Kimia II Assailed and Defended

From OCHA, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, comes a long post worth reading in its entirety on Kimia II, the joint DRC-Monuc operation to clean out ex-genocidaires in eastern Congo. Oxfam, ICG, and the Catholic Bishops oppose it. Oxfam argues that although “a solution is needed to halt appalling levels of human rights abuses committed by armed rebels, the answer cannot be action that knowingly increases levels of human suffering.” But Alan Doss defends Kimia, and says it must continue: “If we do nothing I think that there will never be lasting peace in the Kivus as long as one group or another remains out of the control of the state.”

Since the beginning of the year, some 800,000 people in the Kivus have fled their homes, even as rape and reprisal killings mount.

Le Phare reports that at the press conference releasing the report, OCHA representatives gave examples of recent violence committed by both sides in the war. The FDLR attacked the town of Mianda during the night of June 20-21, burned 121 homes and destroyed a health clinic. It's not known if they killed anyone, but several villagers drowned trying to escape. In Rutshuru, on the other hand, it is the Congolese army that is committing atrocities.

Relief workers worry because ongoing violence prevents them from operating in areas in Masisi and South Lubero, although refugees there are reputed to be in desperate need of food.

Maxine Waters Introduces Bill to Combat Vulture Funds

From Congo Global Action, I am alerted to this press release:

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) introduced the Stop Very Unscrupulous Loan Transfers from Underprivileged countries to Rich, Exploitive Funds or “Stop VULTURE Funds” Act (H.R. 2932), legislation designed to protect impoverished countries from lawsuits by so-called vulture funds.

Congresswoman Waters said, “Over the past year, we have seen how the actions of a small number of unscrupulous and exploitative investors can hurt innocent people and cause economic chaos. We cannot allow the world’s poorest countries to be exploited by these bad actors.”

Vulture funds are private investment funds that buy up the debts of poor countries at reduced prices, usually for pennies on the dollar. They then sue these countries to recover the original value of the debts plus interest. Several poor countries that have received debt cancellation from the United States, other participating donor countries, and multilateral financial institutions have subsequently been sued by vulture funds.

Congresswoman Waters said, “The Stop VULTURE Funds Act would protect impoverished countries from the predatory practices of vulture funds and allow these countries to use their limited resources to meet the needs of their people.”

UPDATE: A similar bill has been introduced in Britain. Leading the cause is the British NGO Jubilee Debt.

It would be easier to throw oneself into fighting for these campaigns if one felt the money the vulture funds were after would really be going to feed babies and equip schools, rather than line pliticians' pockets.

Bleak Picture of Congolese Reconstruction

One year and one day from now will be the 50th anniversary of Congolese independence. No one celebrating the birth of the Congo then could have prophecied what a nightmare the first fifty years of independence would be.

Tragically, it's not at all clear that the next fifty years will be any better.

A new book published by the Belgian NGO 11.11.11 paints a bleak picture of current reconstruction efforts in the Congo. The military is incapable of bringing peace to the east, and its joint operations with Monuc have failed to produce results. The economy teeters on the edge of collapse; public finances are routinely mismanaged; the country's foreign reserves have dissipated. The collapse in world commodity prices has had a particularly disastrous impact. Yet the IMF refuses to release the Congo from loan commitments accumulated during the Mobutu years totalling $6.3 billion until it renegotiates key elements of its deal with China. That deal promised $9 billion worth of infrastructure projects in return for access to Congolese minerals. With both the West and China prepared to hunker down in a contest of will, the Congolese are caught in the middle.

Vulture funds circle, buying off Congolese debt at discount prices and then suing the government for its return, plus extortionate interest. FG Hemisphere, incorporated in Delaware, recently won a $105 million verdict in a South African court against SNEL, the Congolese electricity company.

Meanwhile, three quarters of Congolese people are malnourished and live on less than a dollar a day.

Update: It's not clear how to order the book online. It doesn't seem to be available for download or on Amazon.fr.

Congo Gangs Masquerade as LRA, Looting & Terrorizing Local Populations

Father Luigi, aka Kaka Luigi, reports that the Congolese army recently arrested seven Congolese in northeastern Congo who were pretending to be LRA. They were looting and terrorizing the local population. Uganda, Sudan and Congo waged a joint campaign in the border region from January to March without successfully neutralizing the LRA. Uganda estimates that some 500 LRA remain in the area, including the LRA's notorious leader, Joseph Kony.

The LRA went on a rampage in northeastern Congo in December 2008, after the Ugandan army launched a failed raid on the LRA headquarters in Uganda. About 1000 Congolese were killed on or around Christmas Day.

China Comes to Africa, on Chinese Terms

This article from the Wall Street Journal suggests that China's continuing investments in Africa may offset declining investment from the West, but that the Chinese often have their own way of running things:

In African countries where China has invested, many local people complain that the Chinese companies import everything -- including bottled water and toilet paper -- from home, bypassing the domestic economy. In mineral-rich countries such as Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, some Chinese companies have a reputation for exploiting workers. ...

In 2005, 46 Zambians were killed in an explosion at a copper mine owned by China's state metals conglomerate. A government inquiry showed the company had cut corners on safety and banned union organizing.

The Chinese company paid compensation to the victims' families and allowed a union to be formed. The following year, Chinese security guards at the mine opened fire on Zambian workers who were protesting the company's failure to improve working conditions and to deliver back pay promised in a new union deal.

