Thérèse Izayi, a Congolese engineer, invented two very unusual traffic robots. This one is situated at an intersection on Triumphal boulevard, near parliament in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital. Credit: Taylor Toeka Kakala/IPS

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo, Apr 30 2014 (IPS)

“There are several robots in the world, but that one which regulates traffic is made in Congo,” Thérèse Izayi, a female engineer and the Congolese inventor of two very unusual traffic signals, tells IPS.

Situated at an intersection on Triumphal Boulevard, near the Democratic Republic of Congo’s parliament in the capital, Kinshasa, the 2.5-metre traffic signal looks like an actual robot — with arms, legs, a chest and a head.

The breastplate pivots as the lights on it change from green to red. Then, it raises its arm to stop the traffic on one road, allowing vehicles from another to pass. The talking robot — it speaks both French and the local Lingala language — instructs: “Drivers, you can leave the road to pedestrians.”

It is made from aluminium to withstand high temperatures and humidity, and the heavy rains of this equatorial climate. There are cameras by its eyes and on its shoulders, which continuously film the traffic. It is also solar-powered to ensure its independence from electricity.

This robot is now a part of everyday life here and there is a second one on Lumumba Boulevard — en route to the international airport. Both are locally patented by Women Technology, an NGO that Izayi founded to give women engineers a platform.

“The robot captures images, which it sends using the antenna on his head to the [Women Technology] centre that stores the data. It is also equipped with an automatic detection system that tells it that pedestrians want to cross,” Izayi explains.

Izayi says that the recorded film could be sent to the traffic police, to allow authorities to prosecute drivers who have committed traffic offences.

Thérèse Izayi’s robot is situated at an intersection on Triumphal boulevard, near parliament in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital. Credit: Taylor Toeka Kakala/IPS

Kinshasa is a city where traffic lights are almost non-existent and the Highway Code is constantly violated. The capital city, with a population of  10 million, is known for its chaotic traffic.

“The robot just solved the problem of corrupt policemen,” a taxi driver tells IPS.

Traffic police, who earn small salaries, are often accused of extorting money from divers. They allegedly do this by stopping cars in the middle of the road to demand bribes, which results in constant traffic jams.

“Traffic jams are often linked to police harassment more than traffic density,” Val Manga, president of the National Road Safety Commission, known by its French acronym, CNPR, tells IPS. The robots on Lumumba and Triumphal ensure quick stops and no policemen.

According to CNPR, there are around 400,000 vehicles on Kinshasa’s roads. But of the total number of vehicles in the country, only five percent are new.

Each month, around 40 people are killed in accidents in Kinshasa, and 90 percent of these accidents are attributed to drivers’ faults.

Izayi dreams of being able to sell more robots and create manufacturing jobs throughout the country. She hopes that she will be able to market her robot internationally but points out that she is restricted by the country’s lax enforcement of laws, corruption and a very slow administrative system.

Izayi has tried numerous times to convince the government to support her project and still has not had much luck.

Obtaining a patent is a difficult process here. The costs vary and it takes six to 12 months to get approval.

Zacharie Kambale is a local inventor who has not been able to register a patent for his idea because he does not have the money for bribes.

“I have to pay money informally to officials to get things done,” Kambale tells IPS.

In 2012, Kambale developed Kongo Connect, a social network that is based in Goma. It has been nicknamed the “African Facebook”, and Kambale says it has more than 100,000 users.  The site is currently down as Kambale adds more functions to it.

Congolese economist Batamba Balembu tells IPS that he estimates four out of five companies in DRC have had to “give gifts” to get a business licence. He says that 55 percent of government revenue is lost to corruption.

There is also no enforcement of legislation relating to copyright protection here, says Chrysostome Kwede, a patent lawyer in Kisangani in northeastern DRC.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), legislation concerning industrial property was enacted here in 1982. Four year later, laws were put in place with regard to literary and artistic works.

However, WIPO says while there is legislation “from 1982 to date [1982 for industrial property and 1986 for literary and artistic works], legislative action in the DRC concerning both areas has stopped.”

“The legal vacuum is the basis of corruption in the Ministry of Industry,” Kwede tells IPS.

But government spokesperson Lambert Mende has told the media “the government’s view is very positive. But the administrative procedures [to purchase the robots] are very heavy.”

However, Izayi says interest has been expressed by the governments of Angola and neighbouring Congo-Brazzaville.

“But I am not ready to provide them with prototypes like those in Kinshasa because it is expensive,” Izayi adds.

The robots are expensive — around 15,000 dollars  — and they cost about 2,000 dollars a month to maintain.

Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta says that the aim of the single tourist visa is to market the gorillas of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi and the wildlife of Kenya and Tanzania as a package. Credit: Hjalmar Gislason/CC By 2.0

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo, Nov 4 2013 (IPS)

As the majority of East African Community countries signed an agreement paving the way for a single tourist visa in the region from 2014, some believe that Tanzania’s hesitance to agree to this integration is largely due to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

The EAC comprises Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania. But on Aug. 2 only Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda signed an agreement, which introduces a single visa that can be obtained at any entry point effective from January 2014.

“The visa will cost 100 dollars [for non-citizens of the three signatory countries] for up to 90 days. The country of entry will collect the fee,” Peter Okota, an immigration officer in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, told IPS. Each country will receive 30 dollars from this fee, while the remaining 10 dollars will go towards technical operations.

Currently, a tourist who visits the five EAC countries has to spend 250 to 300 dollars on visa fees, with only Kenya allowing re-entry on the initial visa after a visit to another EAC country.

But Rwanda and Uganda have been accused of supporting the M23 rebels and according to Godefroid Ka-Mana, president of the Great Lakes Pole Institute based in Goma in eastern DRC, “Tanzania’s participation in the new [United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DRC] brigade against the M23 rebels is for a reason.”

Tanzanian blue helmets, who helped the Congolese army force out M23 rebels from their strategic position 15 km north of Goma in August, lost two soldiers in the fighting.

A third Tanzanian peacekeeper was killed on Oct. 26 in fighting between the Congolese army, the U.N. special brigade and M23. The fighting started on Oct. 25 in the Kibumba, Kiwanja, Rutshuru and Rumangabo districts of eastern DRC, all four of which were reclaimed from M23.

Thomas d’Aquin Mwiti, president of North Kivu’s civil society organisation, told IPS that the loss of Tanzanian soldiers to save Goma would inevitably affect relations between Tanzania and those accused of supporting the war in the DRC.

Diogène Musoni, an economics lecturer at the Rwanda Tourism University College, told IPS that Tanzania was more engaged in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) than in the EAC and remains hesitant about the path of economic integration represented by the introduction of a single visa for other reasons.

He pointed out that the single visa could increase the EAC’s tourist revenue by 50 percent over the first five years of the agreement.

