DR CONGO: Special Edition of Children and Armed Conflict

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28 July 2006 - CRIN Children and Armed Conflict 98
Special Edition on DR Congo

 

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- DR CONGO: Elections Are a Chance to Embrace Human Rights Reform [news]

- CHILD SOLDIERS: Re-Recruitment in Pre-Election DRC [news]

- SECURITY COUNCIL: Call for Greater Effort to Protect Children in Wartime [news]

- CHILD LABOUR: Diamonds, Children and Witchcraft [feature]

- HUNGER: Launch of Campaign to End Starvation in the Congo [campaign]

- VIOLENCE: As Vote Nears, Abuses Go Unpunished in Katanga [publication]

- RESOURCES

- NEWS IN BRIEF: Crisis in the Middle East

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DR CONGO: Elections Are a Chance to Embrace Human Rights Reform [news]

[19 July 2006] - As the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) prepares to elect a new government for the first time since it achieved independence in 1960, Amnesty International has called on all candidates in the forthcoming presidential and legislative elections to commit to a clear programme of human rights reform.

"The political parties competing for office in the new government have so far failed to offer convincing plans for how they intend to promote human rights, accountability and rule of law," said Kolawole Olaniyan, Director of Amnesty International’s Africa Programme.

"The last few weeks have seen the intimidation of political rivals by the government and the security forces, campaigning apparently aimed at inciting ethnic division, and grave abuses of freedom of expression and the press. Government troops also continue to commit human rights violations against civilians, underlying the urgent need for a professional and truly unified army."

"These momentous elections are an opportunity to address the country’s most pressing human rights and development problems - including those stemming from the country's recent past, such as impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious human rights violations," said Kolawole Olaniyan.

Amnesty International called on those seeking election to publicly express their commitment to the respect and protection of human rights. The organisation also called on election candidates to adopt the following priorities for reform:

The integration of the former government security forces and armed groups into a professional unified national army and police force. This must be completed promptly and in accordance with human rights principles. Crucially, the integration programme needs to include training in international humanitarian and human rights law for all ranks, effective training and equipment for the police and security forces to carry out their mandate in accordance with international human rights standards, and an independent vetting mechanism to exclude from the unified security forces anyone against whom there is evidence of involvement in specific human rights abuses.

The demobilisation of fighters. All demobilised fighters must be offered lasting vocational and educational opportunities that will enable them to return successfully and durably to civilian life. This should include as a priority children, who made up a large proportion of the armed groups, who are acutely vulnerable to re-recruitment or rejection by their communities.

The reform of the justice system. The civilian justice system should be made competent, independent and have all the necessary power and resources to investigate and bring to justice suspected perpetrators in compliance with international fair trial standards. The courts must be adequately resourced so that they become the primary means of tackling entrenched impunity for human rights violations and of providing redress and reparations to the victims and their families. Trials of civilians, and of military personnel for crimes against civilians, by military courts must end. Suspects must never be subjected to torture or ill-treatment.

The rebuilding of the ruined health care and education systems. Priority should be given to addressing the health care needs of the tens of thousands of rape survivors in the east of the country and the educational needs of children in a country where, according to estimates, 3.5 million primary-aged children do not attend school and there are at least six million unschooled adolescents.

The protection of human rights defenders. Effective measures must be taken to ensure an immediate end to acts of violence, threats, intimidation, arbitrary arrest and detention of human rights defenders, journalists and civil society activists.

Curbing the proliferation of arms. Respect and enforce the terms of the UN arms embargo, and take measures to ensure that armed forces are handing in all weapons as part of the army reform process.

The promotion of good governance. Effective independent national institutions should be created or strengthened to ensure good governance and the transparent management of the country's mineral and other natural resources.

The promotion of ethnic reconciliation. This should happen through the holding of national and provincial dialogues to discuss and promote such reconciliation.

Amnesty International also called on the UN and its member states, the European Union and African Union to renew international and political support for the current peacekeeping operation (MONUC) during the post-election period.

