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Amnesty International today appealed to governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda and Rwanda, whose forces are now engaged in military offensives inside the DRC against the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) and the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR), to fully observe international humanitarian and human rights law while conducting military operations. The organization also appealed to LRA and FDLR armed groups to immediately halt attacks against civilians and respect international humanitarian law. “Both the LRA and FDLR have an established tactic of inflicting deliberate and horrendous human rights abuses on civilians when they are attacked,” said Andrew Philip, Amnesty International’s researcher on the DRC. “Systematic reprisals by both armed groups are entirely predictable and must be countered effectively.” Amnesty International called on the three governments to develop clear plans to prevent reprisal attacks against civilians by the FDLR and LRA and to ensure that civilians do not pay the price of these military offensives. All feasible precautions must be taken by the governments during the planning of the military operations and the attacks to avoid civilian casualties. “Many tens of thousands of Congolese civilians are caught up in these wide-ranging government offensives. The LRA and FDLR also have thousands of civilians -- family members as well as adult and child abductees --- in their midst. Government forces must at all times distinguish carefully between civilians and fighters”. The UN peacekeeping force in the DRC, MONUC, must also be prepared to intervene to protect civilians and assume a particular responsibility to escort people fleeing the conflict zones to places of safety, Amnesty International said. “New UN Security Council resolutions 1856 and 1857 on the DRC emphasize that the protection of civilians has absolute priority in all MONUC operations. The current situation is an important test for MONUC of the application of these resolutions in practice,” said Andrew Philip.
Background
At the invitation of the DRC government, a reported 2,000 Rwandan troops today crossed the border into North-Kivu province, eastern DRC, to join DRC army units in operations to disband the FDLR. Previous army operations against the FDLR proved inconclusive, but were attended by systematic FDLR reprisals against civilians and large-scale population displacement. Ugandan troops have been engaged alongside DRC government forces in an offensive against LRA fighters in Haut-Uélé territory, north-eastern DRC, since mid-December 2008. At least 500 civilians are reported to have been killed, many hundreds including children abducted and scores of villages looted and burned in LRA reprisals. Around 100,000 are believed to have been displaced by the violence.

DR Kongo, 30. Okt 2008 – „Humanitäre Krise von katastrophalen Ausmassen“ (UN GS Ban Ki Moon)

aktueller Konfliktausbruch im Ostkongo – Waffenstillstand in Goma --- Diplomatie in Eilaktion zur Konfliktresolution am kommenden Wochenende (1./2.11.08) --- Beratung der EU Aussenminister zu Entsendung einer Europäischen Eingreiftruppe am Montag, 3.11. in Brüssel

Quelle: taz.de

MONUC -- News: Waffenstillstand in Goma 30. Okt 2008

Nairobi/Kinshasa_October 30, 2008 _ Calm has returned to the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping mission said Thursday after four days of fighting that saw Tutsi rebels come close to taking the city of Goma.

General Laurent Nkunda, leader of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), Wednesday evening announced a unilateral ceasefire to "prevent panic in Goma." The UN peacekeeping mission in the DR Congo (MONUC) said that the ceasefire was holding.

"There has been no new fighting as of last night," MONUC spokesman Madnodje Mounoubai told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

UN helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles supported Congolese troops near Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, over the past few days as they struggled to contain Nkunda's forces.

The Congolese army went into full retreat Wednesday, joining tens of thousands of refugees streaming toward Goma after the CNDP took control of small towns near the city.

Silvia Holten, spokeswoman for charity World Vision, told dpa Wednesday that Goma was in state of panic as Nkunda's troops converged.

Congolese armed forces were mixed in with the refugees and were reportedly panicking and firing in the air to get civilians out of their way.

The United Nations on Wednesday ordered all local aid agencies to evacuate their staff from Goma as Nkunda's troops approached the outskirts of the city.

There were reports that the rebels had entered Goma, but Mounoubai said that the town was secure.

"There was some firing inside Goma, but as of now Goma is under MONUC control," he said.

Despite the ceasefire, Mounoubai said that the movement of refugees was continuing.

"It (refugee movement) is going in both directions," he said. "People from outside are fleeing into Goma and people inside Goma, who don't know what is going on, are fleeing."

The UN peacekeeping mission in Congo has engaged the rebels over the past few days, pounding their positions with gunships, but there forces were stretched to the limit Alan Doss, the top UN envoy to the Democratic Republic of Congo, appealed Tuesday for more soldiers. Further troops have yet to be committed.

Of the 17,000 UN peacekeepers in the sprawling country, around 6,000 are deployed in North Kivu.

The CNDP and other groups in January signed peace accords designed to end sporadic clashes that occurred in 2007, four years after a war that began in 1998 officially ended.

But the CNDP and government soldiers have been involved in repeated clashes in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu since late August.

Congo's government has accused neighbouring Rwanda of amassing troops on its border with a view to backing Nkunda, who says he is fighting to protect Tutsis from armed Hutu groups.

There were some reports of firing across the Rwandan border on Wednesday, but they could not be verified.

Many Hutus fled to Congo after the 1994 massacres in Rwanda when Hutu militia and military killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the space of a few months.

The UN Security Council condemned the fighting and called on Rwanda and Congo to defuse tensions.

The UN said about 250,000 civilians have fled the fighting since August, bringing the number of refugees in North Kivu to almost 1 million.

"The numbers of internally displaced are already huge, and it looks like it is going to grow," UN spokesman Ron Redmond said.

Doctors Without Borders, which said that on Sunday alone it treated 70 war wounded, warned Thursday that the situation was still "extremely volatile" and said that the refugees urgently needed shelter, food and clean water.

Many of those who have fled to the environs of Goma were already refugees from other areas, where they lived in camps near towns engulfed by the last few days' fighting.

More than 5 million people are estimated to have died as a result of the 1998-2003 war in the resource-rich nation, most of them from hunger and disease.

The conflict is often referred to as the African World War, owing to the large number of different armed forces involved __________________________________________________________________________________________

MONUC News: Laurent Nkundas Rebellenarmee CNDP vor GOMA 30. Okt 2008

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo, Oct 30, 2008 - The leader of Congolese rebels warned UN forces blocking their way to the refugee-swollen city of Goma on Thursday that they would open fire if the UN tried to prevent their takeover of the city.

Around 800 peacekeepers from the UN's MONUC force are the only obstacle to a complete rebel takeover of the strategic eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city after government forces fled the rebel advance on Wednesday.

The UN Security Council has condemned the rebel assault, and begun moves to send troop reinforcements to Goma.

Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda said he wanted to avoid a direct confrontation with UN peacekeepers, but would not shirk a fight for the city if necessary.

"We will respect MONUC. We cannot engage them, but if they shoot at us, they are soldiers, we will have to defend ourselves," he told AFP in a telephone interview conducted in English.

"MONUC cannot refuse me to go to Goma. They are incapable of securing the people of Goma so how can they refuse me to go there."

Nkunda's forces declared a unilateral ceasefire Wednesday after being kept at around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Goma by MONUC helicopter gunships.

UN forces had blocked tens of thousands of people displaced by the fighting from entering Goma, a French aid group said Thursday.

"In Goma, tens of thousands of people fleeing the fighting are trapped at the gates of the city by MONUC," the Secours Catholique said.

The UNHCR said 45,000 displaced people had fled a camp outside the city on Wednesday, panicked by a rushed withdrawal of government forces.

The UN is meanwhile scrambling to bring in extra troops from other parts of eastern DRC.

"We are trying to bring additional troops to protect the civilians in Goma in the coming three to seven days," the head of UN peacekeeping Alain Le Roy told reporters.

The 17,000-strong MONUC has roughly 6,000 troops deployed in Nord-Kivu to bolster weak government forces in their battle with disciplined, Nkunda forces.

France's UN Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert told reporters that European Union foreign ministers would meet in Brussels Monday to discuss various options to bolster MONUC. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Wednesday that Paris backed sending an EU battle group of up to 1,500 troops to DRC.

This follows a call by DRC President Joseph Kabila for the dispatch of a "multinational force" to beef up MONUC.

Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said he was in favour of sending 2,000-3,000 European troops to the conflict-hit area.

"I think that European military action makes sense... Humanitarian corridors need to be opened up and a cease-fire must be respected," De Gucht told the French language Le Soir newspaper.

The city was gripped by chaos Wednesday as government troops and residents scrambled to leave, panicked by the influx of some 20,000 refugees from further north.

Nkunda, speaking from the Masisi district of eastern Congo, where his National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) forces are headquartered, said the inhabitants of Nord-Kivu were still vulnerable to atrocities committed by Congolese forces and an allied Rwandan Hutu rebel group.

He argued he would have to take control of Goma if MONUC proved unable to protect civilians there.

"If MONUC is incapable of securing Goma, then I have to," Nkunda said.

The 15-member UN Security Council unanimously adopted a non-binding statement late Wednesday that condemns moves by ethnic Tutsi warlord Nkunda's forces and "demands that it brings its operations to an end."

It also expressed concern at "reports (of) heavy weapons fire across the Democratic Republic of Congo-Rwanda border."

Kinshasa has accused Rwanda of backing Nkunda while Kigali has repeatedly demanded that the DRC disarm Rwandan rebels believed to have played an important in the 1994 genocide against Rwanda's Tutsi minority. _________________________________________________________________________________________ BBC NEWS World Service 30 OCT 2008. 9.00 p.m.

Urgent diplomacy in Congo crisis Diplomatic moves are under way to end a crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which has threatened to spill over into neighbouring Rwanda. The UN is sending envoys to both DR Congo and Rwanda, while a senior US official is also due in the region. France's foreign minister said the EU would consider whether to send troops to aid humanitarian efforts. Tens of thousands of people are fleeing a rebel advance on the city of Goma, in the east of DR Congo. Oxfam and other international aid agencies said they had decided to evacuate international staff from Goma. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the violence was creating a humanitarian crisis of "catastrophic dimensions". A spokeswoman for Mr Ban said the UN was despatching envoys to Kinshasa, capital of DR Congo, and Kigali in Rwanda, as both sides accused the other of launching cross-border incursions. During several days of fighting Tutsi rebels under the leadership of Gen Laurent Nkunda have advanced to just outside Goma, where they have paused and declared a ceasefire.

Gen Nkunda has told the BBC the goal of his forces was to protect his Tutsi community from attack by Rwandan Hutu rebels, some of whom are accused of taking part in the 1994 genocide. But many in DR Congo say that Rwanda supports Gen Nkunda's forces - something Rwanda denies. Correspondents say that a race for the area's mineral wealth is fuelling the conflict as much as ethnic enmities. Diplomats are using the current pause in hostilities to try to resolve the situation. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has spoken with Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and EU Aid Commissioner Louis Michel has met Congolese President Joseph Kabila in an attempt to bring the two leaders together. The foreign minister of Rwanda is visiting Kinshasa, where US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer is expected to arrive.

