''''The Worst Place in the World to be a Woman or Girl'''' – Rape in the DR Congo: Canada, Where Are You? docx

The brutality is extreme: “the raping of three-month-old infants and eighty-year-old women, the dispatching of militias who have HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases to rape

Rape in the DR Congo: Canada, Where Are You?

Policy Position and Discussion Report

By the

www.acacdrcongo.org contact@acacdrcongo.org

SEPTEMBER 2009

Research for this report was supported by

The Liu Institute for Global Issues, the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation and the

Centre of International Relations

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3

'THE WORST PLACE IN THE WORLD TO BE A WOMAN' 3

CANADA MUST SUPPORT THE WOMEN AND GIRLS OF THE DRC 3

CONTEXT 5

CANADA AND ‘THE DEADLIEST CRISIS SINCE WORLD WAR II’ 5

Background: before the Rwandan Genocide 5

Peacekeeping 5

Mining and investments 6

Women, peace and security 7

Canadian policy and conflict in the DRC today 9

THE RISE OF MASS RAPE IN THE DRC 11

Women’s and girl’s bodies as the battlefield of war 11

Inequality: precursor to crisis 11

The Kivu Provinces in the DRC: At the centre of ‘Africa’s World War’ 12

A vibrant civil society: hope amid crisis 13

RECOMMENDATIONS 14

PROMOTE TRANSPARENCY 14

1 Adopt and legislate the recommendations of the advisory panel on Corporate Social Responsibility 14

2 Work with the UN Group of Experts on the DRC to develop a map of mineral-rich zones in the Kivus 14 3 Modify Export Development Canada’s regulatory legislation 14

INVEST LOCALLY 15

1 Make long-term funding available to grassroots women’s groups in the Kivus 15

2 Support grassroots women’s involvement in the democratic processes 15

3 Renew the mandate of the Canadian ambassador to the Great Lakes Region 16

END IMPUNITY 17

1 End impunity for war criminals in Canada 17

2 End impunity for war criminals in the Kivus and DRC 17

3 Establish an international commission to investigate crimes of sexual violence 17

4 Support gender-sensitive security sector reform in the DRC 18

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES 19

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

'THE WORST PLACE IN THE WORLD TO BE A WOMAN OR GIRL'

The two eastern Kivu provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are the worst places in the world to be a woman or a girl Over the last decade, a complex and ongoing series

unprecedented violence on the bodies of women and girls in this region The brutality is extreme:

“the raping of three-month-old infants and eighty-year-old women, the dispatching of militias who have HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases to rape entire villages, women being held as sex slaves for weeks, months and years and women being forced to eat murdered

has attempted to stop mass rape in the DRC; yet, as recently as in 2008, the United Nations’ (UN) Special Rapporteur on violence against women described the situation in the Kivus as, “the

CANADA MUST SUPPORT THE WOMEN AND GIRLS OF THE DRC

Canadians play significant economic and political roles in this region and strongly impact the lives of Congolese women and girls Politically, since the 1960s, the Government of Canada (GoC) has supported peace-building initiatives in the DRC and throughout the Great Lakes Region (Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda) by sending peacekeepers to

non-African investor in the mining industry in the DRC; its corporations own over $5.7 billion in

investment is legitimate and bolsters the weak Congolese economy, but the UN and several government organizations (NGOs) allege that Canadian corporations have committed

Despite formidable links to the DRC, the GoC has, since 1996, disregarded UN requests for peacekeeping support in this region, failed to secure meaningful women’s participation in peace processes and failed to allocate aid dollars to effective programs that support rape survivors in the DRC In the last three years, the GoC has withdrawn its political support for peace processes

terms “gender equality,” “justice for victims,” and “international humanitarian law” when

to offer solidarity and needed resources to Congolese women and girls, whose bodies are a battlefield in the worst place in the world to be a woman We must build a relationship with the women, children and men of the DRC that we can be proud of

