.”

Annie Botendi, a law student at the University of Kinshasa, recalls seeing at least three bodies riddled with bullets lying on the ground along the road from Kimwenza, a neighbourhood in the Mont Ngafula commune where she lives.

“They were collected in the afternoon by people from the Red Cross to be buried… after having been identified by the municipal authorities,” she told IPS.

All efforts by IPS to get comment from the local authorities in the Kinshasa communes of Bandalungwa and Mong Ngafula failed.

Leila Zerrougui, the Deputy Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General in DRC, responsible for human rights, said the numbers in the report should not be seen as final. “The figures presented in the report could yet be reviewed upwards, if one takes into account that there were many areas that were inaccessible due to the fear and paranoia that prevailed during this period as well as the fact that many medical facilities were ordered not to release information about victims they attended to.”

In response, the Congolese government said that it does not recognise the validity of the report, and noted several points of error. “This report is partisan, incomplete, and incoherent; it contains false numbers and it has not incorporated remarks from government, particularly regarding judicial processes that have already been opened in response to violations that are under investigation,” Minister for Justice and Human Rights Emmanuel Luzolo Bambi Lessa told IPS.

“There was a need for a joint inquiry involving the Congolese government, civil society, the judiciary and the United Nations in order to produce a credible report,” he added. “The United Nations did not do this.”

But Jean Claver Mudumbi, a human rights defender, disagreed. “The government is still making the mistake of rejecting all reports on violations of human rights. This is because it often does not have the same information as human rights defenders who are often on the ground, close to the people,” he said.

“There is no interaction between different local administrations, which themselves have neither the statistics for their own precincts, nor the means to document human rights violations committed there.”

Excerpt:

By Emmanuel Chaco and - -
KINSHASA, Mar 14 2012 (IPS)

The International Criminal Court delivered its first verdict Wednesday: Thomas Lubanga Dyilo was found guilty of recruiting children under the age of 15 to fight in a militia group in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The ICC, based in the Hague, found that in his capacity as leader of both the UPC (Union of Congolese Patriots) and its military wing, the FPLC (Patriotic Force for the Liberation of the Congo), Lubanga caused children to take an active part in hostilities in the eastern DRC region of Ituri between September 2002 and August 2003, including using them as bodyguards for himself and other members of the two organisations.

Sentencing is yet to take place, but according to lawyers, Lubanga now faces 30 years in prison or a life sentence.

Franck Luetete, who represented several victims in the Lubanga case, told IPS, “In line with the provisions of article 76 of the Rome Statute (which established the ICC) and Lubanga’s own request, the Chamber will dedicate its next session to determining a sentence and compensation for victims.”

Raphaël Wakenge, the president of the Congolese Coalition for Transitional Justice (CCJT), a local non-governmental organisation which has offered support for victims during the lengthy court case, told IPS, “The coalition is delighted with this first decision, which is also instructive with regards to all crimes committed in DRC since the ICC began its work.

“Unfortunately,” Wakenge added, “victims of rape and sexual slavery, as well as other sex-related crimes committed by Lubanga and his militia, will feel frustrated, as these crimes were not included in this case by the ICC prosecutor.”

Faïda Sady is a human rights defender with an NGO called Espoir Pour Tous – “Hope for All” – based in the Irumu district of the Ituri region. “One of my older brothers refused to join the militia, and Lubanga’s fighters cut off both his arms – he died several months later. Two of my sisters were gang-raped repeatedly by militia members. One died from the assault.”

Sady says the verdict handed down does nothing for her or her family. “The victims in my family were not called (as witnesses) in this trial. But NGOs in Ituri will continue to press the ICC to open a second case against Lubanga for the crimes and victims who have not yet been taken into account,” she said.

“The impact of this verdict is very weak,” said Guy Mushiata, the Kinshasa-based legal officer for the International Centre for Transitional Justice, a U.S NGO. “The verdict itself is not definitive.”

Mushiata has closely followed the case and submitted several opinions to the ICC prosecutor’s office dealing with reparations for victims. “By itself, this decision will still not satisfy since it could still be struck down on appeal. And it is not, in itself, a conviction with which victims can be satisfied.”

Observing the decision, military prosecutors in DRC feel that the ICC verdict has only demonstrated the court’s ineffectiveness. One of these prosecutors, Penza Ishay, told IPS, “The enormous financial and material resources available to the ICC have still not enabled it to produce a verdict in a reasonable time.”

Lubanga was transferred to the Hague, in the Netherlands, on Mar. 17, 2006, following the execution of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court; the warrant followed on a request from Joseph Kabila, the president of the DRC, to the ICC prosecutor to carry out inquiries into grave violations of human rights in the country and to open cases where the court was competent.

Ishay said that the majority of cases of grave violations of human rights in Ituri would have already been dealt with if the same resources were given to the Congo’s own judicial system.

