04/07/2003

Refugees International Submits Written Testimony on the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the House International Relations Committee


On April 3, 2003, Congressman Edward Royce chaired a hearing on “Democratic Republic of Congo: Key to the Crisis in the Great Lakes Region.” RI Advocate Anne Edgerton was asked to present written testimony for the hearing. The following is a copy of her statement:

I want to thank the Chairman of the Subcommittee on African Affairs, Congressman Edward Royce, and the Ranking Member, Congressman Donald M. Payne, for providing the opportunity for Refugees International (RI) to submit written testimony on the current humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). I returned from Ituri district and North Kivu Province in northeastern DRC at the end of February, completing my eighth humanitarian assessment mission for RI in the Great Lakes region of Africa, an area I have worked in, studied and written about since January 1995. My focus on this most recent mission was on the following issues: internal displacement caused by continuing insecurity; humanitarian access to displaced populations; the extent to which foreign countries are involved in the Congo; and the current status of children employed, armed, and used by the various fighting forces.

I'd like to stress two points. First, the reality on paper and the reality on the ground are two very different things. The U.S. and the international community have supported the various cease-fire and peace agreements through several measures, including UN Security Council resolutions, the deployment of the United Nations Organization Mission to the Congo (MONUC), and commitment to the process of the inter-Congolese dialogue. While a considerable amount of international pressure has been applied on the conflicting parties to sign documents relating to the peace accords, cease-fire, and inter-Congolese dialogue, not a single agreement has been followed or has satisfied all political parties. Violent conflict driven by desire to control economic and political resources is the source of the humanitarian crisis and economic stagnation in the region. The continuous cease-fire and peace agreements for which the region is now infamous, and which are now locally referred to as “sign and shreds,” include the political parties, which, without exception, come by their positions militarily.

Second, the solutions to the Congo problem may lie first in small, innovative actions that address humanitarian issues. Outsiders talk about how complex the problem is, how many actors are involved, how huge the Congo is. But the humanitarian solutions that have continuously worked against the odds can be a lesson for other areas of involvement by the international community. The small solutions that take in local dynamics have the largest impact. No roads? An innovative American NGO sent bicycles in support of its medical inoculation program. Insecurity? A UN Humanitarian Coordinator consistently rode a motorcycle into the most treacherous areas to be able to testify to the horrific malnutrition levels in remote villages in eastern Congo. No one shows up for the Disarmament, Demobilization and Repatriation program? MONUC has drawn over 100 ex-combatants with a small, innovative center that works through word-of-mouth, sending family messages to Rwandans hiding in Eastern Congo today.

RI's specific concerns in the current situation in the DRC include the following:

Humanitarian access

The fighting in Eastern Congo over the past few years has greatly restricted the amount of humanitarian assistance to the area. Now there are signs in Bunia in Ituri that the situation may be stabilizing enough to allow humanitarian organizations to enter the area. For example, on March 12, humanitarian workers were able to reach one village to which RI was denied access in February by the Union Patriotique Congolais (UPC), a mono-ethnic local militia.

While the increased access is good news, it also creates tremendous challenges. Each day more desperate situations come to light. Initial estimates by the very small humanitarian community in Bunia reveal a situation that looks to be far worse than anything seen in the Congo to date. More aid agencies and personnel are required in Ituri immediately and U.S. support is needed to make this happen. And since it will take time and money to get any assistance to this remote area of the DRC, the U.S. needs to start organizing a response now, beginning with providing emergency funding assistance to non-governmental organizations responding to the situation in Ituri.

Child Soldiers

Despite United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions and international protocols prohibiting the recruitment and use of child soldiers, there has been too little progress in eliminating this form of child abuse in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

RI's experience in the Congo suggests that translating UNSC Resolutions on child soldiers into meaningful change in the midst of conflicts will be extremely difficult and will require the work of many partners in the field. For example, in December 2001, following public declarations by the Government of the DRC to demobilize child soldiers, two rebel movements, RCD-Goma and the MLC, the latter now involved in the transitional government, made public, verbal commitments on a visit to the U.S. to demobilize children from their own armed groups. In the year intervening, however, RI found only 104 demobilized by the RCD-Goma, and learned of the location of a new training camp for children. The old camp that was used to train children, 30 miles outside of Goma, was determined to be too visible to the international community and was replaced by a more remote camp for child soldier training in distant Katanga Province.

