A coalition of Congo-focused groups is sponsoring a rally for the Congo on Saturday Jan 17th, 2009 in front of the White House for an afternoon of events to remind President Elect Barack Obama that peace in Congo should be a priority.
From 1 - 4 PM Eastern Time:
Rally in support of Peace in DRC
Place: Lafayette Park (In Front of the White House)
Between 16th & H Street, NW
Honor Speaker: Eve Ensler of V-Day
That same evening, there will be a commemoration of Patrice Lumumba on the 48th anniversary of his assassination:
From 6-9 PM Eastern Time:
Congo Forum: What is the Future of Congo in honor of Patrice Emery Lumumba
Place: Trinity University
125 Michigan Ave, NE
Washington, DC 20017
Honor Speaker: Guy Patrice Lumumba (the Youngest Son of Lumumba)
Monday, January 12, 2009
Seminar on Violence against Women
The Wilson Center is hosting an event on the dynamics of sexual violence against women in the DRC on Thursday, January 15, from noon to 2 pm. Should be well-worth attending.
Economic Slide Halted--for Now
The Central Bank of Congo appears to have acted quickly and effectively to halt last week's nosedive in the Congo's currency, which plummeted from 680 francs per dollar to over 850 in some places. It raised key interest rates from 28 percent to 40 percent to 55 percent, injected dollars into the foreign exchange markets, and raised banks' reserve requirements from five to seven percent. The result was immediate: the franc strengthened to under 600 per dollar by week's end. Good analysis here from Le Potentiel.
In related news, Reuters reports that the DRC is seeking an emergency $200 million loan from the International Monetary Fund to halt the rapidly worsening financial crisis.
The impression this leaves is that the DRC's top financial people are actually a quite competent and serious group, able to staunch a run on their currency through bold and aggressive action. That's a very hopeful sign.
In related news, Reuters reports that the DRC is seeking an emergency $200 million loan from the International Monetary Fund to halt the rapidly worsening financial crisis.
The impression this leaves is that the DRC's top financial people are actually a quite competent and serious group, able to staunch a run on their currency through bold and aggressive action. That's a very hopeful sign.
Kivu's Four-Ring Circus Continues [Updated]
In Ring One:
Negotiations are said to be "continuing" in Nairobi between the Kabila government and the CNDP rebels, and to be focused on securing a possible cease fire.
Ring Two:
The LRA, in flight since a Uganda-led assault on their encampments in northeastern Congo on December 14, have attacked the gold-mining village of Sambia, 130km east of Dungu, in Orientale province, says IRIN, the UN OCHA news agency. The attack led to several deaths and caused almost 10,000 people to flee their homes. An OCHA briefing on the humanitarian crisis in Ituri is available here.
Ring Three:
More details are emerging from the interview Bosco Ntaganda gave to journalists last week from his home farm in Kabati, which Reuters first reported on last week. Ntaganda led an apparently unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Laurent Nkunda as leader of the CNDP, perhaps, it is thought, because Nkunda was preparing to turn him over to international authorities. Ntaganda is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes he committed in Ituri province in 2005.
Today, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting says that Ntaganda is ready to face Hague prosecutors – but not just yet. "I will go to The Hague when it is the right time," Ntaganda told IWPR during a January 8 meeting with journalists.
But first, Ntaganda said, he has to help bring peace to the Kivus. Accusing Nkunda of blocking the peace process, he offered his CNDP troops to fight alongside the Congolese army to disarm the Rwandan Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, FDLR, which he says are at the root of the problem.
It is not clear, however, how many CNDP troops Ntaganda controls. The CNDP's spokesman, who remains loyal to Nkunda, has said that Ntaganda brought no troops and no weapons with him when he arrived from Ituri.
As for the indictment against him, Ntaganda sounds fairly sanguine: "There are positive things I did in Ituri. If you ask people, they will tell you that I am the one who ended war and nobody else," he said.
It is worth remembering that Ntaganda's nickname is "The Terminator" and that there are compelling and credible accounts of him committing serious war crimes, both in Ituri and more recently in North Kivu.
