With a United Nations-brokered peace deal set to be signed this weekend to improve the security situation in eastern Congo, simmering violence in the southern part of the country is threatening to derail a surge of mining activity that is critically important to one of the most underdeveloped nations on Earth.
On Sunday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and about a dozen leaders of African nations and organizations are expected to sign a peace agreement that includes creation of a U.N.-commanded military force. The so-called intervention brigade significantly deepens the peacekeeping role of the international organization because U.N. troops will have authority to use deadly force against the M23 rebels who have been clashing with government troops in eastern Congo for nearly a year.
The peace pact had been set for final approval last month, but the three countries expected to supply the most troops for the intervention brigade (South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique) apparently balked over the issue of who would control the new military force. Diplomats said the trio opposed having the existing U.N. peacekeeping mission, MONUSCO, in charge of the intervention brigade because of its checkered record in supporting the Congolese government's effort to stave off the M23 rebels. Those differences have been papered over and the intervention brigade will be commanded through MONUSCO.
'Triangle of Death' in Katanga
While hope springs in eastern Congo, Mai Mai rebels in the southern part of the country have stepped up attacks against civilians and soldiers loyal to President Joseph Kabila.The Katanga region has been a hotbed of Congo's mining industry since the country's colonial period under Belgian rule. Copper production in Katanga has increased steadily since a peace accord was signed in 2003, helping to fuel an increase in Congo's copper exports from 20,000 tons a decade ago to 600,000 tons last year, according to Congolese officials.
Katanga, which is about the size of Spain, has a long secessionist history, and the Mai Mai rebels appear to be trying to take advantage of growing discontent with the central government. The Mai Mai have been linked to massacres, rape and cannabalism in the northern part of Katanga, which has been dubbed the "Triangle of Death."
Medecins Sans Frontieres, one of the few aid organizations operating in the Triangle of Death, is reporting the Mai Mai are expanding their area of operation. "The Mai Mai are coming out of their normal zone within the triangle," Pascal Duchemin, an MSF official working in Katanga's provincial capital, recently told the Reuters news service. "Since December, we've seen an intensification of clashes with the army."
While officials in the country's national capital, Kinshasa, are putting a brave face on efforts to turn back the Mai Mai offensive, Katanga leaders are less optimistic. Gabriel Kyungu wa Kumwanza, president of the provincial assembly, told Reuters the spike in violence poses a threat to investment in the region's mining industry. "Yes, there's a risk," he said. "Money doesn't like noise. While there's the sound of tanks and boots, money will not come in."
Healing Congolese rape survivors
Denis Mukwege, a gynecologist working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and his colleagues have treated about 30,000 rape survivors over the past dozen years. The 2008 U.N. Human Rights Prize recipient and 2009 African of the Year shared his story with the BBC this week.Here is an excerpt of the interview with this amazing healer of broken bodies and souls:
"When war broke out, 35 patients in my hospital in Lemera in Eastern DR Congo were killed in their beds.
"I fled to Bukavu, 100 kilometers (60 miles) to the north, and started a hospital made from tents. I built a maternity ward with an operating theatre. In 1998, everything was destroyed again. So, I started all over again in 1999.
"It was that year that our first rape victim was brought into the hospital. After being raped, bullets had been fired into her genitals and thighs.
"I thought that was a barbaric act of war, but the real shock came three months later. Forty-five women came to us with the same story, they were all saying: 'People came into my village and raped me, tortured me.'
"Other women came to us with burns. They said that after
they had been raped, chemicals had been poured on their genitals.
"I started to ask myself what was going on. These weren't just violent acts of war, but part of a strategy. You had situations where multiple people were raped at the same time, publicly -- a whole village might be raped during the night. In doing this, they hurt not just the victims but the whole community, which they force to watch.
"The result of this strategy is that people are forced to flee their villages, abandon their fields, their resources, everything. It's very effective.
"We have a staged system of care for victims. Before I undertake a big operation, we start with a psychological examination. I need to know if they have enough resilience to withstand surgery.
"Then we move to the next stage, which might consist of an operation or just medical care. And the following stage is socio-economic care -- most of these patients arrive with nothing, no clothes even.
"We have to feed them, we have to take care of them. After we discharge them, they will be vulnerable again if they're not able to sustain their own lives. So we have to assist them on socio-economical level -- for example through helping women develop new skills and putting girls back in school.
"The fourth stage is to assist them on a legal level. Often the patients know who their assailants were and we have lawyers who help them bring their cases to court.
"In 2011, we witnessed a fall in the number of cases. We thought perhaps we were approaching the end of the terrible situation for women in the Congo. But since last year, when the war resumed, cases have increased again. It's a phenomenon which is linked entirely to the war situation.
"The conflict in DR Congo is not between groups of religious fanatics. Nor is it a conflict between states. This is a conflict caused by economic interests -- and it is being waged by destroying Congolese women."
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