The pitfalls of supporting the Congolese army

Believe it or not, despite the headlines of UN failures, there have been some modest gains within the UN on the issue of protection of civilians. The UN Policy Committee, (which is presided by the Secretary-General and composed of UN Under-Secretaries-General and leaders of UN agencies) agreed last month that any form of UN support to non-UN security forces shall be conditional to respect for human rights international and international humanitarian law. That means anywhere in the world.

This is a result of the Congo fiascoes, but also of the growing criticism of the conduct of AMISOM troops in Somalia - see for instance this, as well as the investigations into the World Food Program’s contracts with Somali businesses linked to Al Shabaab.

The impact of this policy will be far-reaching. It also applies to development aid, and requires every UN entity to develop its own operational directive to be in compliance with fundamental principles of international law. This also includes sanctions, and MONUSCO is expressly requested not to provide any support to the individuals included in the Security Council black list, including our man Bosco Ntaganda.

Although an important step, the policy is at an early development stage. The Policy Committee agreed to set up a panel of senior UN officials to draft a framework policy.

As for the Congo, MONUSCO has begun - at last hesitantly - to show its teeth. It has been refusing logistic support to a number of FARDC requests due to the presence of problematic commanders, and also stopped a few FARDC commanders for boarding their planes, including Baudouin Ngaruye, who the UN Group of Experts has implicated in the massacre of Shalio in 2009, as well as other officers. A cell within MONUSCO has also begun to put together a list of the most serious human rights offenders within the Congolese security forces to serve as a reference for the UN and donors.

However, MONUSCO still has a relatively vague policy on how to support the FARDC in the Kivus, especially as much of the aid it provides - water, food, medicine, fuel and perhaps even ammunition - is fungible and the real capacity to monitor both the troops behavior and the distribution chain is very limited as the Mission's resources are overstretched. Conditionality is also easily circumvented, in light of the chaos which reigns among FARDC deployments and parallel chains of command. This is compounded by blue helmets who are unfamiliar with their surroundings and the FARDC units they deal with.

So far MONUSCO have just laid out the ground rules of their cooperation with the FARDC. They have an elaborate set of conditions that their collaboration with FARDC units is based on. Has it had an impact? Hard to say. Reported word is spreading – albeit slowly – among FARDC troops that human rights violations are no longer a free ride and that their conduct towards the civilian population is "being monitored by the international community".

We need to make sure, however, that the policy is not just a means for the UN to avoid complicity. The real aim of the policy should be to pressure the FARDC into much-needed reforms. Abusive units could thus be marginalized, sending a clear message.

For this to happen, conditionality alone isn’t enough. It should be linked to security sector reform – the chimerical beast – and support to the justice sector. Then there is the issue of taking more aggressive action, such as arresting Bosco Ntaganda and pressuring the government to suspend or prosecute officials who are well-documented criminal records (Innocent Zimurinda comes to mind, as does Lt Col “Shetani,” a Munyamulenge commander reportedly involved in the 1998 Kasika massacre).

This will ruffle some feathers – MONUSCO has spoiled the Congolese by providing free services to the Congolese government for the last 10 years with few string attached, and the international community is ever fearful of rocking the boat.

The international community, money and 2011 in the Congo

Just a few months ago, President Kabila's outlook wasn't too bad. He had achieved debt cancellation, freeing up a substantial amount of money in his budget, he had made (tentative) peace with his longstanding external rival Rwanda, while his longstanding internal rival Jean-Pierre Bemba will be standing trial in The Hague in November. If the case of Thomas Lubanga is anything judge by, Bemba could be in the docket for quite some time - Lubanga has been standing trial since January 2009 - apparently disqualifying him from participating in the Congolese elections of November 2011.

The economy is set to grow by over 6% next year and the IMF continues to make rosy statements about the country's economic outlook.

Now, the mood has changed. Violence continues in the East, and there have been three briefings to the UN Security Council already in the past few months about sexual violence in particular. The cancellation of First Quantum and Tullow's mineral and oil concessions has affected investor confidence. And the death of human rights activist Floribert Chebeya - followed several months later by a similar death in prison of a Belgian-Congolese protester - has raised serious questions about the government's dedication to good governance and human rights.

