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Anneke Van Woudenberg, a Senior Researcher for Human Rights Watch, discusses the runoff elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the effect they have had on the human rights situation in the region. She reports that the DRC’s democratic future remains ominous and the international community must stay engaged.
TRANSCRIPT:
JERRY FOWLER: My guest today is Anneke Van Woudenberg, Senior Researcher for Human Rights Watch where she spends most of her time working on the Democratic Republic of Congo. Anneke, welcome to the program.
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: Thank you; it is great to be here.
JERRY FOWLER: Anneke, the Democratic Republic of Congo is about to have a runoff election for President, between the incumbent, Joseph Kabila, and one of the Vice Presidents, Jean-Pierre Bemba. Can you give us a general overview of what effect this runoff campaign is having on the human rights situation in Congo?
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: So far, the election campaign both for the first round, as well as now for the second round which is what we are in at the moment, has been marred by violence. There have been a lot of difficulties between the supporters of the two rival camps and we have had a lot of demonstrations and targeting of supporters from both of the two sides, but also, we have noticed a pretty dramatic increase in ethnic tensions, and that is on a range of different issues. So, it is ethnic tensions between east and west, but also tensions in particular against individuals linked to Rwanda as part of this campaign. We have been very worried about this increase in the ethnic tensions. I should also say that one of the other very negative features of this campaign has been the targeting of journalists. We have seen this again in the first part of the campaign, but again it is happening now, where journalists who speak openly about a range of issues are being harassed, threatened, arrested, beaten up, and some indeed have been killed, and this has seriously undermined freedom of speech issues in Congo.
JERRY FOWLER: What does this portend about the future after the election?
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: I think so far there have been some pretty ominous signs, so after the first round when the election results were announced street battles broke out in the capitol of Kinshasa which lasted for three days, which left dozens of people dead. It showed very much that the logic of war, the logic of resorting to military violence is still very present in Congo, and that democracy which is a very new thing—people have not voted for more than forty years—is going to take more than these elections for it to be built up. Elections do not solve all the problems and we have certainly seen this in Congo, where in actual fact, elections can bring in new divisions. It is going to take dealing with the underlying issues in Congo, I think, for the country to move on to a much more solid foundation, and that will require dealing with issues—issues such as corruption, bad governance, the greed for the country’s mineral wealth, and finally starting to professionalize Congo’s very abusive army—unless these issues are dealt with, I fear that Congo could slip back into conflict.
JERRY FOWLER: I want to pick up on that issue of professionalizing the Congolese Army, but before we move to that, let me ask you, there were an excess of thirty candidates in the first round of elections for President and Kabila and Bemba emerged from that for the runoff. What role are some of the other presidential candidates playing? Are they contributing in a positive way to the process or are they biding their time to see what happens and reserving the possibility of using violence themselves?
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: There was such a broad range of candidates that different groups have certainly pursued different solutions. The problem with the first round is that it was not a level playing field. It was very difficult for new political actors, especially non-violent actors, to emerge successfully out of that first round, and as you can imagine, this has sown a lot of seeds of discontentment. The problem always was that the individuals who had the most senior positions in the transitional government, which they actually got of course, through the barrel of the gun, through the fact that they were the most dangerous. These individuals have managed to solidify their gains to the election process. The way that some Congolese people see it, they see it that this election process has legitimized warlords. Now Congo, of course, is not the only place that that has happened. We saw similar issues in places like Afghanistan, and I think this is the resentment that we see amongst some of the failed candidates from the first round. They felt that they were not given equal chances, they were not given equal access to the media, they did not have the chance to travel around the country, and many of them, therefore, claimed that it was not a free and fair process. I think that some of those concerns are indeed legitimate. The difficulty is that when you have a short transition, it is very hard for these non-violent actors to emerge, and I think it is really the next elections in Congo, the ones that should happen in 2011, that will give us an indication of whether the country is indeed solidly on a democratization process.
JERRY FOWLER: There is a long time to go between now and 2011.
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: A very long time indeed, and I think that in Congo, the situation is very fragile. These elections have shown new divisions. The role of the international community on keeping this process on track is vital. We are seeing some signs that they are willing to do that, but also of course, this is one of the most expensive peacekeeping missions in the world that is in Congo and a lot of people would like to see a reduction in those numbers very quickly. That is going to be tough for the Congolese.
JERRY FOWLER: I understand that there has been some talk that figures in the international community were basically hoping that after the elections that would provide a cover for reducing the size of the United Nations presence and the cost of it.