Ring Four:
Rwanda's New Times provides more detail on the meeting in Kinshasa last week between Rwanda's Chief of Defence Staff General James Kabarebe and his Congolese counterpart, Gen. Didier Etumba.
The meeting is a follow-up to earlier meetings between the foreign secretaries and army chiefs of the two countries to discuss how they can operationalize their joint military plan to uproot negative forces in the volatile eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
UPDATE, 1/13: Digital Congo reports that Kabila's Cabinet met on Monday and agreed to disarm by force the FDLR and other militia groups operating in eastern Congo. Although the Congolese army lacks the capacity to disarm the FDLR on its own, a fact the Cabinet is surely aware of, this public commitment gives the government the cover to cooperate with the Rwandan army.
In general, the willingness of the region's governments to cooperate across borders in hunting down rebel movements that take refuge in each others' countries is a positive development. We saw an example of this last month with South Sudan, Congolese, and Ugandan troops tracking down the LRA, with assistance from MONUC. For the Congolese FARDC to ally with the Rwandan army in pursuit of the FLDR would be major development. Removing the FDLR from eastern Congo would eliminate one of the primary sources of instability in the region, help normalize relations between Congo and Rwanda, and constitute a major step toward peace.
Negotiations are said to be "continuing" in Nairobi between the Kabila government and the CNDP rebels, and to be focused on securing a possible cease fire.
Ring Two:
The LRA, in flight since a Uganda-led assault on their encampments in northeastern Congo on December 14, have attacked the gold-mining village of Sambia, 130km east of Dungu, in Orientale province, says IRIN, the UN OCHA news agency. The attack led to several deaths and caused almost 10,000 people to flee their homes. An OCHA briefing on the humanitarian crisis in Ituri is available here.
Ring Three:
More details are emerging from the interview Bosco Ntaganda gave to journalists last week from his home farm in Kabati, which Reuters first reported on last week. Ntaganda led an apparently unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Laurent Nkunda as leader of the CNDP, perhaps, it is thought, because Nkunda was preparing to turn him over to international authorities. Ntaganda is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes he committed in Ituri province in 2005.
Today, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting says that Ntaganda is ready to face Hague prosecutors – but not just yet. "I will go to The Hague when it is the right time," Ntaganda told IWPR during a January 8 meeting with journalists.
But first, Ntaganda said, he has to help bring peace to the Kivus. Accusing Nkunda of blocking the peace process, he offered his CNDP troops to fight alongside the Congolese army to disarm the Rwandan Hutu Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, FDLR, which he says are at the root of the problem.
It is not clear, however, how many CNDP troops Ntaganda controls. The CNDP's spokesman, who remains loyal to Nkunda, has said that Ntaganda brought no troops and no weapons with him when he arrived from Ituri.
As for the indictment against him, Ntaganda sounds fairly sanguine: "There are positive things I did in Ituri. If you ask people, they will tell you that I am the one who ended war and nobody else," he said.
It is worth remembering that Ntaganda's nickname is "The Terminator" and that there are compelling and credible accounts of him committing serious war crimes, both in Ituri and more recently in North Kivu.
Ring Four:
Rwanda's New Times provides more detail on the meeting in Kinshasa last week between Rwanda's Chief of Defence Staff General James Kabarebe and his Congolese counterpart, Gen. Didier Etumba.
The meeting is a follow-up to earlier meetings between the foreign secretaries and army chiefs of the two countries to discuss how they can operationalize their joint military plan to uproot negative forces in the volatile eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
UPDATE, 1/13: Digital Congo reports that Kabila's Cabinet met on Monday and agreed to disarm by force the FDLR and other militia groups operating in eastern Congo. Although the Congolese army lacks the capacity to disarm the FDLR on its own, a fact the Cabinet is surely aware of, this public commitment gives the government the cover to cooperate with the Rwandan army.