“The single visa will make things easier for those wishing to visit East Africa’s tourist attractions,” Musoni said.

When contacted by telephone, the spokesperson’s office at the Tanzanian Ministry of Tourism refused to comment on “Rwandese intellectuals views about Tanzania’s isolation,” but asserted that the EAC is as important to Tanzania as SADC.

In September, Tanzanian Minister for the EAC Samuel Sitta responded to questions from the Tanzanian national media by stating that the country would not be forced into an accelerated pace of integration that is not sustainable.

Sitta suspected that the three countries involved in the single visa wanted to isolate Tanzania. “The areas of cooperation the three countries are working on are no different from the ones we collectively discussed during the chairmanship of Mwai Kibaki [former Kenyan president],” he stated. “If they have all of a sudden chosen to isolate us, all we can do is leave them alone and wish them well.”

In a statement published in September, the Burundian government said that the move by the three signatory countries to go ahead with signing the agreement raised doubts amongst the other member states.

The government of Burundi added that while it recognised that the EAC Treaty allows for countries to fast track community projects if necessary, it also states that decisions should be taken with the consensus of all member states, which was not the case with the visa agreement.

However, at the time of the agreement on Aug. 2, the Rwandan Minister for the EAC Jacqueline Muhongayire said: “We want to make it clear that the two other countries [Burundi and Tanzania] have not been left out. They can opt into this agreement once it is a priority for them.”

Okota said that although the introduction of the single visa has been delayed since 2006 because of issues of security and inadequate infrastructure in some EAC countries, the current main causes of disagreement are the fee charges and revenue sharing arrangements.

“There are still small problems with the pricing and revenue allocation from the single visa system,” Denise Nijimbere, acting director of the Burundi Tourism National Office, admitted to IPS.

However, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta believes that the single visa is the only way that the EAC can attract a larger number of tourists.

“The aim is to market the gorillas of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi and the wildlife of Kenya and Tanzania as a package,” Kenyatta told a regional tourism forum in Kenya last month, adding that he hoped the visa would be implemented by all countries before the end of 2014.

Former child solider from Democratic Republic of Congo, Mulume (front left) feels hopeless about his future. In DRC, child soldiers face the double challenge of starting life afresh and proving themselves in the community. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo , Aug 29 2013 (IPS)

Over 2,000 children are still being used as soldiers by 27 armed groups in North Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo despite efforts by the United Nations Children’s Fund to remove them from the frontlines and return them to their homes.

Between January and July, about 1,700 child soldiers were part of the UNICEF demobilisation and reintegration programme. But at the end of July, UNICEF condemned the worrying increase of child victims in the ongoing conflict that has rocked North Kivu since fighting broke out in May 2012 between the Congolese armed forces and the M23 rebels.“I allowed my son to be reintegrated into my home because they promised him economic support. Now they have broken the promise, he is likely to take up arms again.” -- Father of a former child soldier

Basile Bashimbe is a legal expert on the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme for former child soldiers at Caritas Goma, a division of Caritas International – the federation of Catholic organsations working with international development. He believes that the presence of former child soldiers within the ranks of M23 is only one dimension of the problem.

“Even though the DRC is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, our country is on the [U.N. child solider] ‘list of shame’ of armed forces and groups involved in recruiting and exploiting children,” Bashimbe said.

In a region where nationalist propaganda, ethnic claims, land disputes and minerals drive the war, “the militias use the children as a vulnerable and impressionable source of labour,” he elaborated.

Justin Akili, who participated in drafting the DDR operational plan for the DRC in 2003, said that former child soldiers who are “unleashed” onto families that are frightened of them because of their past, receive one goat as a “family reintegration” donation. Child soldiers of school-going age also receive school supplies and fees to pursue their studies until they obtain their state certificate (Baccalaureate).

When IPS met 16-year-old Maurice, he was seated under a tree, staring ahead into the distance with a dazed expression. The former child soldier, who fought on the side of both the armed forces and rebel groups, was pulled out of a North Kivu militia group called Nyatura. It was his second demobilisation after previously being removed from the Coalition of Congolese Patriotic Resistance.

“The economic hardships the first time I was reunited with my family were so hard that I decided to go back to fighting,” Maurice told IPS.

He was taken to Nyakariba Transit and Orientation Centre for former child soldiers, to be reintegrated into civilian life. And he too was given a goat by Caritas Goma for returning to his family. But, he said, his family ate it when he was away.

Child soldiers face the double challenge of starting life afresh and proving themselves in the community. So the DDR provides for their socio-economic reintegration through income-generating activities or apprenticeships.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visits each child soldier three months after they are reunited with their families to check on their reintegration and child protection issues, Rita Palombo the ICRC delegate in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, explained to IPS.

But “because of economic hardship and the persistence of militia, the children, who were previously armed fighters, can’t adapt to normal life, so they revolt and set their minds on returning to the bush,” Akili told IPS.

In 2003, the U.N. estimated that children constituted 40 percent of certain armed groups in the DRC. That same year, it was estimated that the DRC was home to half of the 130,000 child soldiers in Africa, out of a total of 300,000 worldwide.

According to UNICEF, by 2006, the government commission in charge of the DDR programme had only demobilised 19,000 former child soldiers before it ran into difficulties.

With the arrest of certain Congolese warlords for using child soldiers amongst other ranks, the International Criminal Court has created such alarm that the statistics have gone down, said Potient Bashonga, who is in charge monitoring former child soldiers at UNICEF, Goma.

But Bashimbe stressed that currently “the issue of socio-economic reintegration remains critical” in every village where children were recruited into the ranks of the Congolese army or armed groups.

“I allowed my son to be reintegrated into my home because they promised him economic support. Now they have broken the promise, he is likely to take up arms again,” said the father of a former child soldier who requested anonymity.

The World Wildlife Fund has declared the forest-dwelling Congo Basin elephants an endangered species. Credit: Richard Ruggiero/USFWS/CC By 2.0

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo , Jul 25 2013 (IPS)

At a popular tourist art market in Goma, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, paintings and art sculptures made from bronze, copper, malachite, stone or wood attract visitors. It seems like an ordinary tourist market. But only the regulars know that this is also a black market for ivory products.

“Even though it’s illegal, the ivory market still attracts art lovers, especially foreigners who hire brokers,” a craftsman who requested anonymity told IPS.

Although an almost blanket ban on trading in ivory has been in place since 1989, the black market trade in ivory from forest-dwelling Congo Basin elephants is alive and well in the DRC’s large urban centres.

Major John Bonyoma, a judge in the Goma Military Court, told IPS that poachers were generally  “rogue FARDC (the French acronym for the Congolese army) soldiers and militia commanders.”