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Because Canadian corporations were accused of wrongdoing in the Kivus; because the GoC prioritized corporate lobbying over defending Congolese women's lives; because UN requests for Canadian peacekeepers to bolster missions in the DRC were disregarded; because millions of Canadians carry a piece of the DRC’s conflict with them everyday in their cell phones and electronics; and because the Kivus are the worst place in the world to

be a woman; Canada must join with the international community and grassroots organizations in a co-ordinated manner to answer the calls for support and solidarity from survivors of rape in the Kivus by:

• Promoting Transparency: Canadian companies have been accused of wrongdoing in the

Kivus, a place where armed groups use targeted rape as a weapon of war to generate the profit needed to fuel their activities by driving people from their mineral-rich lands through fear, shame, violence and the intentional spread of HIV throughout entire

Canada to ensure that Canadian corporations do not directly or indirectly contribute to conflict and mass rape in the Kivus The GoC must promote transparency to ensure that Canadians do not contribute to conflict in the DRC by implementing sound legal mechanisms, including the creation of an ombudsman able to launch independent investigations and to ensure full public disclosure of the activities of Canadian corporations working in developing or conflict-affected areas

• Investing Locally: The GoC must be responsible to its taxpayers and accountable to

survivors of rape and conflict in the Kivus by ensuring that its aid is effectively allocated Congolese women refuse to be passive victims of war and, despite ongoing threats to their security, repeatedly show their ability to effectively care for survivors of rape and advocate for gender equality and their security The GoC must allocate aid to funding credible grassroots and local women's organizations in the Kivus

• Ending Impunity: Congolese women and girls are literally killed by impunity Social

norms stigmatize and shun rape survivors instead of perpetrators and, because of this, many survivors do not disclose their rape status or seek potentially life-saving medical

like the Canadian war crimes unit, must be used to investigate, and if required, prosecute and punish criminals By doing so, the GoC can demonstrate zero-tolerance for the abhorrent situation of women in the DRC and position itself to join international efforts

to combat impunity with credibility

L Gen Roméo Dallaire has pointed out that the Congo catastrophe is “five times” larger than the

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CONTEXT

CANADA AND ‘THE DEADLIEST CRISIS SINCE WORLD WAR II’

Background: before the Rwandan Genocide

The origins of conflict in the Kivus can be traced back to Mobutu’s reign and the preceding colonial period Both of these periods were characterized by the ruling elite using inequitable land distribution, discriminatory citizenship granting practices and forced migration as tools to create tension amongst various groups in the region; using “divide and conquer” tactics, they

the 1994 genocide in Rwanda catalyzed “a crisis that had been latent for a good many years and

unleashing the brunt of its violence on Congolese women and girls This colossal political and humanitarian crisis is directly related to Canadian history and foreign policy

In July 1960, Canada and the DRC established bilateral relations when the first democratically elected Congolese Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, visited Ottawa to request the Canadian military’s assistance to help maintain order during the period of unrest that followed

Prime Minister, because “Canada's background was similar to the Congo's in that it had emerged

Cold War dynamics and Congolese politics resulted in the assassination of the pro-communist Lumumba

A subsequent coup by a notoriously corrupt but pro-West military dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko,

set the stage for Canada’s engagement in the DRC for the next 31 years The GoC joined its Western allies and supported Mobutu All the while, Mobutu was embezzling state money at an unprecedented rate, almost singlehandedly destroying the Congolese economy and impoverishing millions, while generating resentment across Africa for permitting rebel groups from Angola,

Peacekeeping

War was triggered in the DRC when approximately one million Hutu refugees fled from Rwanda

to the Kivus to escape retribution from the Tutsi-led army that stopped the genocide and took

near the Rwandan border No effort was made to separate armed elements and génocidaires were

consequently dispersed throughout the refugee population Almost immediately, the camps

control of the camps’ food supplies and used the food to extort funds for their attacks against

to flow to armed and unarmed refugee camps without distinction, and though lives were saved by

this aid, it also enabled rebel groups and génocidaires to rebuild Violence escalated in this

