Field Dispatch: Walikale

Patrick Furey — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:36:41 -0500

By Olivia Caeymaex

This is the second of two Field Dispatches looking at the crisis in eastern Congo on the ground.

In December I travelled to Walikale territory, the vast and remote westernmost region of North Kivu, scene of much of the fighting during the past year, and home to some of the region’s most lucrative mines. I visited several towns in the region alongside a U.N. Joint Protection Team. These teams are composed of both military peacekeepers and civilian experts from the U.N. Mission in Congo, or MONUC, and are tasked with assessing how best to protect civilians. In interviews with local government officials, civil society, security forces, and health workers, we got a sense of the concerns of the population.

The presence of MONUC peacekeepers appears to deliver a basic level of security, but as one travels away from their positions, insecurity rises precipitously. The Rwandan Hutu rebel group the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, maintains a strong presence in the territory, pillaging and looting with a focus on the strategic mining sites of Bisie and Omate. Military operations have disrupted the FDLR, who have responded by breaking into groups as small as five to ten men each rather than the groups of 30-40 fighters used in the past. Sadly, even under duress the FDLR poses a grave threat to civilians. In addition, local Mai Mai groups, including some that are closely aligned with the FDLR, also prey upon the population.

Travelling along the road from Kibua to Mpofi to Walikale, we found many villages emptied of their inhabitants. It appears that these people have fled to the larger towns of Kibua and Walikale, where they live with local populations as there are no official camps for displaced persons in the area.

Defection at Kibati

In a sign of the fragility of the ‘integration’ of former CNDP rebels into the Congolese army, some 120 ex-CNDP combatants under the command of Emmanuel Nsengiyumva, the former bodyguard to Laurent Nkunda, deserted the army in Kibati on December 6, 2009. Most of the deserters rejoined the army after realizing that the group lacked external support. The remnants – Colonel Emmanuel and an average of 20 men - aligned with another armed group. Throughout Walikale, local representatives repeatedly pointed to this defection not only as a sign of the failure of the integration, but as testimony to the lack of a strategy to protect civilians.

Local leaders recognized the thorny dilemma at the heart of the problem: villagers in Walikale territory are dependent upon Congolese military forces to provide security, but they also recognize the inability of these forces to actually finish off the FDLR. Instead of progress toward disarming and dismantling the rebels, the main result of the fighting is more reprisal attacks against civilians, more human rights abuses by the army itself, and additional destruction of Walikale’s already devastated infrastructure.

Sorely lacking infrastructure and trust

Already one of the more remote regions of eastern Congo, the war has dealt a major blow to basic infrastructure in Walikale, especially in terms of roads. The lack of access to the region means that the levels of humanitarian aid actually getting to the field are much lower than the needs. Moreover, the local population tends to distrust MONUC because of their support for the Congolese army, and even go so far as to suspect that MONUC is also collaborating with the FDLR. Given this atmosphere of suspicion and the legacy of conflict between local ethnic groups and rwandaphones, Walikale remains on a knife’s edge. Efforts to provide a modicum of stability and security in the region will need to go hand-in-hand with efforts to support local conflict resolution, rebuilding both physical infrastructure and some measure of trust within and between local communities.

Field Dispatch: The Protection Gap in Haut Uele

Patrick Furey — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 09:48:28 -0500

By Ledio Cakaj

A resurgent LRA is terrorizing the population in the Haut Uele region of northeast Congo. Congolese soldiers deployed to the region have been unable to provide adequate protection and the number of UN peacekeepers in the area remains woefully inadequate. But better coordinated and resourced efforts by both Congolese and international security forces have the potential to protect civilians from LRA attacks. This is the second of two dispatches based on my visit to Haut Uele.

The Congolese Army in Haut Uele

The Congolese army has deployed close to 6,000 soldiers in Province Orientale, but they have utterly failed to protect civilians from LRA attacks. Most of the LRA attacks have taken place around three places—Ngilima, Bangadi and Niangara – where there is a significant army presence. In Bangadi, for example, there are at least 100 Congolese soldiers. Yet, Bangadi has been frequently attacked by the LRA in the last few months. In personal accounts, people in Bangadi report that Congolese soldiers simply do not respond when alerted to LRA attacks. Similarly, people in Ngilima said that the soldiers are too scared to confront the LRA; they say they have never seen a LRA rebel killed or captured by the Congolese soldiers. “The only time the [Congolese army] fights the LRA is when they happen to come across them by accident,” said a local official.

In many interviews Congolese civilians accused Congolese soldiers of preying on the local population. Notoriously unpaid and unfed, soldiers steal from civilians, often by force at checkpoints along the main roads. “It is a daily occurrence,” said a local NGO worker. “Civilians are either forced to pay or forced to work for the soldiers at checkpoints such as collecting wood or cleaning their boots and washing their uniforms.” Lacking vehicles, Congolese soldiers needing to walk to their duty stations force locals to transport them on their bicycles or steal their bicycles at gunpoint. The stealing of bicycles is so common that the residents of Ngilima, in anticipation of a Congolese army troop rotation, declared December 27 as the “day without bicycles” and hid their bicycles from Congolese soldiers.

There are many cases of rape and sexual violence committed by the Congolese army. In Ngilima, we heard from the local population that there are consistently about six to eight rapes reported per month that are attributed to Congolese soldiers. Many more rapes go unreported. Killings also occur, mostly when civilians refuse to hand over their possessions to Congolese soldiers. An internal U.N. report cited eight killings of civilians by the Congolese army in Haut Uele during the month of November, with another four people injured. In Bangadi, we saw a Congolese soldier cut a civilian with a bayonet, because the civilian, who was driving a motorcycle, refused to give the soldier a ride to his barracks.