Ms Frazer said on Wednesday that she had no evidence that Rwandan troops were on Congolese soil, but that she believed Gen Nkunda's rebels were using Rwanda as a safe haven. Tens of thousands of civilians have fled towards Goma as the rebels have advanced on the city. Aid agencies have said they are unable to work in the climate of violence and many people are without food, shelter or clean water. The UN children's agency, Unicef, said the latest bout of fighting had resulted in a "very bad" humanitarian situation. "We're talking tens of thousands of people who have fled towards Goma and thousands more who are fleeing north to a town called Kane Byunga," Unicef's Jaya Murthy told the BBC's World Today programme. "Many of the population that have fled are staying in vacant schools, in churches and outside." On Thursday Gen Nkunda said he was opening a "humanitarian corridor" so that aid could reach the thousands of people trapped between his forces and UN soldiers backing up government troops. Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said a potential European force of as many as 1,500 soldiers could provide humanitarian assistance in Goma but would not fight the rebels. He said the EU security committee would meet in Brussels to discuss the idea. Retreating Congolese troops were blamed for causing chaos in the city of Goma, which was calm but tense early on Thursday after a night of gunfire and looting. There are reports that several people were killed. Correspondents say the 17,000-strong UN force in DR Congo - the world's largest - is stretched to breaking point. The UN Security Council took no action on a request from the country's mission head, Alan Doss, for temporary reinforcements but said some of its peacekeepers could be redeployed from elsewhere in DR Congo to back up those in Goma.

NEWS-ARCHIV:

DRC: Thousands displaced after rebel attacks

KINSHASA, 5 June 2008 (IRIN) - Up to 5,000 people have been displaced following a Rwandan rebel attack on two civilian camps in a village in the Democratic Republic of Congo province of North Kivu, a humanitarian official said.

"The Force armées pour la libération du Rwanda (FDLR) attacked two camps in Kinyando [on 4 June] where the residents of a neighbouring village had sought refuge after fleeing fighting between the FDLR and the Congolese army," Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich, a spokesperson for the United Nations Mission in the DRC (MONUC) said. Kinyando is located 70 km north of Goma, the main town in the province.

At least six people were killed and another 14 injured in the attack which displaced between 2,000 and 5,000 people, Dietrich said.

The rebel atack was in reaction to military operations launched by the DRC's armed forces against Rwandan rebels in the villages, he said.

The special representative of the UN Secretary General in the DRC, Alan Doss, along with US and European Union representatives in the region condemned the "terrorist" acts against the civilian population. A team had also been sent to the area to assess the situation.

Following increased security after the attacks, some of the displaced people had begun returning to the village, Dietrich said.

The attack took place at a time when the government and two small Rwandan Hutu rebel groups were awaiting the implementation of a roadmap for their disarmament and demobilisation. The roadmap was announced in the town of Kisangani in late May.

The FDLR declined did not participate in the Kisangani process and has disowned the roadmap.

ei/aw/am[END]

DRC-RWANDA: DRC: A small step towards peace in the east (analysis)

KISANGANI, 5 June 2008 (IRIN) - A disarmament pledge by two minor Rwandan Hutu rebel groups in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a welcome, if small, step to restoring peace in the devastated region, according to the government and analysts.

Rwandan insurgents are one of the key elements in a complex web of armed groups in a region where violence, especially sexual violence against women, is still widespread five years after the official end of DRC's last civil war. Well over a million people in eastern DRC are internally displaced and most depend on assistance from humanitarian agencies.

Under the 'roadmap for disarmament', unveiled in the city of Kisangani on 26 May, the Ralliement pour l'unité et la democratié (RUD) and the Rassemblement populaire rwandais (RPR) agreed to gather at two sites and start handing over their weapons. In return, they want their security to be guaranteed, the UN mission in DRC, MONUC, to oversee the process, and the DRC government not to forcibly repatriate them to Rwanda.

"I think since we are offering to disarm and to be relocated, the international community will aid in convincing the Rwandan government that it is essential that there is a political framework; a framework is simply inter-Rwandan dialogue to ensure the fighters [in DRC] feel safe to go home," RUD spokesman Augustin Dukuze told IRIN.

The Rwandan government, however, has long refused to talk to those it holds responsible for the 1994 genocide. President Paul Kagame twice sent troops into eastern DRC to try to neutralise the so-called 'génocidaires'.

The roadmap was immediately disowned by the much larger, if somewhat fragmented, Forces démocratiques pour la liberation du Rwanda (FDLR), which boasts around 7,000 fighters, compared to RUD and RPR's estimated 400.

"Whatever happened in Kisangani does not concern us because we were not present," said FDLR spokesman Ignace Murwanashyaka.

Long road ahead

Nevertheless, for Anneke van Woudenberg, a senior researcher on DRC for Human Rights Watch, the agreement left room for optimism.

"The Kisangani meeting was a step in the right direction by encouraging some Rwandan armed groups in Congo to disarm and resettle in Rwanda or elsewhere, but we are far from reaching the end of the road," she told IRIN.

"It's the FDLR who pose a serious problem for peace in eastern Congo and the safety and security of its citizens. Their failure to participate was disappointing," said Woudenberg, adding, however, that armed action against the group should only be used once all other means had been exhausted.

In November 2007 in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, the DRC and Rwandan governments renewed their commitment to dealing with such armed groups in an agreement that provided for the use of military action if efforts towards voluntary disarmament failed.

"As part of these non-violent options, diplomats must remind the Congolese government that they must stop any financial or military support given to FDLR combatants, either directly or indirectly, through other groups . They must also urge Rwandan authorities to take concrete steps towards providing an environment that would encourage the voluntary return of FDLR combatants," added Woudenberg.

David Mugnier, Central Africa Project Director for the International Crisis Group, was also encouraged by the roadmap, despite the small size of the groups involved, saying it could finally "kick start the process of disarmament, repatriation or relocation", not least because the process is backed by the DRC government, civil society in the Kivu provinces and most of the international community.

"Whether or not these two groups will effectively regroup and disarm is a bit too early to say but [...] the process seems to be on track and this could create an incentive for other combatants to join it," Mugnier told IRIN.

But the process is not without risks, he added. "It cannot be excluded that the FDLR could rapidly take control of the areas vacated by RUD and RPR. For the moment the capacity of MONUC and the [DRC military] to challenge them is limited."

Renewed efforts

MONUC spokesman, Kemal Saiki, told IRIN that representatives of "certain branches of the FDLR" had actually been present during the Kisangani talks, even if the group proper had distanced itself from the roadmap.

"So I don't think it will be long before discussions take place. [But] there is a principle that is not negotiable and that is the departure or the temporary relocation [of the armed Rwandan Hutu groups in eastern DRC]", he said.

Getting the FDLR on board "is the aim of the Nairobi process", added Saiki.

"There are sensitisation efforts going on... there are also political and diplomatic options and military pressure that are still present."

Some of the diplomatic pressure comes from the United States, an active sponsor of peace efforts in eastern DRC. "The time is now for the Rwandan armed groups in Eastern Congo to disarm and repatriate or face consequences of further isolation and condemnation," the State Department warned in late May.

Seraphin Ngwej, Joseph Kabila's roving ambassador and special envoy for the Great Lakes region, told IRIN that two disarmament sites and eight transit sites had already been identified.

"We are not talking about size of the groups involved but the possibility of solving once and for all the issue of Rwandan combatants in the DRC. In the DRC, there's no RUD, FDLR/FOCA (the armed wing of FDLR), no RPR, there is only the problem of the Rwandan armed groups, and once one of the groups is involved in the process, we consider it a very good thing," he said.

Last chance

Congo's Interior and Security Minister, Gen. Denis Kalume, said, "This process [disarmament and demobilisation] is the last chance for all the Rwandan armed groups before forceful action is taken."

According to MONUC, the DRC army has already deployed supplementary battalions in North Kivu's Walikale district, and in areas previously under FDLR's control.

However, Philippe Biyoya, a professor of political science at Kinshasa's Protestant University, said this was a dangerous move.

"I think using military operations to compel them to disarm won't be a solution for the government because the FDLR are well organised and that will trigger a new Rwandan war on Congolese soil," he warned.

ei-am/bn/jm[END]

DRC: Hidden killers on the loose

KINSHASA, 16 April 2008 (IRIN) - The full extent of the threat posed by landmines and other unexploded ordnance in the Democratic Republic of Congo is unknown but the deadly weapons are a daily concern for tens of thousands of displaced people in the east.

"Mines and UXOs [unexploded ordnance] are strewn all over the countryside," Francesca Fontanini, external relations officer for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in DRC, said. "They are among the most pernicious consequences of the armed conflict."

The mines and UXOs, according to the agency, could affect the return and reintegration of an estimated 800,000 people displaced by years of fighting in North Kivu.

They are also a danger to those who may return home to areas with unmapped minefields. Children are particularly vulnerable because some of the weapons look like toys.

"In Dongo, five children who had just [been] repatriated died after a grenade exploded as they were playing with it," Philippe Sondizi Dombale, head of Humanitas Ubangi, a local NGO in Molegbe, northern DRC, told IRIN in the capital Kinshasa.

"Another boy died in Gbadolite after a landmine he had been using for several days as a hammer - out of ignorance - blew up in his face."

More than 892 people have been killed and 1,118 injured by these deadly weapons since 2001, say activists.

The DRC government ratified the global anti-personnel mine ban treaty in 2002, but activists say very little has been done to implement it. And no comprehensive impact surveys have been conducted because of the volatile security situation across the country in addition to logistical difficulties.

"Up to now little has been done ... a choice has to be made [between] the mines continuing to cause casualties and the most urgent thing - to try to stop it," Harouna Ouedraogo, programme director of the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre (UNMACC), said.

The government says work is ongoing to address the plight of victims. "Legislation regarding the rights of victims to assistance is being drawn up," interior minister Denis Kalume said during the International Mine Action Day celebrations on 4 April in Kinshasa.

"A focal point will be created for coordination and we will work closely with our international partners so that national competency in this area can be achieved," he added.

The government, he emphasised, was committed to fulfilling its obligations under the Ottawa (Mine Ban) treaty.

Clean-up programmes

According to Mine Advisory Group (MAG) country director Marc Angibeaud, de-mining efforts through international NGOs such as MAG, Handicap International and DanChurchAid, have cleared the countryside of thousands of anti-personnel mines and UXO, especially in Equateur, Maniema, Katanga and South Kivu provinces.

Work has also been done by the commercial de-mining company, Mechem.

>From June 2007 to January 2008, more than 28,000 sqkm of land was cleared; over 3,500 weapons, 5,000 UXO and 35,000 items of ammunition destroyed, and mine education sessions conducted for over 10,000 people. De-miners have also been trained.

"Clearance activities have not only prevented accidents from explosions but also freed land for agriculture and rendered safe many roads and a water source crucial to the villagers' daily activities," MAG noted in a 31 January statement.

"The destruction of the ammunition also means it will not be available for trafficking - a significant problem in the Great Lakes region - thus contributing to regional peace-building."

Another NGO, Synergie pour la Lutte Anti Mines (SYLAM), is teaching internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees in North Kivu how to spot half-buried or fully exposed explosive devices and what to do.

SYLAM has recorded 111 deaths and 127 injuries caused by these weapons in North Kivu since 2003 - though none yet inside IDP camps. Together with the UNMACC and other NGOs, it has identified 51 polluted sites.

Ouedraogo, however, said the achievements so far were merely the tip of the iceberg. As long as much of the country remained inaccessible and the people remained poor and ignorant, the problem would prevail. There were reports, for example, of some people using the explosives for fishing.

According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), both rebel and government forces used anti-personnel mines during the DRC's numerous conflicts. There have been no reports of use of anti-personnel mines by government forces, however, since the DRC signed the landmine treaty.

Since May 2006, an increasing number of small arms and ammunition, UXO and mines have been handed over to authorities. From 2003 to May 2006, some 2,244 mines were destroyed.

But the problem remains huge. Surveys by DanChurchAid covering 153,000 sqkm in Katanga, South Kivu and Maniema, for example, found 171 mined and 583 UXO-contaminated areas.

De-mining is an expensive business and in DRC, where infrastructure is lacking, it becomes even more difficult.

The UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) says work has been slowed down by several key challenges - survey and mapping sites, provision of adequate assistance to victims, awareness-raising and the creation of mine legislation. As a result, landmines and UXOs continue to hamper economic development, and maim and kill hundreds in the vast country every year.

"Millions in the DRC continue to live with the daily fear of being killed or disabled," Ross Mountain, Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in the DRC, said on 4 April. "Much has been done, but a lot of challenges remain."

DRC: Mass graves found in Bas-Congo, rights group claims

KINSHASA, 11 April 2008 (IRIN) - A Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) human rights group has said mass graves with human remains have been found in the southwestern Bas-Congo Province where security forces recently clashed with followers of a religious sect.

"The most recent of these graves, containing the remains of 20 bodies, was discovered on 31 March in Materne, between Boma and Matadi towns," Amigo Gonde, coordinator of the NGO, African Association for Human Rights (Asadho), told IRIN.

"The other two graves - discovered further away and several days earlier - contained some 30 bodies."

Gonde, who demanded an independent inquiry, said one of the graves had apparently been dug up. "The grave at Materne had been dug up by unidentified persons and its contents taken to an unknown place, but there are indications to suggest the bodies were indeed there," he said.

DRC authorities could not be reached immediately for comment, but aid workers in the region said they were aware of the claims and were investigating.

Civilians in the area said a doctor in a rural health clinic, who first spotted one of the graves, had been questioned by local authorities.

"Justin Mabiala Ma Mabiala - who is the chief doctor of the rural health zone - was questioned for divulging a professional secret," according to a statement issued by another local human rights NGO, Voice of the Voiceless.

The remains, the NGO quoted local residents as saying, were suspected to be those of Bundu Dia Kongo sect followers because shreds of cloth and flags used by its members were found at the site.

Gonde denounced a continuing crackdown on the sect, saying security personnel were trying to apprehend some followers who had escaped into nearby forests.

Scores of people were killed in February and March during clashes between police and followers of Bundu Dia Kongo, which is contesting state authority. Aid workers said many others were wounded - some of whom sought treatment at various health facilities.

Aid workers said they saw empty villages with razed homes and that some of the wounded were forced to flee health centres. Some of the victims of violence were hit by stray bullets when they fled.

Bundu Dia Kongo's spiritual leader and national assembly deputy, Ne Mwanda Nsemi, said he would initiate international judicial proceedings against "the massacre" of his members.

The sect is seeking to emancipate traditional African or Congolese culture and demands the restoration of the former Kingdom of the Congo. It has set up tribunals to try citizens who break the law and has its own police force. Occasionally they lower the national flag to hoist their own.

DRC: Torrential rains kill 15 and leave hundreds homeless

KINSHASA, 8 April 2008 (IRIN) - Fifteen people have died and hundreds more were left homeless after days of torrential rains in Kasai Occidental and Bandundu provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a humanitarian official told IRIN.

"At least 500 people have been left without shelter; some are still sleeping in the rubble of their houses while others have found refuge with their neighbours," Marie-Madeleine Kaneku, the director of the NGO Carotas in Luebo district of Kasai Occidental, said.

The dead included three children aged between six and 10, who died when the walls of their homes collapsed. Others were seriously injured.

At least 100 houses were destroyed by the torrential rains and the accompanying strong winds on 2 April in the town of Tshikapa, Kaneku said.

"Two schools have also been damaged by the rains," she said.

Heavy rains were also reported in Tshikapa, 101km away, where a hospital was destroyed. "The main building at the health centre of Kapemba was damaged," she said.

"Following the damage to the health centre we were forced to evacuate all the sick," François Kamudji, the medical director at the hospital, said.

Kamudji said the damaged building was one of two that had remained after three other buildings had been destroyed by previous heavy rains. The hospital was built in 1950.

"We are in a very difficult situation and we will not be able to deal with any cases of emergency surgery; the medication and healthcare equipment was destroyed by the rain," he said.

The heavy rains covered a stretch of 350km. Kaneku said those affected by the rains had not yet received help.

ei/aw/eo/mw[END]

Kongo/UN/Menschenrechte/ UN-Menschenrechtsexperte beklagt sexuelle Gewalt im Kongo

Nairobi/Kinshasa (dpa) - Der UN-Menschenrechtsexperte Titinga Pacéré hat nach einem Besuch im Kongo die anhaltende sexuelle Gewalt gegen Frauen und Mädchen in dem zentralafrikanischen Land scharf verurteilt. Die Menschenrechtssituation im Kongo sei weiterhin «besorgniserregend», zitierte die UN-Mission im Kongo (Monuc) Pacéré in einer am Dienstag veröffentlichten Stellungnahme. Fast überall im Land, besonders aber im Osten, gebe es keine ausreichende Sicherheit.

Allein in der Region Süd Kivu seien in den Jahren 2005 bis 2007 mehr als 14 000 Vergewaltigungen gemeldet worden. Die tatsächliche Zahl der Verbrechen dürfte noch höher sein. «Nur 287 Fälle wurden vor Gericht gebracht», sagte Parcéré. Die «Straflosigkeit» in weiten Teilen des Kongos müsse aufhören, Gerichte müssten mit ausreichend Personal und Finanzmitteln ausgestattet werden.

Als positiven Schritt bezeichnete der UN-Experte die Friedenskonferenz im ostkongolesischen Goma vor wenigen Wochen. Sie sei ein «Schlüssel zum Frieden im Kongo». Noch aber herrsche in weiten Teilen des Landes Gesetzlosigkeit, die durch die verschiedenen bewaffneten Gruppen verschärft werde. Pacéré war zum fünften Mal im Kongo, um einen Bericht über die Menschenrechtssituation zu erstellen. dpa ek xx n1 mo

181148 Mrz 08

CONGO: Arrest over abduction of indigenous family's child

BRAZZAVILLE, 27 March 2008 (IRIN) - The High Court in southwestern Congo has indicted a member of an influential family on charges that he was responsible for the forced disappearance 19 years ago of a child from a family of indigenous people, a human rights organisation reported.

Omer Gapa, a former local council official in Sabiti district, was detained by the police on 21 March after the court issued an arrest warrant. He has been accused of taking a six-year-old girl in 1989 against the wishes of her parents. The child has not been heard of since, the Observatoire Congolais des Droits de l'Homme (OCDH) said in a statement.

"Mr Gapa's insolence amid numerous requests [for an explanation] by parents of the girl forced us to go to court to force him to shed light on this matter," said Gabriel Mavanga Bakala, the OCDH official in charge of legal affairs. Gapa at one point claimed that the girl had been taken to France for education.

There are several groups of indigenous communities, often referred to as 'Pygmies', in Congo's forests, including the Baka, Bakola, Aka, Babongo, Bambuti and Batwa, who have often complained of being marginalised and shunned by other communities. Human rights groups say the communities suffer discrimination, exploitation and disrespect by members of other ethnic groups.

OCDH and APSPC, an association championing the rights of indigenous people in Congo, took up the matter on behalf of the parents of the missing child.

They said the case was further proof of marginalisation, discrimination and ill-treatment of the indigenous peoples of Congo.

Both organisations have recommended that the government should keep its promise to the international community and adopt a draft law promoting the protection of the rights of these communities. The law was drafted by the Department of Justice and Human Rights more than three years ago.

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DRC: Fear, uncertainty deter North Kivu IDPs from going home

GOMA, 26 March 2008 (IRIN) - Hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in North Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are reluctant to go back to their villages for fear of attacks despite a truce signed in January between the government and various armed groups.

"We fled our house because [armed groups] were attacking and raping people and looting property," said Gina Kavira, 38, who fled with her husband and eight children from the village of Bambou five months ago and who has been living with a host family in three cramped rooms in Vitshumbi on the shores of Lake Edward.

"There is not enough to eat here. I try and catch fish. Normally, I catch three in a day. I sell two and feed my family on the other," she told IRIN. "My children can't go to school because we can't afford school fees. I'd like to return home if there was peace and if I could afford the transport. All we want is peace. I don't know when we will be able to return."

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) will build a new shelter on a 54-hectare site near the town of Rutshuru to alleviate congestion in other IDP camps. UNHCR senior field officer Marie-Antoinette Okimba said the camp will cater for an estimated 16,000 people.

The new camp at Nahanga is intended to relieve pressure on communities in the towns of Rutshuru and Kiwanja, which have hosted 65,000 IDPs since October 2007.

According to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), 70 percent of IDPs in North Kivu live with host families, while only 30 percent actually live in formal IDP camps.

Many displaced people are also occupying communal spaces, such as churches, village halls and classrooms.

"In the beginning it is very easy for host communities to look after newly-arrived IDPs, but after a few months it causes big problems," said Okimba. "To provide food and shelter after long periods becomes very difficult."

The ceasefire agreement, signed on 23 January in the North Kivu capital Goma, called for an immediate cessation of hostilities, disengagement of troops and the creation of a buffer zone.

Parties to the pact include the government and armed groups such as the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), headed by renegade general Laurent Nkunda, as well as traditional warriors of shifting alliances generically referred to as Mayi Mayi.

A Hutu-dominated armed group many of whose members fled Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), has also been party to the conflict in eastern DRC. However, it was not included in the January agreement because it is considered one of the foreign armed groups in DRC, which should be dealt with according to the provisions of a separate agreement signed in Nairobi in November 2007. Under this deal the FDLR should be disarmed and its members repatriated to Rwanda.

According to Venetia Holland, a civilian official of the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC), despite the nominal ceasefire agreement, incidents of extortion, sexual violence, lootings, abduction, forced labour, killings and even alleged massacres continue to be perpetrated by both elements believed to be members of FDLR and some signatories of the Goma accord.

Okimba said that some civilians had tried to return home only to become victims of the violence.

"In the beginning of March many IDPs in the Rutshuru region tried to return to their homes, but they are coming back to the safety of the camps saying that [troops loyal to Nkunda] are accusing them of aiding and helping other troops," she said.

Civilians have often been caught between rival forces and accused of complicity with the "opposition" by the various rival groups.

Around Rutshuru, the IDP camps of Kasasa and Nyongera, which cater for a combined population of 13,000, are heavily overcrowded, sparking fears of an imminent cholera outbreak.

Elinor Raikes, the Rapid Response Mechanism Coordinator with the International Rescue Committee, said: "The situation in the camps is very precarious. Both camps are completely saturated and unless a solution is found quickly then there's a very high risk of public health problems like cholera."

In Kasasa, 60 people share each latrine; a figure that is three times the recommended standard of 20 people per latrine, according to Raikes.

Commissions set up to outline the implementation modalities of the Goma deal, which are chaired by the government and include representatives from all the signatory armed groups, are expected to begin their work before the end of March.

Holland, however, said it is unlikely that the protection situation will improve significantly, or that there will be any mass return and reintegration of IDPs until civilians witness a real military withdrawal on the ground.

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DRC: Rise in TB cases linked to co-infection with HIV

KINSHASA, 25 March 2008 (PLUSNEWS) - Efforts to combat the spread of tuberculosis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been slowed down by the problem of TB patients also infected with HIV, local health officials said.

"The disease [TB] is on the increase because there is a link with HIV - there are co-infected patients. These are the patients who have caused the number of TB cases to be on the rise," said Guylaine Tshitenge, an activist of the NGO National anti-Tuberculosis League in Congo, during a march organised in Kinshasa on 24 March to mark the World Day to Combat Tuberculosis.