“The ICC is not well-regarded in Ituri,” the military prosecutor said. “Instead of delivering justice, it has tried to walk a tightrope between the two largest ethnic groups (Balendu and Bahema), pursuing charges against two people from each side, even though the seriousness of the crimes is not necessarily the same, and members of these groups are not the only perpetrators – nor the most culpable – when it comes to violations committed in Ituri.”

Major Innocent Mayembe, a Congolese military lawyer, says military courts are the most effective means to fight against impunity for serious human rights abuses. “Many victims of these violations have had the moral satisfaction of seeing their aggressors convicted on the ground in Ituri where they once felt themselves to be untouchable.”

Excerpt:

Farmers’ organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo say the country’s new Agriculture Law – enacted last December – could lead to many smallholder farmers losing their land.

Farmers’ organisations in the DR Congo say the country’s new Agriculture Law could lead to many smallholder farmers losing their land. Credit: André Thiel/Flickr

“We have launched a major appeal to the government to modify the law,” Paluku Mivimba, president of FOPAC, the Congo Federation of Smallholder Farmer Organisations, told IPS.

“Several articles of this law create insecurity of tenure for peasant farmers because they eliminate the possibility of peasant farmers becoming owners of land they have been cultivating for many years,” said Mivimba, who is also the head of the federation’s lobbying unit.

Mamie Makuze, is a lawyer and owner of a five hectare plot on the Batéké Plateau, not far from the DRC capital, Kinshasa. “Article 35 of the law weakens small producers and family farmers who don’t have a lot of money. It states that the government will grant agricultural concessions in line with the financial capacity of applicants, who must also be able to carry the cost of developing the land,” she told IPS.

“This is an addition to another article which puts family and subsistence farmers in danger: according to Article 41, which says that if the occupant does not begin developing agricultural land within 18 months of signing a provisional lease, the government has the right to reclaim the land and assign it to someone else.

“The fear is that small producers, who frequently lack resources, run the risk of losing land they’ve acquired – in many cases via inheritance, passed down from generation to generation without official documents.”

Jeanne Botuli, a market gardener in Kisantu, a village in the western province of Bas-Congo is also worried by the new legislation. “For ten years, our group of women have been growing vegetables like amaranth, carrots and onions on small plots of just a few square metres. Even if we don’t have formal title to the land, our presence has long been recognised by the provincial authorities, who no longer have any right to come and take our fields away.”

According to Jean-Baptiste Lubamba, from the National Centre for the Development of Popular Participation, an NGO based in Kinshasa, around 80 percent of Congolese rely on agriculture for their livelihoods.

Repeating the past

Roger Pholo, responsible for communications for the Congolese Smallholders’ Confederation, told IPS, “This law offers no security to poor farmers and thus their land could be seized to the benefit of more affluent farmers or for agribusiness enterprises.”

“The majority of these farmers have not been to school and are not well informed about this law,” said Pholo.

“This Act allows the state to seize land from poor farmers,” said Alphonse Nkuli, a member of the Federation of Congolese Business. “It’s a form of “zaïrianisation” which the country has already experienced – and rejected – when land was expropriated from colonial expatriates and handed over to Congolese, including some who did not have the capacity to put it to productive use.”

Nkuli feels carrying out a similar measure now will lead to slump in national agricultural production and increase poverty.

The policy of zaïrianisation was implemented in 1973 under the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko and consisted of the nationalisation of certain property belonging to white settlers, including parcels of land which, Nkuli said, were redistributed to people close to the regime with little experience in agriculture.

Subsequently, most of this land was sold on to other buyers. In South Kivu, in th east of DRC, there were even cases where other foreigners bought back land that had been nationalised.

Strengthening local control

Agriculture Minister Norbert Basengezi Kantintima acknowledges that there is widespread anxiety, but insists that there will be no return to zaïrianisation-style land seizures. “The small farmer is well protected by the law by means of rural agriculture councils already established in each province to monitor agriculture development in each province,” he told IPS. “And smallholders are part of these councils.”

“The presence of representatives of producers, producer associations, and peasant unions at the heart of the agriculture councils which are present in each sector and at the most local level, is a participatory measure which will allow farmers to ensure the government doesn’t take actions that are unfavourable to them,” Kantitima said.

But Mivimba says these councils do not function effectively, as they are dependent on government which has failed to adequately fund them.

“What’s needed are committees that will manage land, especially in rural areas where the majority of farmers are not aware of their rights and have not been to school. These committees must strengthen advocacy on behalf of smallholders,” Mivimba said.

“We plan to lobby members of the new parliament (sworn in on Feb. 16) and press for the modification of the law to be put on the agenda of the upcoming legislative session.”

Farmers’ organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo say the country’s new Agriculture Law – enacted last December – could lead to many smallholder farmers losing their land.

Farmers' organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo say the country's new Agriculture Law could lead to many smallholder farmers losing their land. Credit: André Thiel/Flickr

“We have launched a major appeal to the government to modify the law,” Paluku Mivimba, president of FOPAC, the Congo Federation of Smallholder Farmer Organisations, told IPS.

