Sunday, May.

28, 2006

The Deadliest War In The World

By Simon Robinson, Vivienne Walt Time Magazine

itting on a bed in a refugee camp in Katanga, a cursed province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zare), Mukeya Ulumba, 28, recounts the epic losses she has suffered in recent months. Several of her relatives and neighbors were killed when antigovernment rebels stormed their village last November, moving from house to house in a murder spree that lasted for hours. Ulumba and her husband managed to flee with their four children, leaving behind their life's possessions, a ravaged community of torched houses and the bloodied corpses of family members and friends. Now Ulumba is struggling to save another life: that of her 6month-old son Amoni Mutombo. The baby lies whimpering in a clinic run by the aid organization Doctors Without Borders. His belly is distended by malnutrition, and although he appears to be in pain, he has no energy to cry. A nurse tries for half an hour to inject antibiotics into Amoni's twiglike arm, its wrinkled skin wrapped loosely around the bones. Without the drugs, he will die, wasting away from starvation. Some wars go on killing long after they end. In Congo, a nation of 63 million people in the heart of Africa, a peace deal signed more than three years ago was supposed to halt a war that drew in belligerents from at least eight other countries, producing a record of human devastation unmatched in recent history. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimates that 3.9 million people have died from war-related causes since the conflict in Congo began in 1998, making it the world's most lethal conflict since World War II. By conventional measures, that conflict is over. Congo is no longer the playground of foreign armies. The country's first real election in 40 years is scheduled to take place this summer, and international troops have arrived to keep the peace. But the suffering of Congo's people continues. Fighting persists in the east, where rebel holdouts loot, rape and murder. The Congolese army, which was

meant to be both symbol and protector in the reunited country, has cut its own murderous swath, carrying out executions and razing villages. Even deadlier are the side effects of war, the scars left by years of brutality that disfigure Congo's society and infrastructure. The country is plagued by bad sanitation, disease, malnutrition and dislocation. Routine and treatable illnesses have become weapons of mass destruction. According to the IRC, which has conducted a series of detailed mortality surveys over the past six years, 1,250 Congolese still die every day because of war-related causes--the vast majority succumbing to diseases and malnutrition that wouldn't exist in peaceful times. In many respects, the country remains as broken, volatile and dangerous as ever, which is to say, among the very worst places on earth. Yet Congo's troubles rarely make daily news headlines, and the country is often low on international donors' lists of places to help. After Sudan, Congo is the second largest nation in sub-Saharan Africa, a land so vast and ungovernable that it has long been perceived as the continent's ultimate hellhole, the setting for Joseph Conrad's 1899 book Heart of Darkness. It is in part because of that malign reputation--and because the nation's feckless rulers have consistently reinforced it--that the world has been willing to let Congo bleed. Since 2000, the U.N. has spent billions on its peacekeeping mission in Congo, which is known by its French acronym, MONUC, and it is at the moment the largest U.N. force anywhere in the world. But troops number just 17,500, a tiny presence in such a large country. In February the U.N. and aid groups working in Congo asked for $682 million in humanitarian funds. So far, they have received just $94 million--or $9.40 for every person in need. By comparison, the aid group Oxfam estimates that the U.N.'s tsunami appeal last year raised $550 for each person. There are various explanations for the neglect. Perhaps the global reservoir of wealth

and goodwill runs only so deep. Perhaps the attention and outrage directed toward another African tragedy, the genocide in Darfur, have left the world too exhausted to take on Congo's. But a choice like that comes with a cost. Congo represents the promise of Africa as much as its misery: its fertile fields and tropical forests cover an area bigger than California, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Texas combined. Its soils are packed with diamonds, gold, copper, tantalum (known locally as coltan and used in electronic devices such as cell phones and laptop computers) and uranium. The waters of its mighty river could one day power the continent. Yet because Congo is so rich in resources, its problems, when left to fester, tend to suck its neighbors into a vortex of exploitation and chaos. And so fixing Congo is essential to fixing Africa. Says Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch: "If you want peace in Africa, then you need to deal with the biggest country right at its heart." That task is enormous. Over the past year, TIME reporters who visited the worsthit areas in the east of the country found much of it in ruins. Roads and railway lines have washed away or simply disappeared into the jungle. Hospitals and health clinics have been destroyed. Electricity, for those lucky enough to receive it, is patchy. Refugees fleeing fighting between government troops and rebels talk of beheadings, rapes, massacres and torched villages. Their stories, coming eight years after the start of fighting in Congo, sound eerily similar to the reports of atrocities committed in Darfur. In that sense they are powerful admonishments to those who believe the West's responsibilities in Darfur may have been lifted with the signing of a peace agreement in early May: Congo's warring parties too say they are abiding by a peace deal, monitored by U.N. troops. But the dying continues. Congo provides tragic proof that in some places peace and war can look a lot alike. Malemba-Nkulu is a small town on the upper reaches of the Congo River. Since late last year, the town has swelled with the arrival of some 18,000 refugees who left their villages to escape fighting between government troops

