Child Rights Violations in DR Congo - UN Report

The recruitment and use of children by armed groups remained endemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between 2010 and 2013, according to a new United Nations report, which cited impunity as a major factor in the ongoing abuses.

"Impunity has encouraged perpetrators to continue their violations against children," Leila Zerrougui, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, told the Security Council Working Group on children and armed conflict today.

Briefing on the 5th Report on Children and Armed Conflict in DRC, she said there were close to 4,200 cases of recruitment and use of boys and girls by armed groups and the Government armed forces. One third of the cases involved children below the age of 15.

"The chronic instability in eastern DRC, the multiplicity of armed groups and the weakness of state authority have made children extremely vulnerable to all forms of conflict-related violence," she stated.

According to a news release issued by the Special Representative's office, the report documented over 900 cases of sexual violence against children committed by all parties to the conflict, while acknowledging that many more children are likely to have been victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence.

The situation was particularly bad in the country's eastern provinces, where children were killed, maimed, victims of sexual violence and abducted by all parties.

Ms. Zerrougui called on the international community to continue supporting the Congolese authorities in their efforts to stop recruiting children into the army. For example, last March, the Government endorsed the 'Children, Not Soldiers' campaign and committed to making its army child-free by 2016. In addition, the Action Plan signed in 2012 by the Government to end the recruitment and use of children and sexual violence by the national army has led to the release of hundreds of children.

"The Government has demonstrated that progress is possible," Ms. Zerrougui said. "The success of the Action Plan is essential. Non-State actors will not give up the recruitment and use of children as long as the country's army continues to be on the Secretary-General's list of child recruiters."

Additional measures to end and prevent the recruitment, such as age verification mechanisms, continue to be put in place and need to be strengthened throughout the country.

The Special Representative added that fighting impunity is crucial to protect the country's children. Perpetrators of grave violations against children must be investigated and prosecuted in a systematic manner.

Che in Congo

Almost 50 years ago, the mountains towering above Uvira, a lakeside town in South Kivu province, were the scene of some of the opening shots in DR Congo's post-colonial wars.

Che was unimpressed with Congo revolutionaries

In 1965, with the world on a tense Cold War footing, the Latin American revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara came here to try to spark a left-wing revolution.

Che aimed to pit himself against what he called the "Yankee Imperialists" whom he saw as backing compliant pro-western candidates for power in DR Congo.

Che in the Congo

Che in Africa, a review of "THE AFRICAN DREAM: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo", by Ernesto Che Guevara.

By Michela Wrong

Published: November 11, 2001

It takes an exceptional man to admit to a resounding defeat. Recounting the almost farcical story of how a group of Cuban fighters set off to save Congo's revolution, only to need saving themselves, a lesser individual would have been tempted to airbrush his memories. Not so Che Guevara. ''This is the history of a failure'' is the frank opening line of ''The African Dream.''

Convinced that the ''Yankee imperialism'' he detested had to be confronted not only at home but in its bases of support, the developing nations emerging from colonialism, Guevara had slipped into Congo in 1965, in the midst of rebel uprisings against the American-supported government that followed the assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961. In sending a vanguard of black fighters to pass on to their Congolese brothers the guerrilla tactics that had succeeded in Cuba, Fidel Castro and the Argentinian-born Che Guevara were undertaking a daring experiment in the internationalization of the Communist revolution.

 

 It all looked so good on paper. But the Congolese regarded carrying heavy loads as below their dignity and would wander off, bored, when the Cubans tried to stage ambushes. Superstitious, they relied on ''dawa,'' magic potions whipped up by witch doctors, for victory, emptying their magazines into the sky with eyes shut tight. Worse, ''each of our fighters had glumly witnessed assault troops melt away at the moment of combat and throw away precious weapons in order to flee more quickly,'' Guevara recorded. Their leaders' failings overshadowed the foot soldiers' shortcomings. Laurent Kabila, the supposed head of the revolt, rarely deigned to visit the front. As Guevara sheltered from torrential rain in lice-infested huts, plagued by malaria and dysentery, he received reports of Kabila's drunken binges in Dar es Salaam. Soon, in terms that would be instantly recognizable to a World Bank representative, he is urging Castro to halt unconditional aid. Within seven months the revolution turned into a rout.

 

But Guevara is too intelligent to put all the blame on the Congolese. The Cubans, he confesses, were overconfident and made amateurish mistakes. They arrived so poorly briefed, they expected to be operating in flat terrain, not mountains. Most tellingly, they simply hadn't done their homework, blithely assuming that the conditions that fueled Latin America's revolutions -- exploitative feudal estates and a land-hungry peasantry -- were reproduced in Africa. In his epilogue, Guevara asks the question that should have been posed long before he booked passage: What did the revolution actually have to offer the peasants of the fertile eastern Congo?

It is a tragicomic tale, cleanly translated by Patrick Camiller, and bleakly funny in parts. For if Guevara must have been a driven, painfully worthy leader, he was also an elegant, ironic writer. There are lessons here for every dewy-eyed aid worker setting off to rescue a doomed community, every International Monetary Fund official proposing to rein in an errant government, every African politician who thinks he knows best.

Published 35 years after it was drafted, the book retains its freshness. The Kivu area the Cubans operated in is still a lawless zone in which ragtag groups of fighters -- known as Mai Mai -- douse themselves in magic water. With their country split by a civil war that Laurent Kabila, once president, had neither the desire nor ability to end, 52 million Congolese can attest to the character faults spotted by Guevara, who would have been amazed by his former ally's successful ousting of Mobutu Sese Seko, if not his assassination earlier this year. In both government territory and rebel-held areas, warlords squabble over turf while taking for granted a grass-roots support they have never worked to acquire. The Congolese people remain as sidelined and irrelevant to proceedings as ever.

Michela Wrong is the author of ''In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo.''

Congo Rebels...coming in from the cold?

Will Congo's Rebels Finally Come in From the Cold?

The DRC's most notorious outlaws may finally be ready to end their 20-year war of rape and plunder.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/07/10/will_congos_rebels_finally_come_in_from_the_cold_fdlr_m23