25 11 13 Foreing Policy – Unbroken Violence

 KINSHASA,
Democratic Republic of the Congo — There was unexpected news in early November
from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has endured two decades
of fighting in what has become Africa's deadliest conflict: The M23 rebel group,
responsible for numerous atrocities since its
inception in April 2012, had been defeated.

 

The
M23 was the latest in a succession of armed groups led by ethnic Tutsis in
eastern Congo with backing — weapons, ammunition, recruits — from neighboring
Rwanda. It crumbled after Kigali, facing Western criticism and aid suspension,
did not offer the group the same military support that it had in the past during
new fighting in October. The Congolese army and the United Nations' new
African-led intervention brigade, with its mandate to carry out offensive
operations, quickly took control of one rebel stronghold after another. On Nov.
5, the M23 announced it was laying down its arms.

This
is a significant development, especially for those who have lived under the
M23's oppression for the past year and a half. It has prompted over 1,000
combatants and leaders from various armed groups, worried they might be new
military targets, to turn themselves in to the government or
U.N.

But it
is by no means the end of Congo's brutal story.

M23
leaders with long records of serious human rights abuses — for whom the
Congolese government has rightly ruled out any amnesty or integration into the
army — are still at large. Most have fled to Uganda and Rwanda, and they could
form a new armed group if they are not arrested and brought to justice. Just as
concerning, however, is that much of Congo's east remains under the control of
other armed groups who filled a security vacuum left when Congolese forces
turned their attention to the M23 rebellion over a year
ago.

These
groups prey on civilian populations: killing, raping, extorting illegal taxes,
forcing children to become soldiers, burning villages, and ill-treating those
who resist them. Most have taken advantage of and manipulated existing ethnic
tensions in an effort to gain control of land and mineral resources, including
gold, tin ore, and coltan (widely used in electronic devices). Their alliances,
leadership structures, and even names keep shifting. Some have allied with or
received support from the Congolese army — itself guilty of perpetrating
atrocities, including rape, arbitrary arrests, and the mistreatment of suspected
M23 collaborators.

The
Congolese government and the U.N. have said one of their next main targets is
the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). Many members of the
FDLR — which, after earlier iterations, formed in 2000 in opposition to the
government in Kigali — are Rwandan and ethnic Hutu. Some of them participated
in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, which claimed more than half a million lives.
Others, however, were too young at the time to take part in the horrific
violence. Some were born in Congo after the genocide, to Rwandan refugee
parents; others are Congolese recruits.

The
FDLR has committed numerous abuses against Congolese civilians. Gen. Sylvestre
Mudacumura, a Rwandan who has commanded the FDLR's military forces since 2003,
is already sought on an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court
(ICC) for war crimes committed
in eastern Congo. According to the ICC, he is allegedly responsible for
"attacking civilians, murder, mutilation, cruel treatment, rape, torture,
destruction of property, pillaging and outrages against personal
dignity."

 

The
fight against the FDLR has been inconsistent: In late 2008, the FDLR was
estimated to have at least 6,000 combatants, controlling large areas of North
and South Kivu provinces, including key mining areas. For years leading up to
that point, the Congolese government had turned to the FDLR for support in its
fight against Rwandan-backed rebel groups and the Rwandan army. This shifted in
early 2009, when Rwanda and Congo made a deal: In exchange for Rwanda's
assistance in removing the threat posed by another armed group, the National
Congress for the Defense of the People, Congo's President Joseph Kabila
permitted Rwandan troops to conduct joint operations with the Congolese army
against the FDLR. The Rwandan army left after just one month, but Congolese
forces, together with the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country, continued
military operations against the FDLR. The U.N. also increased its efforts to
encourage FDLR combatants to demobilize and return to Rwanda. By early 2012, the
FDLR was much weaker and its number of fighters had decreased
substantially.

Yet
after the M23 rebellion began, and the Congolese army and UN re-focused
attention on the new threat, pressure on the FDLR waned again. FDLR combatants
began surrendering at a lower rate, and the group continued attacking civilian
populations, often in alliance with Congolese Hutu militia groups. I spoke to a
woman in October who told me that FDLR fighters had rounded up and raped her and
more than 30 other women and girls from her village in the territory of Masisi
last year. While they raped her, the FDLR fighters told her she was "worthless."
She lost consciousness, but she believes she was raped by at least five or six
men. The woman also said that three girls from her village, ages 7 to 11, died
after several FDLR fighters gang-raped them that same
night.