His foreign donors, who so amiably had canceled $12 billion in debt in July, are now balking at the cancellations of $2,9 billion of bilateral debt through the Paris Club. The World Bank is reportedly extremely frustrated with the government's cancellation of First Quantum's mining concessions in Katanga, which had been supported by the World Bank's private investment branch, the IFC. The World Bank has allegedly suspended its project to reform the artisanal mining sector, called Promines. (The Bank's official response is that they are still going through the required bureaucratic steps.)

To make matters worse, Vital Kamerhe, the president's long term ally turned rival, has apparently finally decided to run and has begun discussions with the UDPS and MLC opposition parties, seeking their support. If he does get their support - even if just for a second round of the presidential election - that alliance between strong western, central and eastern candidates could be a serious threat to the regime.

It is within this chilly climate that the Congolese government is asking donors to supply around $346 million from donors and MONUSCO to fund the 2011 elections. They have also asked for increases in general donor budgets.

The answer has not been enthusiastic so far. MONUSCO's budget is on the wane. The US government, according to one source there, has until now only set aside $4 million in his aid budget for the elections.

This is not good. if we do not fund elections, we will not be able to help Congolese civil society set up the necessary safeguards - election observers, oversight structures, audits - and we won't have the diplomatic clout needed to be heard in Kinshasa. The international community loves the wring its hands about not having any influence over the government in Kinshasa, only to disburse almost $3 billion in funding to the country. While I understand that it is difficult to tie this funding, most of which goes to humanitarian and infrastructure projects and is not fungible, to concrete conditions, I think we can do better.

Latest sexual violence stats

A quick update of the sexual violence statistics. Here are the most recent stats from UNFPA for this year, across the whole Congo. Most of the sexual violence is in North and South Kivu, most of it affects girls between 10-17 and - surprisingly - only 1/3 of the perpetrators are reported to be soldiers (although for North Kivu the figure is 52% and for South Kivu 86%).

7,685 cases reported in total for the first 6 months of 2010, including 2,275 for South Kivu and 2,245 for North Kivu.

Bear in mind that there is a large amount of under-reporting, and what qualifies as "sexual violence" may vary significantly.

Peace vs. Justice: A Response

I wrote this as a response to Kate's posting below.

I agree that, despite mud-slinging from both sides on this debate, we have little empirical evidence to go by. However, I think that, in this absence of evidence, doing nothing could be just as risky and probably less noble than promoting accountability.

Let's look at the theory, as there is little evidence. For the people on the justice side, they must prove that prosecutions do more good than harm. Usually, the argument is made that prosecutions are the just thing to do, that they deter future violence and that the counter a culture of general indiscipline and impunity. Strong arguments, I would say. But prosecutions can destabilize as well as deter, and we don't know how much one Lubanga prosecution, for example, buys us in deterrence or destabilization.

Also, international prosecutions usually come in the single digits per annum - if we lock up 5% of the top-level killers (don't even mention the low level ones), will it really deter the other 95%? This reasoning, however, can be flipped around and applied to those worried of destabilization: will prosecuting 5% really bring down the regime?

For people on the destabilization side, however, I would say this: The impunity that was supposed to be the glue of the transition in the Congo has ended up being more like acid. The fact that Rwanda was not held responsible - in the court of donor politics or in an international court - for its crimes in the eastern Congo gave it a blank check. Same goes for Kabila's crackdown on the Bundu dia Kongo in Bas-Congo in 2007, or the rash of killings and rapes by Congolese army members in the Kivus. It is hard to argue that impunity has been very successful in stabilizing the country.

I would also emphasize that this is not an either-or situation. Vetting, for example, would allow Kabila to purge his army of abusive officers without having to try them in a court of law - they would be forcefully retired, as happened in many post-Soviet countries. A real Truth and Reconciliation Commission (not the farcical one we had during the transition) could educate people about happen and serve as a warning to officers not to re-offend. Above all, a serious crack-down on current abuses would send a strong signal, especially if commander are held responsible for the behavior of their soldiers.

It is fair and well to preach justice, but it is worthwhile noting the hypocrisy of western donors: After the US Civil War, President Johnson handed Lee and his men a collective amnesty. In Spain, to this day no one has been tried for crimes committed during the civil war (an amnesty law was passed in 1977); no Italians to my knowledge were tried after World War II for their war crimes; no American has been sentenced for crimes committed at My Lai in 1968 and only a few for Abu Ghraib. The biggest exception are the Nazis and their allies, of whom thousands were tried throughout Europe and executed.

