November, 2008

The crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC, has many layers. Since the late 19th century, Congo’s vast natural resources have continually attracted violent intervention from abroad and stoked internal conflicts. Congo’s government has never effectively represented or protected its people, and all too often has served as a source of unchecked power and personal enrichment for select individuals. The ongoing crisis in eastern Congo is rooted both in this history of predation and corruption, and the continuing aftermath of the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda. Today, Congo continues to struggle with an explosive combination of conflicts at the local, regional and national levels.

Colonialism and Independence

Congo experienced a brutal colonial history. Beginning in the 1880s, King Leopold II of Belgium took personal control of the territory, ruthlessly exploiting Congo’s vast natural resources through harsh autocratic rule which included widespread slave labor. Under massive pressure following an international outcry against these practices, Leopold transferred control of the "Congo Free State" to the Belgian government in 1908.

Following an upsurge in nationalist sentiment and growing demands for independence, Belgium accepted Congo's independence in June 1960. Patrice Lumumba became Prime Minister and Joseph Kasavubu President. Within two weeks of independence, however, Congo's new government faced a national mutiny from the army and threats from a variety of secessionist movements.

Cold War tensions increasingly played into Congo’s leadership struggle, with the U.S. fearing that the charismatic Lumumba and his supporters would allow the break-up of Congo and Soviet domination of central Africa. With the backing of both the U.S. and Belgium, Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba, who was later arrested and, with active U.S. and Belgian complicity, handed over to his enemies. Lumumba was assassinated in 1961.

Dictatorship

Mobutu Sese Seko began his 32-year rule in 1965 when he ousted President Kasavubu in a coup with support from both the United States and Belgium. Mobutu brutally quelled new rebellions and personally dominated Congo. In 1971, Mobutu changed the name of the country to Zaire. He systematically used the country’s mineral wealth to co-opt potential rivals, and to enrich himself and his allies through a patronage system so wildly corrupt that many came to view Zaire as a “kleptocracy” – a country with a government whose principal aim was to loot public goods. Mobutu is conservatively estimated to have stolen at least $5 billion from his country, much of it moved to international banks and investments. With the end of the Cold War, his health failing, the suspension of international economic aid to Congo, and the global collapse of raw commodity prices, Mobutu began to loose his grip on power. Following the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Mobutu provided shelter and protection not only to the two million Rwandan refugees who had fled to eastern Congo, but also to the Rwandan Hutu army and militias that directed the genocide. This provoked Rwanda and Uganda to invade Congo in July 1996 in pursuit of Hutu military forces. The ailing Mobutu was finally ousted from Kinshasa in May 1997, and Congolese rebel leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila took over the country.

Regional Warfare

War broke out again in August 1998 when President Kabila attempted to gain independence from his regional backers and moved to purge Rwandan elements from his government. Rwanda and Uganda re-invaded Congo, supporting rebel proxies against Kabila. While Rwandan forces had previously focused primarily on pursuing the Hutus who committed the genocide, both Rwandan and Ugandan forces increasingly became interested in controlling and exploiting the mineral-rich eastern provinces of Congo. Kabila called on Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia for help, and, with their military support, managed to stop the invasion. During this period, Congo was home to military forces from across the continent, almost all of which brutalized civilians while using their deployment as a pretext to loot vast natural resources and terrorize civilians. By mid-1999, a front line was stabilized and Congo was effectively cut into two.

A ceasefire agreement was reached and signed in Lusaka in July 1999. Although a UN peacekeeping force, known by its French acronym MONUC, was authorized to monitor the agreement, the conflict continued as all sides violated the accord. President Kabila was assassinated in January 2001 and his son, Joseph Kabila, assumed the presidency.