In general, the willingness of the region's governments to cooperate across borders in hunting down rebel movements that take refuge in each others' countries is a positive development. We saw an example of this last month with South Sudan, Congolese, and Ugandan troops tracking down the LRA, with assistance from MONUC. For the Congolese FARDC to ally with the Rwandan army in pursuit of the FLDR would be major development. Removing the FDLR from eastern Congo would eliminate one of the primary sources of instability in the region, help normalize relations between Congo and Rwanda, and constitute a major step toward peace.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Is the CNDP Marching on Goma?
CongoForum reports that telephone calls from Rutshuru indicate that the CNDP has left that town and is marching toward Goma. CongoForum says the CNDP set off early Wednesday morning, leaving only fifty soldiers behind. But by early evening, it says, several truckloads of Rwandan soldiers had arrived in Rutshuru to patrol the streets.
This would not be a movement to attack attempted coup-leader Ntaganda, since he is holed up in Kabati, to the northwest, whereas the CNDP soldiers were said to be marching southward, toward Goma. So what's going on?
There are no confirming reports from MONUC or Radio Okapi yet.
In other news, Obasanjo travelled to Kinshasa with Rwandan army chief James Kabarebe and met with Kabila for an hour this morning. It's not clear what they discussed, although a summit meeting is being planned for later this month.
This would not be a movement to attack attempted coup-leader Ntaganda, since he is holed up in Kabati, to the northwest, whereas the CNDP soldiers were said to be marching southward, toward Goma. So what's going on?
There are no confirming reports from MONUC or Radio Okapi yet.
In other news, Obasanjo travelled to Kinshasa with Rwandan army chief James Kabarebe and met with Kabila for an hour this morning. It's not clear what they discussed, although a summit meeting is being planned for later this month.
What's Going on in the East?
Laurent Nkunda, the leader of the Tutsi-dominated rebel movement CNDP, appears to have put down a coup attempt by his chief of staff, General Bosco Ntaganda.
Ntaganda reportedly sent a statement to the media on Monday (1/5) claiming that he had ousted Nkunda, a statement that was immediately denied by Nkunda's spokesman. Nkunda insists he remains in control of the rebel movement and says his military chief will be disciplined for insubordination, which he called an "act of madness."
Rwanda's New Times reports that the CNDP's military high command was to have met yesterday to discuss Ntaganda's fate. Nkunda himself was expected to chair that meeting, in the Rutshuru area of Nord-Kivu.
Meanwhile, Ntaganda spoke to journalists yesterday at a hillside farm at Kabati, a village located about thirty miles northwest of Rutshuru. Reuters says that Ntaganda accused Nkunda of being an obstacle to peace: "The head of the CNDP has been removed, but the CNDP remains." Ntaganda, said the Reuters report, was flanked by "dozens of fighters" and other CNDP leaders.
However, Jason Stearns, the head of the recent UN expert group report, said that he doubted Ntaganda would be able to peel off much support from Nkunda. While Ntaganda is popular with rank-and-file soldiers, most of whom are from the same Gogwe clan, most of the CNDP commanders have rallied behind Nkunda.
Reuters says that U.N. officials and human rights campaigners believe that Ntaganda acted after learning that Nkunda planned to discipline him for the massacre in Kiwanja in November, in which as many as 150 civilians were killed.
News of the Kiwanja massacre made the front page of the New York Times, and the recent UN expert report documented close ties between the CNDP and the Rwandan government, prompting various Scandinavian governments to pull their financial support to Rwanda.
Kagame could be worried that supporting Nkunda is beginning to cost him too much international support. And he may feel less of a need to support the CNDP now that the Congolese government has agreed to allow joint military operations within its territory against the FDLR. So Nkunda probably offered up Ntaganda as a sacrifice, to give Kagame some wiggle room with the international donor community. Only Ntaganda wasn't willing to be the fall guy, especially since the ICC has a warrant out for his arrest. He doesn't want to spend the next 20 years in some cell in The Hague.
Now the question is how long Ntaganda will be able to operate on his own, cut off from the CNDP and Rwanda. Reuters' report that he was surrounded by "dozens" of soldiers suggests that he doesn't have a lot support for the long haul.
For his part, Nkunda has to be worried about the viability of his movement, given the increasing pressure from above and the defections and threats from below. And if MONUC ever gets those extra 3,000 troops, he'll be facing a third threat, head-on: an international force with a mandate to put him out of business. These are desperate times for Nkunda.