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: There is definitely some thinking along those lines. This is a United Nations peacekeeping mission that costs roughly a billion dollars a year, so it is indeed very expensive. It is not surprising considering the state of infrastructure in the country, of course, that it is so expensive, but yes, there has been the belief amongst some members in the international community, in particular the United States who of course contributed a large part to the cost of the United Nations peacekeeping operation. They would like to see savings very quickly. I think there is a big risk associated with that. This is a state that is coming out of one of the worst conflicts in the world that has resulted in the deaths of some four million people; transition like this does not happen quickly, and we will need to see continued international engagement at a very serious level I would say for at least three to five years, if not longer. I think it would be a real shame, with the investment that the international community has put in to date, if indeed United Nations peacekeepers and other support are pulled out too quickly.
JERRY FOWLER: Could you break that down a little bit? What does that billion dollars a year go to?
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: It goes to roughly 17,000 peacekeeping troops, plus of course, the civilian staff that comes in to support those troops. One of the biggest costs of this United Nations peacekeeping mission has been the logistical costs—airplanes, flying not only personnel but also food, fuel and other goods around the country. This is, of course, a country that does not have many roads, so everything does need to be flown around a country roughly the size of Western Europe, so that has actually been the largest part of the bill, the logistical cost of getting things around. Whenever I talk to people, they throw their hands up and say, “We do not know how to reduce that cost; that is just the reality of the situation in which we are working.”
JERRY FOWLER: Let us turn now to the Congolese army. You mentioned earlier the issue of human rights abuses by the Congolese army, and Human Rights Watch recently issued a statement talking about some of those abuses. As a preface to that, though, can you explain, the Congolese army now includes a number of elements that previously were rebel groups; am I right?
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: Exactly; so when the transitional government in Congo started in 2003, this was a government of former enemies who were supposed to roughly rule the country for two years in order to move the country towards elections. As part of that transitional process, it was agreed that they would develop a new Congolese army, which was going to be composed of the old Congolese army plus integrating all of the new rebel groups that had sprung up during the war, and the idea was, let us stop being enemies and let us actually now be put together in the same army, and let us be friends in the most simple kind of way. That process called mixing up or “bassage,” the French term as it is frequently used in Congo has been a very slow process and not a very efficient process. Roughly six brigades—which probably numbers to about twelve or fifteen thousand soldiers have so far been put through the process of mixing them up and putting them together into the new Congolese army. What we have noticed is that it has not made a huge difference. We still notice that this new Congolese army are indeed some of the biggest human rights abusers in the country. They have taken the processes that they frequently used in the former rebels groups and in the former Congolese army and have just continued those practices, so for instance, we see an awful lot of sexual violence, of arbitrary arrests, of torture, and indeed of forced labor and of killings. I think it is now fair to say that the Congolese army are in fact the biggest human rights abusers in Congo. They are underpaid, they live off the population, and they pose a serious threat.
JERRY FOWLER: What can be done to change that?
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: One of the things that has been recommended, of course, is much further training for these troops in order to professionalize them; certainly that is one step. We would say that one of the key things that needs to be done is that the human rights abusers in the army—especially those in the top ranks, so the generals and the colonels, some of whom have a long track record of war crimes and crimes against humanity—these guys need to be taken out of their ranks; they need to be taken out of the forces; they need to be investigated and brought to trial. Actually trying to end the culture of impunity—especially by these top officers—is essentially sending a signal that this type of behavior is no longer going to be accepted, and we have very much been pushing this in Congo, we at Human Rights Watch. I have to say that I am not sure that we have had that much success. What we have seen, especially in the past two years that has been done, is that rather than start to arrest these individuals, we have actually seen new warlords being integrated into the top ranks of the army, so we see individuals being rewarded for human rights abuses, rather than being punished, and it has sent a very clear signal that we are a long way away from ending the culture of impunity.
JERRY FOWLER: One of the interesting aspects of the Congolese situation is that the International Criminal Court is investigating. Has that had any role so far in affecting this culture of impunity?
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: Yes and no, I would say. As always, these things have slightly more complicated answers. The International Criminal Court’s announcement of starting an investigation in Congo was indeed phenomenal. People started to become scared, and then when they made—
JERRY FOWLER: People meaning the perpetrators?