"The progress made during the DRC's transitional period is almost wholly due to international support and institution-building," said Kolawole Olaniyan. "Many areas of the DRC remain deeply volatile and adequate numbers of peacekeepers and other MONUC personnel will be needed in the DRC for some time to come."

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Further information

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CHILD SOLDIERS: Re-Recruitment in Pre-Election DRC [news]

[LONDON, 28 July 2006] - As the election approaches in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the numbers of children being re-recruited to fight, work as porters, sex slaves, cleaners, and cooks is on the increase.

Despite Save the Children’s preventative work and care for demobilised children in eastern DRC, large numbers of children remain in militia groups and more are being actively recruited.

Between January 2004 and June 2006 more than 19,000 children were released, but Save the Children estimates that thousands more remain in armed groups and forces. Between 30-40 per cent of those are girls, many of whom have been victims of sexual violence.

Just over a month ago, 12 children were abducted on their way to be reunified with their families in North Kivu. Save the Children’s work on reunification and reintegration cannot succeed if children continue to be re-recruited.

Save the Children’s Child Protection Programme Manager in North Kivu says “there is a lack of trust from the children themselves in the whole process and towards us if we cannot adequately protect them from re-recruitment and serious exploitation”.

In Goma alone, over 160 children are waiting to be reunified with their families but Save the Children is unable to reunify the majority of them because of insecurity and the risk of re-recruitment. 15 children, who had already been reunified with their families, recently returned to Goma to seek our protection.

We call for the release of all child soldiers and the immediate cessation of recruitment of children into armed groups and forces and the enforcement of law against those who commit violence against children.

The International Community must protest and take a strong stand against impunity for these acts, as well as call upon the newly elected government to protect and support children in the DRC - one of the toughest places in the world to grow up.

Over 10 years of ongoing conflict and severe poverty has lead to the complete collapse of systems and infrastructure critical to children’s survival and development. As a consequence, around half of Congolese children are excluded from health and education services.

Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9527

Further information

For more information, contact:
Save the Children UK
1 St John's Lane, London EC1M 4AR, United Kingdom
Tel: + 44 (0)20 7012 6400; Fax: + 44 (0)20 7012 6963
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk

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SECURITY COUNCIL: Call for Greater Effort to Protect Children in Wartime [news]

[24 July 2006] – After hearing presentations from United Nations officials about the 250,000 boys currently exploited as child soldiers and tens of thousands of girls subject to sexual violence, on Monday the Security Council called for a “reinvigorated effort” to protect children in areas of armed conflict.

Through a statement read out by its July President, Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sablière of France, the 15-member body praised the implementation of its landmark 2005 Security Council Resolution 1612 that called for the monitoring of violations of children’s rights and well-being in seven conflict zones.

The mechanism has already produced results in the field, but more must be done, including the pursuit of efforts to reintegrate child soldiers into their societies, the Council said, and it called on national governments, international organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to contribute to that effort.

In the preceding Council discussion, UN officials and delegations had also called for greater efforts to protect children, including measures to prevent impunity on the part of government forces and rebel groups who persist in exploiting and abusing them.

“The initial phase of the monitoring and reporting mechanisms is now over,” Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of Secretary-General Kofi Annan for children and armed conflict, said, “It is now time for the Security Council to take action against repeat offenders.”

Resolution 1612 takes account of recruitment of child soldiers, killing and maiming children, rape and other sexual violence, abduction and forced displacement, denial of humanitarian access to children, attacks against schools and hospitals, as well as trafficking, forced labour and all forms of slavery.

It calls for such crimes to be monitored in the pilot countries of Burundi, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nepal, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Sudan.

Ms. Coomaraswamy thanked numerous actors at the local, national, regional and international level for their assistance in putting such monitoring mechanisms in place and noted that the first country report (DRC), had been submitted in June.

However, recounting the story of a Sierra Leonean boy she called “Abou” who, since being abducted at the age of 11, had fought with rebels in his own country, in Liberia and in Côte d’Ivoire, she said that the monitoring had served to confirm “that there are far too many Abous out there, and we are compelled to protect them.”