In the DRC, all the armed groups use child soldiers, recruited either forcibly or through the lure of escaping abject poverty. RI's mission in February confirmed that the following groups also continue to use child soldiers: The APC, the armed wing of the RCD-K/ML, the FAC (the Congolese government armed forces), the UPC, local Mayi-Mayi forces in North Kivu, and the UPDF (the Ugandan government armed forces). Belligerents in the DRC conflict will continue to recruit and employ child soldiers because children are widely available, easy to recruit, and inexpensive to maintain, unless UNSC resolutions are enforced with meaningful sanctions.

MONUC

The fundamental reality of the Congo is that despite the numerous peace agreements and ceasefires that the belligerents have signed, the fighting continues. RI believes that in this context the MONUC mandate is problematic on a number of levels.

First, the mandate has little to do with the actual situation in the DRC. MONUC was deployed to monitor the 1999 Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement, but the ceasefire line has been irrelevant to the violence perpetrated in the eastern portion of the country. The current mandate is based on the assumption on paper that the cease-fire has held, and MONUC is to monitor the ceasefire and report on any violations. But violations are the norm in the Congo. Rather than monitoring a cease-fire with problems, MONUC spends its time negotiating access to areas where sporadic violence and arbitrary killings have occurred, and recording stories of atrocities from Congolese without being able to offer appropriate assistance.

Second, MONUC has never achieved the numbers of military observers or soldiers authorized by the Security Council, and some of the troop-contributing nations are so financially strapped that they provide poorly-trained and minimally-equipped forces.

Third, Phase III of the MONUC mandate, the demobilization and reintegration phase, when MONUC must determine who is a soldier, who belongs to a negative force, who doesn't, who wants to go home voluntarily and who does not, could put people at risk, given the lack of sufficient staff who speak the languages required to communicate with the various groups.

Understandably, there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with MONUC inside the DRC. Much, but not all, of that dissatisfaction has to do with the mandate. In fact, virtually everyone we talked to said the mandate has to change, even MONUC personnel.

Lack of Overall Humanitarian Response

In fiscal year 2002, the UN received 46% of the requested $202 million for humanitarian assistance intended to respond to the needs of an estimated 2.1 million internally displaced people. This year's appeal for $268 million, launched in November 2002, looks to fare far worse, while the estimate of internally displaced people now may eclipse 2.7 million.

The stark reality is that more people have died in the Congo in the last week due to violence, malnutrition, and disease than have died in the war in Iraq to date. The horror in the Congo is continuous and on-going. RI applauds the initiative of the Committee to hold this hearing and hopes that it will result in more vigorous efforts by the United States to find solutions to the Congo catastrophe.

Refugees International therefore recommends:

• U.S. Government pressure the governments of Uganda and Rwanda to comply with signed agreements regarding withdrawal and support of proxy forces in the Congo.
  
• U.S. Government make a generous contribution to the UN CAP for the DRC for 2003 now so that humanitarian assistance to the internally displaced can continue.
  
• The U.S., as a member of the Permanent Committee of Five (P-5) to the UN Security Council, fully support the enhanced MONUC mandate and strength, and use its leadership position to influence nations to do the same.
  
• The U.S., as a member of the P-5, influence the Security Council to continue to research and publish the names of armed groups that recruit and employ child soldiers and actively work with the UNSC to create consequences for groups that do.
  
• As the practice of using child soldiers has been declared a war crime, the Security Council take the initiative to work with the International Criminal Court to declare the leaders of groups that employ child soldiers as war criminals and prosecute them as such.