Congo's war refuses to end

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Well, despite the continued mess there, it seems some progress is being made. Lets hope it materializes and lasts.

African Leaders Discuss Congo Bloodshed
Thu Apr 10, 3:02 AM ET

Ugandan troops should leave Congo by April 24, the presidents of five African nations decided at a summit called to defuse violence along Congo’s eastern borders.

…

Mbeki said representatives of most, if not all, major Congo factions plan to meet Monday in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, to press forward with their April 2 agreement to cooperate in a new unity government and national army.

“We were all very happy with that because it is very urgent that the process of the implementation of the agreements should start,” he said.

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“This is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster currently going on,” said Michael Despines, an IRC spokesman who just finished a six-year tour of duty in eastern Congo. “More than a thousand people are dying every day, and the sad part is that no one is paying attention.” :frowning:

A ‘Humanitarian Disaster’ in Congo](Newsday | Long Island's & NYC's News Source - Newsday) Newsday 09 Apr 03

By Samson Mulugeta AFRICA CORRESPONDENT

Johannesburg, South Africa - Cloaked in the anonymity of the Congo jungle and caught in a five-year-old civil war, 3.3 million people have perished from easily preventable diseases, malnutrition and violence, according to a New York-based humanitarian group. About 15 percent of the victims died violent deaths, while the rest died of disease and malnutrition across the vast regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the nonpartisan group, the International Rescue Committee, said yesterday.

Children born in the Congo, formerly Zaire, have the highest mortality rate in the world, according to the survey, and there is zero population growth in the eastern part of the country. “This is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster currently going on,” said Michael Despines, an IRC spokesman who just finished a six-year tour of duty in eastern Congo. “More than a thousand people are dying every day, and the sad part is that no one is paying attention.”

Civil war has wracked Congo since 1998, when the genocide in neighboring Rwanda spilled across its borders, led to the toppling of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and spiraled into what became known as “Africa’s First World War.” Partly drawn by Congo’s enormous natural wealth - minerals and timber - six neighboring nations sent troops backing the government or various rebel factions. All the foreign forces, with the exception of Uganda, withdrew last year after the signing of a peace deal brokered by South Africa.

Under the agreement, President Joseph Kabila will stay in power until elections are held two years from now. The peace deal has held, but violence still afflicts the country. Last week, the United Nations reported that more than 900 people were killed in inter-ethnic violence near the northeastern town of Ituri. Soldiers from the neighboring nation of Uganda have made forays near Ituri in support of militias from the Lendu ethnic group against their rivals, the Hema ethnic group, according to Human Rights Watch, also a New York-based group.

“The Ugandan forces have responsibility to prevent such killings by their own troops and their allies,” said Alison Des Forges, senior adviser to Human Rights Watch. Ugandan officials have denied any responsibility for the massacre. The reach of the central government in Kinshasa, the capital in the west, does not extend into rebel-held areas such as Ituri in the east. Five thousand troops from a UN peacekeeping force are in the country, but they are spread thin in the vast nation.

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This could be the end, or it can be a new beginning. As proven in Iraq, usually towards the end of a conflict the random units involved gather their profits and make off.. but then, as has been proven in Africa too many times, if the wrong person takes the wrong thing fighting can start anew. I saw some pictures of this part of the country the other day (i’ll post some if i find them online).. would be a really nice place to visit/live if bullets weren’t flying overhead…

Fighting Rages in Wealthy Congo Province](Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More)
Wed Apr 16, 3:27 AM ET

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Thank you, DhP and Spoon… makes me feel i am not the only one clicking on this thread :halo: :smiley:

ahhh… i would love to see those pictures, if you have the time to find/upload them.

**Amnesty for Congolese rebels**, Mark Dummett, BBC, 16 April 2003

The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila has signed an amnesty law pardoning some acts of war committed since the start of the conflict more than four years ago. The amnesty pardons the rebels for attempting to topple the Kinshasa government, but does not cover any war crimes committed during this period.