Minister of Health Makwenge Kaput said close to 100,000 cases of TB were recorded in DRC in 2006, ranking the country 11th of the 22 states most affected by tuberculosis in the world, and 4th in Africa.

"TB is still a serious public health problem despite the policy of free medication available across the country," said Makwenge.

He said people infected with TB took too long to seek treatment after developing the first cough, one of the symptoms of the disease.

"So they continue not only transmitting germs of tuberculosis in the community, but they also run the risk of dying of this disease," Makwenge added.

According to the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Tuberculosis Control 2008 released on 17 March, the pace of progress to control the TB epidemic slowed slightly in 2006. From 2001 to 2005, the average rate at which new TB cases were detected was increasing by six percent per year, but between 2005 and 2006 that rate of increase was cut in half, to three percent.

The agency attributed the slowdown in detection to the fact that some national programmes that were making rapid progress were unable to continue at the same pace in 2006.

"Moreover, in most African countries there has been no increase in the detection of TB cases through national programmes. Other studies have also shown that many patients are treated by private care providers, and by non-governmental, faith-based and community organisations, thus escaping detection by the public programmes," the report said.

Tuberculosis is an airborne infectious disease. People with the TB bacteria in their lungs can infect others when they cough.

An estimated 1.5 million people died from TB in 2006, according to WHO. Another 200,000 people with HIV died from HIV-associated TB.

ei/jn/sr[END]

DRC: "Majority of rapists go unpunished"

NAIROBI, 18 March 2008 (IRIN) - Sexual violence against women is rampant in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) but the majority of perpetrators, especially in "no-law" zones, go unpunished, according to a UN independent human rights expert.

In South Kivu Province, for example, 14,200 rape cases were registered between 2005 and 2007 but only 287 were taken to court, Titinga Frederic Pacere, the UN Human Rights Council's independent expert on the state of human rights in the DRC, told reporters on 14 March.

He expressed concern over the human rights situation in the DRC, saying Human Rights Watch (HRW) had urged the Council to intensify its engagement on "the neglected human rights crisis" in countries such as the DRC.

"The DRC still has to overcome serious and widespread human rights violations, including arbitrary arrest and detention of people linked to the political opposition in Kinshasa, the use of torture, and accountability for war crimes committed during the armed conflict," HRW noted in a statement issued on 3 March.

"Recent events in eastern DRC demand targeted action by the Council," it added. "A peace deal was reached in late January with the government and all armed groups in North and South Kivu, following a renewal of armed conflict in which more than 400,000 people were displaced, scores of civilians were killed or abducted, and widespread rape and looting and destruction of property occurred.

"That deal has seemed increasingly fragile in recent weeks, and the Council could play a crucial role by creating a separate mechanism to monitor the implementation of the human rights commitments contained in the agreement."

Weapon of war

Aid organisations working in DRC have decried the high incidence of rape and called for more action to combat it. According to Oxfam GB, rape and sexual slavery in DRC are used "as a systematic weapon of war", which has led to the rapid advance of HIV/AIDS.

Médecins Sans Frontières-Suisse has noted that since 2003, between 30 and 500 patients reported sexual assaults each month in Ituri. Panzi general hospital in Bukavu, South Kivu's capital, admits at least 10 victims of sexual assault daily, an average of 3,600 cases a year, according to its director, Denis Mukwege Mukengere. Since 2000, an estimated 16,000 victims of rape, some suffering from obstetric fistula, have been treated at the hospital.

Yakin Erturk, special rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council on violence against women, has estimated that 4,500 cases of rape were reported in South Kivu in the first six months of 2007 alone, with many more going unreported. Sexual violence, she noted, was perceived as "normal" by local communities.

According to the UN World Food Programme: "Rape remains a daily threat for women in eastern DRC: in the fields, on their way back from market or in their own homes. Victims say all the armed groups are responsible."

Following a visit to the region in 2007, John Holmes, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, called for a response to the scourge.

"Despite many warnings, nothing quite prepared me for what I heard last month from survivors of a sexual violence so brutal it staggers the imagination and mocked my notions of human decency," he wrote in the Los Angeles Times on 11 October. "Sexual violence has been a particularly awful - and shockingly common - feature of the conflict in Congo."

According to analysts, sexual violence against women and girls is a facet of warfare that is often used as a weapon of terror to inflict physical and psychological damage. But in DRC, it is "systematic" and could be prosecuted as a crime against humanity or as a form of genocide.

eo/mw[END]

DRC: Funds to boost stability in Ituri

BUNIA, 12 March 2008 (IRIN) - The international community has released US$5.7 million as a first tranche of aid this year to stabilise the troubled district of Ituri in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ross Mountain, UN resident coordinator and special representative of the UN Secretary-General in the country, said.

"We have given every possibility to militia members to lay down their weapons. But there are still some elements - few in number - who are preventing citizens in one part of the district from taking advantage of the brilliant future which could lie ahead for this part of the country. Work to bring about stability will go on. I am confident that stability will be achieved," said Mountain.

The funds will be used to improve food security and the rehabilitation of health, and water and sanitation facilities, with a view to making conditions conducive for the return of displaced people to their places of origin, he said.

Some 115,000 people are still displaced in Ituri, which means there has been a massive return of the population to their original communities since 2003 when the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that more than 800,000 people were displaced.

"It's still a lot [of people]," Mountain said.

Bunia consultative forum

To draw up a plan of action aimed at stabilisation and community rehabilitation in Ituri, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has been organising, since 10 March, a consultative forum in Bunia, bringing together about 100 representatives of stakeholders in Ituri.

Participants include representatives of the political and administrative authorities in the district, state technical service providers, the UN, national and international NGOs, civil society and aid donors.

A UNDP press release on 10 March stated that one of the key objectives of this forum was to promote a better understanding of the security, political and community stabilisation stakes in Ituri. It would also rely on reference works for the rehabilitation of Ituri set out by the different UN agencies, while supporting local government, in order to reach a consensus on priority actions.

"The international community has done everything it could to impose peace. UN soldiers have paid with their blood for this peace; their wives have become widows, their children orphans. We have killed them because of our stupidity and disagreements. I believe this is the moment to say more than ever 'end the war'," said Medard Autsai Asenga, governor of Orientale Province, where Ituri is situated.

At least 60,000 civilians were killed in attacks and revenge-attacks in Ituri between rival ethnic groups in 1999-2003, according to the UN.

The government has disarmed and demobilised 25,000 militia members, and 11,000 children associated with these armed forces and groups have been able to rejoin their families, according to humanitarian agencies.

"Ituri is on the right track, it must be said. It should be like that because this district has enormous agricultural wealth, gold, timber, minerals, oil, and human skills, which are available for the reconstruction of this country. This could well be a model conflict zone in the east," said Mountain.

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CONGO: Government lifts ban on foreign adoption of children

BRAZZAVILLE, 5 March 2008 (IRIN) - Authorities in the Republic of Congo have lifted a temporary ban imposed four months ago on the international adoption of children.

The move to suspend adoption of children by foreigners followed the arrest on 25 October 2007 in neighbouring Chad of members of a French NGO who were subsequently charged with abducting 103 children destined for new families in Europe.

"The suspension was of a limited duration. You cannot suspend [adoption] indefinitely," said Cyrille Louya, the official in charge of cooperation in the Congolese ministry of justice and human rights.

He said regulations had been reviewed to guard against illegal adoption.

"Many times in the past adoptions were not in accordance with the rules. There were many things that were done that were not in the interest of the adopted children," said Louya.

Between 2006 and 2007, at least 22 Congolese children were adopted, mainly by people from Spain and France, according to Louya.

A study conducted in 2006 by the government, the justice and peace commission and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) revealed about 2,000 children were victims of cross-border trafficking in Congo that year.

Most came from West African countries, including Benin, Mali, Senegal and Togo. Others were from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon.

lmm/jn/mw[END]

DRC: Veneranda Mujadudu: "They burned me and took away my property"

BUNIA, 4 March 2008 (IRIN) - Veneranda Mujadudu, a 60-year-old widow, lived with her son in Musezo, a village 40km south of Bunia, where militias of the Front de Résistance Patriotique en Ituri (FRPI) have been active since 1999. Civilians have often borne the brunt of the violence in fighting between the FRPI and government forces.

On the night of 27 February, hundreds of militiamen invaded the village of Musezo. Shortly before their arrival, however, most of the village's residents fled, leaving behind old people, including Mujadudu, who were unable to run. Much of the village was looted and homes burnt. Mujadudu told IRIN about her ordeal:

"They broke down the door, waking me up. They entered the house and asked where my husband was. I answered that I have no husband. I told them I am a widow and live with my son. One of them then asked me viciously: 'Where is your son?' I told them that my son had already fled and that I was alone.

"Then they started taking our property - hoes, chickens and so on. One of them packed the loot and took it outside as the others set the house on fire, starting with my room. They then left after ordering me to remain in the house that was already on fire. I sustained burns on the back and arms.

"I started to run to escape the fire and on reaching the door the rest of the house collapsed behind me as it was consumed by fire.

"Outside, the militiaman who had set the house on fire told me that since I had escaped, he would have to shoot me. But the one who had packed the loot said I should not be killed.

"They started leaving, but they came back and told me: 'Mama, hide in the bush. If you start to flee you will meet others in Mbulanzabo [a nearby village] and they will harm you. They will kill you.'

"I was burned and in shock. I have not been able to sleep since that day.

"To reach the town of Bunia I walked for two days. I was very exhausted.

"All I am asking for is for someone to help me get treatment. All that I had, all my possessions were burnt in the house. I got out like that, with nothing."

rp/jn/mw[END]

DRC: New displacement as army fights militia in Ituri

BUNIA, 27 February 2008 (IRIN) - Fighting between government troops and militias in the Ituri district of northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has displaced more than 1,000 people in the past two days, local authorities said.

The displaced have arrived in Komanda, 70km south of the town of Bunia, the capital of Ituri, after fleeing fighting that erupted on 25 February at Hero locality, about 100km south of Bunia.

A spokesman for the Forces armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC) said the army was engaged in an operation against the Front de résistance patriotiques en Ituri (FRPI) militia.

"The militia attacked our reconnaissance company, which was on patrol in Hero. We lost three soldiers, including a captain, in the attack. They died because they were left alone to fight the enemy after the others were ordered to retreat because they were outnumbered," said Captain Charles Boyeka, FARDC spokesman in Ituri.

People began to flee when they saw FARDC soldiers withdraw, he added.

"During their [FRPI] retreat they burned a vehicle. This prompted the entire population that had returned to Mandibe [85km south of Bunia], to move back to Komanda," said one anonymous witness, who spoke to IRIN in Komanda.

The militias retreated deep into the forest when the army sent reinforcements to combat them.

The FRPI was headed by Germain Katanga, also known as "Simba", who was transferred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague in October 2007 to face war crimes charges related to atrocities against civilians in Ituri between January 2002 and December 2003, when more than 8,000 people died and half a million people were displaced from their homes.

The area south of Bunia has been insecure since 16 January 2008, when FRPI fighters first attacked FARDC soldiers in Kamachi, 75km south of the town.

rp/jn/mw [END]

DRC: Hungry prisoners threaten revolt

BUNIA, 27 February 2008 (IRIN) - More than 500 hungry prisoners in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo town of Bunia have threatened to rebel, complaining they have not eaten for four days.

"If it [the food shortage] continues, we will stage a revolt worse than any other," an inmate in Bunia Central Prison, who asked not to be named, told IRIN on 27 February.

In January 2007, prisoners angered by the death of three inmates from malnutrition-related illnesses and inhuman conditions in the jail, staged a mutiny that left two dead and 25 injured. Eighteen policemen were also injured in clashes with the rioting prisoners.