In interviews, a variety of Congolese army officials denied all abuses. According to the commander of the FARDC battalion in Bangadi, Congolese soldiers have never committed any crimes against the civilian population. The commander of the troops based in Ngilima said the population was lying. The FARDC troop commander in Dungu recognized that abuses had taken place but added that these were isolated incidents. “These are the problems of the man,” he said. “Not of the organization.”

Representatives from Congolese civil society organizations said that abuses had occurred where there was a clear lack of good leadership. They believe that the Congolese army and government should ensure command responsibility. Civil society members have also asked the United Nations mission in Congo, or MONUC, to condition aid to the army on good behavior. At the moment, MONUC supports Congolese soldiers in Province Orientale by providing daily rations for 6,000 soldiers and gasoline for seven army vehicles. MONUC officials said it was difficult for them to interfere in the internal affairs of the Congolese national army.

The role of the United Nations

The mandate for the United Nations mission in DRC, or MONUC, clearly prioritizes civilian protection, but their presence is thinly stretched in Haut Uele. A battalion of Moroccan peacekeepers is trying to offer protection to civilians but they have been unable to establish a presence in the worst affected areas. Promised reinforcements, in the shape of a Tunisian battalion, were supposed to arrive in June of 2009, but this was pushed back to February 2010. There are also fears that the Tunisians could then be deployed to neighboring Equateur Province, site of recent fighting between the Congolese army and a new rebel group.

The lack of peacekeepers to protect humanitarian convoys has forced aid groups to cease assistance to people in areas targeted by the LRA. After a series of LRA attacks on Congolese civilians who had just received food aid, and fearing attacks against their staff, U.N. and humanitarian organizations decided to stop the distribution of food in adherence to the “Do No Harm” principle. “Ideally we would need U.N. peacekeepers or Congolese soldiers to stay in the communities at least two weeks after the distribution of food,” said an international aid worker. “But there are not enough U.N. troops and the FARDC cannot be trusted.” As a result, many are starving. “We are being exterminated by the LRA and from hunger,” a resident of Bangadi told Enough.

Where present, U.N. peacekeepers have generally acted as a deterrent to LRA attacks. It is telling, for instance, that LRA attacks occur largely in Bangadi, Ngilima and Niangara where there are no U.N. troops. Furthermore, a U.N. presence also almost always guarantees that Congolese soldiers are better behaved. This is the case, for instance, in Dungu, but also in Faradje where the U.N. presence is small. A Faradje local reports that Congolese soldiers behave much better when conducting joint patrols with U.N. peacekeepers. This is not the case when Congolese soldiers are alone.

MONUC troops have both the will and the means to protect civilians. In a response to indications that the LRA were planning to attack civilians during Christmas this December, MONUC troops deployed to Ngilima. Internal U.N. reports mention a thwarted LRA attack on December 25 as a result of joint MONUC-Congolese army patrols. MONUC deployment to Ngilima is, however, temporary and the troops are expected to leave soon.

Many agree that a MONUC troop increase would go a long way towards protecting civilians in northeastern DRC. A U.N. source said in an interview that U.N. workers had been requesting a troop increase for a long time. “Gaye [General Gaye, MONUC force commander] promised us long ago that he would send more troops here,” the source said. “So far he has not kept that promise.”

Field Dispatch: Ferocious LRA Attacks in Northeast Congo

Patrick Furey — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:50:32 -0500

By Ledio Cakaj

In a trip to Province Orientale of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in early December 2009, Enough researchers found abundant evidence of brutal ongoing violence committed by the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA. Despite claims from Congolese and Ugandan state officials that the LRA is on its last legs, attacks against Congolese civilians perpetrated by the rebel group remain frequent. The LRA is far from finished. While there are disputes about whether the Ugandan rebels have been weakened by recent offensives against them or not, it is clear that they remain incredibly dangerous and ruthless. There are also lingering concerns and suspicions that the LRA may once again be receiving direct support from the ruling party in Sudan. This is the first of two dispatches based upon my visit to Haut Uele.

Brutalities in Haut Uele reminiscent of LRA of old

There is a long history of LRA violence in Congo. Attacks, however, reached a peak after Operation Lightning Thunder of December 2008, when the Ugandan army, in collaboration with the Congolese army and with U.S. support, attacked LRA bases in the Congolese Garamba National Park. The operation had the effect of scattering the LRA forces which in turn unleashed a series of coordinated attacks against the Congolese population. In a period of three weeks, close to 1,000 people were brutally murdered. About 200 were abducted, many of whom have not yet returned. Attacks continued throughout 2009, bringing the total number of LRA-caused deaths to 1,500. An estimated 3,000 people were abducted in the year; about 700 of those abducted were children.

According to internal UN reports, the LRA was responsible for an average of 30 killings per month In the Haut Uele region of Province Orientale during 2009, with those numbers increasing sharply around November and December. On November 26, an attack near the village of Ngilima left ten dead. Eight people from the same family were burned alive while two others were killed by machete blows. In Bangadi, four people were killed on December 2, two of them badly mutilated. In Tapili, 15 people were believed to be killed on December 14, although the real number might be twice as high as bodies are still being found in the bush. In a couple of attacks on December 19 and 21, two people were killed in Ngilima and two women were severely mutilated. A great number of abductions also occurred with each attack. A priest from the area estimates that the numbers of the abductees in the Tapili attack was more than 300 people. Notably, there were at least four cases in December in which victims’ lips and ears were cut—a practice rarely seen since the heyday of the LRA’s strength.