and a vicious rebel outfit known as the Mai Mai. Most arrive with little more than the clothes they are wearing. Sitting outside a modest house where they rent a room, Ngoi Banza Leontine, 45, and her husband Monji Banza, 47, say they fled the fighting with their nine children just before Christmas, after the Mai Mai came to their village and burned many of the houses. The Mai Mai, who believe in magic and occultism, began cutting open people's stomachs even before killing them to take parts of their bodies for fetishes. Leontine says she is haunted by the memory of one friend's death. The woman was killed by a machete and then beheaded. "Her head was put on a stick on the edge of the village. I was very, very sad because it was someone I knew," Leontine says softly, holding her 7month-old baby boy to her chest to keep him quiet. "Whoever could flee ran as fast as possible. They raped women and burned the houses ... Sometimes people were still inside them." Says her husband, who works for local farmers for about 25 a day: "They took tongues and thumbs and the genitals of women and men. We want to have a normal life. We need clothes and mosquito nets." For millions of Congolese like Esperance Live, every day seems to bring a fight for survival. TIME met her last year in a rundown government hospital in Bunia, a dusty town in Congo's northeast. Her son Jonathan, 2, was propped up on a tangled wad of clothes atop a rusting bed; he hadn't moved his limbs or spoken for weeks. Live had already endured a lifetime of sorrow. She lost two children to treatable illnesses. Her sister, her father and an aunt were all murdered in attacks by one of the ethnic militias that terrorize this corner of Congo. Doctors at the hospital determined that Jonathan had meningitis, a life-threatening but treatable inflammation of the lining around the brain and spinal cord. Franoise Ngave, a nurse in the children's ward, said, "If he stays here, he can live," but his mother had little hope left. Congo's history often seems like an uninterrupted tale of woe. After decades of often brutal foreign rule, first as the private possession of King Leopold II of Belgium and then as a Belgian colony, Congo won its

independence in 1960. But within months its first elected Prime Minister had been killed by Belgium- and U.S.-backed opponents because of his growing ties to the Soviet Union, an assassination that eventually opened the way for army general Mobutu Sese Seko to grab power. A U.S. favorite during the cold war, Mobutu presided over one of the most corrupt regimes in African history, siphoning off billions from state-owned companies and allowing most of the country to languish. In 1996 neighboring Rwanda and Uganda jointly invaded Congo to eliminate the Hutu militias, known as the Interahamwe, that had been responsible for the Rwandan genocide and were hiding in Congo's eastern forests. As the invading armies advanced across the country, Mobutu fled, and the invaders installed a small-time rebel leader named Laurent Kabila as President. But things got worse. In 1998, after Kabila got too friendly with the Interahamwe, Uganda and Rwanda invaded Congo again, triggering what became known as Africa's first world war. The scramble for power and resources dragged in forces from at least eight African neighbors, spawned a myriad of Congolese factions and set off campaigns of ethnic cleansing. Kabila, as nasty and corrupt as his predecessor, was shot dead by one of his bodyguards in 2001. His son Joseph, 29, assumed power. One year later, after some arm twisting by continental power South Africa (whose leaders recognize the crucial role Congo could play in their plan for an African rebirth), the young leader and most of the rebel groups and foreign forces in the country signed a peace deal. A national army was formed, aimed at integrating soldiers who had previously been trying to kill one another. And the Congolese people, who maintain a sense of spirit and beauty despite the horrors around them, dared to hope for a better country. In the three years since then, some things in Congo have improved. Mining firms have returned, and cell-phone companies-particularly welcome in a country that has just a few thousand fixed lines serving more than 60 million people--are doing a booming business. But in some parts of the country, the fighting has never really stopped. The U.N.'s

