DRC: The mess continues and the world needs to care

A messy confluence of multiple armed conflicts has been endangering civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for decades. The background and the roots of violence are simply too complex to synthesize in a blog post. Click here to learn about the conflict in the Kivu regions of the country that this post discusses.

Just a bit of background on recent developments in the Kivus for some context -- starting in August 2007, General Laurent Nkunda's militias began to launch major campaigns of indiscriminate attacks against pro-government camps and villages, committing massive human rights violations against thousands of civilians. Meanwhile, the Congolese army has also been summarily executing civilians and has been using excessive force to combat Nkunda's armies. As the violence almost led the country into yet another major civil war, regional and international pressure allowed for a peace agreement to be signed on Jan. 23 in Goma, with the parties agreeing to an alleged ceasefire.

Although the violence did calm down for a few months, the Goma agreement largely failed as civilians are still being killed and raped on a regular basis by multiple actors. Bound to happen, a new wave of renewed violence begun last week, forcing hundreds to flee the Kivu regions once again (some report thousands), adding to the approximately 1.5 million people who are displaced in the DRC. This time the violence mainly involved clashes between the government and former Rwandan militias known as the Forces Démocratiques de la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR). Since the Rwandan genocide, the FDLR has also been a major player in the Kivu conflict along with the Congolese army and Nkunda's troops. Clashes between rival militant groups also have been continuing to the plight of civilians, as eight people died yesterday according to MONUC (the UN peacekeeping force in the DRC).

Other routine atrocities in the region are continuing as well. UNICEF expressed concerns of heightened levels of recruitment of child soldiers in March. Landmines continue to haunt the daily lives of the millions of displaced people in the country.

Given its complex nature, the deeply-rooted conflict in the Kivus is one of several ongoing in the world where there really seems to be no end without: (1) focused, robust diplomatic pressure from the international community; and (2) a significant boost in funding for the region's UN peacekeeping force. Unfortunately, as it does not look as if though either will happen in the near future given everything else that is going on in the world, expert human rights groups are trying to take it one step at a time. On April 22nd, 63 leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs) urged the United Nations and officials who helped negotiate the Goma agreement to appoint a high-level special adviser to look into the human rights violations in the eastern DRC.

On the judicial end, warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo's trial will be beginning in June at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Lubanga has been charged for conscription and enlistment of children under the age of 15, and the use of children for active participation in hostilities. In addition, the ICC just today controversially issued a warrant for Laurent Nkunda's military chief Bosco Ntaganda, also known as "The Terminator," also for the recruitment of child soldiers. Critics argue the warrant was untimely and did not consider the sensitivities of the peace process, similar to the case of Joseph Kony in Uganda (see previous post).

Though these marginal steps are being taken and negotiations between regional governments continue, there is still a lot of ground to cover...literally. The DRC is huge. The country is approximately the size of western Europe. It is so big, in fact, that there are regions that have not even been mapped yet! Therefore, despite the fact that MONUC is one of the largest UN peacekeeping missions deployed, the force is more than overstretched. Keep in mind the situation in the Kivus is only one of a number of conflicts that is devastating the country. Just imagine 16,000 peacekeepers having to protect endangered civilians and 1.5 million displaced people in all of western Europe with serious eruptions of violence happening all over the place. It's impossible. And, to make matters worse, the peacekeeping force itself is committing human rights violations, according to Human Rights Watch!

Depressing, eh? Is there even a solution to this? Check out the International Crisis Group's recommendations here. As they indicate, this will never end unless the root-causes of the crisis are addressed. Though there are short-term steps that need to be taken to implement the Goma agreement, in reality, a long-term peace plan needs to be laid out for all parties in multiple conflicts to come to terms with the government. In future posts, I'd like to address what this entails in more detail.

Why focus on this? In the long term, the DRC will be one of a number of conflict-ridden countries in Africa that will become important in the global economy. The beginnings of this are already starting to surface. On April 21st, banks, businesses, and representatives of African nations met in London to discuss building what would become the world's largest dam. The $80 billion Grand Inga dam would dwarf China's Three Gorges dam in size. We also see Belgium, the DRC's former colonial ruler, pressuring the government to expedite economic reforms to attract foreign investors, especially in the region's gargantuan mining industry. China Railway recently said it would invest $2.9 billion in a copper and cobalt mining project in the DRC. The potential for economic profits from the vast amounts of hidden resources amidst the jungles and the gunfire of this country are largely unknown to the world. To prevent corruption and mass atrocities to destroy the country's future, the UN needs to come up with an effective long-term strategy to solve the problems in this country asap. And, of course, the millions of civilians who have survived decades of violent chaos really deserve some peace in their lives sometime in the near future.