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: Exactly, so some of the senior warlords and individuals, I guess, who had things to be scared about. When the Court made its first arrest in 2005, it arrested one of the warlords from Northeastern Congo, an individual called Toma Lubanga. That was probably the strongest signal sent to date, that the culture of impunity may be starting to come to an end, that there might be a price to pay at some point in time in the future for having committed such crimes, and I remember myself actually, interviewing—in this particular case it was a Colonel in the Congolese army who I was with at the time that the arrest took place, who himself had actually carried out significant war crimes, who said to me in a very scared tone, “I do not want to end up like this chap. I do not want to end up in the Hague.” To which my response was, “Stop arbitrarily arresting people and executing them and perhaps you might not end up in the Hague.” It sent a clear signal. There has then been a bit of a problem which is that the first individual they arrested for Congo, they have charged so far with only one crime; that is recruitment and use of child soldiers. While this is a very serious crime, it is not one that Congolese people see as being of the greatest importance. We have had victims and local groups ask us, “Why has this person not been charged with murder? Why has he not been charged with rape? This is what we consider to be the most serious.” I think some of the message that could have been sent about ending the culture of impunity, sadly, so far has not come across as strongly as it could have, and we need to see individuals who are going to be arrested by the Court charged with the full range of crimes. I hope the Court will do that, and they certainly have announced that they are continuing their investigations.
JERRY FOWLER: Right; do you have any sense of why they have only charged him with the one crime?
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: The Court has said so far that they are continuing their investigations; that this is so far the evidence that they have collected. We are very much encouraging them to go deeper and to do more. We ourselves have documented a full range of crimes by the individual they have arrested, as well as many other warlords who have been involved in ethnic massacres, in torture, in widespread sexual violence; this cannot be due to a lack of evidence. Of course, it is a new Court—the International Criminal Court—they are learning as they go along, and I hope we will see them, indeed, arrest more individuals as well as broaden the range of crimes.
JERRY FOWLER: Even at its most aggressive and effective, the International Criminal Court would only be able to deal with a fairly limited amount of cases, and I think the idea that a lot of people have is that it has to be complemented by a functioning domestic system. Is there any prospect for such a domestic system to be set up in Congo?
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: There are a lot of discussions on this at the moment, and you are absolutely right, it is national justice that gives the best hope for the victims, not the International Criminal Court. You are right; they are only going to take a handful of individuals. I feel that we have really lost time during the transitional government. Human rights, NGOs like Human Rights Watch, but also local groups, have been pushing international donors very hard to say, “Let us kick start the national justice system; let us really get going on trying to find ways locally to deal with perpetrators of these crimes.” That has only happened in a handful of places, and basically across the country, the national justice system is no longer functioning and is crumbling. We hope that in a post-election Congo, this will become a top priority for international donors. There is some discussion on this at present by donors like the European Union and others who have said that they are going to take the lead in trying to build up Congo’s national justice system. The challenge ahead, you can imagine, is massive. There will need to be a rebuilding of the system itself, of the physical infrastructure like court buildings, for instance, but more importantly, we need to get the judges and the magistrates paid. These guys need salaries if we are going to expect them to really be able to contribute to fair and impartial trials that are not marred by corruption and that is going to require some creative thinking on the part of international donors. There is, of course, another very big question for Congo and that is transitional justice. Getting the justice system going is great for your average crime, but we need to deal with the past crimes; we need to deal with the wide range of war crimes and crimes against humanity that have been perpetrated over the past decade. That is going to require some ad hoc, some short-term, ideas and strategies to deal with that, and one of the things that has been recommended by local groups, as well as Human Rights Watch and other, is for Congo to set up an ad hoc tribunal, an ad hoc chamber inside the existing Congolese justice system to deal with the most serious crimes. That suggestion is being discussed at the moment, but I fear that these discussions are slow and that attention is being focused on it, but so far, not much has started yet.
JERRY FOWLER: We are reaching the end of our time, Anneke, but could you just say a word about Congolese civil society? One actually hears that it is quite vibrant.
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: Vibrant it definitely is. There are a lot of different Congolese groups who deal with a broad range of issues. In the human rights field there are lots of groups who deal with press freedoms, with human rights abuses like war crimes and crimes against humanity, with sexual violence. The difficulty has been that they are underfunded and frequently divided. One of the difficulties in Congo’s election process has been that civil society have not been able to voice their concerns frequently without facing threats, so I think there is a huge need to support Congo’s civil society, to help build it up, and to help them really become a watchdog for what is going on in Congo. That will require the democratization process to start to take hold, but I hope that there will be support and funding for that in the future.
JERRY FOWLER: Anneke Van Woudenberg is a Senior Researcher for Human Rights Watch, specializing in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Anneke, thanks for taking the time to be with us.
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: You are welcome, thank you.