Defeating
the FDLR will not be easy: Its members, which have faced little government or
U.N. pressure for months, are scattered in small groups across a vast territory,
and they are experts at disappearing into the forest and blending in with
civilian populations. Past military operations against the FDLR have also
spurred the group to carry out large-scale attacks on
civilians.

Several
other Congolese armed groups claim to be protecting the population from the
FDLR. One is the Raia
Mutomboki ("outraged
citizens" in Swahili). This is a loosely organized network of former fighters in
other militias, demobilized Congolese soldiers, and youth who have armed
themselves largely with machetes and spears. The Raia Mutomboki have killed
hundreds of civilians since mid-2012: Often purposefully avoiding direct clashes
with the FDLR, they have instead focused their attacks on dependents of FDLR
combatants, Hutu women and children who are refugees from Rwanda, and Congolese
who are ethnic Hutu.

 

Among
the Raia Mutomboki's victims is Ernest*, a 12-year-old boy. When I met him late
last year, he told me how the Raia Mutomboki had attacked his village in
Walikale territory in August 2012.He said the combatants, shirtless and wearing
traditional raffia skirts, entered his village, beating on drums and shouting
out that ethnic Hutu civilians should leave the village. Ernest and his family
— who are Hutu — quickly fled and hid in a thicket of reeds on the outskirts
of the village. They thought they were safe, but the Raia Mutomboki combatants
found them and proceeded to hack most of the family to death with machetes and
spears. Ernest had been carrying his baby niece on his back, and when the Raia
Mutomboki killed her, Ernest was covered in her blood, so the attackers assumed
he was dead, too. After the attack, he had made it on his own to a displacement
camp in a neighboring village several miles away.

 

Ernest
spoke in a soft voice, staring at the corner of the ceiling and fidgeting his
hands. He told me the names of those he lost that day: his mother, his father,
his four brothers and sisters, his aunt, his uncle, and four little
cousins.

Another
militia allied with the Raia Mutomboki and currently opposed to the FDLR —
although it previously collaborated with the group — has been responsible for
some of the most brutal attacks on civilians in recent months. It is led by
Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka, a warlord wanted on a Congolese arrest warrant for crimes
against humanity. Made up mostly of ethnic Nyanga combatants, Sheka's militia
has killed, raped, and mutilated scores of ethnic Hutu and Hunde civilians in
western Masisi and eastern Walikale territories.

A Hutu
woman named Janine and some of her grandchildren escaped an attack by Sheka's
militia in late September. Janine was going to her farm to look for food when
militia fighters grabbed her and demanded money. She gave them what she had, and
as they were counting the money, she managed to escape. She hid in the forest
and soon heard gunshots coming from the direction of her village. When she went
back the next day, she found that 11 of her family members and neighbors had
been killed. Her eldest daughter had been shot in the head, and the daughter's
six-month old baby had been stabbed multiple times in the chest, head, back, and
ribs. Janine said that when she found him unconscious next to his mother's body,
he had lost a lot of blood and was close to death. Janine and others took him to
the hospital in the town of Bibwe, at least a seven-hour walk up and down
several steep hills through the forest.

Janine
was holding the baby when we spoke. She said she was worried because he wasn't
getting milk, and she didn't know how she'd care for all her orphaned
grandchildren — there are now 10 — on her own.

In the
wake of defeating the M23, the Congolese government and the U.N. must address
the threat posed by groups like the FDLR, the Raia Mutomboki, and Sheka's
militia. This should include efforts to encourage combatants to disarm
voluntarily, restore state authority in areas controlled by armed groups, and
arrest leaders wanted for war crimes and crimes against
humanity.

To
date, however, such efforts have been insufficient. Little has been done to curb
abuses or investigate, arrest, and prosecute those most responsible for them.
The government also has no official program for disarmament, demobilization, and
reintegration of former combatants. In the past, some combatants have gone to
regroupment sites to await such a program, but many gave up on waiting and
returned to their militia groups.

This
is especially worrying given the recent wave of fighters turning themselves in
after witnessing the M23's demise. For these defections to be meaningful, the
Congolese government, with international support, must act quickly to step up
demobilization and reintegration initiatives. Otherwise, whatever improvements
in security the M23's surrender may have brought will be short lived — and the
road toward peace will remain as long as ever.

*Pseudonyms
were used for the names of victims and witnesses mentioned in this article for
their protection.