Ann Veneman, head of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) drew attention to the fact that over the past decade some two million children have died as a result of war, while countless others have had to flee their homes.

In a report released today (Child Alert: DRC), UNICEF said that every day 1,200 people, half of them children, are killed in the DRC because of violence, disease and malnutrition.

In the open meeting that followed those presentations, 36 speakers, representing Council members and other nations, affirmed that protecting children from abuse during conflict was a responsibility of each State and the entire international community, with many proposing mechanisms to follow up on resolution 1612.

Further information

Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9420

For more information, contact:
UN - United Nations
Public Inquiries Unit
United Nations
GA-57, New York, NY 10017, United States
Tel: +1 212 963 4475; Fax: +1 212 963 0071
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.un.org

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CHILD LABOUR: Diamonds, Children and Witchcraft [feature]

[MBUJI MAYI, 17 July 2006] - Diamonds, the top export in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are mostly extracted from the middle of the country at Kasai Oriental Province. Yet people there are among the poorest in the DRC and diamonds seem to be tearing apart their society. Children do much of the work and many are killed in accidents or in fighting over diamonds. Distrust is feeding superstition and causing a strange and terrible phenomenon: thousands of children are being accused of witchcraft.

About 20km east of the provincial capital Mbuji Mayi is a place known in the Luba language as Muambulia Bantu. It's a green, fertile valley with rolling hills, but beneath the beauty lurks danger: the earth is pockmarked with holes up to 28m deep - almost 100 feet. The smaller the person, the better they can manoeuvre once they've been lowered down the rope.

The boy at the bottom of the hole is Punda Lione: "It's dark down here," he says. From that far down the daylight above is just a pin prick. He has been there since 7am; it is now midday. He is employed by an adult to dig out the dirt and put it into sacks, which he then ties to a rope. The sacks are pulled to the surface; other children employed by the same man carry them down the hill to a creek where they wash the dirt in a sieve, picking out what in Luba is called 'mbongu': diamonds.

All of a sudden a cry goes up: "Mbongu! Mbongu" A boy has found one and instantly hides it in his mouth.

The children occasionally find diamonds worth thousands of dollars but are not allowed to keep them, says Charles Tchibanza, a sociologist from Mbuji Mayi University. "These children have no protection except from the people exploiting them. Their lives are at risk. Most are here because they were abandoned by their families," he adds.

The number of children abandoned in Mbuji Mayi is staggering. Tchibanza conducted a survey in 1999 and counted almost 10,000. He's started updating the survey and says it's clear there are now many more. He blames sorcery.

"Many people here believe in witchcraft. It's part of Luba tradition, although what is happening today in Mbuji Mayi is something new. Before, if someone was accused of having demonic powers the village would take the person and make them go through a purification ceremony. No one would ever be thrown out of their homes; certainly not a child. What's happening today is a result of urbanisation and desperation caused by diamonds," says Tchibanza.

What exactly do diamonds and witchcraft have to do with each other? Tchibanza says it is a matter of ongoing research. What is clear is that diamond mining accounts for at least 70 per cent of the economy in and around Mbuji Mayi. Yet despite a few garish mansions, most people live in mud huts without electricity or running water. Though the region is fertile, people don't have enough to eat. Farming does not offer the possibility of sudden wealth in the same way as diamonds. But diamonds bring frustration and breed distrust and superstition. There is a climate of fear here.

Some people are capitalising on the fear. On almost every street corner in Mbuji Mayi there's a house of worship. Many are local Congolese churches headed by self-appointed preachers, who have set themselves up as exorcists, such as Jean Pierre Onakofcheko. He lives in a hut with many children.

"Some children that come to me, I look at them and see they have been falsely accused of witchcraft. Some just imagine they are witches, and then there are others who are witches. I use the Holy Spirit in me to divine who is really a witch. Then I use my powers of prayer to cleanse them," says Onakoko.