These recent attacks are especially shocking in their brutality. No longer focused on just stealing food to survive, LRA forces in DRC appear to be attacking in order to terrorize the population and perhaps to send a message to the Congolese authorities who claim the LRA is finished. These ulterior goals may explain why the LRA has returned to using vile practices such as severe mutilations.

Testimony from survivors of LRA violence

Testimony from survivors of LRA violence in northeast Congo describes this resurgence of brutality. One survivor of the November 26 massacre described above recounted the LRA attack on his family:

We were eating dinner outside of our hut when seven LRA rebels appeared and told us in broken Lingala [one of the local languages] to get inside of our hut. They looted our food, locked us inside our hut and burned it. There were 10 of us, my whole family inside the hut. When I realized they were burning us alive I started to push against the door, forcing it open. One rebel standing outside of the door tried to hit me with a heavy club but I dodged it and ran in the bush. They shot after me but missed. Apparently they shot or hit everyone else in my family who tried to come out. Except for one other person, everyone else was burned alive.

A man whose lips and ears were cut by LRA rebels on the night of December 2 in Bangadi spoke with difficulty and was still in shock. He said that his arms were tied tightly around his body and one LRA rebels kept him pinned on the ground while another proceeded to cut his lips and ears. He said that they did this in total silence, kicking while mutilating him.

Field Dispatch: Tensions in North Kivu

Patrick Furey — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:20:10 -0500

By Olivia Caeymaex

The end of 2009 saw optimistic statements about the situation in Congo from both the United Nations and the Congolese government. However, my experience on the ground in North Kivu seemed to point to a different picture. This is the first of two field dispatches based on my travel to particularly contentious territories in the region.

Masisi and the Parallel Administration

The territory of Masisi, located to the west of Goma in North Kivu province, is among the most contested regions of eastern Congo. A longtime power center for the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP, the area is a flashpoint for potential conflict stemming from tensions over land rights and conflict between local ethnic groups and Congolese of Rwandan descent, exacerbated by the recent population movements described in a prior field dispatch.

Despite the CNDP’s peace agreement with the Congolese government, the movement continues to operate their own government structures throughout much of Masisi, including lucrative tax collection and control over security services. This operation is based out of the town of Mushake. Following a meeting between the CNDP and the Congolese government on December 21, the CNDP agreed to close down the parallel administration. But the CNDP continues to argue it first needs to be politically integrated at the national level before stopping their tax system and parallel administration. This is another worrying sign of strains in the relationship between the Congolese government and the CNDP, despite the move by the government to take charge of CNDP’s war-wounded around Christmas time last year.

The Mushake administration feeds several worrying dynamics:

The CNDP split. Since Laurent Nkunda was deposed by the Rwandans, there has been a dangerous split within the movement between those who remain loyal to him and those loyal to Bosco Ntaganda. Allegedly, the taxes collected by the parallel administration are not going to the main CNDP administration, widening this rift.
Multiplying Militias. Authorities have described a new movement called the Force for the Liberation of Eastern Congo, based in the town of Biza, with a battalion of 500-1,000 fighters. This group is linked to wanted war criminal Bosco Ntaganda, and has conducted forced recruitment in the region. Ntaganda, reacting to the call by U.S. envoy Howard Wolpe for his arrest, is evidently arming multiple militias to defend himself.
Anti-government alliances. During a meeting held in December, the parallel administration in Mushake replaced the national police in the area with a police force consisting of CNDP forces and members of the Hutu militia called PARECO.

Most of the people I spoke with think the CNDP is using these multiple armed groups and the maintenance of the parallel administration to increase its leverage in negotiations with the government. The end goals are the return of refugees from Rwanda, the recognition of senior appointments in the military, the full integration of the CNDP into the government, and the recognition of Mushake as a territory, thereby splitting political power in North Kivu. Thus far, the result has been increased confusion, rising tensions, and greater potential for these political, military, and economic manoeuvres to trigger widespread violence.

Field Dispatch: A Civil Servant’s Close Encounter with the LRA

Patrick Furey — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:23:28 -0500

By Noel Atama

Bangadi, Haut Uele District, Province Oriental, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

I wasn’t planning to spend much time in Bangadi, a small town in Dungu territory in remote northeast Congo, only about 65 kilomoters from the border with southern Sudan. But when mechanical difficulties grounded the flight that was supposed to pick me up, I had no shortage of time to learn more about the residents of the town and their deadly encounters with the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA.

I interviewed the senior local government administrator in Bangadi, Joseph Bikwalubi Musafiri, about the security situation in LRA-affected areas. Originally from Maniema province, Mr. Bikwalubi took up his post mid-2007, and has watched the population of the town almost double in size as the residents of surrounding villages took refuge from LRA attacks, swelling the population from 15,000 to more than 26,000, according to a recent census by a local Congolese organization. As our conversation drew to a close, I asked the administrator if he could introduce me to any local citizens who had been abducted by the LRA. I was taken aback by his reply. “I myself was kidnapped by the LRA,” he told me. “My story is especially interesting because it is about a local government authority kidnapped by the LRA.”

He went on to tell me his story.

Ambushed

The first LRA attack against Bangadi took place on October 18, 2008. Mr. Bikwalubi, as well as the rest of the town’s inhabitants, fled into the bush where he spent nearly two months on the run. He returned to Bangadi around Christmas of 2008, following the Operation Lightning Thunder operations by the Ugandan and Congolese armies. At around noon on Thursday, January 22, 2009, Mr. Bikwalubi was on his way to his fields—like other civil servants in Congo, his wages are small and irregularly paid, so he has to find other ways to make ends meet—when a group of 21 LRA fighters ambushed him. “They sprang from the bush at a bend in the road, encircled me, took away my bicycle and asked me to follow them in the bush. They all were well armed with AK-47 rifles. One of them carried a MAG machine gun, and another even carried a bazooka!”