There is no formula for how to do this. But, when in doubt, I would suggest being smart about it, tailoring any solution to the local situation, involving local civil society groups (two hundred of whom demanded a tribunal), and erring on the side of justice.

Peace vs. Justice: Kate Cronin-Furman

I invited Kate Cronin-Furman, of Wronging Rights fame, to chime in on the recent release of the UN Mapping Report on the DRC. Kate is a PhD student a Columbia, where she's getting a joint degree in satire and political science, and has an avid interest in transitional justice (OK, the bit about satire isn't true.)

The UN Mapping Report came out a couple of weeks ago, with the much-tantrumed-about allegations of genocide intact. (Toned done a bit, but impressively extant.) Naturally, this has led a lot of people to conclude that what the DRC needs; more than security from the threat of violence, a competent police force, a functioning road network, protection of property rights, and access to clean water; is a mob of international lawyers traipsing about the place.

Whether or not you think the call for war crimes trials sounds totally reasonable or like so much crazy sauce depends on which side you're on in the great “No peace without justice” vs. “Does justice comes free with peace? Cause if not, I’ll just take my peace with a side of fries, please” debate.

If, like I do, you love peace, french fries, and justice, you may not know where to come down on this. The argument of the pro-trials folks (made recently by international justice A-lister Reed Brody here) is a viscerally compelling one; it makes a certain amount of intuitive sense that impunity breeds atrocity and that allowing war crimes to go unpunished will only result in more war crimes. For a lot of people, the theoretical appeal of this argument, coupled with the sense that it’s a moral imperative to punish guilty parties, is enough to justify a push for war crimes trials.

Me, I like my theories backed up by a bit of evidence. Unfortunately, in this case we don’t have any. International war crimes trials are a relatively recent phenomenon and we just don’t have the kind of data necessary to begin to draw informed conclusions about what benefits trials have and how they produce them. There is some evidence, however, that war crimes trials may exacerbate existing tensions and potentially trigger or prolong conflict. While the argument, mostly advanced by governments and diplomats in the region, that an accountability exercise would not be worth the instability it could produce might sound self-serving (after all, they weren’t the ones getting massacred), they may have a point. Consider, for example, the effect that the backlash to ICTY prosecutions had on the transitional process in Serbia.

In the absence of evidence, a highly plausible theoretical account of a deterrent effect might be enough to offset the potential risk of worsening the violence in the Eastern DRC. But the deterrent effect of criminal punishment is a contested concept even in domestic criminal law. In the international system, where we have nothing approaching the level of certainty of punishment and sentencing severity that arguably produces general deterrence in a domestic system, a reliable deterrent effect is that much less likely.

Without deterrence, the argument for pushing for immediate war crimes trials rests on the assumption that the moral imperative to punish the guilty demands punishing them instantly upon discovery of the crimes. Or rather, instantly upon publication of an official report detailing what we’ve all known for upwards of a decade. I’m just not sure that’s enough to justify the risk.

Tensions Rise in Goma

A strange press statement was issue yesterday in Goma, or rather the combination of signatories was strange: CNDP and PARECO. The two groups, once part of the same group, then bitter enemies, now once again apparently allied, wrote to denounce the lack of progress in implementing the March 2009 peace deal, as well as to castigate Human Rights Watch for the latest press statement on Bosco Ntaganda.

In particular, the two groups demand the return of Tutsi refugees from Rwanda, the formal recognition of their ranks within the national army and the integration of their cadres into Congolese administration and military. They also said that Bosco should be presumed innocent and that we should not jump to conclusions that the assassination of Maj. Antoine Balibuno was in fact carried out by his men.

None of this is new. (Read here the CNDP demands handed to Kabila last month.) The fact that most CNDP military units have been integrated into the national army and been given lucrative and important positions (although not yet official ranks) indicates that they may not have it as bad as they suggest. There have indeed been delays regarding refugee returns, but some of these are understandable given the tenuous security situation in their villages of origin, and Congolese authorities have not been very strict (to put it mildly) about verifying the refugees' nationality and place of origin. There are certainly problems and matters of concern for the CNDP and PARECO, but things are not so bad.