"The situation is very worrying. The Ituri district is not a decentralised entity, and therefore does not have a budget and income to feed prisoners," said Dieudonné Rwabona, district commissioner in charge of economics and finance. Bunia is the main town in Ituri.

The prison was designed to accommodate 102 inmates, but there are now 573 prisoners, including 211 convicts and 312 suspects on remand.

"This prison is the second largest in the DRC after Makala in Kinshasa. A lasting solution would be that the penitentiary establishments must be subsidised. Apart from Makala prison, no other prison receives a [state] subsidy as far as I know," said Rwabona.

The European Union is to fund a project to build a modern prison in Bunia this year under a programme to support the restoration of the justice system in DRC, according to the programme coordinator in Bunia, Jean-Paul Bwino. Two criminal rehabilitation centres will also be constructed in Ituri.

Alarm over lack of care leading to 16 prison deaths

rp/jn/mw [END]

CONGO: Arms collection and destruction under way

BRAZZAVILLE, 26 February 2008 (IRIN) - Armed forces in the Republic of Congo have begun to collect and destroy all weapons abandoned on battlegrounds in the country's civil war that began in 1997, as well as munitions that had expired but were still in armouries.

The move follows President Denis Sassou Nguesso's declaration that 2008 would be "a year without illegal weapons in Congo".

"Our duty is to collect and destroy all the equipment abandoned on the ground after the events of 1997, to preserve the lives of people," Jacques Yvon Ndolou, the minister in charge of defence and the welfare of veterans and disabled war veterans, said on 21 February.

He was speaking at the incineration of 25,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibres and 40 air-to-ground missiles at N'djiri, 20km north of Brazzaville, the capital.

The arms were collected and destroyed with the technical support of Mines Advisory Group (MAG), a British NGO.

According to Colonel Frederic Ingani, MAG's liaison officer, the arms, ammunition and explosives being destroyed had exceeded the normal shelf-life of between 18 and 20 years.

Eleven years after the bloody civil war, residents of the Congolese capital are still exposed to the danger of arms.

"Brazzaville has an area of 26 hectares still contaminated with unexploded ordnance," according to MAG's project manager, Anna Kilkenny.

In December 2007, MAG discovered a site in N'djiri where ammunition of all calibres was still live after an earlier uncontrolled destruction. It demolished 77,049 rounds of ammunition and 264 weapons, including 89 sensitive and dangerous munitions stored in the armouries of the Congolese Armed Forces. A large quantity of ammunition was destroyed in January 2008.

MAG proposes to inspect the storage sites in Pointe-Noire, Congo's economic capital on the Atlantic coast, and Dolisie, the third-biggest city in the southwest.

Despite the end of the civil war, illegal weapons still proliferate in Congo. According to a study conducted in 2005 by the Swiss NGO Small Arms Survey, there are at least 34,000 illegal weapons in Congo, most of them in Department of Pool in the south, which was ravaged by civil wars repeatedly between 1998 and 2003.

The arms collection for development project, funded by the European Union and implemented by the UN Development Programme, has been ongoing since 2005. Japan is expected to contribute two million Euros (US$3 million) for the project this year.

lmm/jn/mw [END]

DRC: Nkunda boycott could leave IDPs stranded

KINSHASA, 26 February 2008 (IRIN) - Dissident General Laurent Nkunda's boycott of a commission set up under a January peace deal could prolong insecurity in the eastern Kivu provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and delay the return of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced civilians, analysts warned.

Nkunda said on 23 February that his National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) would suspend participation in daily ceasefire meetings provided for under the "act of engagement" signed in Goma on 23 January by the government, Nkunda's fighters and other armed groups.

Nkunda said his boycott was a reaction to a report by the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) accusing the CNDP of killing at least 30 civilians between 16 and 20 January, while the peace talks were ongoing.

"The CNDP has decided to suspend all cooperation with MONUC, whose impartiality has been seriously compromised through the declarations that violate its status as a member of the International Facilitation of the Act of Engagement," Nkunda said.

He stressed that his movement was willing to work with the investigation into the alleged massacres.

About 800,000 civilians in North Kivu have been displaced, with more than half forced to flee their homes since the end of 2006 because of clashes between government forces, Nkunda's rebels and other armed groups from DRC as well as neighbouring Rwanda and Burundi.

Nkunda's boycott "will delay the return of those displaced who are suffering because most of them have been moving from one place to another for several years", said Dieudonne Kalindye, professor of human rights at the University of Kinshasa.

"These people would have started returning to their villages if the whole [peace] process had been implemented according to the Goma agreement," he added.

Security threat

Philippe Biyoya, a professor of political science at the Protestant University in Kinshasa and the University of Kinshasa, said MONUC must be seen to be neutral so that the implementation of the Goma accord is not jeopardised.

"MONUC, if it wants to preserve peace, must adopt a policy of neutrality. Any declaration of the kind that has been made - even if it pointed out the truth - it made Nkunda believe that he is liable for investigation and arrest, which would make him reluctant to make peace at any cost," said Biyoya.

Already, five Mayi-Mayi militia parties to the peace agreement have announced their departure from Goma because they felt their security was not guaranteed, and mechanisms for the implementation of the peace deal have not yet been set up.

Jason Luneno, chairman of the Civil Society of North Kivu, suggested that the CNDP should have waited for a further investigation of the claim by MONUC that it was responsible for the death of the 30 civilians.

"We should not encourage such withdrawals. Where there is withdrawal of Mayi-Mayi, the CNDP, it means that this is the beginning of the war," the Association of Volunteers of the Congo, a human rights NGO, said in a statement.

Mission impartial

MONUC, for its part, stood by its report on the killing of civilians.

"The MONUC investigation of these killings was conducted with professional care and its findings reflect credible information received from a number of eye witnesses and other sources.

"The Mission believes that any other independent and impartial inquiry will confirm the outcome of the investigation and MONUC is ready to cooperate with such an inquiry," said Kemal Saiki, MONUC's spokesman.

"MONUC encourages the CNDP to work actively with the signatories of the Goma Act of Engagement and the international facilitation to ensure their full and rapid implementation for the benefit of the people of the Kivus," he added.

In a related development, Walter Kälin, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's representative for the human rights of internally displaced persons, has welcomed recent agreements aimed at ending conflict in eastern DRC.

"The recourse to peaceful solutions to the present conflicts, the renunciation of violence, the scrupulous respect by all actors of human and humanitarian rights and an unfailing fight against impunity are indispensable to put an end to the serious violations of human rights whose victims are the displaced people in the east of the DRC," Kälin said in a preliminary statement following a trip to DRC from 12 to 22 February.

ei/jn/am/mw[END]

DRC: Alarm over lack of care leading to 16 prison deaths

KINSHASA, 25 February 2008 (IRIN) - Human rights activists in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have condemned the death by starvation and lack of medical care of 16 inmates in a congested prison in Mbuji-Mayi, capital of the central province of Kasai Orientale.

"The state has failed in its obligations because there are laws, national and international, which require it to feed and care for prisoners," said Jean-Marie Eley Lofele of the NGO Association Internationale des Avocats de la Défense et du Reseau des Droits Humains au Congo.

The deaths occurred between 1 January and 19 February and included remand prisoners.

"The government is impeding the proper functioning of the justice system from arrest to trial, through preventive detention, which must not exceed 40 days. The state must provide food and healthcare to suspects," Eley added.

In February, President Joseph Kabila retired some senior judges, and, according to the minister in charge of justice and human rights, Mutombo Bakawa Senda, one of the reasons for the president's action was the slow pace of the administration of justice in DRC.

The UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) attributed the deaths to malnutrition, starvation and lack of healthcare.

"Nine of the dead had been sentenced and seven were remand prisoners," said Kemal Saiki, MONUC spokesman. "This is a new wave of deaths after a substantial decline during the period of deployment of an international adviser and a prisons specialist by MONUC's rule of law section from the summer of 2006 to the beginning of January 2008," said Saiki.

The governor of Kasai, Nogy Kasandji, acknowledged the problem of a lack of food and healthcare for prisoners in the province, saying there was no provision in the province's budget for such expenditure.

"That prison is really not adequate for a city with a population of 3.5 million people. It should be relocated and enlarged," he said. The prison was designed to accommodate 100 inmates, but now holds 398 people - 387 men and 11 women.

"There certainly have been many cases of deaths in recent times, but we are trying to work with the provincial minister who has intervened several times to feed prisoners, but food has been out of stock for three weeks," said Kasandji, adding that he had informed the central government of the situation in the prison, but it had not responded.

According to MONUC, violations of human rights are commonplace in almost all prisons in the DRC.

"Each visitor has to pay between 200 and 500 Congolese francs (36-91 US cents) to have access to his prisoner, and if he has brought any food, a guard can ask for 500 francs," said Saiki.

"The prison in Mbuji-Mayi does not meet the minimum UN standards for the treatment of prisoners. It is filthy, smelly and exposes inmates to diseases like scabies and lice," he added.

According to MONUC, preventive detention is routinely used in both civil and military courts in DRC even for minor offences. Suspects can languish in jail for months before they are tried.

"Generally, it is the rich whose cases are heard very quickly, not those involving the poor," said Eley.

ei/jn/mw[END]

DRC: Concerns over acquittal of war crimes convict

KINSHASA, 21 February 2008 (IRIN) - The acquittal by a court in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of a militia leader convicted of war crimes has drawn criticism, with human rights activists saying the decision could set a bad precedent in a country where armed groups have committed atrocities against civilians with impunity.

The Court of Appeal in Kisangani, capital of the northeastern Orientale Province, on 15 February acquitted Yves Panga Mandro Kahwa, former leader of Parti pour l'Unité et la Sauvegarde de l'Intégrité du Congo. The armed group was active in the volatile district of Ituri.

A military tribunal had in August 2006 sentenced Kahwa to 20 years' imprisonment after ruling that he had committed crimes against humanity between 15 and 16 October 2002, when 10 people died after he set fire to a health-centre, schools and churches in the Zumbe and Bedu Ezekere localities, 10km southeast of Bunia, the main town in Ituri.

The tribunal also ordered Kahwa to pay 14 victims of his crimes between US$2,500 and $75,000 in compensation.

"If it is on the basis of the amnesty law that the court arrived at the decision to acquit, then that law could give free rein to impunity and set a bad precedent for criminals to escape justice while the victims are abandoned without compensation and reparation," said Joel Bisubu, a human rights activist with an NGO known as Justice, based in Bunia.

The government and armed groups in Ituri signed peace agreements in 2006 outlining plans to disarm militia members, with the assistance of the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC). In exchange, the government proposed an amnesty for the signatories and agreed to recognise officers from the groups.

MONUC also expressed its concern over the acquittal.

"The Court of Appeal based its decision on the grounds that all the offences are covered by the law on amnesty as acts of war and political offences. This unprecedented recourse to the amnesty law in the light of massacres of the civilian population, which could be characterised as crimes against humanity, is a worrying development in the fight against impunity in the DRC," said Kemal Saiki, MONUC spokesman, adding that the country's amnesty law did not provide for indemnity for suspects of crimes against humanity.

The prosecutor general of Kisangani, Nestor Botela, said he was prepared to lodge an appeal against Kahwa's acquittal, but he was waiting to study the law invoked by the Court of Appeal when it arrived at the decision.

"I expect that the law upon which the decision was based will be presented to me to see whether it conforms [to the amnesty law]," he added.