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period and threatened to spread throughout the Great Lakes Region (Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda) This prompted the UN Secretary General to call for the creation

evidently not sufficient to convince the GoC, or to convince the GoC to convince the UN, of the violent and deadly effects of allowing génocidaires and other armed groups to remain among and to receive aid destined for civilians The GoC agreed to contribute forces to the UN-

“behind the scenes activity by Canadian diplomats,” the GoC secured Raymond Chrétien’s

Unfortunately, the Canadian-led mission, which was supposed to have a force size of

with Rwandan support and drove hundreds of thousands of refugees back to Rwanda The international community then declared that the humanitarian issue was resolved, though

Despite troop commitments from fourteen countries, only Canada deployed any peacekeepers,

community abandoned at least 200,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees in need of food, medicine and

protection from the génocidaires that used them as human shields and the Rwandan-supported

rebel groups that attacked them By 1997, Congolese rebels, Angola, Rwanda and Uganda had united forces and swept through the DRC They deposed Mobutu and installed a rebel leader, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, as president

The Canadian military could not have stopped the unfolding war However, the GoC did not attempt to work with the UN representatives that were seeking to adapt the mission to protect the refugees amid the increasing violence Despite recent Canadian experience in Rwanda, the GoC did not demand that the UN Security Council add the removal of armed elements and

génocidaires from the refugee camps to the mandate of the peacekeeping mission Rather, the

GoC demanded the UN Security Council to terminate the mission altogether This was granted despite calls from NGOs and within the UN to alleviate the desperate plight of the remaining

Mining and investments

To prove his independence from the international forces that supported him in overthrowing Mobutu in 1997, the newly inaugurated President Kabila ordered the Rwandan and Ugandan forces that remained in the DRC after the first war to leave in 1998 He also incited violence

Angola, Chad, Libya, Namibia, Sudan and Zimbabwe supported the Congolese President against the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) rebel group and its allies, Burundi, Rwanda and

or civilian extortion, seizing the opportunities that widespread conflict afforded to generate

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Canadian corporations were present in the DRC during the war and have a long history of investment there and throughout Africa In the 1980s, many small, “junior” exploration mining companies, which raise more capital on the Canadian stock exchanges than in the United States, South Africa and Australia combined, were the first to take advantage of new investment

deposits of copper, cobalt, diamonds, gold, tin, zinc and coltan (a component of mobile phones) The implications of these investments are diverse They generate needed tax revenues for the Congolese Government Yet Canadian companies have been identified in UN Experts’ reports

working in the DRC with individuals sanctioned for smuggling arms in Liberia during its civil

Global Witness released a report, “Faced with a Gun What Can You Do,” that yet again alleges

that Canadian companies have contributed to conflict in the DRC

Since 2002, the GoC has been reticent in addressing allegations of wrongdoing by Canadian companies in the DRC After the first UN report was released, the Canadian embassy and former Prime Ministers Chretien, Clark and Mulroney helped Canadian mining companies secure

International Crisis Group, major international donor countries, including Canada, stopped pressing for accountability and rule of law reforms in the DRC when the investment climate

In 2006, the GoC supported a series of national roundtables among representatives from academia, civil society and industry to find ways to ensure Canadian mining companies operating

recommendations from the ensuing report authored by the Advisory Panel on Corporate Social Responsibility These include the creation of an independent ombudsman able to independently instigate investigations and the implementation of binding recommendations, policy or

contracts entered into during the preceding war and democratic transition, a process described as its test of will “to overcome the legacy of war profiteering and corruption and respond to the

commission of the DRC, and professional consultants paid by the Bank identified problems in

Women, peace and security

While lobbying for its corporate citizens in the DRC, the GoC took on leadership roles in peace processes that were initiated after the ceasefire attempt in 1999 Historically, through its image as

a leader in human security and development, particularly in Africa, the GoC has differentiated itself from American foreign policy and gained diplomatic support in multilateral forums like the

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not surprising, then, that the GoC provided financial support and political leadership to Congolese peace-processes for years Since the 1999 ceasefire, Canada:

• Donated $2.5 million to support the implementation of the Lusaka accord, the 1999

