CRINMAIL 165:

In this issue:

Problems viewing this CRINMAIL? Click here.

Children’s Rights and the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Each issue of this CRINMAIL will begin with a background of a conflict situation in a specific country followed by an analysis of its impact on children. In light of recent events, this month we focus on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

While having the potential to be one of the richest countries in Africa, the DRC remains at the bottom of the list of countries in the Human Development Index due in part to weak State structures, corruption and governance problems, and to decades of violence that continue to affect the east. Foreign and local armed groups in the east are fighting for power, natural resources, or because of ethnic differences.

Background to the conflict

Following the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 against the Tutsis and moderate Hutus, in which an estimated 800,000 Tutsis were killed, over 2 million Rwandan Hutus fled the Tutsi rebellion into the DRC, then called the Republic of Zaire, and sought refuge in camps, mostly in the two Congolese Kivu provinces in the east.

In November 1996, Rwanda and Uganda as well as a Congolese rebellion led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila brutally dismantled the refugee camps to chase down the remaining suspected perpetrators of the genocide thought to be hiding there. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that only seven per cent of these refugees were involved in the genocide. These elements later contributed to creating the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) armed group, which remained on Congolese territory.

Engulfing the region

The coalition of Ugandan and Rwandan armies along with Kabila progressed towards Kinshasa and defeated Mobutu Sese Seko and the Congolese army in May 1997. Laurent-Désiré Kabila became president and renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In 1998, Kabila requested that the Rwandan and Ugandan armies leave the Congolese territory; he received military support from neighbouring countries including Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia. The ensuing conflict led to the death of an estimated five million people between 1998 and 2003, mostly from disease and other health related problems.

Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated in 2001 and his son Joseph was appointed president. The first democratic elections were held in 2006 from which Joseph Kabila emerged as victor. During that period, the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), a Tutsi-led militia group commanded by Laurent Nkunda claiming to defend the interests of the Tutsis in the DRC, became more active in pursuing the FDLR in the east.

Despite the signing of a peace agreement between the Congolese government and 22 armed groups in January 2008, fighting between the armed forces of the DRC (FARDC), the FDLR, the CNDP and other armed militias continued. But from 2009, the Rwandan and Congolese governments started cooperating in order to fight the FDLR still present in eastern Congo.

A peace agreement between the DRC authorities and the CNDP in March 2009 resulted in the integration of this armed group into the FARDC, but its main leaders, including Bosco Ntaganda, maintained a parallel chain of command within the Congolese armed forces.

Even though the new partnership between the DRC and Rwanda weakened the FDLR, they continued to operate in eastern Congo and are still active to this day.

In the Northeast, another foreign armed group, the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), has been active for many years and continues to cause terror and unrest killing hundreds and displacing thousands of villagers in the DRC and other countries in Africa (mainly Sudan and the Central African Republic). Read more about the LRA.

Human Rights Watch reported that 1400 civilians were killed between January and September 2009; 7500 were raped and 900,000 new internally displaced persons reported in North and South Kivu as a result of the military offensives by the FARDC and the FDLR.

A UN report made public in December 2008, revealed Rwandan support to the CNDP as well as extensive collaboration between the FDLR and Congolese military officers.

Recent events

Since April 2012, with the emergence of the M23 armed group, mostly composed of ex-CNDP members of the FARDC who defected from the army, the security situation throughout eastern Congo has considerably deteriorated particularly in North Kivu owing to fighting between this group and the FARDC. The new wave of fighting forced hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee their home between April and July 2012.

On 15 November 2012, following three months of de facto ceasefire between the M23 and FARDC, fighting broke out some 25 km in the North of Goma, around Kibumba. Both the UN and FARDC were overrun and the M23 took Goma on 20 November. The M23 further seized control of other towns in the west of Goma.

Following intensive negotiations within the framework of the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) in Kampala, there have been signs of the M23 pulling out since 27 November. However, due to internal tensions between the political and military wings of the M23, the situation remains volatile and whether the M23 will pull out completely of Goma remains yet to be seen.

The recent fighting forced some 140,000 civilians to flee.

While the attention of the international community has primarily focused on the M23 armed group, many other militias or rebel groups proliferated due to the mobilisation of resources by the Congolese government and the UN towards the M23.

Children and armed conflict

In 2005, the UN described eastern Congo as "the world’s worst humanitarian crisis". More than 5 million people died in the conflict from 1998 to 2003, 2.7 million of them were children. More than 200,000 women and girls have been victims of rape or other acts of sexual violence.

All armed groups operating in the DRC have recruited boys and girls and have used them in hostilities including as fighters, messengers, spies, cooks, or to carry ammunition. In April 2011, Child Soldiers International reported:

"Tens of thousands of children have been released from the armed forces and from armed groups including during the integration of armed groups into the national army [in 2009]. However, many under-18s were absorbed into the army during integration processes and, while child recruitment levels by the army are lower than in previous years, effective mechanisms to prevent underage recruitment are still lacking."

This explains why child recruitment is ongoing and peaks in times of heightened armed conflict as has been the case since April 2012. In August 2012, the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) reported about 150 incidents of child recruitment by the M23, Mai Mai groups, the FDLR and the LRA since the beginning of 2012.

The report of the UN Group of Experts on the DRC, published in November 2012, indicates that "since its inception in May 2012, M23 has recruited more than 250 children in the [DRC] and Rwanda."