Two kidnapped Congolese were among the fighters, serving as guides and interpreters. These two Congolese had dreadlocks just like the LRA fighters, and also wore uniforms and carried weapons. Mr. Bikwalubi remembered that “their Commander was short and had a large scar on the right cheek and all its teeth were outside. He might have been wounded by a bullet.”

Living in captivity

The LRA brought Mr. Bikwalubi into the bush, where they were already holding a group of civilians from his town. There were 16 people in total, including three women and four young girls. When I asked about the living conditions while he was captive, he lowered his head to express his sadness and told me: “We really lived under difficult conditions. We slept on the ground, without any mattress or blanket, in the cold. We were bound together like slaves, our hands tied to the same cord to prevent escape. During the night, the LRA would take the women and girls. They would force the men to carry heavy loads of food they have plundered from the villages they burned.”

He told me that the LRA would strike them on the back with sticks, or with the backsides of their machetes. One fighter had slashed his feet with a razor blade because he was not walking quickly enough. He showed me the scars on his feet. They would walk all day in the bush, going from village to village, in search of abandoned food.

I asked him about how his citizens reacted when they saw him kidnapped by the LRA. But he said the better question was about his reaction to seeing his citizens in captivity. He asked them not to let the LRA know that he was a civil servant. “That is what saved my life,” he went on as saying. “I am convinced that they would have killed me if they knew that I was the administrator of Bangadi”. His fears were justified: on December 14, 2009, the administrator of Tapili, a village approximately 60 kilometers south of Bangadi, was abducted and killed by the LRA.

Released

When I asked how he came to be free, Mr. Bikwalubi told me that they were freed at the request of another LRA Commander whom they had met in the bush after their long walk. This commander seemed to outrank their captor, and had plans to move them far from Bangadi territory, until he learned that Ugandan and Congolese armed forces were tracking them. It seemed that they received an order to quickly vacate the region. Before their release the LRA beat them severely, and gave them a message for the population and local authorities: “Go tell the population that we will be returning again. No soldier of the Ugandan army, the Congolese army or MONUC [the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo] should be there. We do not want to see self-defense forces organizing against us, or to find even one weapon. Or else we will kill all in our way.”

Afterwards I asked several local people about the administrator’s story, who all confirmed what he had told me. One person added: “When even the local political and administrative authorities are not spared by the LRA, what can beleaguered civilian populations expect? Just imagine about how ordinary women and children are treated?”

Field Dispatch: Jonglei, Southern Sudan

Patrick Furey — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:03:40 -0500

_{Photo / Enough}

By Maggie Fick

Duk Padiet, Jonglei state, Southern Sudan -- Nyamun Dit Luol Kuai saw her husband shot dead when her hometown of Duk Padiet was attacked on Sunday, September 20. Nyamun’s husband was shot in the forehead when he raised his head out of the grass to look for the attackers who were advancing on his home. Duk Padiet—a town of roughly 35,000 people according to the 2008 census—is about 250 kilometers North of Bor, the capital of Jonglei state. Duk Padiet is the administrative center of Duk county, which is largely populated by the Dinka, one of the major ethnic groups in southern Sudan.

The United Nations estimates that at least 70 people from Duk Padiet were killed and nearly 40 wounded in the attack, including 11 Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army, or SPLA, soldiers, four southern Sudanese policemen and an estimated 60 people from the Lou Nuer militia. Tukuls, or mud huts, in the market and in residential areas of the town were burned to the ground. Administrative structures such as the police station were also razed and the hospital and a World Food Program warehouse were ransacked. An estimated 570 people were displaced from Duk Padiet following the attack, adding to the total of nearly 360,000 people who have been displaced by violence in southern Sudan this year.

Jonglei state: Epicenter of Insecurity

In recent months, Duk County and other neighboring, largely Dinka counties in western Jonglei state, have been afflicted by several violent attacks by armed, organized, and well-trained militia from the Lou clan of a significant rival ethnic group in the South, the Nuer. These attacks come in the context of an upsurge in violence throughout Jonglei state that has pitted all of the main ethnic groups of the state against each other in patterns that often mirror the historic dynamics of intra-South conflict during the North-South civil war: violence between the Nuer and Dinka, the Murle and Nuer, and between Nuer clans are some of the central trends of the conflict reemerging in Jonglei today.

Although Jonglei has been the deadly epicenter of inter-communal violence this year in southern Sudan, armed attacks are occurring in several other states. In Upper Nile state, near Jonglei state’s northern border, Dinka raiders have attacked several Shilluk settlements near the junction of the White Nile and Sobat rivers in the past month, displacing Shilluk populations north towards the already tense town of Malakal.

Jonglei is geographically the largest of the ten states in southern Sudan. According to the recent census, it is also the most populous state, with 1.3 million people counted. The rampant insecurity in Jonglei is exacerbated by a profound lack of civilian protection throughout the state, which stems from the failure of the Government of Southern Sudan and its security forces to intervene when violent clashes occur and from a United Nations Mission in Sudan, or UNMIS, presence that has proven to be much less proactive and preventive than its current civilian protection mandate allows. These issues have been well documented this year by Human Rights Watch.