As far back as 2010, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora accused the Congolese army of being “responsible for 75 percent of poaching in nine out of 11 sites” in the country. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has declared the forest-dwelling Congo Basin elephants an endangered species.“Deportation undermines the fight against poaching. Legislation should be applied scrupulously to protect the animals and arrest foreigners.” -- Goma Military Court Judge, Major John Bonyoma

The Congolese Nature Conservation Institute, known by its French acronym ICCN, estimates that around 1,000 elephants were poached in DRC between 2010 and 2013. The organisation also believes that local chiefs have been complicit in elephant poaching.

According to ICCN, 70 percent of the Congo Basin’s forests, home to the forest-dwelling elephant, are in the DRC. A WWF study published last May stated that there are currently only 7,000 elephants in the country, compared to the 100,000 that existed 20 years ago.

“The demand for ivory sculptures and curios in Asian markets is driving elephant poaching,” Emmanuel de Mérode, ICCN director in North-Kivu, told IPS. He added that a kilogramme of ivory sells for 1,500 euros on the black market.

He said that poaching has become “an organised crime network which is virtually using arms of war.” De Mérode was referring to a poaching incident in the Garamba National Park in the country’s north-east in March 2012. In that case a combat helicopter, manned by suspected Ugandan soldiers, was used to shoot dead 22 elephants.

The DRC has nine national parks and about 60 reserves and hunting grounds managed by the ICCN.

Altogether this represents 10.47 percent of the DRC’s territory, about 250,000 square kilometres, and includes five protected areas on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation World Heritage List.

But the ICCN is powerless to secure these areas against heavily-armed poachers who regularly cross the DRC’s eastern frontier equipped with technology such as Global Positioning Systems and satellite phones.

Congolese law also hinders the attempts to save the country’s elephants as it allows for foreigners caught poaching to be deported.

“Deportation undermines the fight against poaching. Legislation should be applied scrupulously to protect the animals and arrest foreigners,” Bonyoma said.

Environmentalist Justin Mufuko told IPS that forest elephants play a vital role in preserving biodiversity. They distribute grains, roots and fruits from tropical trees through their dung, which is also compost for new plants.

He believes that the incentive scheme put in place by the ICCN in 2010 to protect DRC parks is the only solution to combat elephant poaching. The ICCN has been encouraging villagers to expose poachers and in turn provides financial grants to community-based organisations with viable projects.

“By financing small-scale agriculture and livestock community projects, the ICCN is discouraging villagers from becoming accomplices to poachers and getting involved in illegal activities,” Mufuko said.

The total amount provided in grants depends on the overall project cost, but most projects are relatively small.

Mufuko added that this awareness campaign has helped slow down the rampant rate of elephant shootings in the DRC.

The problems faced by the DRC affect the other Congo Basin countries of Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Equitorial-Guinea and the Central African Republic, De Mérode said. He added, “the elephant is a global heritage that is in danger of disappearing.”

WWF has warned that if nothing is done to stop this process of extinction, there will be no elephants left in Central Africa within the next few years.

Refugees who early arrived in the morning from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu region, crossing the border to the Nyakabande Transit Centre in search of a better life. Credit: Bastian Schnabel/IPS

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo , Jun 21 2013 (IPS)

Tuyisenge*, a former teacher from the Democratic Republic of Congo province of North Kivu, sat on a tree stump watching his fellow refugees go about their lives along the terraces of the hillside Kigeme Refugee Camp in southern Rwanda.

He is one of some 14,000 Congolese refugees living at the camp.

“I decided to flee after my wife and two daughters were raped by the army before my eyes,” he told IPS, his voice choking with sobs.

Ngutuye, 33, lies on a mat in front of her tent. She also fled North Kivu province in eastern DRC, in April 2012, after her civilian husband was killed in the crossfire between the Congolese army and the M23 rebels.

A 20-year cycle of violence in eastern DRC has forced hundreds of thousands of people to seek refuge beyond this Central African country’s borders.

Since April 2012, fighting in North Kivu province has displaced some 2.2 million people and caused almost 70,000 to flee to neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Of these refugees, 24,123 fled to Rwanda.

According to the Rwandan government, this has added to the existing population of 43,000 refugees in the country, 99 percent of whom are Congolese.

The majority of these refugees live in the four Rwandan camps of Kigeme, Gihembe, Kiziba and Nyabiheke. A few urban refugees also live in Kigali, the Rwandan capital.

But the 2012 exodus is just the latest in a mass displacement of Congolese that began almost two decades ago. It first started in March 1993 when thousands fled the DRC after violent ethnic clashes erupted in Ntoto, North Kivu, and spread to rural areas in South Kivu province.

The second group of Congolese refugees, who were mostly Tutsis, left the DRC in 1994 upon the arrival of some 1.2 million Rwandan Hutus in the country after the Rwandan genocide, when an estimated 800,000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, were killed by Hutus in 100 days.

More people fled the DRC during the First Congo War, from 1996 to 1997, when Rwanda invaded the Central African nation to oust then President Mobutu Sese Seko (1965-1997).

A year later, the Second Congo War began and more Congolese fled the country from 1998 to 2003. According to World Genocide Watch, an international NGO that works to protect people from genocide, more than 5.4 million people died in the two Congo wars.

But returning Congolese refugees to their homes remains a pressing issue. It is a topic that lies at the heart of a number of negotiations and agreements between the Congolese government and rebels in eastern DRC.

On Mar. 6 Ugandan Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga, who is also chair of the Kampala negotiations between the Congolese government and the M23 rebels, said the repatriation of refugees based in Rwanda had not been effective.

Others in the DRC agree. “The return of refugees based in Rwanda has always been a touchy issue,” Emmanuel Kamanzi, a Tutsi community leader in Goma, told IPS.

Kamanzi believes that local communities in the DRC are afraid that if Congolese Tutsi refugees return from Rwanda, it will create competition for land. In 2010, Masti Nots, the head of the North Kivu UNHCR office, predicted that “the land issue will be one of the main obstacles to the return of refugees.”

Jean-Claude Chito, a lawyer at the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Goma, concurred.

“The ambiguities of the 1973 Land Act are the source of land conflicts in the DRC,” he told IPS.

The act provides for the co-existence of two land tenure systems, one based on traditional customs and the other on statutory law. Under the traditional land tenure system, a traditional chief, who is the custodian of ancestral lands, is authorised to allocate land to community members. Under the other, the government has the power to appropriate land. However, conflicts arise when both traditional chief and the state allocate land titles to the same property.

The situation is further complicated by a stipulation that allows any individual in the rebel-held area in eastern DRC to obtain a title deed. It has resulted in an influx of people to these areas and created a competition for land with local communities.

But Bahati Kahembe, one of the four traditional chiefs appointed to the provincial assembly in North Kivu, told IPS: “That is not true.”

It seems however that for now, authorities do not have to worry about the competition for land, because the refugees are not returning.