These violations are fuelled by near total impunity at domestic level. According to the report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on Children and Armed Conflict (April 2012), "three years after the adoption of the Child Protection Law in January 2009 and the criminalisation of child recruitment, no perpetrators of recruitment and use of children were prosecuted and convicted, despite the fact that many of them - including at the senior level - were clearly identified."

The government of the DRC and the UN signed an action plan in October 2012 that includes a series of commitments from both parties to end the recruitment and use of children by Congolese armed forces and security services in the DRC, as well as to end sexual violence against children by members of these forces.

Continue to more persistent violations in the DRC.

The International Criminal Court

In April 2004, the government of the DRC requested the International Criminal Court (ICC) to open investigations into the situation in the country for potential crimes committed since the entry into force of the Rome Statute on 1 July 2002 (read more about the ICC and the Rome Statute).

Seven arrest warrants have been issued to date for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Read the summaries of the cases.

Read the full background on the DRC.

Back to top.

In other news

Armed opposition groups in Syria have been found to use children for combat and other military purposes. Human Rights Watch found that children as young as 14 have served in at least three opposition brigades, transporting weapons and supplies and acting as lookouts, and children as young as 16 have carried arms and taken combat roles against government forces.

Still in Syria, compelling evidence has emerged that an airstrike using cluster bombs on a town near Damascus killed at least 11 children and wounded others on November 25.

Previously, in October, Human Rights Watch documented an increase in the use of cluster bombs throughout the country by Syrian military aircraft.

Cluster munitions can be fired by rockets, mortars, and artillery or dropped by aircraft. They explode in the air, sending dozens, even hundreds, of submunitions or "bomblets" over a wide area. These submunitions often fail to explode on initial impact, leaving duds that act like landmines and explode when handled.

Syria is not a party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions which came into force on August 1, 2010, banning the use of cluster munitions. A total of 77 states are party to the convention, while another 34 have signed but not yet ratified.

Use of cluster munitions was also reported in May in Sudan, another country that has not joined the Convention. In 2011, Libya and Thailand, neither of which signed the convention, also used cluster munitions. Read the full article.

Indiscriminate attacks

During the last round of violence in Gaza that ended on 21 November, more than 140 people, including at least 36 children, have been killed. More than 1,100 people have been injured in Gaza while five have been killed in Israel and over 60 injured. Airstrikes against Gaza have targeted houses and civilian buildings that the Israeli Defence Forces maintain are housing Hamas militants, despite  killing innocent civilians, including entire families. Media buildings occupied by both international and Hamas-affiliated stations have also been bombed, with at least three Palestinian journalists killed.

During the conflict the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (SRSG), called "on all parties to immediately stop the violence and to fully respect their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect girls and boys from the fighting".

For many of Gaza's children, this was the second war they have lived through, after Operation Cast Lead, the 22-day conflict at the end of December 2008.

Human rights violations in Myanmar

While the political landscape in Myanmar has undergone noticeable shifts in recent months, human rights violations persist throughout the country, according to a human right organisation based in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The Network for Human Rights Documentation expressed concerns over issues relating to the civil war in ethnic areas, most notably forced labour, the use of child soldiers, torture and ill-treatment.

Over the period of April to September 2012, the network documented 114 cases of human rights violations at the hands of the Union Solidarity and Development party led by the government, which it said included 27 cases of forced labour, 26 cases of land confiscation and 21 cases of torture. Read more.

Use of child soldiers rising in Colombia

A recent study found that in the last four years, 18,000 children have been forced to join guerrilla groups and paramilitaries in Colombia, most of them reporting abuses and atrocities.

According to the report, guerrilla groups recruit children to do "their dirty work" which includes extremely dangerous activities in which their lives are constantly at risk such as installing landmines, transporting explosives and kidnapping.

The study also noticed an alarming new trend: in the past, the vast majority of the children captured by armed groups were boys, the percentage of kidnapped girls has dramatically increased to 43 per cent.

No rehabilitation for former child soldier

Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 by American forces at the age of 15 and detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In 2010, he received an eight year sentence after pleading guilty to five war crimes, including throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier.

Khadr, now 26, returned to Canada in September. While his country has an obligation to rehabilitate him, Public Safety Minister considers him "a terrorist, not a child soldier" and decided to detain him at the maximum security Millhaven Institution in Bath, Ontario. Read more.

Keep Soldiers Out of Schools and Universities

The Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack released a new study, "Lessons In War: Military Use of Schools and Other Education Institutions during Conflict", that examines the use of schools and other education institutions for military purposes by government armed forces and opposition or pro-government armed groups during times of armed conflict or insecurity.

Schools are used for barracks, logistics bases, operational headquarters, weapons and ammunition caches, detention and interrogation centres, firing and observation positions, and recruitment grounds.

The coalition calls on countries around the world to adopt policies and laws to restrict military forces and armed groups from using schools and other education institutions during times of armed conflict.

In 2011, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution expanding the criteria for listing parties to conflict in the Secretary-General’s annual report to now include parties who attack schools and hospitals. Prior to this resolution, the Secretary-General’s annual list was limited to parties who recruit or use children, kill and/or maim children, or commit sexual violence. Read more about the resolution.

Find out more on children’s rights at the Security Council.

THE LAST WORD

Back to top.