The presence of small arms among the majority of the local population, who seek to protect themselves in the absence of a reliable and responsible state authority at the local level, is another enduring problem in Jonglei state, where at least three unsuccessful and violent civilian disarmament campaigns have been attempted since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, was signed in 2005. Last month, the Government of Southern Sudan directed the southern army, or SPLA, to initiate another disarmament campaign in Jonglei. Given that the government’s approach to disarmament remains coercive and flawed, this new campaign is likely to be an impetus for further violence and instability in the run-up to the April 2010 elections. Figures from the National Electoral Commission as voter registration for the elections were ongoing indicate that Jonglei state had seen the lowest voter registration turnout, with below 20% of the population registering.

The persistent and destabilizing internal security dynamics in Jonglei state must not be ignored, as they will continue to shape the security situation in southern Sudan regardless of the outcome of the South’s self-determination referendum in 2011. However, the marked increase in 2009 of well-organized militia attacks, such as the attack in Duk Padiet, begs broader questions related to the increasingly antagonistic relationship between the two Sudanese parties to the CPA— the National Congress Party in Khartoum, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which heads the semi-autonomous southern government in Juba.

The North’s Upper Hand

The most politically charged question related to this year’s violence stems from the allegations by senior members of the SPLM-led southern government that the National Congress Party, or NCP, is supporting the violence in the South by supplying proxy militias with weapons. Although no source—including the southern government, UNMIS, or any external actor—has produced a “smoking gun” to prove the involvement of Khartoum is once again sponsoring violence throughout the South, this does not mean that the possibility of northern involvement should be discounted.

This conjecture is not lacking in historical basis. During the North-South war, NCP used a similar divide-and-destroy policy to great effect across southern Sudan, skillfully manipulating internal divisions within the South and supplying weapons to local groups, with the aim of weakening the SPLA movement led by the late John Garang. Given the history of northern involvement with numerous proxy militias, and the porous borders on all side of southern Sudan—including its contested and not yet demarcated border with the North—it is naïve to think that there are not broader political power dynamics at play in the violence that has sparked throughout the South this year.

Some groups accuse southern SPLM politicians of purposefully masking internal southern problems by blaming the North for insecurity and point to an unresponsive southern government that has so far failed to deliver “peace dividends” to its largely rural population. While this critique is justified, from the perspective of the CPA’s international “guarantors”—nations such as the United States who committed to help the Sudanese parties implement the peace agreement—the possibility that the North is arming militias to destabilize the South is a cause for increasing concern as Sudan hurtles toward elections that could further ignite both North-South and South-South tensions. Likewise, additional external pressure is needed on the Government of Southern Sudan to improve its response to local violence, ramp up its measures to protect civilians, and increase the presence of the southern Sudan police and security forces in tense areas of Jonglei and other states.

Historic Tensions, Current Crisis

In the area of Jonglei state where the recent Nuer-Dinka attacks occurred, the history of hostile relations between the Dinka and Nuer run deep. This was “ground zero” of the most serious split within the southern army, or SPLA, during the civil war, which occurred in 1991 between the leader of the SPLA, John Garang, a Dinka from Bor county, in Jonglei, and several of his senior commanders, including, Riek Machar, a powerful Nuer military leader who is the current vice president of southern Sudan.

The recent violence in this area, the presence of well-armed Lou Nuer militias, and the all-too recent violent past have given some members of the SPLM ruling party in Juba reason to accuse the NCP of resorting to its old tactics of proxy militia armament. Suspicions abound in the South of the reactivation of “marriages of convenience” that formed during the North-South civil war between southern leaders from minority groups such as the Nuer, militias such as the “White Army,” and former SPLA factions with former northern allies.

The tensions in Nuer-Dinka relations continue into today. The Nuer populations in the counties bordering Duk to the East harbor grievances against the Juba and Jonglei state governments, which they perceive as Dinka-dominated and unresponsive to the needs of the non-Dinka southern groups. For example, the Lou populations in the large towns of Ayod and Waat, to the East of Duk Padiet, are cut off from trading routes and access to health and other services because the road from Dinka population centers, in Duk and Twic East counties, is entirely impassable. Like the Dinka, the Nuer peoples’ livelihoods revolve around cattle. Access to water sources for cattle during the dry season has been a recurrent flashpoint of conflict when broader political dynamics have soured relations between neighboring Dinka and Nuer populations. Armed youth living in cattle camps are understandably susceptible to manipulation by outside actors, especially when these youth do not trust the local or central government who they perceive as unresponsive to their needs. These politicized tensions are not new, and attempts to defuse tensions through prior coercive disarmament campaigns in Jonglei state have arguably worsened relations between local groups.

All Eyes on the South

The violence in Duk Padiet and the story of Nuer-Dinka tensions in the surrounding region is only a microcosm of some of the daunting challenges facing southern Sudan today. This reality should not lend credence to the recent claims of some diplomats and members of the international community that southern Sudan is “ungovernable” or that a unified Sudan will be more stable than an independent South. The role of the CPA’s guarantors is to promote and protect the fundamental tenets of the peace agreement, one of which is the right of southerners to vote in a self-determination referendum. Given that all anecdotal evident and every public opinion survey indicate that southern Sudan will vote for independence in January 2011, now is the time to harness international efforts in support of a more stable and peaceful southern Sudan in the final remaining year of the CPA’s interim period.

The international community must work with the Government of Southern Sudan to improve security in particularly threatening areas of southern Sudan, such as Jonglei and Upper Nile states, to closely monitor further attacks in the South to better understand the dynamics behind the violence, and to apply pressure on the United Nations Mission in Sudan—a $1 billion per year international mission— to take more proactive and targeted measures to protect civilians in areas where there is a strong likelihood of violence breaking out in the coming months. The North’s historic role in fueling this instability should also inform the international community’s approach. Absent sustained support and focused attention from the international community to the root causes of conflict in the South, the growing tensions within the South are unlikely to subside in the current volatile political climate in Sudan.