Simplice Kpanji, the communications director at the UNHCR regional office in Kinshasa, the DRC capital, told IPS “the security situation is not favourable for the repatriation of (Congolese) refugees.”

*Name changed to protect identity.

For the past five years, babies have been born in health centres managed by humanitarian organisations in North Kivu, DRC. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo, Jun 2 2013 (IPS)

“Many hospitals and health centres” that are not run by NGOs “do not meet health standards,” according to Dominique Baabo, provincial medical inspector for North Kivu province in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The health sector in the DRC faces serious medical challenges including having to deal with obsolete biomedical equipment, the lack of cold rooms for vaccine storage, and a shortage of qualified personnel, Baabo told IPS. He added that a lack of maternity wards in the country posed an obstacle to health care here.

But a lack of maternity facilities is not what the people of Matanda, a region in North Kivu province, have to worry about any longer. Theophile Kaboy, the Catholic bishop of Goma, opened a maternity ward in Matanda’s local health centre on May 15. The local diocesan medical office manages the health centre.

“I am not used to giving birth in a maternity ward since one had to travel between two and three days before giving birth in Kirotse (30 km away) or to Masisi (25 km away),” Jeannette Uwera, the first woman to give birth at the new maternity ward in Matanda’s local health centre, told IPS.

Mado Uwiteka, another Matanda resident, told IPS that in the past she had to be “carried to the maternity hospital in Kirotse on a stretcher by foot to deliver two of my children.”

“My three other children were delivered at home,” Uwiteka said. Two of her three children that were delivered at home died before their first birthday.

“But it was easy to get to the maternity hospital in Matanda because it’s close by,” she added.

However, in North Kivu, where a long-running conflict has raged, civil society representatives point out that humanitarian agencies have replaced the state – which has practically abdicated responsibility in every sector.

For the past five years, babies have been born in health centres managed by humanitarian organisations. Along every road, you can see new or rehabilitated structures fitted out by humanitarian agencies, “in line with the provincial health inspectorate’s programme,” Baabo noted.

The State of the World’s Mothers 2013 report released on May 7 by international NGO Save the Children ranked the DRC last out of 176 countries on its Mother’s Index. It assesses the well being of mothers according to a number of factors, including maternal health figures and under-five mortality.

The report states that one in 30 women in the DRC is at risk of dying from pregnancy-related complications. In Finland, ranked first on the index, only one out of 12,200 women is at risk.

Speaking to health sector representatives on May 10 in DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, Congolese Health Minister Felix Kabange reacted to the report with an admission that this central African nation will not be able to meet its United Nations Millennium Development Goals to reduce infant mortality by two thirds between 1990 and 2015, or to reduce maternal mortality by three quarters over the same period.

The eight MDGs, adopted by all U.N. member states in 2000, aim to curb poverty, disease and gender inequality.

Although maternal mortality has fallen from 1,800 deaths per live birth to 549 since 1990, “if we continue to deal with the situation in the same way, the country will not even meet these goals in 2065,” the minister said.

Kalume Mushaba, an obstetrics lecturer at the University of Goma, believes that the DRC’s problem is one of leadership. He said that health allocations in this country have never exceeded five percent of the national budget.

The DRC is a signatory to the 2001 Abuja Declaration, in which African countries pledged to allocate 15 percent of their national budgets to health.

Together with Afghanistan, Haiti and the Darfur region in western Sudan, the DRC is amongst the world’s most volatile regions, and receives the most development aid. “Despite this, we are ranked last on the human development index,” Mushaba told IPS.

According to a 2009 study by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP), health care remains unaffordable for eight out of 10 women. North Kivu has one doctor per 23,328 inhabitants and one nurse for every 1,100 inhabitants. The World Health Organization recommends one doctor per 10,000 inhabitants.

These figures show an overall poor quality of healthcare in North Kivu, the UNDP study said.

In order to improve maternal and infant health, Mushaba appealed to authorities to address the “three delays” that prevent women from seeking or obtaining care. These are the reluctance to use maternity hospitals for financial or cultural reasons; lack of transport to, or knowledge of, existing services; and inadequate equipment or shortages of qualified personnel.

A month ago, the government signed over 12 million dollars to the U.N. Children’s Fund to purchase radiology and ultrasound equipment, generators, operating tables and solar-powered refrigerators, for the 70 general referral hospitals in the DRC. This marks a new start, said Kabange.

Included in the equipment, which was received on May 10, were 200 gynaecological tables, 5,000 hospital beds, 7,200 examination beds, and pharmaceutical products, the health minister said. “We want to save the lives of more mothers and children, and to protect newborns,” he added.

M23 rebels near Sake, Eastern DR Congo. The rebel group withdrew from Goma on Saturday, Dec. 1. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo, May 16 2013 (IPS)

The “blind and unrestricted” reintegration of M23 deserters into the Congolese army could harm the country, according to Thomas d’Aquin Mwiti, the chair of the North Kivu civil society platform, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to Julien Paluku, governor of North Kivu province, 519 rebel deserters have been reintegrated into the Congolese army, known by its French acronym FARDC, since 2012.

Since Apr. 21, 87 M23 rebel fighters have defected to the FARDC. Deserters who give themselves up to the FARDC are immediately reintegrated into the army at Bweremana base, 50 kilometres from Goma.

But Mwiti told IPS that this “automatic reintegration (of fighters) is simply a rebel infiltration” of the FARDC.

“The government must first put in place a mechanism for the reintegration and monitoring of deserters who could, at any moment, rejoin the rebellion,” he said.

One M23 defector, Colonel Nzala Ngomo, was reinstated into the national army on May 1. Ngomo had been the commander of the 41st commando battalion of FARDC when he joined M23 after Goma fell to the rebel group in November 2012. He surrendered to the FARDC in April.

M23, named after a peace agreement signed on Mar. 23, 2009 between leaders of a former rebel group, the National Congress for the Defence of the People, and the DRC government, started their recent insurgency in April 2012.

It culminated with their occupation of Goma, the second-largest city in DRC, in November 2012. The rebels withdrew from a week-long occupation of the town after Uganda brokered an agreement with M23 and the DRC government. However, the insurgent group has experienced a number of defections recently.

Juvénal Munubo, a legislator from Walikale, North Kivu, and a member of the National Assembly’s Committee for Defence and Security, agreed with Mwiti that the direct absorption of defectors into the Congolese army was risky.

“It’s unwise to reintegrate these deserters into the FARDC without… knowing their real motivation. They must first pass through a transit centre for re-education,” Munubo told IPS.

In contrast, former M23 combatants who surrender to MONUSCO – the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DRC – are enrolled in its Disarmament, Demobilisation, Repatriation, Reintegration and Resettlement programme, which is run in collaboration with the security and intelligence services of DRC.