“Several articles of this law create insecurity of tenure for peasant farmers because they eliminate the possibility of peasant farmers becoming owners of land they have been cultivating for many years,” said Mivimba, who is also the head of the federation’s lobbying unit.

Mamie Makuze, is a lawyer and owner of a five hectare plot on the Batéké Plateau, not far from the DRC capital, Kinshasa. “Article 35 of the law weakens small producers and family farmers who don’t have a lot of money. It states that the government will grant agricultural concessions in line with the financial capacity of applicants, who must also be able to carry the cost of developing the land,” she told IPS.

“This is an addition to another article which puts family and subsistence farmers in danger: according to Article 41, which says that if the occupant does not begin developing agricultural land within 18 months of signing a provisional lease, the government has the right to reclaim the land and assign it to someone else.

“The fear is that small producers, who frequently lack resources, run the risk of losing land they’ve acquired – in many cases via inheritance, passed down from generation to generation without official documents.”

Jeanne Botuli, a market gardener in Kisantu, a village in the western province of Bas-Congo is also worried by the new legislation. “For ten years, our group of women have been growing vegetables like amaranth, carrots and onions on small plots of just a few square metres. Even if we don’t have formal title to the land, our presence has long been recognised by the provincial authorities, who no longer have any right to come and take our fields away.”

According to Jean-Baptiste Lubamba, from the National Centre for the Development of Popular Participation, an NGO based in Kinshasa, around 80 percent of Congolese rely on agriculture for their livelihoods.

Repeating the past

Roger Pholo, responsible for communications for the Congolese Smallholders’ Confederation, told IPS, “This law offers no security to poor farmers and thus their land could be seized to the benefit of more affluent farmers or for agribusiness enterprises.”

“The majority of these farmers have not been to school and are not well informed about this law,” said Pholo.

“This Act allows the state to seize land from poor farmers,” said Alphonse Nkuli, a member of the Federation of Congolese Business. “It’s a form of “zaïrianisation” which the country has already experienced – and rejected – when land was expropriated from colonial expatriates and handed over to Congolese, including some who did not have the capacity to put it to productive use.”

Nkuli feels carrying out a similar measure now will lead to slump in national agricultural production and increase poverty.

The policy of zaïrianisation was implemented in 1973 under the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko and consisted of the nationalisation of certain property belonging to white settlers, including parcels of land which, Nkuli said, were redistributed to people close to the regime with little experience in agriculture.

Subsequently, most of this land was sold on to other buyers. In South Kivu, in th east of DRC, there were even cases where other foreigners bought back land that had been nationalised.

Strengthening local control

Agriculture Minister Norbert Basengezi Kantintima acknowledges that there is widespread anxiety, but insists that there will be no return to zaïrianisation-style land seizures. “The small farmer is well protected by the law by means of rural agriculture councils already established in each province to monitor agriculture development in each province,” he told IPS. “And smallholders are part of these councils.”

“The presence of representatives of producers, producer associations, and peasant unions at the heart of the agriculture councils which are present in each sector and at the most local level, is a participatory measure which will allow farmers to ensure the government doesn’t take actions that are unfavourable to them,” Kantitima said.

But Mivimba says these councils do not function effectively, as they are dependent on government which has failed to adequately fund them.

“What’s needed are committees that will manage land, especially in rural areas where the majority of farmers are not aware of their rights and have not been to school. These committees must strengthen advocacy on behalf of smallholders,” Mivimba said.

“We plan to lobby members of the new parliament (sworn in on Feb. 16) and press for the modification of the law to be put on the agenda of the upcoming legislative session.”

Fears of violent demonstrations against the provisional results of the presidential elections – released on Dec. 9 by the electoral commission – have given way to terror in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has crackled with the sound of gunshots and the firing of tear gas canisters since Friday afternoon.

DRC held presidential and legislative elections on Nov. 28. Provisional results for the presidential poll were expected on Dec. 6, but only released three days later, after two postponements by the electoral commission.

The incumbent president, Joseph Kabila, was declared the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) with 48.95 percent of votes, against 32.33 percent for his leading adversary, Etienne Tshisekedi.

Since Dec. 5, psychosis has reigned in the capital. Schools have been closed for more than a week and economic activity has been totally paralysed. In Kinshasa, stores and markets have been closed for several days and people have begun to run out of food.

On Saturday, government spokesperson Lambert Mende Omalanga appeared on RTNC, the national broadcaster, calling for calm and warning that anyone caught taking part in violent acts would be brought to justice.

But shots continued to be heard all over the city, notably in the posh Kinshasa neighbourhood of Macampagne, in the Ngaliema commune, and in Masina, a densely-populated area won by Tshisekedi. Across the city, nothing moved, as residents remained indoors.

Tshisekedi has rejected the results announced by CENI. But he has also refused to turn challenge them in the Supreme Court, instead declaring himself president, winning – by his own reckoning – 72 percent of the vote.