Field Dispatch: South Kivu - No Peace in Sight

Patrick Furey — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:05:26 -0500

By Noel Atama

The view from the ground in South Kivu, eastern Congo, where I spent the second half of November, reveals a deeply insecure environment as a result of Kimia II, the government-led and U.N. supported military offensive against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, rebel group. Contrary to statements by Congolese President Joseph Kabila and the conclusions from U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon’s latest report, which balance the humanitarian cost of the Kimia II against “significant military gains,” the open conflict and deteriorating humanitarian situation in South Kivu demonstrates that such conclusions are dangerously premature. The international community must accept that Kimia II has made the situation worse, not better, and adjust policy accordingly.

Kimia II in South Kivu: One Step Forward, How Many Steps Backward?

The positive assessments of the military impact of the Kimia II operation trumpeted by military and political leaders from Kinshasa to New York do not always mesh with the Congolese army’s own assessments of what is happening on the ground. According to Congolese army officials I spoke with in South Kivu:

Outcomes released by the [military] leadership are always political outcomes, and not operational outcomes based on the result on the ground. These political outcomes are given to the media to discourage enemies and to obtain the support of the civilian population. The leadership has never provided media with operational outcomes based on operations on the ground.[1]

A realistic assessment of Kimia II must acknowledge the following realities:

The FDLR has been dislodged but is still capable of causing trouble.Military operations have driven the FDLR from some mineral-rich areas where they had maintained headquarters. But even from remote forest areas they still mobilize forces to attack both the Congolese army and civilian populations. These FDLR units benefit from increasing support from other militias, described below, as well as continuing support from some elements within the Congolese army. One recent example is the November 3 attack on the Luberizi military training center. The FDLR and a local Mai Mai militia attacked the center, seized arms and equipment, and abducted Congolese soldiers to carry the stolen loot. However, sources within the Congolese military believe that instructors working at the center were complicit in supporting the FDLR attack. The Congolese army has a long history of supporting the FDLR, and some Congolese soldiers are skeptical toward the leadership of Kimia II, which is dominated by members a Congolese rebel group with close ties to Rwanda called the National Congress for the Defense of People, or CNDP. As part of a recent peace agreement, the CNDP was recently and haphazardly integrated into the Congolese army.

The Congolese army is just as predatory toward civilians as the FDLR, especially in mining areas.Civil society groups in South Kivu describe the behavior of the newly integrated-Congolese armed forces that have replaced the FDLR in mining zones with the expression that they are “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” That is, they commit the same human rights violations as their predecessors. According to civil society representatives: “They extort, force local population to work for them, collect taxes, loot, rape, kill and commit human rights abuses against civilian population they are supposed to protect”[2]. I was shocked to hear from some civil society groups that the security situation was actually better when the FDLR was in charge, compared with the current situation.

Local militias are aligning themselves against the government and Kimia II.Although international attention has focused on the FDLR, South Kivu is awash in local militias, known as Mai Mai, with constantly shifting loyalties, diverse ethnic, commercial, and criminal interests, and who often abuse the local populations they purport to represent. Although most of these groups were involved in a recent peace program called “Amani” (peace in Swahili), wherein they were supposed integrate into the Congolese army and civilian government, the majority of groups now say that the Congolese government has not met their demands. Representatives of Mai Mai groups also cite an intense skepticism of the CNDP elements leading military operations in South Kivu. Mai Mai view the CNDP as an enemy because of CNDP’s relationship with Rwanda, so it is hardly surprising that these groups have sided with the FDLR against the government and the CNDP-led Kimia II offensive.

The civilian population does not trust the Congolese army. A successful counter-insurgency campaign ultimately depends upon securing the goodwill and cooperation of the population. The Congolese army’s approach to this crucial issue has been sorely lacking. When asked about the current situation, a young man in Uvira responded with a proverb: “The one who slaps forgets quickly, but the one who receives the slap never forgets”[3] Given the brutal history of the war in South Kivu, it was incumbent upon the Congolese army to adequately explain the Kimia II offensive to the population and to conduct them responsibly. Instead, Congolese forces have displaced and abused these populations and then left them exposed to brutal reprisals by the FDLR. In Uvira territory, it was not until November 13, three months after the launch of operations in that area, that the Kimia II leadership met with local populations and attempted to explain the objectives of the operation.

Prioritizing peace

The U.N. Secretary General’s report details joint planning by the Congolese army and MONUC for a “clear, hold and build” strategy to secure civilian populations and restore state authority in areas cleared of the FDLR. This is a step in the right direction, but announcing this approach while simultaneously shortening MONUC’s mandate and accelerating planning for a drawdown of forces is extremely naïve. If there is going to be “success” in eastern Congo, the United Nations and the Congolese government must urgently prioritize civilian protection and get realistic about the time and the resources needed to end the FDLR insurgency and deal with the whole host of other problems that keep this part of the world aflame.

[1] Interviews with officers of Kimia II operations: Luberizi, 20 November 2009 and Bukavu on 24 November, 2009.

[2] Representative of Civil Society, Uvira, 19 November 2009.

[3] Ibid.