Ntaganda reportedly sent a statement to the media on Monday (1/5) claiming that he had ousted Nkunda, a statement that was immediately denied by Nkunda's spokesman. Nkunda insists he remains in control of the rebel movement and says his military chief will be disciplined for insubordination, which he called an "act of madness."
Rwanda's New Times reports that the CNDP's military high command was to have met yesterday to discuss Ntaganda's fate. Nkunda himself was expected to chair that meeting, in the Rutshuru area of Nord-Kivu.
Meanwhile, Ntaganda spoke to journalists yesterday at a hillside farm at Kabati, a village located about thirty miles northwest of Rutshuru. Reuters says that Ntaganda accused Nkunda of being an obstacle to peace: "The head of the CNDP has been removed, but the CNDP remains." Ntaganda, said the Reuters report, was flanked by "dozens of fighters" and other CNDP leaders.
However, Jason Stearns, the head of the recent UN expert group report, said that he doubted Ntaganda would be able to peel off much support from Nkunda. While Ntaganda is popular with rank-and-file soldiers, most of whom are from the same Gogwe clan, most of the CNDP commanders have rallied behind Nkunda.
Reuters says that U.N. officials and human rights campaigners believe that Ntaganda acted after learning that Nkunda planned to discipline him for the massacre in Kiwanja in November, in which as many as 150 civilians were killed.
News of the Kiwanja massacre made the front page of the New York Times, and the recent UN expert report documented close ties between the CNDP and the Rwandan government, prompting various Scandinavian governments to pull their financial support to Rwanda.
Kagame could be worried that supporting Nkunda is beginning to cost him too much international support. And he may feel less of a need to support the CNDP now that the Congolese government has agreed to allow joint military operations within its territory against the FDLR. So Nkunda probably offered up Ntaganda as a sacrifice, to give Kagame some wiggle room with the international donor community. Only Ntaganda wasn't willing to be the fall guy, especially since the ICC has a warrant out for his arrest. He doesn't want to spend the next 20 years in some cell in The Hague.
Now the question is how long Ntaganda will be able to operate on his own, cut off from the CNDP and Rwanda. Reuters' report that he was surrounded by "dozens" of soldiers suggests that he doesn't have a lot support for the long haul.
For his part, Nkunda has to be worried about the viability of his movement, given the increasing pressure from above and the defections and threats from below. And if MONUC ever gets those extra 3,000 troops, he'll be facing a third threat, head-on: an international force with a mandate to put him out of business. These are desperate times for Nkunda.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
New Mortality Study Dramatically Reduces Estimates of War Toll
Two professional demographers say that the number of dead from the wars in the DRC has been radically overstated. Andre Lambert and Louis Lohlé-Tart, who worked on the census financed by the European Commission to determine the DRC's population prior to the 2005-2006 elections, estimate that less than 200,000 people have died in the DRC as a result of the wars that began in 1998. That number stands in sharp contrast to the figures derived by the International Rescue Committee, whose most recent survey, in January 2008, concluded that 5.4 million people have died and that an additional 45,000 continue to perish each month.
Link to the Lambert-Lohle-Tart (L-LT) study is here, and to the IRC, here.
The two studies use completely different methodologies. The IRC conducted enormous nationwide surveys asking individual heads of households if anyone in their family had recently passed away. They used impressive technical devices to insure that they picked the households randomly but in proportion to regional population density. And then they multiplied the figures out, and attributed to the war the number of deaths in excess of the pre-war, baseline mortality figure.
The L-LT study compares the population census taken for the 2005 and 2006 elections to earlier censuses and population counts and finds that roughly 7.7 million people died in Congo between 1998 and 2004. They argue that if four million of those deaths are attributable to the war (as the IRC estimated at that time), then the rest of the population must have had a life expectancy in the neighborhood of 60 years--whereas in fact their life expectancy was only 42 years. They suggest that the excess mortality one sees in the DRC began in the 1970s and is attributable to the decline of the Mobutuist state rather than to the wars.