In 2002 peace negotiations were re-launched, and in December of that year all Congolese belligerents, civil society groups, and unarmed opposition movements signed an agreement in South Africa. By the end of 2002, Angolan, Zimbabwean, Rwandan, and Ugandan troops had fully withdrawn from Congo. Rapid progress was made on paper, but the situation for civilians on the ground, especially women, remained dire. Although open fighting between the government and rebels became rare, both sides continued to use sexual violence as a military tactic against civilians, using its trauma to terrorize, control, and, in some cases, ethnically cleanse targeted populations.

Continued Conflict and Elections

Rebel groups, including dissident members of former rebel movements and untamed militias, continued to fight the government and local enemies, often seeking to maintain or establish control of mineral wealth. MONUC’s efforts to protect civilians were reinvigorated in September 2004 with the expansion of its force from 10,800 to 16,700 troops, and the granting of a more aggressive mandate which allowed for more robust civilian protection. However, the sustained level of violence throughout 200,4 combined with the large number of people who continued to flee their homes to avoid violence, led the UN in March 2005 to describe the situation in eastern Congo as the "world's worst humanitarian crisis."

Following a national election conducted with substantial international support, Joseph Kabila was sworn in as the first democratically elected president since Congolese independence on December 6, 2006. While this landmark election was largely free of major violence and serious irregularities, the country still has many challenges to surmount. The new government is weak and barely functioning in many respects, and faces persistent political and security challenges. Predatory armed groups, including Rwandan rebels and the Congolese army, continue to prowl eastern Congo with impunity. Congolese women and girls in particular bear the vicious brunt of this crisis.

Humanitarian Crisis

The International Rescue Committee reports that since the end of the first war in the Congo in 1998, 5.4 million people have died (more than 8 percent of the Congo’s population of 66 million). Every month, 45,000 more Congolese—half of them children—die from hunger, preventable disease, and other consequences of violence and displacement. Over one million people have fled their homes within Congo as a result of the ongoing conflict. Eastern Congo right now is perhaps the worst place in the world to be a woman. Used as a weapon of war, rape in Congo exists on a scale seen nowhere else in the world. Often successful in its intent to destroy and exterminate, rape as a weapon of war is causing the near total destruction of women, their families, and their communities.

Recent Events

Rebel forces under the command of Laurent Nkunda, known as the National Congress for the Defense of People, or CNDP, have taken control of a swathe of territory in eastern Congo that remains beyond the control of the Congolese government and even the UN peacekeeping force. Nkunda claims to be acting to protect his fellow ethnic Tutsis from Rwandan Hutu militias, and he has received substantial support from neighboring Rwanda, but he has political ambitions of his own in Congo and has threatened to take the fight all the way to the capital, Kinshasa. A peace agreement between the Congolese government, the CNDP, and more than 20 other armed groups effectively collapsed late in 2008.

The current crisis in eastern Congo illustrates the historical patterns at the root of this conflict: as long as the Congolese government cannot control its territory, provide basic services or effectively protect its population, and as long as armed groups are able to prosper from illicit trade in natural resources and complex regional alliances, eastern Congo will remain a battlefield and innocent civilians will pay a tragically high cost.

 Download the Roots of the Crisis (PDF, 105 KB)

Under current President Yoweri Museveni, Uganda has made a remarkable recovery from the horrors of the late dictator Idi Amin. However, much of northern Uganda has remained marginalized and neglected. It is this sense of marginalization that helped spawn multiple rebel movements in northern Uganda, the most serious of which is the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA. The conflict between the government and the LRA is the longest running civil conflict in Africa, and the LRA has become notorious for being one of the most brutal guerilla forces in the world.

Idi Amin and Post-Colonial Uganda

Uganda gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1962.  The country experienced five years of multiparty democracy under President Milton Obote before his regime began a slide toward violent dictatorship. Obote was ousted in 1971 by a non-commissioned army officer, Idi Amin Dada, whose coup was initially welcomed with widespread enthusiasm.