So what is really going on?

One serious concern on everyone's mind and lips is the announcement by the Congolese army that they would be moving units from the Kivus elsewhere in the country, especially CNDP units. This provoked a serious backlash from within the CNDP, who fear being isolated and marginalized if they are broken up and sent to Bas-Congo, for example. Some suggest that this move was backed by Rwanda, which is concerned of a possible CNDP-FDLR-PARECO alliance affiliated with dissident RPF leaders in exile. It is too soon to tell whether there is really such an alliance, but the Rwandans have hinted that they are worried. The reports of a possible presence of Rwandan troops in North Kivu and Rwandan security officials in and around Goma would strengthen this theory.

This coalition between CNDP-PARECO - which their leaders say is political, not military - should be seen in this light. Apparently the threat of being sent out of the Kivus has been so pronounced that the CNDP have even been patching up their internal differences, with reports of Bosco now re-taking the helm of all former Nkunda officers and orchestrating this rapprochement with PARECO, a mostly Hutu armed group. Bosco, of course, has his own hide to save, with indications that he is being relieved of his command with the Congolese army and that he might have to start worrying that the ICC warrant might finally be executed. However, given the amount of blood that has been split between these groups and how bitter their enmity is, it is difficult to believe that this coalition could last for very long.

It will be very difficult for any serious insurrection to succeed as long as the Kigali-Kinshasa alliance holds, but there are worries that this could undermine stability in the run-up to elections next year, polarizing the province. Also, Uganda is still a wild card - they might decide to provide a little support to a new rebellion, just to keep leverage on Rwanda (and Congo), but it is unlikely that Museveni would take any major risks before elections in his own country next year.

In the meantime, the Congolese army seems to have back-peddled a bit. Today, on Radio Okapi, the commander of the North Kivu military region said they are not going to deploy whole units belonging to certain groups out of the province, but that they might instead consider re-deploying individuals.

How many women have been raped in the Congo?

How many women have been raped in the eastern Congo? We have no exact figure, and we all know how difficult it is to get good data. Rape survivors are afraid to tell and many are in remote areas, where no records are kept of the violence.

According to one UN estimate that I first saw in 2008, 200,000 women have been raped since 1998. Last week, the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Congo told the UN Security Council that 15,000 women had been raped in the East of the country alone in 2009. The UN Population Fund came out with a figure of 17,507 for the whole country for the same period.

I am pretty sure that the UNFPA figures come from records provided through a central data bank, into which health centers, NGOs and UN agencies feed data. One of the problems I have heard is that "sexual violence" as recorded in health centers includes a relatively wide spectrum of violence, including domestic abuse.

Other researchers have adopted a different methodology, carrying out surveys in which they ask a randomized sample of men women a bunch of health related questions, including about sexual violence. One such survey, a Demographic and Health Survey carried out in 2007, surveyed around 10,000 women throughout the Congo. They asked women between 18-49 about being forced to have sex with a man:

10% said that the first time they had had sex it was forced; 16% said that as some point in their life they had been forced to have sex; and 4% said that they had been forced to have sex in the previous 12 months.

Interestingly, the variation between provinces defies expectations. The highest rate of forced sex was in North Kivu (25% said they had had forced sex as some point), but the second and forth highest rates were Equateur and Bandundu, respectively (19% and 18%), provinces where there has not been nearly as high levels of armed conflict as in the Kivus.

One problem is that the study asked about forced sexual relations in general, not the rape you observe during armed conflict. Unfortunately, many women in the Congo suffer this kind of domestic abuse. As terrible as it is, conjugal rape is different from military rape.

Another, more recent study (2010) carried out by American researchers and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association focused on the Kivus and Ituri. Researchers interviewed around a thousand men and women. They found that a shocking 39.7% of the women had experienced sexual violence in their lifetime and an amazing 23.6% of men.

There were other counter-intuitive findings: of the women who had experienced sexual violence in conflict settings (74.3% of total), over 40% had experienced it at the hands of women with no men present.

This begs the question: How did the researchers, who have done similar studies in West Africa and Darfur, define sexual violence? Was it any kind of sexual intimidation or harassment, or was it actual rape? I will try to get the full data they collected and report back.