Another candidate, Vital Kamerhe, is also contesting the results; he alleges that electoral officials stuffed the ballot boxes with votes for Kabila even before polling started. “CENI must restore the victory stolen from Tshisekedi by Kabila,” he said.

“The fear of catastrophe is growing,” said Thiery Tomatala, a civil servant and resident of Kintambo, a crowded Kinshasa neighbourhood. “And we will not get a full account of the actions taken by the police and the army against demonstrators and Tshisekedi supporters.”

Tomatala says two Chinese-owned shops in the area were looted by armed men in civilian clothes, one in Kintambo on Friday evening, and another on Saturday morning in the Bandamungwa neighbourhood.

There have been other incidents. “On Saturday morning, around 8.30 am (7.30 am UTC), a jeep full of heavily armed policemen stopped outside my depot, looted it and relieved me of some two million Congolese francs (around 2,200 dollars),” said Yvonne Kinja, a bread wholesaler on Avenue de Libération, in Bandalungwa.

“No traffic is being allowed on Avenue Libération, the street on which the Kinshasa Penitentiary and Reeducation Centre (CPRK), the Colonel Kokolo military camp, the Ministry of the Interior, Security and Decentralisation, as well as the Palais de la Nation, the president’s office – it’s been entirely taken over by the army and heavily armed police,” said Addée Ngudi, who lives along the avenue.

A police colonel speaking on condition of anonymity told IPS, “The police have the obligation to protect strategic locations in the country, including the CPRK, the military base and the president’s office.”

“It’s necessary at all costs to avoid crowds around the CPRK,” Dido Kitungwa, director general of the prison, told IPS over the phone, without offering further detail.

The CPRK holds two classes of prisoners, according to a May 2011 study carried out by the University of Kinshasa, “soldiers and members of the security forces, sentenced by military courts between 1997 – when the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFLD) of Laurent Désiré Kabila seized power – and 2001, when he was assassinated.”

Former president Laurent Désiré Kabila was the father of the incumbent, Joseph. The senior officer who spoke to IPS said police were simply trying to disperse crowds, and people should remain calm and go about their usual business.

“But how can we go about our business when for the past six days, the police themselves have been building up psychosis and fear in the population?” said Guy Mamboleo, a Tshisekedi supporter and resident of Bandalungwa, not far from the CPRK. “A heavy military and police presence, and the firing of tear gas and live ammunition… it is not reassuring,” he told IPS.

By Emmanuel Chaco and - -
KINSHASA, Nov 10 2011 (IPS)

“In truth, none of the candidates and none of the parties have a programme for society,” asserts Mastaki Mushosi, one of the leaders of the National Union of Catholic School Teachers in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Campaigning in DRC began at the end of October for the Nov. 28 presidential and legislative elections. The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) has registered around 19,000 candidates for the legislative elections, and 11 contenders for the presidency.

However, the campaigning was marred by pre-election violence. News wire service AFP reported Monday that fighting between supporters of the ruling Party for Reconstruction and Democracy and the opposition Union for Democracy and Social Progress took place in Lubumbashi, the country’s second- largest city.

Despite the large number of candidates – representing no fewer than 417 political parties – only the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), close to the incumbent president, Joseph Kabila; the Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC) led by Vital Kamerhe, the former president of the National Assembly now in opposition; and the Union of Forces for Change (UFC) of Senate President Léon Kengo wa Dondo are truly campaigning.

Potentially one of the richest countries in Africa, DRC was ranked dead last in the 2011 Human Development Index published by the United Nations Development Programme.

Mushosi and others say that instead of “demagogic promises”, candidates should explain concretely how they plan to jumpstart the economy and address urgent problems of food production, unemployment, poverty, insecurity and a lack of respect for human rights in the country.

Despite the fragile political and security situation in DRC, the World Bank believes the country’s medium-term economic prospects are positive. Overall economic performance in 2010 showed clear improvement over the preceding year. In 2009, GDP growth slowed to 2.9 percent due to the effects of the international economic and financial crisis, but recovered to around seven percent in 2010. Inflation, which reached 53.4 percent in 2009, fell to below ten percent in 2010.

“The government accumulated fiscal surpluses in 2010 which allowed it to reduce pressure on demand for foreign currency and to maintain relative stability for the national currency, with only a slight depreciation of 1.4 percent in 2010 – compared to 29.2 percent in 2009,” according to the World Bank, whose DRC commitments are among its largest in Africa, involving more than 2.5 billion dollars.

The Bank’s analysts believe DRC’s economy must aim for a growth rate of around seven percent per year – in 2011 it was 6.5 percent, boosted by increased investment and activity in extractive industries as well as a strong contribution from public works projects and the service sector.

But macroeconomic performance does not seem to have translated into improvements in the lives of most Congolese. Government sources indicate that while per capita income is growing, it remains very low at 220 dollars per person.