However, Amin, quickly dissolved parliament and altered the constitution, granting himself absolute power and eliminating all opposition. His eight-year rule was epic in its violence. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people were killed during his regime. Amin particularly targeted the Acholi people of northern Uganda, partly because of their support for his predecessor, but also because they traditionally composed the bulk of the army, and thus posed a potential threat to his reign. Amin's government devastated the country and its developing economy, in part by expelling all Asians from Uganda and essentially destroying a growing merchant class.

A victim of his own excesses, Idi Amin was overthrown in 1979 and forced to flee into exile by a Tanzanian-backed rebellion that included Museveni. Rigged elections in 1980 returned Milton Obote to power, prompting Museveni to launch a guerrilla war in 1981.

Museveni’s Ascendance

Obote's regime committed massive human rights abuses in an effort to crush Museveni's insurgency. As tensions escalated, Obote was overthrown in 1985 by a group of ethnic Acholis led by General Tito Okello. Exhausted by the war and internal divisions, the Okello government entered into negotiations with Museveni's rebel group, the National Resistance Movement. Museveni's National Resistance Army, however, continued its push to Kampala.  They seized the Ugandan capital in 1986 and installed a "no-party democracy," which allowed individuals, but not political parties, to contest elections.

Museveni is credited with leading Uganda's emergence from the violent and abusive periods under Amin and Obote, and with laying the groundwork for the development of one of Africa's more successful economies. But Uganda's security deteriorated in the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and Uganda joined Rwanda in intervening militarily in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1996 and 1998. During this period, a major war unfolded in Congo involving militaries from six African countries and a broad array of rebel groups. While much of the fighting was directly linked to the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and the presence of Hutu militias seeking safe refuge in Congo, all of these military forces also sought to exploit the rich natural resources in eastern Congo for their own benefit. Through its support for various militia groups, the increasingly ill-disciplined Ugandan army was actively involved in widespread human rights abuses in the gold-producing district of Ituri.

The Lord’s Resistance Army

Uganda also faced a challenge at home. Beginning in 1986, several rebel movements sprung up in the economically and socially marginalized north of the country. The most notorious of these is the LRA, an exceedingly violent mystical movement led by a self-proclaimed messiah, Joseph Kony. While claiming to defend the rights of Acholis, the LRA's extreme brutality against fellow Acholis in northern Uganda included murder, torture, mutilation, rape, and widespread child abductions. The civilian population of the north was caught in the crossfire between the government and the LRA and increasingly became alienated from both.

Over the years, the LRA has had few genuine political objectives and has relied heavily on the Sudanese government for military support. (The Sudanese government has always viewed the LRA as a useful force in its efforts to keep southern Sudan and northern Uganda destabilized, and as a means to punish Uganda for its support of the rebel Southern People's Liberation Army, or SPLA, in Sudan.) Since 1986, the LRA has abducted as many as 40,000 children, forcing them to serve as soldiers, porters, or sex slaves. In an effort to prevent looting and abductions, the Ugandan government created “protected villages.” Sadly, these were often over-crowded, unsanitary, and dangerous camps for the internally displaced, and most were forced by the government to enter these camps against their will. In 2002, Uganda launched Operation Iron Fist in an attempt to definitively defeat the insurgency, but the operation sparked more intense and violent attacks by the LRA—and instigated the LRA’s return from southern Sudan to northern Uganda. The failed operation dramatically increased the number of internally displaced people, and failed to end the war. At the height of the conflict, nearly 2 million northern Ugandans were living in displaced camps.

Throughout late 2005 and early 2006, the LRA shifted their base of operations into northeastern Congo, near Garamba National Park, underscoring the regional dimensions of the conflict. Around the same time, the International Criminal Court, or ICC, unsealed arrest warrants for five senior LRA leaders, including Kony. The ICC investigation began after the Ugandan government referred the LRA situation to the Court in late 2003. The ICC's actions coupled with pressure on the battlefield, pushed the LRA to agree to peace talks with the Ugandan government, and these negotiations began in July 2006 in Juba, southern Sudan. While many Ugandans, activists, and diplomats were hopeful that a deal might be struck, talks fell apart late in 2008, with Kony repeatedly refusing to sign a deal that his delegation had helped draft.