The rebels have also been amnestied for aligning themselves to foreign countries who had invaded the national territory. The DR Congo conflict started when Rwanda and Uganda sent their soldiers in support of rebels trying to overthrow the Congolese government. The two countries said the Kinshasa government was threatening their security by backing insurgents.

This prompted Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia to send in their forces to fight on the side of the government. However most foreign troops have now left the country.

"As a rebel, you don’t need to bury women alive, and you don’t need to eat pygmies. Those are war crimes and those crimes have not been pardoned, the Information Minister Kikaya Bin Karubi told the BBC.

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Now that Uganda is sliding out of the DRC it seems they are having to keep the soldiers busy at home:

Uganda Army Set to Resume Fighting Rebels](Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More)

President Yoweri Museveni has reportedly ordered the army to resume fighting rebels in northern Uganda, effectively ending a unilateral cease-fire intended to encourage the Lord’s Resistance Army to end a 16-year civil war.

Reacting to the statement broadcast Saturday on the independent Mega FM station in northern Uganda, army spokesman Maj. Shaban Bantariza said the hoped-for peace process initiated a month ago had collapsed.

“Now, it is combat until the end,” Bantariza said.

Museveni declared the cease-fire on March 10 a year after sending Ugandan troops into neighboring Sudan in an unsuccessful attempt to end the LRA insurgency by destroying their bases.

The president extended his offer three times until March 31, but fighting continued.

“The man we are supposed to be negotiating with has not been helpful,” Bantariza said, referring to LRA chief Joseph Kony. “He has been going on killing people, including our major who was ambushed yesterday. So what is the value of peace talks?”

The statement, signed by Eriya Kategaya, head of Museveni’s specially appointed peace commission, said since March 10, the rebels have killed 64 civilians, injured 60, and abducted 192.

Last year, Museveni bowed to pressure from opposition politicians and church leaders and agreed to talk with the rebels. But he conditioned government participation on an LRA agreement to a cease-fire and talks at a location designated by the government.

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The world is indeed a great deal larger than can fit on a TV screen…
Now that the Congo’s problems are slowing (I’ll wait on using the word ‘end’) conflict is picking up in surrounding areas.. all without the average Joe even realizing it exists.

Uganda Rebels Abduct More Than 180 People](Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More)

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Sorry, I really do need to include the article for that last link. Imagine if 180 people were abducted from Hephzibah, Georgia (a small country town) in one swoop. A dozen people killed locally by a pair of snipers sent this country into a panic. What would our reaction be if things like this happened at home? Here's the article:

Rebels waging a 16-year insurgency attacked two villages and abducted more than 180 people in northern Uganda, a government official said Thursday.

Many of those seized early Wednesday were young people and women, said Charles Engwau Egou, a district commissioner for the area.

Over the past decade, the rebel Lord's Resistance Army has abducted an estimated 15,000 children in northern Uganda to use as fighters or sex slaves, according to international human rights groups. The rebel group is led by Joseph Kony, who claims to have spiritual powers.

Rebels attacked the two villages in Lira district, about 224 miles north of Kampala, while most people were sleeping, Egou said.

"They forced the people to open their houses and were interested in young people and women whom they forced to carry some of their looted property," he said.

Margaret Ateng Otim, a legislator for Lira, said the army should deploy more troops in the district to protect civilians.

"Such a huge number of people would not have been abducted if there were (more) soldiers on the ground," she said.

The insurgents are leftovers of a northern rebellion that began after President Yoweri Museveni, a southerner, seized power in 1986.

Museveni has deployed thousands of troops in war-ravaged northern Uganda in a bid to crush the rebels or force them to the negotiating table.

Most of the soldiers are deployed in the districts of Kitgum, Gulu and Pader — the areas worst affected by the rebellion.

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Is it just me, or does there seem to be only depressing news to go around.

UN tries to end Congo violence, BBC, 11 May 2003

The United Nations has held talks with rival ethnic militias to try to end fierce fighting in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Hema and Lendu militias, battling to control the town of Bunia, have been urged to withdraw to camps on the outskirts. More bodies of civilians from the latest fighting have been found - including three babies - while the few remaining aid workers in the area are battling to feed thousands of refugees.