“No one remembers that civil servants, doctors, nurses, teachers have not received their salaries for months,” adds Mushosi, who believes the candidates are all promising the same things.

As in 2005, the ruling PPRD’s campaign has centred on job and infrastructure creation, improvements to housing, and the provision of water, electricity, health and education, as set out in the “Five Worksites of the Republic” development programme.

“Believe that if you will,” says Joe Mazambi, a resident of Kindu, in Maniema, in the eastern DRC. “Five years after Kabila’s promises (at the last election), we still don’t have roads here. We’re dying of hunger. There are practically no schools and most of the youth are unemployed. The public hospital is a place where we go to die.”

Kizito Nfundiko, who says he has been assaulted three times for being a member of the opposition UNC, adds: “Even the pacification programme here in Bukavu (in the eastern DRC) is an illusion. There have been many attacks against opposition figures here in Bukavu.”

Espérance Mawazo, director of DRC’s Parity Observatory, an NGO based in Bukavu, says: “In a situation of generalised poverty, the candidates must engage in demagoguery less than they did in 2005. They continue to promise things they have failed to deliver since 2005, including parity of women’s representation in public institutions.”

According to the Permanent Framework for Dialogue for Congolese Women, a gender equality pressure group, only 42, or 8.4 percent, of the 500 members of the current National Assembly – the lower house of parliament – are women. With women making up roughly 12 percent of candidates standing for election this year, this seems unlikely to improve significantly.

The polls are tilted in favour of those with access to substantial resources.

A press release issued at the end of October by the Kinshasa-based African Association for the Defence of Human Rights noted that “Only the party activists of the PPRD, the UFC, and those closest to them have the (financial) means to campaign, probably because they benefit from the positions they hold in (government) institutions.”

Jacques Djoli, vice president of the electoral commission, has called for candidates who are also officials and public office holders to resign from their present positions to level the playing field: “We must protect the ethics and decency which characterise public office and political engagement.”

Excerpt:

Sometime in the next two months, activists and survivors of horrific violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo will find out if Callixte Mbarushimana will stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Defence lawyer Nick Kaufman (l) and Callixte Mbarushimana. Kaufman argues prosecutors have no evidence of his client's responsibility for atrocities. Credit: Courtesy International Criminal Court

Mbarushimana is the executive secretary of the FDLR – the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda – a rebel movement which has operated in the eastern part of the DRC since 2005.

The prosecution alleges that he directed FDLR fighters to murder, torture and rape civilians in the provinces of North and South Kivu in 2009, as a strategy to strengthen the rebel movement’s hand in negotiations with the Rwandan government. Judges will confirm or reject each of eleven charges before the end of November.

“He was the linchpin, the man who could transform crimes committed in the Kivus into political leverage in Rwanda,” International Criminal Court deputy prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told judges at the opening of a confirmation of charges hearing in The Hague, which opened Sep. 16.

“The hearing builds up hope for thousands of victims like me,” says Nestor Habamungu, a geography teacher at the Mwanzo Institute in Bukavu, in South Kivu. “During an FDLR raid in Walungu, in South Kivu in February 2005, my parents were killed, fighters ransacked our house and burned the neighbours’ house down with three people inside. I survived because I was staying with a family friend in a nearby village.”

Survivors impatient

But if some are celebrating progress, others worry that the pace of prosecution of crimes in DRC is too slow. Marie Claire Mwilarhe, a teacher in the Kalamu commune of the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, told IPS her father was killed by machete-wielding FDLR fighters in Mwegerera, South Kivu in 2006.

Pointing to another ICC prosecution, that of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, who was arrested in 2006 and charged with recruiting child soldiers in the northeast of the country, she said she fears the ICC’s lengthy processes will achieve nothing in the end, and only discourage victims of violence.

“The case of Thomas Lubanga has been pending for years now,” she said. Charges were confirmed in January 2007; the trial only began two years later and is still under way.

Desiderata Boji, president of the Kinshasa-based rights group Women in Solidarity for Peace and Development, adds: “There are many victims who have died in the meantime without being compensated. Their neglect won’t encourage other victims to become civil parties to the court cases at the ICC, or to cases in the Congolese justice system.”

Civil participation hampered

A Sep. 15 press release issued by the DRC office of the CICC admits that there have been problems with the participation of victims in this case.

The communiqué says the decision allowing 130 victims to participate in Mbarushimana’s confirmation of charges hearing was made only one week before the hearing was initially scheduled to begin in August, and that hundreds of other survivors who had asked permission to participate were omitted simply because the ICC’s Registrar was unable to handle requests from 470 victims in time.

But Congolese lawyer Maurice Kanyama is more forgiving of the ICC. “Beyond the difficulties posed by gaining access to the zones where these crimes took place, the limited participation of victims in pending ICC cases is not due to the slowness of the court,” he told IPS.