Since April, 87 combatants from M23, including 12 officers, have surrendered at bases belonging to MONUSCO in Rutshuru Territory, and in Nyiragongo, both of which are north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

MONUSCO’s military spokesperson, Lieutenant-Colonel Félix Prosper Basse, told Radio Okapi – the U.N. radio station – that the number of rebel defections has been growing.

But Mwiti belongs to a section of civil society that believes M23 deserters are trying to avoid international prosecution after being named and accused in U.N. reports of atrocities and human rights violations against civilians.

“On this issue, we will insist on the rigorous application of military justice against those named in the reports,” said Mwiti.

However, the Youth League of Rutshuru, a collective of 24 associations fighting against the recruitment of idle youth into armed groups, has asked the government to unconditionally reintegrate the rebels into the FARDC to “put an end to the war.”

According to Bienvenu Mazirane, president of the umbrella group, many M23 combatants are fearful of fighting the new U.N. intervention brigade, which was formed to neutralise all armed groups in the east of the country.

On Mar. 28, the U.N. Security Council resolved to move its presence in the DRC from a stabilisation and peacekeeping force to an intervention force with a mandate to neutralise some 40 armed groups operating in the country, with effect from early May.

“They were willing to fight against the FARDC, but not against the MONUSCO brigade,” Mazirane told IPS.

Despite the defections from its ranks, M23 is determined to fight the U.N. intervention force.

“As the government in Kinshasa refuses to sign a ceasefire with M23, this brigade means the war can only be ended with victory for (either) the government or M23,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Vianney Kazarama, military spokesperson for the rebel movement.

Kazarama told IPS that the rebellion could count on 4,500 men to “sacrifice blood” to fight for the country’s liberation, and downplayed the recent desertions.

Nonetheless, the rebel group is doing all that it can to prevent its fighters from deserting and surrendering to MONUSCO. M23 has set up an observation post just 30 metres from the U.N. base in Kiwanja, northeast of Goma in North Kivu province. And on Apr. 28, the rebels fired on two M23 soldiers who handed themselves over with their weapons to MONUSCO at the Kiwanja base.

“But they succeeded in entering the MONUSCO base,” said Mazirane.

Paluku welcomed the defections, describing the deserters as “lost children who have returned to the fold.” The governor of North Kivu called on other rebels to follow their example.

The national authorities have not commented on the matter, and simply acknowledged the defections.

Remains of some of the over 800,000 victims of Rwanda’s genocide. Credit: Edwin Musoni/IPS

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
Goma, DRC , May 2 2013 (IPS)

The Congolese government is demanding a comprehensive strategy for a lasting solution for the repatriation of 127,537 Rwandan refugees estimated to be in the country.

This is according to Congolese Minister of Home Affairs Richard Muyej. He said the government believes that the cessation of refugee status for Rwandese nationals exiled in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is premature. The DRC neighbours the East African state of Rwanda.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has designated Jun. 30 as the worldwide cessation of refugee status for Rwandese nationals.

The UNHCR accords this status to refugees who fled Rwanda between 1959 and 1998. The cessation clause, which is binding on refugees and their host countries, requires refugees to choose between voluntary repatriation and residency in their host countries. They can also apply for a continuation of their refugee status on an individual basis.

However, the DRC is opposed to the move.

The Congolese government’s position reinforces the stance taken by Rwandese diaspora meeting at the International Conference on Rwandan Refugees held from Apr. 19 to 20 in Brussels. It called upon the UNHCR and asylum countries to consider the safety of Rwandese refugees.

Gervais Condo, the president of the United States-based Rwanda National Congress (CNR), who chaired the Brussels conference, told IPS: “There are no circumstances under which refugee status is a viable long-term solution.”

“But we cannot expect refugees to return home when the reasons they went into exile have not been addressed,” said Condo, an ally of General Kayumba Nyamwasa, the former chief of staff of the Rwandese army and a founder president of the CNR who is now living in exile in South Africa.

Between 1994, when the Rwanda Patriotic Front came to power following the genocide, and February 2013, the UNHCR has repatriated about 3.5 million Rwandese refugees.

While there are no conclusive figures, it is estimated that the 1994 Rwandan genocide claimed the lives of almost one million people, mostly minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Meanwhile, Muyej stated that the DRC would only apply the cessation clause after the implementation of the Tripartite Agreement signed between the UNHCR and the Rwandese and DRC governments to ensure that Rwandese refugees wishing to be repatriated are able to return to their country of origin safely and with dignity.

Muyej made these remarks on Apr. 18 at a conference of Ministers of Home Affairs of 11 African countries hosting Rwandese refugees.

However, Rwanda and the UNHCR have declared that there is no justification for extending the status for the refugees after Jun. 30. The Rwandese government has given guarantees that the situation in the Great Lakes country is now safe, and wants the cessation clause provided for in the 1951 Geneva Convention to come into force.

In October 2009, Rwandese President Paul Kagame and Antonio Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, agreed that Rwandese refugee status would be terminated in June 2011. But opposition from refugees and NGOs prompted the UNHCR to continue discussions with all concerned parties until June 2013.

Refugees remain worried that the situation of freedom of expression and association in Rwanda has not changed, and feel this concern is borne out by the large number of former dignitaries in exile, including former attorney general Gérard Gahima and former Rwandan ambassador Théogène Rudasingwa.

The arrest and trial of Victoire Ingabire, an opposition party candidate during the 2010 presidential elections who was tried and sentenced to eight years in prison for conspiracy against the country, has been cause for concern. On Mar. 25, Amnesty International called for a fair trial for Ingabire that met international standards. The human rights organisation stated that the court failed to test the evidence of the prosecution.

“A number of high-level officials have indicated that Europe does not consider Rwanda to be safe enough for the return of refugees,” Condo stressed.

Rwanda’s Minister for Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs Séraphine Mukantabana, a former genocide refugee in Congo-Brazzaville who was repatriated in May 2011, declared that Rwandese refugees could not benefit from limitless refugee status when there was peace in the country.

“We have been encouraging voluntary repatriation, as many refugees will find it difficult to remain in their host countries. Those who wish to apply for refugee status on an individual basis will not have grounds to appeal to the UNHCR,” said Mukantabana, who was also the president of the Rwandese refugees’ association in Congo-Brazzaville.

To ease the situation, Rwanda will deliver national passports to Rwandese who wish to stay in their country of asylum after Jun. 30.

M23 have conducted a number of protests against U.N. Security Council Resolution 2098, which enables an offensive combat force in the eastern DRC. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo , Apr 24 2013 (IPS)

When M23 rebels tried twice to arrange a protest march against a United Nations resolution to deploy an intervention brigade with an offensive mandate to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, they had to postpone it because the local population would not participate.

In Kibumba, 25 kilometres north of the provincial capital Goma, not only had the population refused to demonstrate – they had also fled town.

The rebels rescheduled the Apr. 10 march for Apr. 15. But when that day rolled around, the local residents, and especially the young people, had not returned – and once again the protest had to be postponed.