There is a 12-year-old girl with him, Konku Monique, whose parents threw her out for being a witch, an accusation she vehemently denies. She says she came to Onakoko because she had nowhere else to turn, and because she wants to make sure she never becomes a witch.

"I have seen Priest Onakoko exorcise child witches. Terrible things come out of their mouths. I have seen a child vomit up a live insect - a very big insect. I was very scared. I am still scared, that something like this could happen to me," says Konku.

Priests like Onakoko are part of a vicious circle of diamonds, witchcraft and death in which the children get caught. Those worst off join armed groups known as 'suiciders', which cross illegally into the province's richest diamond area south of Mbuji Mayi called the polygon, owned by MIBA, the state diamond-mining company. There, children often get caught in gun battles with MIBA's security forces and many are killed or disappear for ever.

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) is trying to help the abandoned children with special schools, teaching carpentry and other trades to encourage the children to seek alternative sources of income. Says Unicef child protection assistant Lisset Khonde: "We have many successes but this problem will continue as long as so many people are impoverished and as long as diamonds offer the false hope of prosperity."

Up the road from the Muambulia Bantu diamond fields is a small village where adults and children are gathered at what looks like a little market, but here the trade is in diamonds. In each stall a dealer sits with a set of scales and a pile of US dollars.

The clients are mostly barefoot children. One of them stands before a dealer with his mouth open wide showing little diamonds on his tongue. If he's lucky he'll get a few dollars, says Khonde. But it's more likely the boy is cheated or ends up dead at the bottom of an abandoned diamond pit.

From this market the dealers take the diamonds into town and sell them to bigger dealers, many Lebanese, who say they never buy diamonds from children under the age of 15. The head of the diamond dealers' association in Mbuji Mayi is Alfonse Ngoyi Kasanji, who a few years ago sold a diamond for US$6.2m. "Using children to mine diamonds is a crime. But the government is doing nothing to stop it and when I buy a diamond from an adult I have no idea if it was mined by a child," he says.

Dealers such as Kasanji take their diamonds to Belgium, India and Israel and sell them to bigger merchants, who know even less about how their stones were brought out of the ground. There is a worldwide system to verify diamonds. But this Kimberley process is designed to stop rebel armies from buying guns with diamonds - not to verify anybody's age. Until the problem is addressed, children in Mbuji Mayi will continue their dangerous work and many will continue to die.

Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9257&flag=news

Further information

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HUNGER: Launch of Campaign to End Starvation in the Congo [campaign]

[28 July 2006] - Action Against Hunger is launching a "Campaign to End Starvation in the Congo" on the eve of the Democratic Republic of Congo's first multiparty elections in more than 40 years. Action Against Hunger hopes the election will herald a new era of peace and stability in a country emerging from a decade-long civil war, where 1,200 people continue to die every day in what has been called the "Most Neglected Humanitarian Crisis" on earth.

Action Against Hunger has been active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) throughout the past decade. The organisation operates therapeutic feeding centres where severely malnourished people, mostly children, are renewed to health in just 30 days. Beyond emergencies, their development programmes in water and sanitation, food security, nutrition, and health care ensure that families regain their self-sufficiency over the long-term.

Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infodetail.asp?id=9536

For more information, contact:
Action Against Hunger USA
247 West 37th, Suite #1201
New York, NY 10018, United States
Tel: +1 212 967 7800; Fax: +1 212 967 5480
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.actionagainsthunger.org

Further information

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VIOLENCE: As Vote Nears, Abuses Go Unpunished in Katanga [publication]

[NEW YORK, 21 July 2006] – As the Democratic Republic of Congo prepares for elections, the government’s failure to take prompt and effective action against soldiers and others responsible for killing, raping and torturing civilians in Katanga could encourage further violence and insecurity in the southern province, Human Rights Watch said. With testimonies, analysis, photographs and video, the multimedia web special entitled The Triangle of Death: A Place of Horrors in Katanga Province documents widespread abuses committed by government soldiers and combatants of a local defense force known as the Mai Mai during three years of violence in central Katanga. Hundreds have been killed and more than 150,000 have fled their homes from the zone of military operations that local residents have dubbed “the triangle of death.”  