Army Chief Defends Monuc

MONUC features an interview with the commander of MONUC Forces, General Babacar Gaye. Money quote:

The situation is a concern to all international actors who follow this crisis and that support this population. They are concerned first because these operations, as was feared, have created new population displacements, but especially because unfortunately these operations are accompanied by collateral damage that arise from the fact that some FARDC soldiers, who are, without doubt, insufficiently controlled and kept in line. The FARDC has realized this and I must say that there have been important efforts in that direction.
It is not enough to denounce the behavior of the FARDC, it is necessary that everybody contribute towards managing this problem. For MONUC, protection of civilians is not only in the hands of the soldiers, all substantive sections of the Mission participate. We have put in place Joint Protection Teams in which you will find humanitarian actors, child protection specialists, human rights and other sections. These teams serve as an interface between [MONUC] troops and the civil population. We have multiplied our deployments, within the limits of our capacity.

For a Fun Time

Colette Braeckman reports that a French theater director is reprising an Athol Fugard play, originally written during the apartheid era, with Rwandan and Congolese comedians in the roles originally meant for a white and black South African. The play, which sounds like a blast if you find your Beckett just a wee uplifting, features the two men imprisoned together on an island off the coast of Africa, who support each other not out of any hope of ever being released than out a a shared sense of dignity they derive from their memory of reading Sophocles' Antigone. The play is in Brussels at the Theatre de Poche until June 27, and will tour in several cities in Congo and Rwanda afterwards. Director is Roland Mahauden, with Ados Ndombasi and Diogène Ntarindwa.

I hope someone makes a documentary about the play's reception in Africa. It's always interesting to see how different cultures reflect on and draw meaning from each other.

The Congolese Army Disintegrating in Kivu

Marie France Clos has an excellent article in Libre Belgique on the disastrous state of the Congolese army in the Kivus. In brief, the Congolese troops sent to the Kivus haven't been paid in months, and are defecting not individually but whole companies at a time. Some are going into business with the "enemy" ex-genocidaires (FDLR). Others are simply terrorizing the populace. The only group willing to fight the FDLR are the Tutsi CNDP, formerly led by Laurent Nkunda (and now by the war criminal Jean Bosco). The CNDP is responsible for massacring families in the area of Hombo in May--the ex-gen retaliated by killing civilians in Muturungi. Meanwhile, Monuc soldiers sit with their hands under their ass, and will only take up arms to defend themselves.

UPDATE:
According to an article in the Rwandan New Times, a group of Mai-Mai fighters known as the Alliance des Patriotes pour un Congo Libre et Souverain (APCLS), is said to have joined forces with the FDLR.

Most Mai-Mai fighters were earlier integrated into the Congolese National Army (FARDC) but this faction recently pulled out of the alliance and is stirring more trouble in DRC's unstable east.

"The main problem is that they don't agree with the programme of integration, which is the main reason why there is conflict between them and FARDC. Like many other rebel groups, the problem is about issues such as ranks, and pay," said Lt. Col. Jean-Paul Dietrich Chief Military Spokesperson for the UN mission in DRC - MONUC.

Dietrich noted that although discussions for integration into FARDC were still ongoing, APCLS combatants and FARDC clashed several times recently.

Colette Braeckman adds more detail on the army's failures: Umoja Wetu destroyed the FDLR's command structure and dislodged them from the more productive mining sites, she says. But it left the bulk of the forces untouched. These have responded with massacres and rapes: The UN has registered some 1330 rapes in South Kivu since the start of 2009, and FARDC forces are as guilty as the FDLR. Monuc continues to sit on its hands. But, tellingly, no one in the area wants to see the Rwandans return.

China vs The IMF

The feud between the IMF and China over Congolese copper simmers on. Peter Lee at Asia Times Online has one perspective. Money quote:

The fact that the IMF is engineering the renegotiation of one of China's most important overseas resource deals - perhaps as part of an effort to get the Congo to accept its true role as a Western client - is unlikely to endear the organization to Beijing.

What Life Is like in Eastern Congo

From Creative-i, I learn of this study regarding life in eastern Congo.

The International Center for Transitional Justice, the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley and the Payson Center for International Development at Tulane University conducted a survey of 2,620 Congolese between September and December 2007. The study focused North and South Kivu, Ituri, Kinshasa, and Kisangani. The results of the survey were predictable but shocking nonetheless. A summary of the survey revealed:

• 80 percent of respondents said they had been displaced at least three times in the last 15 years
• 75 percent said their cattle or livestock had been stolen
• 66 percent said their home had been destroyed or confiscated
• 61 percent of those polled in the east said they witnessed the violent death of a family member or friend
• 60 percent said one more of their household members had disappeared
• 53 percent reported being forced to work or being enslaved by armed groups
• 46 percent had been threatened with death
• 35 percent said they had been tortured
• 34 percent said they themselves had been abducted for more than a week
• 31 percent said they had been wounded in fighting
• 23 percent had witnessed sexual violence
• 16 percent had been sexually violated and 12 percent multiple times

• 85 percent of people polled believe ‘those responsible for the violence should be held accountable’

In North Kivu, at the epicenter of the violence, responses to the question ‘who protects you’ were quite revealing. Respondents answered God (44 percent), the army (25 percent), the police (8 percent), nobody (7 percent), U.N. peacekeepers (6 percent).