The judges who issued that verdict have, however, since been retired under an ongoing bid by President Joseph Kabila to restructure the judiciary.

The attorney general of Kisangani has to lodge an appeal against the ruling within 10 days from the date it was made, according to Chris Aberi, the prosecutor general of Ituri.

ei/jn/mw

DRC: Cholera outbreak spreads in Katanga

KINSHASA, 12 February 2008 (IRIN) - A cholera outbreak in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) province of Katanga has spread, despite efforts to bring the epidemic under control.

The disease has claimed the lives of 97 people and 4,029 have been infected since the first cases of the gastro-intestinal illness were reported in Katanga in September 2007, according to François Dumont, spokesman for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-Belgium). The disease has spread quickly since the end of December.

"What is remarkable is that the peak of the epidemic has not yet been reached because the number of patients continues to grow," Dumont said.

Most of the cases have been reported in Lubumbashi, the provincial capital, where the death toll stands at 49 and the number of infections at 2,543, and Likasi, nearly 100km north of Lubumbashi, where 48 people have died and 1,486 cholera patients have sought treatment.

The government and MSF-Belgium have set up two centres in Lubumbashi where patients can seek treatment free of charge.

"Epidemiological data from the first week of February confirms an upward trend [of the epidemic] in Likasi," said Dumont.

He said 404 patients were registered in Likasi, with a population of about 350,000, at the beginning of February, compared with 381 during the last week of January.

"The rate of admissions remains very high - almost 60 new patients a day," said Dumont.

The epidemic has been blamed on the consumption of contaminated water and poor sanitation in the affected areas.

"We are very concerned, primarily over the lack of access to clean water in residential areas of Lubumbashi and Likasi. If we want to contain the cholera epidemic much more must be done on the water sector," said Dumont.

Cholera is a gastro-intestinal disease typically spread by drinking contaminated water and can cause severe diarrhoea which, in extreme cases, can lead to fatal dehydration. It can be prevented by treating drinking water with chlorine and by improving hygiene conditions.

ei/jn/mw [END]

DRC: Third ex-rebel commander charged with war crimes

KINSHASA, 7 February 2008 (IRIN) - A third former rebel commander accused of committing atrocities in the Ituri district of the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been flown to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to be tried on charges of war crimes, including murder, conscription of children and sexual enslavement, a spokesman for the tribunal said.

Col Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, a former commander of the Fronts Nationalistes et Intégrationnistes (FNI) rebel group, whose ex-fighters were recently integrated into the national army, was on 7 February flown from Kinshasa to The Hague for trial, according to Paul Madidi, ICC's spokesman in the DRC capital.

"He is accused, among things, of having played a key role in the planning and implementation of a massacre in the village Bogoro, attacking civilians of the Hema ethnic group and recruiting children under the age of 15," said Madidi. He is also alleged to have murdered about 200 civilians and carried out arbitrary arrests.

"Ngudjolo will also be charged with the sexual enslavement of many women and girls," Madidi added.

Ngudjolo, along with other former militia leaders, had in 2007 been integrated into the national army following a peace agreement that ended ethnic conflict in Ituri.

He becomes the third rebel leader from Ituri to be transferred to the ICC.

In October 2007, Germain Katanga, also known as "Simba", was put on a plane chartered by the ICC and transferred from Kinshasa to the ICC's detention centre in The Hague to face war crimes charges.

The Court in January 2007 indicted Thomas Lubanga for war crimes, specifically the conscription of children into his militia, becoming the first suspect to be taken into ICC custody.

At least 60,000 civilians were killed in attacks and revenge-attacks in Ituri between rival ethnic groups in 1999-2003, according to the UN.

ei/jn/am/mw[END]

DRC: Amid aftershocks, many Bukavu residents sleep in the open

KINSHASA, 6 February 2008 (IRIN) - Aftershocks continue to rattle the eastern town of Bukavu three days after an earthquake killed six people and injured hundreds. Many residents are still sleeping in the open for fear their damaged houses might collapse.

"We felt another series of tremors at 3pm [on 6 February]. We cannot allow people to go home and spend the night there in case their walls fall in," said Dieudonne Wafula, who is in charge of the Goma volcano observatory and travelled to Bukavu, which lies at the opposite end of Lake Kivu to Goma.

Some families have begun to receive humanitarian assistance.

"The composition of standard non-food kits has been adapted to the specific needs of the families; they include two plastic sheets, two blankets, and soap mainly," said Christophe Illemassene, spokesman for the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Bukavu's mayor, Bonga Laisi, told IRIN by telephone that some schools, shops and offices in the town had re-opened, a development that alarmed Wafula. "We have seen that schools have re-opened without advice from us experts. We would have liked only the secondary school to have re-opened to start with to save the lives of the youngest who would not be able to protect themselves during strong aftershocks."

A government delegation, comprising ministers, members of parliament and deputies, travelled to Bukavu with 14 tonnes of aid supplies and 16 doctors.

According to the mayor, only 80 households, or 400 people, had received humanitarian assistance by the afternoon of 6 February, and that distribution had to be interrupted because of unrest.

"There were occasional fights because everyone wanted to be served first. But we have taken precautions to ensure the safety of distributions and do all we can to make sure everything is done in an orderly manner under the eyes of the police," he added.

According to the OCHA spokesman, 312 people were injured in the weekend quake, 50 of whom were still receiving treatment. He added that 99 buildings had collapsed and 815 were unsafe for habitation.

ei/am/mw[END]

DRC: Cholera kills 59, more than 2,000 infected in Katanga

KINSHASA, 4 February 2008 (IRIN) - An outbreak of cholera in the southern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) province of Katanga killed 59 people and infected more than 2,000 in January, health officials said.

The first cases of the epidemic were noticed between late December and early January in the town of Bukama and the cities of Likasi and Lubumbashi, farther south, according to Vital Mondinge Makuma, the official in charge of epidemics surveillance in the ministry of health.

"The epidemic is a source of concern particularly in Likasi where the number of patients is still growing," said Josep Prior, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-Belgium) head of mission. "The outbreak has been stabilised in Lubumbashi where some patients are still seeking treatment, but the disease has almost been brought under control in Bukama," he added.

MSF-Belgium is in charge of caring for the sick and leading efforts to combat the outbreak. The agency has set up three treatment centres, two in Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga, and one in Likasi, according to Prior.

"We have handed over the care of Bukama to the ministry of health because the epidemic is almost finished there," he said. According to him, 59 fatalities have been registered in the three affected areas, and 2,083 patients were receiving treatment. Some 687 cases were recorded in Likasi, a city of 300,000 inhabitants. "We have been admitting at least 60 patients per day in Likasi," Prior said, adding that cholera was endemic in Katanga, with outbreaks reported at least once a year.

"Poor families are the most affected because they use water from wells and springs which are often contaminated," said Prior.

MSF-Belgium and local authorities have been carrying out hygiene awareness campaigns through radio and community outreach programmes.

Cholera is a gastro-intestinal disease typically spread by drinking contaminated water and can cause severe diarrhoea which, in extreme cases, can lead to fatal dehydration. It can be prevented by treating drinking water with chlorine and by improving hygiene conditions.

ei/jn/mw[END]

DRC: Cautious welcome for Kivu peace deal

GOMA, 29 January 2008 (IRIN) - A peace agreement signed between the government and the various armed groups active in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), including the faction led by dissident general Laurent Nkunda, marks an important step towards restoring peace and stability in the region, according to analysts.

"I think this agreement will succeed because one person who could block it, President Joseph Kabila, has agreed to sponsor it and was present at the closing ceremony," Dieudonne Kalindye, professor of law at the University of Kinshasa, told IRIN.

Kalindye said he was encouraged by the willingness of Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) to transform itself into a political party without having to worry about the legal consequences of its insurrection.

The government agreed, at the insistence of the CNDP and other armed groups, to bring to parliament a draft law on amnesty for insurgency. War crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, however, will be excluded from the legislation.

The agreement, signed 23 January in the North Kivu capital, Goma, included an immediate cessation of hostilities, disengagement of troops and the creation of a buffer zone.

In his speech after signing the accord, Kabila said peace could not be attained without dialogue and forgiveness after so many years of war but he stressed that justice would come sooner or later, with the establishment of a truth and reconciliation commission, agreed almost unanimously at the conference.

"From this perspective, justice and law are indispensable because they are the balance that will restore trust in our institutions and check the machine that has produced looters, rapists and warlords," said Kabila.

That statement raised eyebrows among many, with some saying it could put doubts in the minds of some parties about the government's commitment to reconciliation. Other observers, however, said Kabila's remarks should not be feared because all he wanted was to emphasise the importance of law and order.

"This should reassure everyone that the DRC is moving towards a state of law and the government has not waived its commitment to amnesty," said Kalindye.

Looking for pardon

"All parties - the government, CNDP and Mai Mai [traditional warriors] have agreed one thing - that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide must not be pardoned," said Anneke van Woudenberg, senior researcher on the DRC for Human Rights Watch.

She, like Kalindye, said people who may be prosecuted for crimes that are actionable by the International Criminal Court in The Hague could be found on all sides of the civil war in the DRC.

"Nkunda, like any other person, is presumed innocent until proven guilty by competent courts," said Kalindye. "In all successive wars since [the overthrow of] Mobutu Sese Seko, acts of war have received amnesty. The Goma agreement continues the same principle. What is important now is peace, the end of the war, the return of the displaced and refugees, stability of the region and development."

The government in Kinshasa issued an arrest warrant for Nkunda in 2007 on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. There are unconfirmed reports that this warrant has lapsed and will not be renewed.

"There is a need for a proper inquiry into all violations that have been committed in the DRC. Justice will come, it takes time, and we must be reassured that it will come one day," said Van Woudenberg.

She said the successful implementation of the Goma agreement would depend on the goodwill of neighbouring Rwanda, which has been accused of supporting Nkunda, a charge it has repeatedly denied.

A Hutu-dominated armed group that fled Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), has also been party to the conflict in the eastern DRC, and according to Van Woudenberg, the FDLR issue should be dealt with according to the provisions of an agreement signed in the Kenyan capital in November. Under the Nairobi agreement the FDLR should be disarmed and its members repatriated to Rwanda.

The Goma accord was signed by 40 parties, including representatives of international organisations and the US, who are required to adhere to the rules of international humanitarian law and human rights.

Return of refugees

The agreement also provides for the return of DRC refugees living in neighbouring countries under the supervision of a tripartite committee of the UN's Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the DRC government and countries of asylum - Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania.

The return and resettlement of internally displaced people to their villages would be overseen by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) and other humanitarian organisations.

"I do not believe the victims were adequately represented in the agreement. But there is a section which refers to the need for the displaced to return home, respect for human rights, for the respect of the refugees as well. But now, they must be at the centre of discussions - the refugees, the displaced, because it is they who must return home," stressed Van Woudenberg.

Fighting in eastern DRC has, according to UNHCR, displaced an estimated one million people since 2006.

Various clashes have pushed more than 300,000 Congolese to neighbouring countries while the DRC itself is host to almost 300,000 refugees who have fled war in neighbouring countries.

Wary locals

The reaction to the agreement from Goma residents was mixed.

"I am indifferent. I prefer to ignore everything because those who have signed the agreement fought for their own self-interest. Both the government and rebel camps may sign peace today and take up arms again tomorrow according to what suits their interest," said Ntabira Mangaribi.

"What we fear is that when the insurgents are awaiting amnesty, the president has said that justice is imperative. This declaration made after the signing of the agreement can make Nkunda and other armed groups feel concerned that charges of war crimes or crimes against humanity could be brought against them and resume the war to evade justice," said Bushiri Ngongo, a hotel manager in Goma.