My impression is that the L-LT people are responsible professionals. However, I am working off a press account of the L-LT study that does not include the tables and graphs referred to in the text. This makes the report a bit hard to understand at times. Nor do L-LT suggest how the IRC may have gotten it so wrong. You'd want to see L-LT offer some hypotheses for why the IRC's methodology was faulty. Instead they somewhat troublingly suggest that the IRC's figures are a "fantasy" or a "profitable lie." (My translation: "leurs fantasmes ou … à leurs mensonges rentables.") And elsewhere, they ask whether the figure serves the interests of some country or hidden interest or organization. ("si elle sert les intérêts de pays, d’organisations ou d’autres puissances occultes.")
I have myself wondered about two possible sources of inaccuracy in the IRC's methodology. The first is that the IRC may have taken respondents at their word, and that some respondents may have been tempted to exaggerate their misfortune in the hope of eliciting charity. The other thing I've wondered about is the accuracy of the baseline mortality figure used to calculate the "excess mortality" attributed to the war. What happens if you nudge that figure up or down? Would small changes in the assumptions lead to significant differences in the outcomes? That said, the IRC appeared to me to be more than cognizant of these concerns in their various reports, and to have verified their results using various demographic cross-checks.
This discussion obviously gets very technical very quickly, and while it's not quantum physics, it's beyond my capacity to referee. I will follow up, though, because the issues it raises are obviously of extreme importance.
Link to the Lambert-Lohle-Tart (L-LT) study is here, and to the IRC, here.
The two studies use completely different methodologies. The IRC conducted enormous nationwide surveys asking individual heads of households if anyone in their family had recently passed away. They used impressive technical devices to insure that they picked the households randomly but in proportion to regional population density. And then they multiplied the figures out, and attributed to the war the number of deaths in excess of the pre-war, baseline mortality figure.
The L-LT study compares the population census taken for the 2005 and 2006 elections to earlier censuses and population counts and finds that roughly 7.7 million people died in Congo between 1998 and 2004. They argue that if four million of those deaths are attributable to the war (as the IRC estimated at that time), then the rest of the population must have had a life expectancy in the neighborhood of 60 years--whereas in fact their life expectancy was only 42 years. They suggest that the excess mortality one sees in the DRC began in the 1970s and is attributable to the decline of the Mobutuist state rather than to the wars.
My impression is that the L-LT people are responsible professionals. However, I am working off a press account of the L-LT study that does not include the tables and graphs referred to in the text. This makes the report a bit hard to understand at times. Nor do L-LT suggest how the IRC may have gotten it so wrong. You'd want to see L-LT offer some hypotheses for why the IRC's methodology was faulty. Instead they somewhat troublingly suggest that the IRC's figures are a "fantasy" or a "profitable lie." (My translation: "leurs fantasmes ou … à leurs mensonges rentables.") And elsewhere, they ask whether the figure serves the interests of some country or hidden interest or organization. ("si elle sert les intérêts de pays, d’organisations ou d’autres puissances occultes.")
I have myself wondered about two possible sources of inaccuracy in the IRC's methodology. The first is that the IRC may have taken respondents at their word, and that some respondents may have been tempted to exaggerate their misfortune in the hope of eliciting charity. The other thing I've wondered about is the accuracy of the baseline mortality figure used to calculate the "excess mortality" attributed to the war. What happens if you nudge that figure up or down? Would small changes in the assumptions lead to significant differences in the outcomes? That said, the IRC appeared to me to be more than cognizant of these concerns in their various reports, and to have verified their results using various demographic cross-checks.
This discussion obviously gets very technical very quickly, and while it's not quantum physics, it's beyond my capacity to referee. I will follow up, though, because the issues it raises are obviously of extreme importance.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Ebola News
The WHO has confirmed three deaths from Ebola. Earlier reports from MSF had put the death toll at 11, but the WHO says that several of those deaths are from more common diseases. The WHO is investigating an additional 36 cases where Ebola is suspected, among them 12 in which the patient died. Angola closed its border to prevent the spread of Ebola into its territory.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
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