‘Operation Lightning Thunder’ and its Aftermath in Congo

In December 2008, the armies of Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and southern Sudan launched ‘Operation Lightning Thunder,’ a joint military offensive against the LRA in northeastern Congo. Though the offensive weakened the LRA by cutting off food stores and other supplies and destroying some of the main rebel camps, it failed in its ultimate goal of apprehending the LRA’s senior leadership. Instead, the LRA has scattered across vast, treacherous terrain, and in retaliation for the offensive and to survive on the run, they have launched a series of ruthless attacks against civilians in northeastern Congo and southern Sudan. According to Human Rights Watch, in December 2008 and January 2009, the LRA brutally killed more than 865 civilians and abducted at least 160 children in eastern Congo alone. Since September 2008, over 180,000 people in Congo have been displaced by LRA attacks, as well as another 60,000 in southern Sudan.

The LRA remain a significant destabilizing presence in Orientale province and an acute threat to civilians. Despite the attempts of ‘Operation Lightning Thunder,’ the LRA’s high command remains intact. Unless these essential leaders are either captured or killed, the LRA’s regional campaign of terror will not end. The more time that passes, the stronger Kony’s ranks will grow, and the harder it will be to restore peace to this impoverished and war-weary region.

 Download the Roots of the Crisis (PDF, 103 KB)

Enough conducts intensive field research in areas plagued by genocide and crimes against humanity, develops practical policies to address these crises, and shares tools to empower citizens and groups working for change. Our current work focuses on the grave challenges in southern Sudan, Darfur, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the areas terrorized by the Lord's Resistance Army militia. Enough utilizes a “3P” approach: promoting peace, protecting civilians, and punishing perpetrators, as well as a fourth and all-encompassing "P," prevention.

Stella Kenyi is the Sister Schools Campaign Manager for the Enough Project. Before joining Enough, Stella focused on the implementation of international relief and development projects in Africa. She brings not only project administration experience to the position, but also field experience in Kenya, Uganda and Sudan, having worked with private sector and non-profit development organizations, including the Louis Berger, the international consulting firm, Agricultural Cooperative Development International/Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance, and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association International. A native of Sudan, Stella holds a Masters’ degree in International Development from Cornell University and Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Davidson College.

Sarina Virk serves as the RAISE Hope for Congo campaign assistant at the Enough Project. Prior to the Enough Project, Sarina served as an intern in the advocacy division at Human Rights Watch in Washington, D.C., and as a research assistant examining human trafficking for a non-profit in New Delhi, India. Sarina is a graduate of the University of California, Irvine with a B.A. International Studies and concentration in Political Science. She has also studied international human rights law at Lund University in Sweden, where she completed a research project examining the status of Dalit women's rights in India.

Based in Washington, D.C., Colin helps guide Enough’s analysis and policy recommendations. He also oversees field research and the production of reports on Sudan, Chad, Congo, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and the Horn of Africa. Colin previously worked at the International Crisis Group and had a range of research and advocacy responsibilities within the Africa program. He joined Crisis Group from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where he was an information officer on the humanitarian response team for Darfur. Colin served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia and Mozambique, and has travelled extensively in East, Central, and Southern Africa. He has an MA in African Studies from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), with a concentration in the history of Islam in Africa, African politics, and Islamic family law. Colin has written for Foreign Affairs on U.S. policy in the Horn of Africa, publishes regular commentaries and op-eds in U.S. and African newspapers, and speaks frequently with international news outlets. He is a Truman Security Fellow.