Field Dispatch: Refugees Return in North Kivu

Patrick Furey — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:34:53 -0500

By Olivia Caeymaex

Here in North Kivu province, anxiety about the return of Congolese refugees from Rwanda has long been an especially contentious issue. Most of the refugees are Tutsis who fled North Kivu province during violent clashes in 1995 and 1996. However, violent disputes about the status of Congolese populations of Rwandan descent, especially Tutsis, predate both Congo’s cataclysmic war and the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which a Hutu led Rwandan government killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. With the United Nations confirming that approximately 12,000 Tutsi have recently settled in transit camps in the Masisi and Rutshuru territories of North Kivu, this explosive issue has moved to the front burner and requires urgent attention to help prevent even further destabilization in this embattled region.

This recent population influx is particularly worrisome because it appears to be happening outside a formal agreement between the Rwandan and Congolese governments and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR. Because people are crossing the border at night and avoiding official frontier posts, new population movements have not been captured by formal tracking systems. This does not mean, however, that the returns are not organized—there appears to be a system where buses are picking people up at the border and transporting them to the camps.

There are many unanswered questions about just who exactly these new arrivals are. UNHCR is stating that none of the approximately 52,000 officially registered Congolese refugees living in Rwanda have left (though UNHCR has allegedly not counted the population in the camps for more than two years). This suggests that the new arrivals are either unregistered refugees who were living with families while in Rwanda, or, potentially, that they are not refugees at all but rather Rwandan nationals with no prior residency in Congo.

With so little confirmed about the precise nature of these population movements, rumors are running wild here in Goma. I recently visited the town of Kisuma, in Masisi territory, in an effort to learn more about these unsettling developments. A source there told me that, on average, some 350 Tutsi families had settled in the area since April 2009. Moreover, the area is controlled by elements of the CNDP, the former rebel movement that had been commanded by Laurent Nkunda. Following Nkunda’s removal and the recent détente between Rwanda and Congo, CNDP established a parallel administration in the territory and is now reportedly facilitating the new population movements. CNDP leadership has tried to reassure local residents—the majority of whom are Hutus—that the new arrivals would stay only until they were able to return to their lands of origin, which were said to be in areas currently under FDLR control.

Rumors like this can be explosive. Concerns on the part of Hunde and Nande populations in the area, who fear that an influx of refugees and cattle will increase the competition for scarce land in Rutshuru and Masisi, in turn reinforce long-standing local fears of a Rwandan “colonization” of the Kivus. An already tense situation is posed to get much worse. A proactive effort to restore transparency and formality to the refugee return process is necessary to mitigate these rising tensions. UNHCR must urgently put in place a process to identify refugees and work with local authorities to manage potential land disputes that will arise. Authorities on all sides, both within Congo and across the border in Rwanda, will need to recognize that renewed outbreaks of land and intercommunal violence would intensify local conflict. If both sides are indeed interested in lasting peace in the Kivus, they would be wise to work together to find a solution.

Field Dispatch: Rampant Insecurity in South Kivu

Patrick Furey — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:15:24 -0500

By Noel Atama

Bukavu, South Kivu -- The commanders of the Kimia II offensive here in South Kivu are quick to provide detailed figures on the number of rebels from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, they have killed or caused to surrender to back up their positive assessment of the military operation. But these numbers provide little comfort to communities paying the price for the poorly organized operations. In addition to the horrific direct effects of reprisal attacks by the FDLR, whose leadership helped orchestrate the Rwandan genocide, and Congolese army predation, a rising tide of indirect insecurity is contributing to an atmosphere of terror.

Civil society representatives from Mwenga and Kalehe territories describe the security situation as “general disorder like in 1998,” a reference to the all-out warfare at the onset of the Rwandan and Ugandan-backed rebellion that pitched eastern Congo into crisis. They continued: “The FDLR, the Congolese army, local militias and assorted armed groups are all preying upon the civilian population. None of these groups are exempted. You do not know who is doing what.”

There are now two major sources of insecurity in South Kivu: reprisal attacks by the FDLR seeking to punish civilian populations for ‘supporting’ the government offensive, and a wider climate of abuses and atrocities committed by the Congolese army, local militias with shifting loyalties, and other bandits and armed groups.

No Protection from FDLR Reprisal Attacks

The pattern of FDLR reprisal attacks is clear: following Kimia II operations, FDLR forces return to the same villages where they had previously co-mingled with Congolese civilians where they loot, pillage, burn, and kill. Although there is increasing discussion of the measures that would allow the government to consolidate control over these territories, the lack of planning by the Congolese government and UN peacekeepers about means of protecting civilians is inexcusable.

In my conversations with Congolese army officers and officials from the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, or MONUC, on this topic, each side is quick to blame the other. Congolese officers claim that MONUC is not doing enough to help them: “They intervene when they want, where they want and do what they want.” Conversely, MONIC blames the government: “Most of the Congolese army leadership simply ignores us when taking key decisions. They come to us only when they need us or when the situation is getting worse.” This suggests an urgent need to improve coordination and foster common understanding and responsibility for protecting the civilian population.

Unidentified Men in Military Uniforms

Insecurity is on the rise in those territories controlled by the Congolese government and loosely affiliated militias in South Kivu. The Congo Advocacy Coalition has reported the stunning statistics: more than 1,000 civilians killed, 7,000 women and girls raped, 6,000 homes burned, and nearly 900,000 people forced to flee their homes during 2009 in North and South Kivu. But beyond such numbers a wider climate of terror and violence has infected daily life in South Kivu. A rash of incidents, including the kidnapping of Catholic priests in Walungu and the armed assault and looting of a hospital in Kabare, have been reported just during the first half of October, all attributed to ‘unidentified men in uniform.’ Reported incidents are just the tip of the iceberg, and perhaps most worrisomely, correspond with conditions conducive to soaring mortality rates.