But according to Janvier Nkinamubanzi, a political analyst at the University of Goma, it was absurd for the M23 to expect the local population to march against the U.N. force. The M23 are named after a peace agreement in Mar. 23, 2009 between leaders of the former rebel group, the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDCP), and the Congolese government. The M23 is a breakaway from the CNDCP, and its members are mostly from the Congolese Tutsi community.

”The inhabitants of Kibumba or regions occupied by M23, even those in Goma, have the impression of being victims of a foreign occupation,” Nkinamubanzi told IPS. The U.N. has said that both Rwanda and Uganda supported M23 rebels in their capture of Goma in December 2012. But after a weeklong occupation of the town, M23 withdrew.

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, since the beginning of the M23 rebellion in April 2012, more than half a million people have been driven from their homes in North Kivu province in eastern DRC.

”Asking them to protest against a brigade that comes to liberate them from this situation is a double humiliation, as the national army is unable to protect them,” he added.

M23 have conducted a number of protests against U.N. Security Council Resolution 2098, which enables an offensive combat force in the eastern DRC. This includes forced protest marches, rallies, and a five-day blockade of 11 vehicles belonging to the U.N. Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) in Rutshuru, north of Goma.

“Our men will not hesitate to retaliate if they are shot at. The blockade of U.N. vehicles is a strong message of how serious we are,” Lieutenant-Colonel Vianney Kazarama, the military spokesperson for M23, told IPS.

Congolese Foreign Affairs Minister Raymond Tshibanda told a press conference on Apr. 1 that the only future for M23 was to disband as an armed movement. If it failed to do so, the intervention brigade would step in and destroy it, he said.

“The government pretends to speak to M23 while in reality it wants to crush the rebels at the earliest opportunity,” Godefroid Kä Mana, the chair of the cross-cultural Pole Institute, told IPS. The institute works across the Great Lakes region.

While M23 were protesting against the U.N. resolution, local leaders, including village chiefs in Masisi, east of Goma, were calling for the Congolese government to integrate soldiers from the Alliance of Patriots for a Free and Sovereign Congo (APCLS) into the Congolese armed forces.

Bahati Kahembe, one of the four traditional leaders in the North Kivu provincial assembly, recognised that both the rebels and army were responsible for human rights violations in the east of the country. However, he told IPS “the APCLS is less violent towards the population than other forces.”

The APCLS is one of the most organised armed groups in the region. Self-proclaimed “General” Janvier Karairi created it in protest against the Mar. 23, 2009 agreement.

According to MONUSCO, there are between 500 and 1,000 APCLS combatants, who mostly belong to the Hunde ethnic group. They specifically target Tutsis, sometimes in collaboration with Rwandese Hutus from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, who have been refugees in eastern DRC since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

The APCLS combatants have also provided support to the Congolese armed forces against the CNDP, and now against the M23, which broke away from the latter party. “We are only defending our land against the invaders,” Karairi told IPS.

But the governor of North Kivu, Julien Paluku, retorted: “There are no good or bad rebels.”

General Bosco Ntaganda Ntaganda was not the only M23 combatant who crossed the DRC/Rwandan border. He was followed by soldiers loyal to him, who are also wanted by the DRC government. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo , Mar 22 2013 (IPS)

As the Rwandan government said on Thursday Mar. 21 that it would do all it could to ensure the speedy transfer of war crimes suspect General Bosco Ntaganda to the International Criminal Court, fighters loyal to him are also seeking asylum in the central African nation.

Ntaganda handed himself over to the United States embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, on Mar. 18 and is said to have demanded to be transferred to the ICC, which has accused him of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

It appears that Ntaganda was forced to surrender to the ICC as a result of the fratricidal war within the M23 Congolese rebel group. Ntaganda has been on the ICC’s wanted list since 2006 for crimes committed between 2002 and 2003 in Ituri in eastern DRC.

He was the chief of staff of the former rebel leader Laurent Nkunda’s National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), an armed militia group that has since become a political party in DRC.

But Ntaganda was not the only M23 combatant who crossed the DRC/Rwandan border. He was followed by soldiers loyal to him, who are also wanted by the DRC government for their role in a rebellion against the Congolese army. One of them is a 32-year-old soldier from M23, who refers to himself only as Mutunzi. For the past two years, Mutunzi spent most of his days fighting in Masisi district, a mountainous area in North Kivu in eastern DRC.

Despite the fact that Ntaganda was wanted for war crimes, which include recruitment of child soldiers, rape and sexual slavery, Mutunzi told IPS that he still looked up to the general. “Over the past few months, most of the M23 fighters were aware that General Ntaganda was wanted by the ICC for war crimes, but he was still the most respected senior officer,” he said.

Then came the night of Mar. 16, just weeks after the rebel group had split into two factions – those loyal to Ntaganda’s faction, which was led by Jean-Marie Runiga, and the followers of General Sultani Makenga.

Mutunzi said commanding officers ordered the fighters to withdraw after several weeks of heavy fighting.

“The reason was mainly due to the fact that our ammunition had run out,” he told IPS in Kigali, where he has surrendered to Rwandan officials and is currently seeking asylum, along with other combatants from M23.

The M23-Runiga rebels were pushed out from their position to Nkamira camp, a transit site for Congolese refugees in western Rwanda – about 640 soldiers and officers with their top leaders, including Runiga and General Baudouin Ngaruye, Runiga’s chief of staff.

That same day the M23-Makenga faction announced the end of its military campaign.

Meanwhile, Rubens Mikindo, the federal president of Etienne Tshikedi’s Union for Democratic and Social Progress, the largest opposition party in the DRC, told IPS that even though Ntaganda handed himself over to the ICC, he should not expect leniency.

“Bosco Ntaganda served both the Kinshasa and Kigali regimes. Whatever he reveals after he has been handed over to the ICC won’t change anything, as was the case with Thomas Lubanga,” Mikindo said.

The ICC sentenced Lubanga, an ally of Ntaganda, to 14 years in jail last July. He had been transferred to the court in 2006, after being arrested by United Nations peacekeepers in 2005.

Ntaganda fought in the Rwandan genocide that ended in 1994 and later returned to DRC where he led a number of rebellions and at one stage was integrated into the Congolese army.

The Congolese government acknowledged reintegrating Ntaganda into the DRC army. This was done to meet the provisions of the Mar. 23, 2009 peace agreement – where the CNDP signed an agreement with the DRC government to become a political party and have its soldiers integrated into the Congolese army.

Later on, however, Ntaganda was accused of masterminding the M23 rebellion in April 2012, where mostly former CNDP soldiers turned against the government because of the poor conditions in the army. It resulted in the capture of Goma, the capital of North Kivu, in November.