peacekeeping force has got tougher in the past year, chasing rebels and apprehending or even killing them, but the force lacks the numbers to impose complete order. Congolese troops who are supposed to be helping the U.N. peacekeepers have proved ineffective and corrupt and have been hampered by slow and often nonexistent wages. The European Union is working on ensuring that salaries and rations get to Congo's soldiers, and there has been some improvement. But corruption is still a big problem. A Western official in Kinshasa, Congo's capital, estimates that at least $3.2 million of the $8 million a month budgeted for Congo's military is stolen. Frustrated and often hungry, Congolese units have taken to looting and pillaging the people they are meant to protect. In early May, Congolese troops in Ituri in the northeast forced at least 4,500 refugees out of a camp because they suspected militia fighters were sheltering there. Some Congolese units have split back into their rebel and ethnic parts and turned on one another. The upsurge in rapes, killings and torture by Congo's security forces has become so serious that the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo is debating whether to end its cooperation with the police and army altogether. Congo's elections, set for July 30, have become both the great hope for and the great threat to the country's recovery. A report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group warns of trouble ahead, since many former belligerents "stand to lose power in the elections and are set on prolonging or disrupting the transition." The elections will be the Congolese people's first chance to choose their leaders in more than four decades. But just holding the vote will pose a logistical nightmare. It can take four or five days to travel 50 miles by road. The country's main artery remains the snaking Congo River, which is full of treacherous sandbars and shifting currents. The country "hasn't had a census since 1984. There are no ID cards in memory. We will need at least 40,000 to 50,000 polling stations," says William Lacy Swing, veteran U.S. ambassador in Africa and head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission to Congo. He says the poll will cost $422 million.

"Elections should be a time of national unity and reconciliation. But if it is not handled correctly, it can be a moment of great division." Even if the election does run smoothly, Congo's worst problems will surely persist. The country is less a functioning nation-state than a patchwork of disjointed cantons. While the war's messy front line no longer exists, trade between the east and the west is almost nonexistent. "It's as if we are still two countries," says Dr. Pascal Ngoy, a health coordinator for the IRC. That division is felt most keenly in the provinces and is made worse by the long-standing perception that the capital doesn't care about the country's farthest reaches. The local administration in Bunia, for instance, says it sent about $1 million in taxes to Kinshasa in the first half of 2005. It got back just $5,000. Can Congo be saved? Maybe, but it can't save itself. If the country has any hope of escaping the cycle of violence, misrule and despair, it will need the largesse and mercy of governments and citizens all over the globe. "Even in five years, it will be lucky if we have isolated pockets of real progress," says a Western official in Kinshasa, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Van Woudenberg of Human Rights Watch says, "The focus is on bringing this country to elections, but there's almost no interest in the impunity and human-rights abuses that continue today. The truth is, Congo isn't magically going to become a democracy. It's going to take years of hard work and money." Is the world willing to see it through? The shame of indifference should be reason enough for action. But without more money from the developed world to help rebuild, without more troops to secure the peace and protect innocent civilians, without a genuine effort by Congo's leaders to work for the country rather than just their part of it and without Congo's neighbors ending their meddlesome ways, Africa's broken heart is unlikely to heal. In 10 years' time, you may be reading another story much like this one. The only difference will be that millions more people will have died.

Congolese speak out about rape as a weapon of war

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS March 29, 2009

DOSHU, Congo Zamuda Sikujuwa shuffles to a bench in the sunshine, pushes apart her thighs with a grimace of pain and pumps her fist up and down in a lewd-looking gesture to show how the militiamen shoved an automatic rifle inside her. The brutish act tore apart her insides after seven of the men had taken turns raping her. She lost consciousness and wishes now that her life also had ended on that day. The rebels from the Tutsi tribe had come demanding U.S. dollars. But when her husband could not even produce local currency, they put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. When her two children started crying, the rebels killed them too. Then they attacked Sikujuwa and left her for dead. The 53-year-old still has difficulty walking after two operations. Yet she wants to tell the world her story, even though repeating it brings back the nightmares. "It's hard, hard, hard," she says. "I'm alone in this world. My body is partly mended but I don't know if my heart will ever heal. ... I want this violence to stop. I don't want other women to have to suffer what I am suffering." Rape has been used as a brutal weapon of war in Congo, where conflicts based on tribal lines have spawned dozens of armed groups amid back-to-back civil wars that drew in several African nations. More than 5 million people have died since 1994. Women have become even more vulnerable since a rebel advance at the end of last year drove a quarter-million people from their homes and fighting this year left another 100,000 others homeless, according to aid workers. Now some of the women are fighting back the only way they know how by talking about what happened. "Not ashamed to show my face" A campaign spearheaded by the U.N. Children's Fund is working with local groups