Incumbent President Joseph Kabila, himself from Katanga, is the current front-runner in the presidential contest, but with more than 30 other contenders, he may well face a run-off election weeks or even months after the first poll, which is scheduled for July 30. In addition, parliamentary elections require a two-stage process, lengthening the period before a new government is finally installed.  

“The electoral period will be lengthy and characterised by uncertainty before a new government takes power,” said Alison Des Forges, senior Africa adviser at Human Rights Watch. “During this time, justice cannot wait. Authorities must start holding abusers accountable if they want to discourage others from using similarly abusive tactics now and in the future.”  

In November 2005, the Congolese army launched a military operation to quell an insurgency in Katanga led by the Mai Mai. Government soldiers rounded up hundreds of civilians suspected of being Mai Mai, and deliberately killed or tortured to death dozens of them. They gang-raped scores of women alleged to have supported the Mai Mai.  

Mai Mai combatants under the command of Kyungu Mutanga, known as Gédéon, and another Mai Mai leader, Makabe Kalenga Ngwele, have also killed, raped and otherwise abused civilians since 2002. In some cases, the Mai Mai publicly tortured victims before killing and cannibalising them in public ceremonies intended to terrorise the local population.  

The Mai Mai of Katanga were launched in 1998 as a popular resistance force against the invading foreign armies of Uganda and Rwanda, but later turned against the central government and local communities.  

In a web special, Human Rights Watch documents the war crimes committed by both sides to this conflict and urges the government to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators.  

To date, Congolese authorities have failed to act effectively against abusers. On May 12 Gédéon surrendered to United Nations peacekeepers in Mitwaba, central Katanga. Several days later, he was handed over to Congolese judicial officials who have kept him in detention but have not charged him with any crime.  

The current government has appointed former warlords from other parts of Congo, such as Ituri and the Kivus, as generals in the national army, ignoring credible information implicating them in war crimes and crimes against humanity. The most recent appointment was made on July 17, when the government granted the post of colonel in the national army to Peter Karim, a commander from the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI), a murderous armed group in Ituri.  

United Nations officials have provided the Congolese government with information about human rights abuses by members of armed groups and soldiers of the national army, including a file about military abuses submitted to the government in January.  

“If President Kabila and other government ministers currently standing for elections are serious about a commitment to justice, they should not appoint suspected war criminals to high military ranks and they must bring to justice their own soldiers accused of such crimes,” said Des Forges. “A national army staffed by war criminals is unlikely to provide any security to its citizens whether during elections or after.”

Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9532&flag=report

For more information, contact:
Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor
New York, NY 10118-3299, United States 
Tel: + 1 212 216 1837
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.hrw.org

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RESOURCES

IRIN: Countdown in Congo – election news and background
http://www.irinnews.org/DRCelection.asp

UNICEF: Child Alert - Democratic Republic of Congo (July 2006)
http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9391

United Nations: Report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (June 2006)
http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=8826&flag=report

Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict: Struggling to Survive: Children in Armed Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (April 2004)
http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=8096&flag=report

Human Rights Watch: What Future? Street Children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (April 2004)
http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=7857&flag=report

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NEWS IN BRIEF – Crisis in the Middle East

CRIN: Latest news on the crisis in Lebanon
http://www.crin.org/reg/country.asp?ctryID=121&subregID=13

UN says Lebanon water shortage will threaten lives soon (28 July 2006)
http://www.crin.org/resources/infodetail.asp?id=9529

AlertNet: Israeli bombardment hits Lebanon's children hard (27 July 2006)
http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9477&flag=news

Gaza Humanitarian Crisis: Call for Action (27 July 2006)
http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9484&flag=news

Defence for Children International – Palestine Section: Palestine: Thirty-one Gaza children killed in Israeli offensive in thirty-one days (26 July 2006)
http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9467&flag=news

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