IMAGINE living with a 50 per cent chance of being enslaved, or threatened with death by an armed group. One-in-three odds of being tortured or wounded. A 12 per cent chance of being sexually assaulted multiple times.
In some of the roughest parts of eastern Congo, such a life doesn't take much imagination.
These numbers are real for civilians in the country's three worst war-battered provinces, according to a new report based on rare polling data carried out b
y an international human rights group and the research centres of two prominent American universities.
Entitled Living With Fear, the report, released yesterday, offers hard evidence on what many people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) already know: two years after the massive central African nation held its first free elections in 50 years, life is as dangerous as ever for many in the east despite the presence of one of the world's largest UN peacekeeping forces.
Since the supposed end of a 1998-2002 war and the establishment of an elected government under President Joseph Kabila, "little has been done to address impunity within the security forces and armed groups or to reform the justice sector", the report said.
"Peace, social reconstruction, justice and reconciliation remain distant dreams in Congo."
Government officials in the DRC could not immediately be reached for comment.
Though rich in diamonds, copper, gold and other minerals, most of Congo's people – including its security forces – remain poor and desperate. Kabila's government has struggled to end sporadic fighting in the lawless east, where marauding militias have held sway since Rwanda's 1994 genocide spilled chaos across the border.
Over the last year, skirmishes have broken out in the region between the army, militias and Congolese rebel fighters led by Laurent Nkunda. The fighting has displaced hundreds of thousands and rights groups have repeatedly accused all sides, including the ill-disciplined government army, of failing to rein in fighters who have targeted civilians suspected of supporting their rivals.
The 60-page report was put together by the New York-based rights group the International Centre for Transitional Justice, the Human Rights Centre at the University of California, Berkeley and the Payson Centre for International Development at Tulane University in Louisiana.
It is based on interviews carried out between September and December 2007. Some 2,620 interviews were conducted in the three provinces hardest hit by violence – North and South Kivu, and Ituri.
According to the report: "Fewer than half the people surveyed felt safe sleeping, walking at night in their village, or meeting strangers."
In the three worst-hit eastern provinces, about 80 per cent of respondents said they had been displaced at least three times in the last 15 years. Some 75 per cent said their cattle or livestock had been stolen, and 66 per cent said their home had been destroyed or confiscated.
About 61 per cent of those polled in the east said they witnessed the violent death of a family member or friend, while about 60 per cent said one more of their household members had disappeared and 34 per cent said they themselves had been abducted for more than a week. An astounding 53 per cent reported being forced to work or being enslaved by armed groups, while about 31 per cent said they had been wounded in fighting, and 35 per cent said they had been tortured.
The report said that of those canvassed in the east, 46 per cent had been threatened with death, 23 per cent had witnessed sexual violence, 16 per cent had been sexually violated – 12 per cent multiple times.
In North Kivu, which has borne the brunt of the violence over the last year, responses to the question "who protects you?" were telling. Respondents answered: God (44 per cent), the army (25 per cent), the police (8 per cent), nobody (7 per cent), UN peacekeepers (6 per cent).
About 18,000 UN troops are deployed in the country to maintain law and order. The report also said 85 per cent of people polled believe "those responsible for the violence should be held accountable."
Echoing the views of other rights and advocacy groups, the report said government armed forces "continue to be among the worst perpetrators of daily human rights violations against the population and the source of instability."
"Civilians remain targets of the indiscriminate violence," it said, "including killing, torture, displacement, abduction and epidemic levels of rape …
"A state of fear prevails to this day in large swathes" of the country, it said.
Patrick Vinck, the director of the Berkeley-Tulane Initiative for Vulnerable Populations, who led the study, said: "Reform of the police and army are needed immediately to protect civilians. The Congolese expect that war criminals will be punished, but most remain at large."
BACKGROUNDThe Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the site of one of the world's worst ongoing humanitarian crises. Although the country emerged from what has been called "Africa's First World War" in 2003 when the belligerents came together to form a transitional government, credible studies estimate that up to 1,200 people continue to die each day from conflict-related causes.
Rampant corruption and pervasive state weakness allow the army and armed groups alike to perpetrate abuses against civilians.
With the help of the world's largest and most expensive peacekeeping operation, MONUC, the country held its first free and fair elections in 40 years in 2006. However, renewed violence in the east, as well as a recent government crackdown, underscores the country's fragility.
The full article contains 939 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