Gaston Musemena, a close colleague of DRC President Joseph Kabila and a member of the National Assembly, concurred: “The DRC worked with Ntaganda in the interests of peace. Once he overstepped his mandate, the head of state’s only option was to cut ties with him.”

“Whatever revelations Ntaganda might make, this country will remain undivided,” he told IPS.

Chrysostome Kwede, a Kisangani lawyer in northeastern DRC, had a different view. “If Ntaganda’s arrest is not a charade, some members in the Congolese government who were involved in his crimes will be very worried. Ntaganda will finger some senior people in Kinshasa and Goma,” he told IPS.

Meanwhile, Goyon Milemba, who chairs a network for the reform of the security sector in North Kivu, told IPS: “The disintegration of M23 has made the possibility of a peace agreement more elusive.”

Godefroid Kä Mana, the co-author of a Jan. 15 open letter to the U.N. Secretary General by 20 eminent persons calling for a firm attitude towards the M23, challenged the one-sided version of events in eastern DRC. Kä Mana believes that “the focus on only one rebellion obscures the role of other militia.”

“Kinshasa’s responsibility in the spread of arms in Kivu is common knowledge. An armed group can be a ‘negative force’ by day, but ‘a positive force’ by night in support of the government,” Kä Mana, who is also the chair of the Pole Institute, an intercultural centre in the Great Lakes region, told IPS.

“With good governance, the war will end because there will be no fuel to justify the rebellions,” Kä Mana said.

*Additional reporting by Aimable Twahirwa in Kigali.

The M23 rebels are among the other rebel groups and Congolese army who have been accused of extorting money from locals to pay their soldiers. Credit: William Lloyd-George/IPS

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA , Mar 15 2013 (IPS)

On the way to his fields, Denise Mambo, a resident of Kitshanga, North Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, stops at a rope laid across his path.

“No one is allowed to go past this rope without paying the ‘lala salama’,” a Congolese army (FARDC) sergeant known only by the nickname Django tells IPS.

The “lala salama”, Swahili for “sleep in peace”, is an illegal tax often imposed by the army and rebels in the eastern DRC battlegrounds of North and South Kivu, Maniema, Katanga and Eastern provinces — and particularly in the Ituri region in the northeast.

Initially, “lala salama” was the name of a radio programme broadcast by Kisangani-based Radio Liberté, in northeastern DRC, in 2000. At the time, the programme was run by an officer belonging to a Congolese political grouping allied to Uganda, which accused Rwanda and its allies within the DRC of causing the country’s misfortunes.

Now “lala salama” is more about money than ideology.

Each person on their way to harvest their fields must pay a tax of one dollar or an equivalent of two to three kilogrammes of harvested crops to the men posted at the informal checkpoints. This illegal tax is sometimes called a “security contribution.”

“Sometimes the army and the militia will start fighting just to control a market or a path leading to the fields,” Jean Ngoa, the traditional leader for Kitshanga, North Kivu, told IPS.

The armed groups have also levied a tax parallel to the local authority taxes in market places. The tax ranges from 20 cents to 10 dollars, depending on the quantity of a vendor’s merchandise. This money is payable on market days, usually twice a week, and mirrors the rates of local authorities, who also collect them at similar times.

Ever since the failed integration of former rebels into the Congolese army in 2009, which led to the M23 rebellion or army mutiny in April 2012, the civilian population has become one of the main sources of income to feed the FARDC, armed rebel groups, and Rwandese militia such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.

Today, all five provinces of eastern DRC abound with militia, and thousands of civilians have been victims of looting, rape and murder, according to Juvenal Munubo, a parliamentarian for Walikale, North Kivu, and a member of the National Assembly’s Committee for Defence and Security.

“But civilians are also subjected to unbearable financial exploitation,” he told IPS.

General François Olenga was appointed chief-of-staff of the FARDC in November 2012, following accusations in a United Nations report that his predecessor, General Gabriel Amisi, was selling arms to the rebels. Olenga acknowledged the inefficiency of the army and tried to reassure his troops. “I will personally make sure that every soldier receives his pay,” he promised at the time.

Although army chiefs say the average salary of a soldier increased from 10 to 60 dollars a month between 2006 and 2013, soldiers say their pay is inadequate and irregular. Civilians have been the easiest prey for racketeering.

“If we are lucky enough to receive money, we get 60,000 dollars to pay one thousand men, including officers,” Captain George Sakombi of the 810th regiment in Masisi, North Kivu told IPS.

“We were in an army with no pay,” Lieutenant-Colonel Vianney Kazarama, the spokesperson for the M23 rebels who took control of Goma during November 2012, told IPS. The M23 rebels are from the former National Congress for the Defence of the People, which signed a peace accord with the Congolese government in March 2003.

The “lala salama” tax has encouraged the creation of armed groups. In North Kivu, for example, between 2008 and 2013, the number of armed groups increased from 12 to 25, according to civil society organisations. In South Kivu, the number of armed groups has risen from 11 in 2008 to some 20 in 2013.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a teacher from the market town of Kashuga, North Kivu told IPS that his village was attacked 12 times between April and July 2012 by the Congolese armed forces, the rebel Alliance of Patriots for a Free and Sovereign Congo, and the M26 group. The latter is a new rebel group, which is demanding the full implementation of the March 2009 peace accord between the government and the Congolese Patriotic Resistance, which is now a political party.

“When they took over Kashuga, the M26 forced every person over 13 years to pay 1,200 Congolese francs (just over a dollar),” he said. The tax is called “rengera buzima”, which means “protect life” in Kinyarwanda, the local language.

Unlike the “lala salama” where no one asks for proof of payment, “the M26 militia go through the IDP (internally displaced persons) camps, schools and churches to force everyone to show their ‘rengera buzima’ receipts,” the teacher said.

A woman gives water to her young daughter in Mugunga I camp near the city of Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Credit: Eddy Mbuyi-Oxfam International/CC-BY-2.0

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo, Feb 21 2013 (IPS)

Standing behind her market stall in Masisu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which overflows with cabbages, carrots and onions, Marceline Dusabe does not fit the traditional profile of an internally displaced person. She, unlike many others displaced by the internal conflict in North Kivu, is not in need of food aid.

In fact, thanks to the money that she and her husband both earn from selling the produce they grow, they are even able to live in the privacy of their own home – progress that Dusabe’s husband, Jules Birigimana, is particularly proud of.

“As soon as I was able to provide enough food for the family, I asked my hosts for permission to build my own hut on their land. I was able to do this from the money earned from my food garden,” Birigimana told IPS.

The couple is part of an estimated 910,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) across North Kivu, according to the United Nations, 150,000 of whom were displaced late last year during the heavy fighting between government forces and the rebel group M-23.

While many still have limited access to basic food and services, some 30,000 IDPs in Masisu have been able to provide for themselves thanks to a farming project called the Food Security Support Project, launched in July 2012 and run by the NGO Caritas International Belgium.