“Above all, it points to the internal weaknesses of the NGOs who are working to identify victims on the ground,” says Kanyama. “Budget constraints are no longer an excuse, since there is a ‘Victims’ Fund’ that covers the cost of participation and legal representation, which is provided by member states and other donors.”

By Emmanuel Chaco
BUKAVU, DR Congo, May 12 2010 (IPS)

Six journalists have been murdered in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the past six years, four of them in the Eastern region. Official investigations have failed to clarify the circumstances of any of these killings.

Dieudonné Malékéra is a journalist and human rights advocate based in Bukavu, Eastern DRC, who covered three of the murder trials.

Q: Six journalists murdered in six years, with a record number of four in the eastern part of the country alone. Are these targeted assassinations or random violence? A: Three journalists killed in Bukavu in a three-year period. Serge Maheshe on Jun. 13, 2007, Didace Namujimbo on Nov. 21, 2008 and Koko Bruno Chirhambiza on Aug. 27, 2009. And a cameraman (Patient Chebeya Bankome) was recently killed (Apr. 5 2010) in North Kivu…

Since 2007 there’s been a journalist killed each year. These seem to be targeted killings and the trials have many murky areas.

In the case of Maheshe, the men who were found guilty said they had been ordered to kill the journalist. We know where they came from and how long they waited for their target without attacking anyone else. Two soldiers that were originally charged and arrested were released under strange circumstances and two of the journalist’s friends were then accused of plotting the murder.

As for the Namujimbo trial, the three soldiers and one civilian accused of the crime claimed that they just wanted to snatch the journalist’s computer. They traveled about eight kilometres without bothering anyone else on the road. The reporter was their only victim. The victim was targeted.

The Chirhambiza case is odd. He was returning from a party at night, and it is true that he went through a neighborhood where thieves often prey on passersby. But the only suspect is the victim’s friend, who was walking home with him from the party.

Freedom of the press is threatened by the precarious security situation in the East. There is little tolerance for criticism from independent media and journalists. Journalists have to be very careful. Relatively organised armed groups continue to prey on communities and there’s an unregulated amount of military weaponry in circulation.

Q: Maheshe, Namujimbo, Chirhambiza and the cameraman killed in North Kivu – what were these four working on? Do you think there was a link between their investigations and their deaths? A: Maheshe was a copy editor at Radio Okapi (a joint project of the Fondation Hirondelle and the United Nations) and participated in some meetings regarding the United Nations Mission in DRC (MONUC) strategic questions. He also had trouble with some members of the presidential guard stationed near his home.

During the 2006 presidential campaign, Namujimbo reported receiving threats from the candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba for an article chronicling Bemba’s visit to Bukavu where the local population called him a “carnivore”. The piece was critical of how Bemba’s militia had destroyed the part of the country they controlled (the Northwest).

Regarding the killing of the cameraman in North Kivu, a colleague from Beni (North Kivu), a reporter with the news agency Syfia Grands Lacs told us that the attackers had asked the victim to hand over some footage.

Q: How far along are these murder trials? A: Three civilians were handed the death penalty for the murder of Maheshe. They are being held at the central prison in Bukavu.

There was an unexpected twist in the Namujimbo case a week ago, when an accused soldier declined a court-appointed lawyer, saying he did not need one, “as long as the real author of the crime is free and present in the room when the court is preparing to condemn innocent men.”

Q: Do you think that any of these trials has shed some light on the circumstances around these killings? What can be done for the victims’ families? What role did civil society play in the trials? A: The justice system has shed no light on these murders. In the Maheshe and Namujimbo trials, the work was incomplete. They arrested the gunmen but did not try to find the true culprits.

Civil society seems demobilised and less motivated with every day that passes… The professional associations simply sent messages of condolences and exhort journalists to take basic security steps.

Excerpt:

A report alleging that government troops summarily executed fifty civilians in early April in fighting around Mbandaka, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s northwestern Équateur Province has been rejected by the government.

“About fifty Congolese civilians were killed without warning by the Congolese Armed Forces (known by its French acronym, FARDC) in April 2010,” says a report by human rights group ASADHO (Association africaine de défense des droits de l’homme), a group based in Kinshasa, capital of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The report also held the Eyélé rebels for the murder of two civilians.

The report lists the victims, and claims that the killings took place while the FARDC was confronting a local rebellion that briefly took control of the airport in Mbandaka.

At a press conference on Apr. 22, Lambert Omalanga Mende, Congolese Minister of Communications and Media, said the report was riddled with inaccuracies. “it was shown that no ASADHO researchers went to Équateur to investigate the allegations contained in the report,” he said.

Mende said that neither the (provincial) Governor Jean-Claude Baender nor any member of his government, the mayor and councillors of Mbandaka, nor General Ekutsu and his staff of the Thirrd Military Region, nor General Gideon and his police collaborators, or any magistrates remember having met with ASADHO investigators.

The minister said this strips of any credibility the report’s claim that investigators had met politico-administrative, judicial, military and police authorities and rejected ASADHO’s call for an independent commission be established to shed light on the circumstances around the killings.