to break traditional taboos around talking about the violence. They're using radio stations broadcasting in local languages, and more activists are getting to remote areas. "Many more victims are coming forward. We receive a lot of SMS text messages and cell-phone calls from women who have been raped and need help," says campaign leader Esther Ntoto. Five months ago, U.N. officials began bringing together women to tell their stories to rooms full of local officials, community leaders, even children. One sign of success is that more men than women have volunteered for training to encourage victims to come forward and their communities to confront the issues. Video footage of the campaign Women Breaking the Silence shows officials startled by the atrocities recounted. A provincial minister interrupted to ask reporters not to film a woman's face. But she took the microphone to declare: "I am not ashamed to show my face and publish my identity. The shame lies with those who broke me open and with the authorities who failed to protect me. If you don't hear me, see me, you will not understand why it is so important that we fight this together." That woman, Honorata Kizende, described how her life as a schoolteacher and the mother of seven children ended when she was kidnapped in 2001. She was held as a sex slave for 18 months and passed around from one Hutu fighter to another until she escaped. She is now a counselor and trains others to help survivors of sexual violence. One of the difficulties is the "huge problem of impunity," said Mireille Kahatwa Amani, a lawyer working at an office at HEAL Africa Hospital opened a year ago by the Chicago-based American Bar Association. "It's difficult to prosecute perpetrators because they can buy off the police or a judge. There's no guarantee of justice," she says. Still, with funding from the U.S. State Department, lawyers have interviewed more than 250 victims and have received 30 judgments with only two acquittals. Those guilty have been punished with sentences of five to 20 years. Her big success this year was against a

man who has been condemned to 20 years in jail for raping a 6-year-old and infecting her with AIDS virus. Kahatwa says the judgment came just a month after the complaint was filed, a record. Fistulas caused by violent rape Kasongo Manyema takes small, careful steps, fearful of unwrapping the cloth tied like a baby's diaper to catch the blood, urine and feces that has been dribbling from her body for 2 1/2 years. She was 19 then, when men in military uniform attacked her as she weeded her family's cassava field. A U.N. helicopter has brought her to HEAL Africa Hospital in Goma, where reconstructive surgery could help her incontinence and the stench that follows her and thousands of other Congolese women suffering from fistulas. Fistulas usually result from giving birth in poor conditions. In Congo, they are caused by violent rapes that tear apart the flesh separating the bladder and rectum from the vagina. Dr. Christophe Kinoma, one of only two surgeons who perform the reconstructive operations in east Congo, says there's a 50-50 chance that surgery can mend Manyema and others like her. "Yesterday I did five fistula operations and we have more than 100 women waiting here and who knows how many out in the bush who never ever get to a hospital." Victims often are rejected by their families, contract HIV, and are left to live in pain and shame. Victims receive counseling The trauma that haunts these children and women also affects those who help them. Hortense Tshomba, who has been counseling victims for three years, says she hopes to give them the courage to return to their homes. Many are rejected by husbands and fathers who say the attacks have left them "unclean." For girls rejected by their parents, we try to intervene. Some families accept them back;

others don't." When counseling does not help, HEAL Africa offers lessons in sewing and handicrafts to teach them to survive financially. She says rejected women who don't get help often are forced from communities and become beggars. "Sometimes I have nightmares," Tshomba says. "When I leave after hearing all these horror stories, really it's like my brain is on fire. I have to listen to some jazz to ease my soul." But there are successes like 13-year-old Harriet, who came to HEAL Africa four years ago. Harriet's parents were killed by the rebels who attacked her and then burned down their home. She now lives with a woman who counseled her at the hospital. On this day, Harriet is so delighted she cannot stop grinning. "Today, I got my results and I am top of my class," she announces, flaunting a report showing she averaged 88.5 percent in math, French and English exams.