Back at the Rubaya market, the stalls that surround Dusabe’s are also owned by refugees who have benefitted from the food security project in this town some 60 kilometres to the west of the provincial capital, Goma.

The project, which is financed by the European Union, targets 5,500 IDP households (about 30,000 people) across eight small towns in the Masisu area. Each household is given access to about half a hectare of land to farm.

The refugees grow basic vegetables, like Dusabe does, or they can choose to grow two sorts of staple foods, with a choice of beans, sorghum, maize, and potatoes. In addition, each household is given ploughing implements, nutritional information, and technical support.

The partnership between Caritas, traditional local authorities and landowners was crucial to brokering access to farmland for the refugees. Land, indeed, is hotly disputed here in northern DRC, with 80 percent of the local court cases relating to land ownership, according to the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Diocese of Goma.

The agreements brokered by Caritas are grounded in verbal sharecropping arrangements that allow refugees the use of parcels of land in return for part of the harvest.

The refugees’ first harvest was in November 2012. On average each household produced 200 killogrammes (kgs) of onions, 120 kgs of cabbage and 20 kgs of carrots.

“Since their first harvest, the participants in the project have not only increased overall food supplies, but more importantly have improved the quality and quantity of their own food intake,” George Mugabo, a nutritionist at the Rubaya health centre, told IPS.

According to a survey carried out by Caritas in December, this first harvest helped reduce the number of vulnerable people amongst the 5,550 households from 51 percent to 38 percent in five months. “The survey forecast that by November 2013, the number of vulnerable people would be down to 25 percent,” Jean-Claude Mubenga, an agronomist at the food security project, told IPS.

The project has proved successful in part because the market vegetables can be harvested in a relatively short time. As conflict in the area has reduced the supply of produce, prices have also been more competitive.

“Buyers from Goma pay two dollars for 10 kgs of cabbage, five dollars for 10 kgs of carrots or onions, and 25 dollars for a 100-kg bag of potatoes,” Dusabe told IPS. She said that in Goma, the main market for Rubaya’s produce, the resale price is double.

With M23 rebels occupying Kibumba – a region 25 kilometres north of Goma, which used to be the major market supplier – the harvests from Rubaya, for the time being, seem to be offsetting the fall in supplies.

“It is still a temporary situation,” as Goma resident Nafisa Fatuma pointed out to IPS. But Albert Ngendo, head of the local administration in Rubaya, has pleased with the project’s results so far. “The resettled families no longer have to worry about access to relief aid. This is the most important issue for me,” he told IPS.

Lushebere's dairy herd now numbers 420. The farm in North Kivu, DR Congo began operating again in 2003 thanks to a 33,000-euro donation from Saint Ave-Goma Entraide. Courtesy: Saint Ave-Goma Entraide

By Taylor Toeka Kakala
GOMA, DR Congo, Nov 7 2012 (IPS)

Dairy cattle are again grazing on the rolling green hills of North Kivu province, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Twenty years ago, an explosion of ethnic violence tore through this region, and the restoration of the Lushebere farm can be seen as both a sign and a guarantee of a fragile peace.

Established in the 1960s by a priest named Carbonel, the Lushebere farm was forced to close in 1993 when serious ethnic clashes broke out in March of that year at Ntoto, in the Walikale territory, before spreading into other parts of North Kivu: Masisi and Rutshuru, as well as into Kalehe, in neighbouring South Kivu.

Houses, fields, schools, health centres, markets and churches were all burned, and livestock slaughtered or driven off by opposing militias. The farm’s managers were forced to suspend activity while many families fled Masisi to the provincial capital, Goma, or into neighbouring Rwanda and Burundi.

During the ten years the farm was closed, the eucalyptus trees there were cut down and sold to pay wages to the workers who remained behind to guard the property.

Across this region, where charcoal is the only source of fuel, illegal felling of trees is on the increase, even within the national park.

“Nine out of ten households use this black gold for heating and cooking,” said Emmanuel de Mérode, director of the Congolese Institute for the Conservation of Nature.

“Since 2003, we have planted 20,000 eucalyptus trees to replace those which were cut down and sold,” Father Diogène Harerimana, director of the farm, told IPS.

The 558-hectare farm began operating again in 2003 thanks to a 33,000-euro donation from Saint Ave-Goma Entraide (SAGE), an association created in France in 2002 to help build peace among the ethnic groups in Masisi through shared economic activities.

The funds arrived to the farm in the form of equipment that had already been purchased. SAGE has also provided the farm with a cold room to store its milk products and a 4×4 to transport them to market in Goma.

In July, the farm received another grant of 61,000 euros, this time from the Rotary Club of Vannes, a city in the west of France, and from Rotary International. This money has gone towards new equipment for pasteurising and packaging the milk.

A technician from the European company which sold the machinery to Lushebere visited the dairy to train employees on how to maintain the equipment. “We are now functioning autonomously,” said Harerimana.

With the new equipment, the farm is now packaging milk in one-litre bags which sell for a dollar each, though the daily output is still no more than 50 litres.

“Residents of Goma and humanitarian aid workers within a 20 kilometre radius (of Lushebere) are slowly getting used to this packaging for the milk,” said Harerimana.

Lushebere’s dairy herd now numbers 420, still far short of the 2,000 cows it had in 1990. The farm also had 1,000 employees 20 years ago. Today it employs 60 workers, with monthly salaries of between 25 and 130 dollars.

But since July, the farm has been able to increase production of cheese from five to 35 kilos per day.

“Now, our milk is first tested to detect any traces of bacteria before being transferred into big tanks and processed into cheese,” said Harerimana.

The rounds of cheese are sold for five dollars a kilo, compared to three dollars/kg for cheese produced elsewhere – a premium consumers are willing to pay because it’s made from pasteurised milk.

“What’s rare is dear, and what’s dear is rare,” said Jacques Bonana, one of the farm’s customers. Bonana works for a humanitarian agency at the Lushebere displaced persons camp.

Many people agree that the dairy is the best in the region, said Charles Balume, owner of a restaurant in Goma, the capital of this eastern province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Speaking to IPS at the Francophonie Village in Kinshasa, the capital of DRC, in mid-October, Carly Kasivita Nzanzu, provincial minister of agriculture and rural development in North Kivu, said “These new facilities will again make this operation a true tool for socio-economic development for the Lushebere region and for all of North Kivu.”

In this region, where suspicion and mistrust between people and communities linger, Monsignor Théophile Kaboy, the bishop of Goma, doesn’t hide his concern.

He fears the return of militiamen from Ntoto: the Raïa Mutomboki (meaning “we’re clearing non-natives” in Swahili) who often fight against the Nyatura (which means “erase and uproot the so-called natives” in Kinyarwanda). Each militia is supported by politicians.