Responding without giving details of the researchers who carried out the research, George Kapiamba, vice president of ASADHO, told IPS that “the investigation was indeed carried out by a team of professionals on the ground in Équateur.”

A source close to the provincial government who spoke on condition of anonymity told IPS that the report has merit.

“The ASADHO report is quite true on the whole as there were indeed massacres, although it may appear to have exaggerated the number of victims, which does not change the fact that the FARDC executed innocent civilians.”

Pierre Bofunda, a former soldier turned human rights advocate, also supported ASADHO’s claims of extra-judicial killings by the army. “For example, Monday, April 19, a student and a young pregnant woman were executed at their home in the ‘Bolenge pêcheur’ neighborhood, about 10 km from the town of Mbandaka.”

Bofunda says that continuing insecurity in the province is due to FARDC troops attacking people at night, stealing money, mobile phones and any valuables found on their victims.

“Besides, the provincial governor who attended the open hearing after the double murder of Apr. 19, organised a major campaign the following day against the prevailing insecurity in the province by inviting citizens to take the streets and make an uproar when a neighbor is attacked or when they hear of a case,” said Bofunda.

“What do they have to lose by taking the content of this report and launching a proper investigation in collaboration with its authors?” asked Sophie Ekanga, a teacher from Mbandaka. She said she was disgusted that the Congolese authorities were again placing so little value on human life.

Few expect that anyone there will be an investigation, or that anyone will be prosecuted if executions are found to have taken place. Cyprian Abangapakwa, a retired judge, said “The Congolese judicial system, known to be very weak, is not the best institution for the job. Its members can still participate in a investigating committee.

“The fourteen Mbandaka magistrates – ill-equipped, poorly paid, badly housed, scattered throughout the city – are unable to carry out a proper investigation.”

The hundreds of savings and loan cooperatives operating in South Kivu should be providing an opportunity to develop agriculture and fight food insecurity in the province, but few farmers have been able to take advantage.

Félicien Zozo Rukeratabaro, a human rights advocate for Social and Rural Action, an NGO based in the province’s main town of Bukavu, says “not one small-scale farmer is able to access financial support or credit from any of these cooperatives, which are primarily concerned with speculative transactions and activities only of immediate benefit to themselves.”

He tells IPS, “All cooperatives have structured conditions for access to credit. But most often, the guarantees they need cannot be provided by small-scale famers, who are often very poor.”

“How will we become wealthy? And how will we be able to produce more in order to sell the surplus and save or repay the credit obtained – if we cannot secure initial financial support from cooperatives?”

The question is asked by Augustine Baliahamwabo, who produces “lenga-lenga”, a vegetable widely consumed in the east. She also produces cassava on her farm in the village of Kabare.

Baliahamwabo tells IPS she “produces about 500kg of lenga-lenga per season and employs three women in the village to sell the goods in Bukavu. These women, each carrying about 100kg of vegetables on their heads or backs, walk the 55 kilometres from Kabare to Bukavu where they sell the vegetables and bring in approximately $25, earning a profit of $10 off the sale of each woman’s load.

“All I need is to be able to pay for more farmers and organise for the vegetables and cassava I produce to be distributed for just two seasons. Then I’d be able to produce more. An amount of $1,000 would allow me to become independent after only a year of work,” she says, pointing out that she employs farm workers daily.

Ever since the outbreak of the wars that have raged in the eastern DRC, the province of South Kivu has experienced food insecurity, particularly because of declining agricultural production.

“None of these cooperatives cares about us. Yet it is we who feed the entire city of Bukavu as well as our own villages,” says Jardon Ngabo Y’eka, a producer of sweet potatoes and carrots in Ngweshe, a village 70km from Bukavu. “We cannot produce enough to sell and are sometimes forced to limit ourselves to subsistence farming, even though we have large areas we could well be using to produce more food and flood the market.”

Ngabo Y’eka tells IPS, “In reality, the cooperatives are not asking us to give them guarantees of repayment of credit. They are simply scared because most of us are really poor. But we still have land to use as security.”

He adds, “I also have a small farm where I get regular milk from my two cows and eight goats, but this is only for family consumption. All this could serve as a guarantee of repayment of a small sum of $1,000!”  ?  Vénantie Mucuba is a farmer from Mushekere, another village located 45km from Bukavu. She tells IPS, “If I get credit of $1,500 to be repaid after one year, I can produce an average of two tons of beans. I would use this money to hire at least ten farmers, buy 50 kg bags and organise the transportation of the beans to Bukavu. There, I’d sell it and be able to realise a profit of over $2,000 by the end of the year.”

But Charles Kabashali, manager of the Christian Mutual Society for Savings and Credit, which also does not give agricultural credit, sees things differently. “Getting involved with producers who are mostly in the villages is a good thing,” he tells IPS.