Factors feeding the insecurity

Such incidents provide only a sample of how insecurity has impacted daily life in South Kivu, as both provincial members of parliament and representatives of civil society spoke of numerous unreported cases of attacks on civilians by the Congolese army and other armed groups. That all of the above incidents occurred in territory controlled by the Congolese army and affiliated militias suggests these groups are continuing to take advantage of the climate of impunity eastern Congo and that President Kabila’s “zero tolerance policy” for human rights violations is failing to deter abuses. Moreover, the relationship between provincial authorities and Congolese army officials appears problematic and poorly coordinated.

Absent high level political will to deal with some of the key drivers of this behavior, there is little reason to expect much progress. Kinshasa’s commitment is necessary in order to actually implement those practical measures that would help to improve the protection of civilians:

Pay soldiers regular, adequate salaries and curbing corruption within the ranks, including senior officials complicit in the illegal mining and trade of minerals.
Prevent Congolese soldiers from taking their dependents with them during military operations. This will begin to remedy some of the incentives for looting and predation.
Promote accommodation between fragmented forces within the Congolese army and improve coordination between the armed forces and provincial political authorities.
Accelerate stabilization by prioritizing the deployment of police and administrative structures in South Kivu.

Field Dispatch: Voter Registration Efforts Underway in Sudan

Patrick Furey — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:09:56 -0500

By Maggie Fick

JUBA, Southern Sudan -- Sunday, November 1st marked the start of the month-long period of voter registration throughout Sudan, a key step toward the first democratic elections to be held in the country in 24 years, now slated for April 2010. Here in Juba, the capital of southern Sudan, a parade organized by the United Nations Mission in Sudan, or UNMIS, along with Sudanese civil society groups and international NGOs helped to kick off the process. But it is hard to find much reason for celebration in such an occasion, given the enormous risks and threats that the electoral process presents in the coming months for the citizens of Sudan and for the fragile peace between the North and South.

To be sure, the deck is stacked against a free and fair election in five months. Severe impediments to press and personal freedoms and ongoing violence in southern Sudan are just two of the many factors contributing to a climate that, if unchanged, could make elections a trigger for further insecurity and political violence in southern Sudan. At worst, the elections could stir tensions at the local, regional, and national levels that, once provoked, will be very difficult to contain in the CPA’s waning interim period.

Compounding Challenges

At an August press conference in Khartoum, Ray Kennedy, the top U.N. elections official in Sudan, made clear that Sudan’s elections are among the most “complex and challenging on record.” In any nation, elections for six simultaneous offices to be decided in several different ways, with twelve distinct ballots per person in southern Sudan, would be a formidable task for an electoral body. In Sudan, the obstacles of extremely limited infrastructure throughout most of the country and a largely illiterate population compound these issues, and the lagging timeline and multiple postponements in this process are a testament to this.

A civil society leader in Juba recently told me about some of the concerns that he and his colleagues and fellow citizens have about the current voter registration process:

Voter education and mobilization efforts are not reaching the many southern Sudanese who live in extremely rural areas.
Distributing resources for the registration process to the many areas of southern Sudan inaccessible by road is a serious challenge.
Concerns about election security could result in low voter turnout.

International elections advisors had initially recommended that the National Electoral Commission, or NEC, deploy 10,000 static registration teams. However, I spoke with several sources who confirmed that the number of trained registration officials that the NEC will use in the registration process will be significantly lower than this recommendation. All that the NEC has announced thus far is that two teams of three registration officials each will be present in each constituency.

A northern opposition party recently protested the length of the voter registration period, noting that less than 30 days is insufficient to register all voters, particularly in remote areas to be served by “mobile registration centers.” It is hard to imagine how the projected number of 20 million voters will be registered in the span of thirty days, especially with so many tasks—such as the aforementioned transport of registration and voter education materials and training of voter registration officials--incomplete. Although the National Elections Act does not prohibit extending the month-long period voter registration period, this would impinge upon the timeline for candidate nomination and electoral campaigning. With polling set to begin in April, there is little room for error or further delays.

Money is also an issue. The funding for Sudan’s elections falls far short of the budgets for comparably complex elections, such as the 2006 elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As Kennedy told me last week: “With the resources that we have, we are providing all the assistance we can. But resources are limited and the [United Missions in Sudan] as a whole has a range of other areas in which it is supporting CPA implementation.”

The Bigger Picture

Proactive efforts to curb political violence are getting short shrift amid the daunting list of electoral challenges in Sudan. The threat of political violence is real not only in Darfur, where armed conflict and rampant insecurity continue, but also in the South, where more than 350,000 people have been displaced, and more than 2,000 killed, this year. With tensions running high at the local level across the South, and inter-ethnic clashes and Lord’s Resistance Army attacks continuing, the international community should dedicate resources and coordinate efforts to protect civilians and prevent outbreaks of election related violence that could well contribute to a return to full-scale war.

While the international community focuses intensely on elections, many southern Sudanese are looking beyond the election to 2011, when the South holds a self-determination referendum. One U.N. official I spoke with recently noted that, after the four decades-plus history of brutal conflict between Sudan’s North and South, his impression is that much of the population of southern Sudan doesn’t understand the point of national elections: “They fought for the referendum, at the least, the right to choose independence.” This is not to say that citizens lack interest in expressing their will and choosing their elected representatives, just that the “main event” in the South is undoubtedly the referendum.

The voter registration process could serve as a useful barometer for gauging Sudan’s preparedness for the elections. It could also serve as a trial run in which some of the issues that could negatively impact the polling period could be resolved. Alternately, the registration process could expose a reality that, based on my conversations here in Juba, has been felt on the ground for some time: these elections could destabilize already insecure areas as the all-important 2011 referendum draws nearer.