Read Colin Thomas-Jensen's full bio

Maggie Fick is Enough's field researcher based in southern Sudan.  Before joining Enough, she was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Niger, where she researched the role of women in urban and rural Tuareg society. While in Niger, she studied Tamashek and Hausa and wrote freelance articles about Nigerien culture and society. Her work has appeared in the International Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, and the Guardian Weekly, among other publications. Maggie holds a Bachelor's degree in international relations from Pomona College. She has traveled extensively in West Africa and is fluent in French.

Email Maggie Fick

David Sullivan is Policy Manager with Enough. He most recently served as a Program Officer at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), where he worked on Pakistan's 2008 national elections. Previously he supported relief and development projects across Africa for the International Rescue Committee (IRC). During 2004-05, he served as Grants Manager for the IRC in Liberia.

David received his MA in international relations, with concentrations in conflict management and international economics, from the Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College. He speaks proficient French.

Jenny Russell is the Advocacy Director of Enough. Most recently she served as managing director of advocacy for Habitat for Humanity International where she facilitated the launch of Habitat’s first advocacy campaign as well as a grants program for advocacy pilot projects, an online advocacy program, and trainings and advocacy capacity building for 1,500 Habitat-affiliated organizations in the United States and 90 Habitat organizations overseas. 

Previously, Ms. Russell served as an advocacy consultant for CARE, Catholic Relief Services, and Heifer International. From 1999-2003, Ms. Russell worked for Catholic Relief Services as advocacy strategist on the Latin America and Caribbean region. She has a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree from Whitman College.

Meghna Raj is an Government Relations Associate with Enough. She previously worked as a Legislative Correspondent for the Speaker of the House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. She has also worked at FOX News as a Production Assistant in New York City. Meghna holds a Masters in Political Science from American University and a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism with a minor in International Relations from Boston University.

Candice Knezevic is the RAISE Hope for Congo Campaign Manager for Enough, a project of the Center for American Progress to end genocide and crimes against humanity. She is responsible for directing the advocacy, communications, and activism efforts of the campaign, which seeks to protect and empower Congo’s women. These efforts include an initiative to combat the illicit trade in “conflict minerals” responsible for fueling the ongoing violence in the region. As campaign manager, she has spoken extensively at conferences and on college campuses across the country about the crisis in Congo and how activists can take action. She launched a three-month Congo Challenge to engage activists and initiated the COME CLEAN 4 CONGO video contest, in partnership with YouTube, to inspire dialogue and creativity in communicating the scourge of conflict minerals.

Candice has spent her entire career in human rights advocacy, outreach, and communications. Prior to joining Enough Candice was assistant director of the Washington, D.C. office of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, where she managed the grassroots and congressional advocacy efforts in support of immigrant and refugee protection legislation. Her major accomplishments included leading the organization's efforts to restore Supplemental Security Income eligibility for refugees and enhancing the faith-based community's role in the broader debate over U.S. immigration policy and legislation. Previously, Candice was the program associate for Human Rights First's Washington, D.C., Asylum Program. In that post, she coordinated the Asylum Legal Representation Program, which places asylum seekers with pro bono counsel, and she also assisted the program's congressional and administrative advocacy efforts.

Candice holds an M.A. in international human rights from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, and a B.A. in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia.

Email: cknezevic@enoughproject.org

Omer Ismail was born in the Darfur region of Sudan. He has spent over 20 years working both independently and with international organizations on relief efforts and human rights. Omer fled Sudan in 1989 as a result of his political views. He helped found the Sudan Democratic Forum, a think tank of Sudanese intellectuals working for the advancement of democracy in Sudan. In addition, he co-founded the Darfur Peace and Development organization to raise awareness about the crisis in his troubled region. He currently works as Policy Advisor to several agencies working in crisis management and conflict resolution in Africa. He was a Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy.

 Download Omer Ismail's bio

Rebekah Seder is a 2008 graduate of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, where she majored in International Development, with a minor in Hispanic Literature. During her time at McGill she completed coursework focusing on the history, politics, and geography of Latin America and Africa. She speaks proficient Spanish.