"The signatories were sincere," said Jerome Buyama, a book seller. "I think the war is over because they are all in agreement. It will be good that our displaced brothers and the refugees are beginning to go back to their communities of origin. I am not afraid, I have confidence," he added.

ei/jn/am/mw[END]

DRC: Army kills 10 rebels in Ituri

BUNIA, 29 January 2008 (IRIN) - At least 10 rebels have been killed in clashes with government forces in the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) region of Ituri, prompting thousands of civilians to take flight, according to military and humanitarian sources.

The bodies of 10 men, presumed to be members of the Front de Résistance Patriotique en Ituri (FPRI) were counted during mopping-up operations on 29 January in Tcheyi, a town 100km south of Bunia, Ituri's main town.

The FPRI was headquartered in Tcheyi from 2005 but the area has recently come under the control of the regular army.

"Some 400 fighters were based there. Others fled towards Mount Hoyo [20km to the south] or headed west to Marabo and Irumo, where our troops managed to kill two of them," the army's spokesman in Ituri, Captain Charles Boyeka, told IRIN.

When the fighting broke out, 2,600 civilians fled to the nearby town of Bukiringi, according to one resident.

"It's clear there was a large population movement but it is impossible to get solid information," said Conteh Idrissa, information officer with the UN's Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Bunia.

According to OCHA, there have also been reports of small groups of people arriving in Bori, Sorodo, Matefo, Dimba, Zoko, Motemba, and Dila, villages close to Bukiringi.

"The population of Tcheyi is not displaced, despite the fighting. We had given them plenty of notice before the clashes to disassociate themselves from the rebels," said Boyeka.

The army said it launched an offensive on FPRI-controlled territory after one of its patrols was attacked on 16 January at Kamachi, 75km south of Bunia. Two soldiers were killed in the incident.

"We pulled back to Mount Monde Arabe where they surrounded us the following day. After reinforcements arrived from Bunia, we gave chase on the foot of the mountain. Our troops captured eight [rebels], the others pulled back to Tcheyi," said Boyeka.

Over the following days, he said, the army retook several locations held by the FPRI: Kamatsi, Veterinaire and Aveluma.

Inter-community clashes in Bunia escalated dramatically in 1999, since when they have claimed at least 60,000 lives.

rp/am/mw[END]

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.irinnews.org

22.1.2008

KINSHASA, 22 January 2008 (IRIN) - News that parties to the bloody conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said they would sign a peace treaty was welcomed by those displaced by the civil strife, who just want calm restored so they can return home.

"We eagerly wait for the guns to fall silent, for Laurent Nkunda's [forces] to give up their arms and we will return to our homes," said Domina Maniriho, 37-year-old mother of six and a resident of the Mugunga 1 displaced persons' camp, 17km west of Goma, the capital of North Kivu.

Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi, leads the National Congress for the Defence of the Congolese People (CNDP) insurgency, which says it has been fighting to protect eastern Congo's minority Tutsi population from attacks by Hutu militias known as the FDLR (Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda), many of whom are alleged to have taken part in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

Fighting between Nkunda's forces and government troops in North Kivu intensified in August 2007 when Nkunda pulled out of a peace agreement that would have seen his forces mixed with Congo's regular army. Congo's army, he said, had not done enough to neutralise the FDLR.

At a conference in Goma aimed at restoring peace and security to the Kivu provinces, government officials and representatives from rival militia factions and rebel groups on 22 January said they would sign a ceasefire agreement that would bring fighting to an end.

Repatriation

Those displaced by the conflict say they would like to see the repatriation to Rwanda of members of Hutu extremist militias they regard as the main cause of insecurity in the region.

"We expect the government and the international community to take back home the Interahamwe [Hutu extremist militias] as recommended by all participants in the conference," said Maniriho.

The DRC government has tabled a plan that provides for the repatriation of Rwandan Hutu fighters, first voluntarily and then by force from mid-March if they refuse to leave.

Despite expressed commitment to a truce before the conference opened early in January, sporadic outbreaks of fighting between parties to the conflict have been reported.

"There are too many killings, too many rapes and abuses that should stop at all costs," said Alphonse Batiburasabinako, a 50-year-old ethnic Hutu farmer.

Thousands of women have been raped during the violence in the Kivu provinces, according to humanitarian organisations. Entire villages have been looted and often set on fire. Civilians have been forced to flee from areas where they had sought refuge.

Batiburasabinako said his teenage son has been missing for months since he was abducted by rebel forces.

"I do not know what has become of him since the troops of Laurent Nkunda took him hostage on his way home from school to go to work as a slave or child soldier," he said. "I do not know if he is still alive or if he is already dead."

The UN Mission in Congo (MONUC) has denounced continued recruitment, by all parties to the conflict, of children into the armed forces.

Political games

For some of those displaced by the unrest, the ethnic conflict is seen as a game played out by politicians.

"In our village we lived together, ate together, without problems, among Tutsi, Hutu and Twa ethnic groups. But it is the politicians who try to turn us against each other for their own interests," said Batiburasabinako, a resident of the Mugunga camps, where he lives surrounded by Tutsis and members of other ethnic groups.

"We want to live in harmony where there will be no differences in ethnicities like before 1996 [when the civil war that precipitated the current crisis first broke out]," said Maniriho.

"We want the war to stop so that we can regain our villages of origin, go about our businesses and earn our living as free men," agreed Batiburasabinako.

The displaced have complained about unsatisfactory conditions in the camps, saying humanitarian assistance has not been adequate.

"We receive a sack of flour a month, but that is not enough to feed a family of 10 people for a month," said Batiburasabinako. "I sometimes have to barter a little of that for other kinds of food and work in the fields to sustain my family," he added.

Despite the hardship, the camp at Mugunga has a thriving market. Residents trade in farm products and manufactured goods brought from towns.

Inadequate supplies

Prostitution has also emerged as a by-product of the camp life.

"When, at the end of a day, I do not have enough to eat, I solicit for sex, often unprotected, in camps or outside, in exchange for 200 Congolese francs [US 40 cents], as long as I have enough to buy flour and a very small piece of meat for the evening for my son and myself," said Tantine, 19 (not her real name). Hundreds of other women do the same, according to Tantine.

Internally displaced people live in small straw huts often covered with a tarpaulin provided by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. But there are those who do not have roofs over their heads and are constantly exposed to the elements.

"Hundreds of newcomers do not even have shelter. They are crowded in sheds where they sleep rough until they find a solution," explained Vanessa Kalafulo, the official in charge of the Mugunga camp.

Medical supplies are also inadequate, she said.

"During the past four months, we have registered 80 cases of cholera, all of whom died because the care we gave them was not sufficient," she said.

"We just need assistance and the end of the war and then we can go home and enjoy the development that has been promised by Westerners and the Chinese," said Maniriho.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), North Kivu is worst affected by the displacement crisis. Since August 2007, unrest has forced about 232,000 people to flee their homes, taking the total of internally displaced persons in the province over 800,000. Unconfirmed reports suggest there may be an additional 150,000 displaced.

In South Kivu, more than 100,000 people were displaced last year, even as the province became a "safe haven" for 60,000 people fleeing North Kivu, according to OCHA.

ei/jn/am/mw[END]

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.irinnews.org

21.1.08

BUNIA, 21 January 2008 (IRIN) - Rape and other forms of sexual violence remain prevalent in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), despite the cessation of military activities and the disarmament of militias in the region, according to aid workers. Before, this was mainly attributed to men in uniform, but now civilians comprise a significant number of the perpetrators.

"The rapists roam the streets; [local] customs allow them to pay a goat [as recompense to the victim's family] without serving prison terms. Even worse, some of the rapists are HIV-positive or old and rape girls of around 12 and 13 thinking they will be cured [of illness] or live longer," Marie Pacuryema, the coordinator of a local NGO, Solidarité Féminine pour la Paix et le Développement Intégré en Ituri, said.

A November 2007 report released by Médecins Sans Frontières-Suisse said that since 2003, between 30 and 500 patients reported sexual assaults each month in Ituri. At least 2,708 people were also raped in an 18-month period, with 7,000 more having been raped in a four-year period, according to the report.

"The statistics do not give the real picture on the ground," Marie-Louise Uronya, head of the Office for Gender, Family and Children in Ituri, said.

"Many have been raped but fear reporting it due to shame, fear of reprisals or rejection by society, among other reasons," Uronya said.

"There are mothers who were raped three or four years ago who are continuing to visit us," she said.

While in the past the victims of sexual violence were raped by two or more aggressors or sometimes in the presence of a third party, from early 2007 rape tended to be carried out by a single assailant.

"It does not stop; we think that the same rapists of yesterday who were released from the armed groups into the community are still carrying on with the habit," Francine Mangaza, an officer with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), in the district of Ituri, said.

At least 23,000 ex-combatants, in addition to 11,000 child soldiers, have been reintegrated into the community under a national disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programme.

The main perpetrators of the crimes include the military, the police, civilians, ex-combatants and even children.

"The military and the police are supposed to know the law, which is well explained in training centres. But I have come to realise that they rape to defy the law. None has claimed ignorance of the law. In court cases they claim not to have known the age of the victim, which cannot be right because a 13-year-old is easily identified due to her physical development," Maj Innocent Mayembe, the judge and chairman of the military tribunal in Ituri District, said in the regional capital, Bunia.

Severe judgments .

The forms of sexual violence being perpetrated are more violent and dangerous than before, according to the judges.

In February 2007, the commander of one of the regular army battalions in the town of Bavi, 60km south of Bunia, François Molessa, alias Bozizé, was sentenced to life imprisonment along with some of his staff for killing 30 civilians, whom they then buried in a mass grave. The female victims, both women and girls, were systematically raped first.

"The perpetrator of rape behaves like an animal. The aggressor is transformed into a beast which attacks the prey. The rapist, once sated, abandons the victim," Mayembe said.

An 18-year-old woman, who was raped by soldiers in March 2007, agreed.

"At about two o'clock in the morning my husband heard someone pushing the door. We thought they were bandits. They continued to push the door and we also started to push the door from the inside," she testified.

"My husband opened the door holding a knife, but the attacker had a gun. He told my husband that was going to be the last day of his life and shot him in the neck. My husband fell and died on the spot.

"We called out for help from our neighbours but they did not come. When my husband fell, I opened the door and saw a FARDC [DRC army] soldier with a rifle and wearing army uniform.

"He told me he was going to kill me if I refused to sleep with him.

"He raped me, then asked me for food. My lower abdomen is painful; I am worried because my husband had money but this was looted. I was left a widow."

The military tribunal in Bunia has sentenced the perpetrator, who was charged with murder and rape, to death.

"We render severe judgments to discourage the men in uniform. We refer the rape cases to the army and sentence perpetrators to life imprisonment if the victims were murdered. We reject [any claims] such as [the rape was due to] provocation by the victim or the morals of the victim," said Mayembe.

 but slow progress

However, Mayembe said the impact of the strict sentencing had not been very significant as few cases came to court compared with the number of crimes reported.

"It is difficult to objectively say there has been progress with the [rape] statistics remaining constant. In 2007, we rendered 17 judgments in the new military tribunal; it was difficult for the military justice system to flush out all the cases of sexual violence," he said.

In a bid to reduce cases of rape and sexual violence, the UN Mission in the DRC, MONUC, conducts inquests into all reported rape cases involving agents of the state (police, military, FARDC) and takes the perpetrators to court. In addition, the mission is also involved in awareness-building among the military.