The situation will be discussed by the UN Security Council on Monday - which is expected to be asked to deploy more peacekeeping troops. There are currently 625 UN troops in Bunia, struggling to keep apart as many as 28,000 tribal fighters from across the region.

“The problem is that there are too many armed groups in the town and as long as they remain in close proximity, it is easy for them to resume fighting,” Amos Namanga Ngongi, head of the UN mission in Congo, told Associated Press news agency.He said that if the fighters went to the camps and disarmed, aid workers would provide them with food and medicine.

The UN has been unable to calculate exactly how many people have been killed in the four days of fighting as some parts of the town are still off limits to them, but Mr Ngongi said the death toll would be “quite heavy”. UN representative Patricia Tome said the bodies of five men, four women and three tiny babies were found in the centre of Bunia on Sunday. The adults had suffered gunshot wounds and cuts, and the babies had had their throats slit.

She told BBC’s Focus on Africa that UN workers also found 13 nuns hiding at the site of a massacre near a church on Saturday, in which 20 people, including two priests, were killed. She added that many of the militias were on drugs. “In certain parts of town there are lots of militiamen, including many child soldiers, with machetes, axes, loot on their backs,” she claimed.

Relief workers have begun distributing some food and water to thousands of increasingly desperate refugees but supplies are said to be dangerously low. The UN says it is currently looking after around 8,000 people but estimates there are 30,000 more refugees in the area. Tens of thousands are thought to have crossed into Uganda.

The militia groups have been fighting for control of Bunia - capital of the Ituri region - since Ugandan troops left on Tuesday in accordance with an international peace deal for the DRC.

Since 1999, more than 50,000 people are estimated to have been killed and half a million displaced by unrest in the Ituri region.

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An update about the forgotten conflict in the Congo. The deaths in the Ituri region are just a fraction of the estimated 2.5 million dead, either in combat or through disease and malnutrition, in the wider DRC conflict that began in 1998

Swedish peace group reports war crimes in DR Congo to ICC](http://www.monuc.org/news.aspx?newsID=1884) UN Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 10 Feb 04

**A Swedish peace group said Monday it had reported war crimes committed in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Inter-ethnic violence that has grown out of a long running feud between the rival Hendu and Lema groups has claimed some 50,000 lives in the Ituri region and left about 500,000 displaced since 1999. **

The Hague-based ICC, which became a legal reality in July of 2002, is the permanent tribunal mandated to try war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Shortly after the court’s creation, its chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, announced that the tribunal was looking into allegations of war crimes in the DRC as its first case.

The court has since announced that it is planning to make its first-ever inquiry into the Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group which has waged a 17-year insurgency in northern Uganda. Ocampo has urged countries party to the ICC treaty to report the DRC to the court, in the hope that complaints filed from other countries would bear greater international legitimacy than if the court itself were to pursue an individual country.

But Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds has said Sweden, which is an ardent supporter of the ICC, will do no such thing for the time being. “I am very disappointed that Sweden does not want to support the ICC chief prosecutor by reporting the crimes in DR Congo to the court. The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society has therefore decided to report the war crimes in DR Congo to the ICC,” Frida Blom, the head of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society, told AFP. …

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Another horrific attack against civilians in the never ending Congolese civil war. :disgust:

UN investigates reports of Congo massacres](http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040224.wcongo0224/BNStory/International/) The Globe and Mail, 24 Feb 04

Kinshasa, DRC — The UN Congo mission is investigating reports of massacres of about 100 civilians and seven soldiers by Mayi-Mayi tribal fighters in the country’s southeast, a United Nations spokesman said Tuesday. Congo’s army and rights groups have attributed the killings to a Mayi-Mayi commander who goes by the name of Cut-Throat and is said to mutilate many of his victims. In one case, Mayi-Mayi fighters threw a grenade into a church, killing 25 people inside, Congo General Dieugentil Mpia Nzambe Nzambe said.

The killings were alleged to have happened in January in Katanga province, 1,545 kilometres from the capital, Kinshasa, of the former Zaire. A UN Congo mission team set out for the remote area earlier this month to investigate. Congo’s military confirmed that civilians had been massacred. …