However, “there is no security there and no electricity or infrastructure that would allow cooperatives to effectively support small-scale farmers, while at the same time being protected from any loss of capital invested by members of these cooperatives.”

Aimée Busime heads up the Credit and Savings Cooperative of South Kivu. She tells IPS, “If small-scale farmers could form groups, we could help them access credit not exceeding $2,000 each. But they must provide a personal guarantee; that is to say one of them must offer sufficient guarantees to repay the credit granted.” She adds, “It is for them to organise themselves and not for us to push them to meet the conditions to obtain credit.”

For his part, Bukavu resident Chikos Mushamuka tells IPS: “In reality, these cooperatives could have a little goodwill. If they did, they’d be able to significantly boost the agricultural economy of the entire province.”

“Throughout all the villages and even in Bukavu, several hundred small-scale farmers are bravely producing vegetables, beans, cow’s milk, sweet potatoes, bananas, goat meat and pork, as well as fish farmed from Lake Kivu. This could feed more than three million people,” says Mushamuka.

He adds that, “to support these farmers would effectively fight food insecurity, particularly in Bukavu where very few families still enjoy quality nutrition or regular meals.”

*The first of two articles on obstacles facing small-scale farmers in DRC.

The more than 800 small-scale farmers belonging to co-operatives around the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) capital, Kinshasa, could produce enough rice and vegetables for the capital’s estimated eight million inhabitants, according to the country’s agriculture ministry.

However the farmers say they cannot effectively work the land without any long-term prospects or stability. The land is being steadily being taken away from them and sold off for new construction, especially in Mimoza, Maluku, Mpasa, Bandalungwa, N’Sele and Kingabwa, which are rural areas around the capital.

The situation is especially sad for Françoise Makulu, a vegetable farmer. “For over five years, I produced more than 200 kilos of vegetables each season on just 100 square metres of land, at the nursery across the road from the Kinshasa Higher Institute of Commerce,” she said.

“But a year ago, the nursery was sold to Lebanese traders who, in a matter of weeks, have put up four buildings there,” she tells IPS.

“My annual harvest allowed me to meet all the food needs of my family, to pay rent for the house we live in and to pay all my children’s school fees,” says Makulu.

To survive, she now sells fish bought from wholesalers at the market in Selembao, a Kinshasa district.

Yet according to Norbert Bashengezi, the minister of agriculture, fisheries and livestock, “the government is ready to help these small-scale farmers produce more crops at a cheaper price, especially as over 80 percent of them are women.”

According to the minister, women are “the first to recognise the need to feed children and pay school fees, even as men abandon their work in the fields, indulging in reading the paper and watching television.”

The minister’s statements are little comfort to Laurentine Vakoko, another former vegetable producer, who lost her field along Kasa Vubu Avenue which goes to Bandalungwa. “How can a government which claims to help small-scale farmers and agriculturists take from them what is so essential to their work?” she asks IPS.

For her part, Génie Kamanda, who has been farming rice in N’Sele for over five years, has this to say, “Taking land from small-scale farmers who are playing their part in the fight against hunger simply leads to greater food insecurity in our country. The only assistance we now expect from government is a guarantee around the stable use of land.”

She however says she benefitted from the hoes, spades, seeds and fertilisers which government distributed free to farmers around the capital in May 2009.

Speaking to IPS, Minister Bashengezi says, “Investors in agriculture must understand that through its program to fight food insecurity, the government want to assure them of the stability of land use. This is because since January 2009, it has already invested over US$500 million to help some of them with material implements and other inputs.”

John Mbaka is scornful. “Another statement, and much like any other! The minister would be reassuring our colleagues who’ve lost their fields if he told us that there is – or will be – coordinated policy between his department and the person responsible for land management.”

Mbaka is a member of the agricultural cooperative of vegetable producers in Kinshasa’s Changu district.

Pascal Mavungu, a Congolese agronomist, wants to see the debate extended to other roleplayers in agriculture. For him, “the search for a solution to forced removal from cultivated land should not be limited to exchanges between government and small-scale farmers. Civil society must find its place and play its role, without which an already-powerful government could not be influenced by a group of vulnerable farmers.”

But, as Bashengezi angrily tells an audience of journalists and farmers, “how does one rely on a civil society that is wasting 60 percent of its finance on self-serving meetings or on associations which have no address? Which collects inputs from the department (of agriculture) and resells them 10 metres away from the warehouses?”

“It is true that the Congolese civil society is disorganised and has many weaknesses,” says Fernandez Murhola, president of the Civil Society of Kinshasa. He however feels that “it is impossible to generalise on the shortcomings of certain organisations in the whole structure .

Murhola further tells IPS, “It is also true that agricultural associations are not yet sufficiently well-structured. This is because agriculture is not yet a topic of great debate in our country. But other associations in various sectors of society, which have been in existence for years, have nevertheless managed to help refocus government efforts through the concerted actions of lobbying and advocacy. ”

*The second of two articles on obstacles facing small-scale farmers in DRC.