According to the human rights division of MONUC, there had been a decline in the number of state agents committing rape, with current cases mainly involving civilians and minors.

At least 30 boys of about 14 and 15 have been detained on rape charges at the central prison in Bunia.

Culture of impunity

One of the causes of the chronic rape was the culture of impunity, Mangaza of UNICEF said.

UNICEF had helped at least 110 rape victims in Ituri although 80 judgments have not been rendered.

According to Mangaza, this was sending a wrong message to potential perpetrators of rape that they would not serve sentences or pay fines.

At least 50,000 people died in the five-year conflict, which began in 1999, with 150,000 others still displaced due to security concerns, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Bunia.

rp/aw/mw[END]

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: www.irinnews.org

16.01.2008

GOMA, 16 January 2008 (IRIN) - The insurgency led by dissident general Laurent Nkunda in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has spelt out its demands at a peace conference to end the conflict in the troubled North and South Kivu provinces in the east, where, according to the UN, insecurity and human rights abuses have displaced at least half a million people in the past 12 months.

Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the Congolese People (CNDP) demanded talks with the government, the repatriation of Rwandan Hutu rebels active in the country, the return of refugees and exiles and the release of political prisoners.

"The CNDP hereby solemnly takes all its responsibilities by recommending that the government hold direct negotiations with its belligerents through a neutral mediation and on terms acceptable to all so that the demands expressed above find adequate answers as soon as possible for peace and security to return quickly to our two provinces," Kambasu Ngeve, head of the CNDP delegation, told the conference in Goma, capital of North Kivu, on 15 January.

The CNDP wants exiles such as opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, a former vice-president who challenged President Joseph Kabila in 2006 elections but lost the poll, to return.

"The CNDP solemnly declares its readiness to make a significant contribution in the search for solutions for a lasting peace in our country in general and in particular in Kivu," said Ngeve.

North Kivu, where Nkunda's forces have been fighting government troops, is worst affected by the displacement crisis, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Since August 2007, unrest has forced about 232,000 people to flee their homes, bringing the cumulative total of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the province to over 800,000, according to an OCHA statement issued on 15 January.

"Such an overwhelming level of new displacement is very worrying," said John Holmes, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. "Unless peace can be quickly restored, we are bound to see further human tragedy in a country trying to emerge from years of civil war. Armed groups must stop targeting civilians."

Unconfirmed reports suggested there may be an additional 150,000 displaced, OCHA said, adding that in some of the most affected areas, such as Petit Nord, the displaced constitute up to 30 percent of the population. In South Kivu, more than 100,000 people were displaced in the course of last year, even as the province became a "safe haven" for 60,000 people fleeing North Kivu, according to OCHA.

Economic and social pressure on communities hosting the displaced and the infrastructure was pushing an already poor people deeper into destitution. Malnutrition rates were on the rise, even where they had been brought under control, with global acute malnutrition reaching levels 17 percent in some areas, OCHA said.

Rebel claims

Ngeve claimed that CNDP took up arms against the government because the insurgency was opposed to integration into the national army, allegedly by the state, of Rwandan Hutu fighters who fled to the DRC after the Rwandan genocide in 1994. He also accused the government of collaborating with various militias active in the Kivus.

Nkunda, an ethnic Tutsi, says his CNDP forces are fighting to protect eastern Congo's minority Tutsi population from attacks by Hutu militias known as the FDLR (Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda), which have links to the perpetrators of Rwanda's genocide.

Fighting intensified in August 2007 when Nkunda pulled out of a January peace agreement that would have seen his forces mixed with Congo's regular army. Congo's army, he said, had not done enough to neutralise the FDLR.

"The authorities of our country must have reasonable [and] unwavering determination to rid Kivu in particular and our country in general of these genocidal forces," said Ngeve.

Representatives of indigenous armed groups known as the Mai Mai, which have often been roped in by the government to help fight rebel forces, such as Nkunda's CNDP, for their part accused Nkunda of fighting to defend the interests of Rwanda in DRC.

ei/jn/am/mw[END]

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: www.irinnews.org

10.01.2008

GOMA, 10 January 2008 (IRIN) - Insurgents loyal to dissident general Laurent Nkunda in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have walked out of a conference aimed at restoring peace and stability to the eastern Kivu provinces after one of their number was mistaken for a fugitive assassin of the late president Laurent Kabila and briefly arrested.

The conference only got off the ground on 9 January, after several days' delay caused by logisitical problems and rows over exactly who was entitled to attend.

"We have temporarily suspended our participation in this conference because we want official safety guarantees," head of the rebel delegation Kambasu Ngeve told IRIN.

"We were meeting yesterday [9 January] with representatives of the European Union and other diplomats when an officer of MONUC [United Nations Mission in Congo] supported by elements of President Joseph Kabila's guards came over to Major Seraphin Mirindi and said he was under arrest for his involvement in the 2001 assassination."

He added that conference officials intervened to secure Mirindi's release.

"After verification, we established that Maj. Seraphin Mirindi was mistaken for Col. Georges Mirindi [one of the late Kabila's bodyguards] who has been accused of being one of the assassins," said Ngeve.

"We expect to have official guarantees otherwise we will not be there [at the conference]," said Ngeve, speaking on behalf of Nkunda's National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP).

Explaining the circumstances that led to the incident MONUC's spokesman, Kemal Saiki, told Radio Okapi: "MONUC was approached by someone representing the Congolese authorities and asked to find someone by the name of Georges Mirindi in the CNDP delegation. It seems Georges Mirindi has been convicted in relation to the assassination. It had been made clear that people who are involved this case would not be allowed to participate in the conference".

"The head of the MONUC team which was approached went to see the person concerned and informed him of concerns that had been expressed. The person concerned has said his name was Seraphin and not Georges Mirindi," said Saiki.

According to Seraphin Mirindi, MONUC's head of political affairs had informed that he was being placed under arrest.

"I said that I did not understand. And he realised that the person sought was a certain Colonel Georges Mirindi, not me, Seraphin Mirindi," he told the AFP news agency.

The conference, however, continued on 10 January despite the CNDP walk out.

Laurent Kabila was shot dead by one of his bodygurds on 16 January, 2001. About 30 people were convicted in connection with the assassination and sentenced to penalties ranging from death to life in prison.

Georges Mirindi was convicted in absentia, but he remain at large.

There are several parties to the fighting in North Kivu, including the regular army, dissident troops loyal to Nkunda, remnants of the Rwandan soldiers and militia that carried out much of the killing in that country's 1994 genocide and a variety of Congolese armed groups collectively known as Mayi Mayi.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled their homes in the province over recent months.

ei/jn

[END]

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.irinnews.org

7.1.2008

GOMA, 7 January 2008 (IRIN) - An eight-day conference aimed at bringing peace to the troubled Kivus region in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has opened in the North Kivu capital of Goma.

Representatives from the government, armed groups, civil society and different ethnic groups are attending the talks at the Université Libre des Grands Lacs.

However, the failure of Congolese President Joseph Kabila and rebel leader Laurent Nkunda to attend the conference has raised serious doubts about its effectiveness.

Congolese Interior Minister General Denis Kalume, representing President Kabila, opened the talks on 6 January.

"Congolese will not be happy until North Kivu and South Kivu find peace. The participants at this conference must find a way to end the cries of the children who have been orphaned and of the women and girls who have been violated," he said.

Clashes between Nkunda's forces and government troops have displaced some 800,000 civilians in North Kivu in recent months. In addition, there are more than 300,000 Congolese refugees, roughly a third of whom come from eastern DRC, living in neighbouring Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, according to Simon Lubuku, spokesman for the UN's Refugee Agency, UNHCR.

Nkunda claims to be fighting to protect the interests of the Tutsi community in eastern DRC. He has consistently refused to lay down his arms until the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) is disarmed and repatriated from its eastern DRC theatre of operations.

The FDLR is made up of the Rwandan Hutu Interahamwe, responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and soldiers from the FAR, the army of the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government at that time.

Neutralising the FDLR is generally acknowledged, not only by Nkunda and the Rwandan government but also by the DRC government and the international community, as a prerequisite for restoring peace in the Kivus.

Nkunda is represented at the Goma conference by 10 members of his political wing, the National Council for the Defence of the People (CNDP).

"We have demands and the first is peace. We have asked for peace from the beginning," said CNDP spokesman Rene Abandi. "It is vital to resolve the issue of the FDLR, the issue of the displaced, the issue of refugees. But after the return of refugees, reconciliation is necessary."

"The FDLR are known throughout the world as a negative force and it is not acceptable for such a force to oppress our people. For us, there is nothing to negotiate about the FDLR's departure. They must leave," said the head of the CNDP delegation Kambasu Ngeve.

DRC Interior Minister Kalume also stressed the need to remove the FDLR from Congolese soil. However, he insisted that Nkunda's troops must be the first to disarm.

"Our priority is that all armed groups must lay down their arms and either join the national army or take part in the disarmament and demobilisation process and rejoin civilian life. We cannot recruit people into the army against their will," he said

"I call upon foreign armed groups to take part in the government programme, introduced last January [2007], which provides for their voluntary disarmament and repatriation under the protection of international institutions," Kalume added.

Hutu and Tutsi residents of eastern DRC who have Rwandan roots and continue to speak the language of that country, were keen to press home their long-voiced demands for security at the conference.

"The exclusion of Tutsis and Rwandophones by all Congolese governments is the reason for this insecurity. It has made hundreds of thousands of Congolese stateless. We must solve this problem to achieve peace," said Emmanuel Kamanzi, a member of the Congolese Rally for Democracy, a political party that evolved from a Rwanda-backed rebel group of the same name that played a major part in the 1998-2003 civil war in DRC.

He believes the exclusion of these groups is the fault of politicians.

"People from different ethnic groups in the region have no problem living together. The conflict is between political leaders," he said.

The conference has faced problems from the start with several groups, such as the Mayi-Mayi militia, refusing to attend, claiming that they were excluded from its organisation.

"We fear the solutions that will come from this conference have been decided in advance by the United States and Britain," complained Willy Mishiga of an opposition coalition, the Union of the Nation.

Mishiga was angry that the opposition were not invited to the conference.

"Nkunda is not the only rebel we have in DRC. What about the others who were not invited to this conference?" he asked.

Some ethnic groups have also voiced their discontent, such as the Nande, who oppose negotiations with Nkunda and want him to be defeated militarily instead.

Discussions will fall under four broad themes - peace, security, humanitarian and social issues and development.

However, critics say that many key issues are not even on the agenda and no real breakthrough can be made when key players are missing.

One North Kivu analyst, who wished to remain anonymous, said an effective peace conference must focus on negotiations between the warring parties.

"A conference that claims to address everything from reconstruction to community reconciliation without providing any basis for direct negotiations between the belligerents can't possibly achieve peace. Peace is made between opponents who sit down to negotiate," he said.

The Rwandan government and some observers claim the Congolese army is collaborating with the FDLR rather than trying to disarm it.

"FARDC elements co-operate with the FDLR, the remnants of the Hutu forces that committed the genocide in Rwanda, who they are supposed to disarm, sharing looted items and taxes and the proceeds from gold and coltan [a metallic ore] mining operations," Refugees International stated in a recent report, Transition without Military Transformation.

Refugees International says the national army, the FARDC, has become "a major source of insecurity for civilian communities in the east" since it integrated former rebel soldiers into its ranks after a hasty 45-day training programme.

The Congolese government denies these allegations.

km/am/sr[END]

© IRIN. All rights reserved. More humanitarian news and analysis: http://www.irinnews.org