• Contributed $1 million to support the Inter-Congolese Dialogue, a series of peace talks that facilitated the design of Congolese democratic institutions as well as free and transparent elections, and encouraged national dialogue and peaceful conflict resolution;65

• Co-chaired the Group of Friends of the Great Lakes Region, taking a lead role in

• Actively supported the 2003 – 2006 democratic transition in the DRC by participating

in the international community’s Committee for Supporting the Transition in the

• Financially supported the Goma Peace Process that took place in early 2008 and produced the Amani Program that established a ceasefire, mechanisms for the demobilization of armed groups, commitments from belligerents for the withdrawal

fell short on its international commitment to secure women’s participation in peace processes

On October 31, 2000, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) This landmark resolution was the first passed by the Security Council that “specifically addresses the impact of war on women and women's contributions to conflict resolution and sustainable

promote women’s “equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security,” and to “increase [women’s] role in decision-making with

opportunities to secure women’s participation throughout its involvement in peace processes and democracy-building initiatives in the DRC Initially, only one woman was designated to attend

This dismal underrepresentation provoked Congolese women’s groups into uniting to draft the Nairobi Declaration, demanding that women’s concerns be integrated into the peace process and

the implementation of UNSCR 1325, the GoC made little effort to protect these women or to

substantial donor to the elections to press the Congolese Government to fulfill its constitutional

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demand women’s inclusion and participation in the subsequent Goma Peace Process and Nairobi

1325

Canadian policy and conflict in the DRC today

Currently, despite improvements in bilateral relationships between the DRC and its neighbours, local conflicts continue in the Kivus and threaten to again destabilize the Great Lakes Region Since the end of the second Congo war, relations between the DRC and Rwanda have been toxic,

causing ongoing conflict in the Kivus The Congolese Government permitted the Forces

Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), a Congolese-Rwandan politico-military

movement, originally composed of ex-génocidaires who fled Rwanda at the end of the 1994

supported several Congolese rebel groups, most recently the Tutsi-led Congolese rebel group, Le

Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP) When Rwanda arrested the leader of the

CNDP in January 2009, these relationships improved, and facilitated a peace deal in the DRC that converted the CNDP into a Congolese political party and integrated them and several local

self defence militias (Mayi Mayi) into the government’s national army, the Forces Armées de la

République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC)

Unfortunately, this peace deal is critically endangered Conditions in the national army for both regular soldiers and newly integrated fighters are abysmal Troops live in inhumane conditions

on time or in full, there is a persistent lack of food and resources are simply inadequate; some soldiers buy their own uniforms Though the FARDC is expected to provide security to the country, the conditions under which the soldiers live are a source of insecurity as they turn to

this, coupled with an unreliable income, make the men unable to fulfill their perceived

some money, access to health care and education, and stability, they also routinely neglect the rights of their soldiers and contribute to the indiscipline of soldiers, perpetuating civilian abuse

The frustration and desperation borne of these conditions often encourage soldiers to desert and return to non-state armed groups This has contributed to the breakdown of several peace deals in

Kivus and the DRC is possible

Though the situation in the Kivus is perilous, the GoC is significantly decreasing its support and political engagement in the DRC and throughout the Great Lakes Region In 2007, Canada terminated the mandate of the Canadian ambassador to the Great Lakes Region, who had represented Canada in peace processes in the region In 2008, when the CNDP marched on the

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capital city of North Kivu, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and unleashing a monstrous political and humanitarian crisis, Canada was absent as, in “a flurry of international diplomatic activity…representatives from the UN, the US and the EU all [arrived in the DRC] in

Though the GoC directed $15 million to a UN Population Fund (UNFPA) initiative that aimed to support survivors of rape in the DRC from 2005 – 2009, this money was not used effectively Many Congolese groups on the ground complained that the funds were directed to support the bureaucracy of various initiatives rather than survivors and did not ‘integrate the experience of

Canadian tax dollars that are allocated for aid are used efficiently In 2009, the GoC shifted the focus of its official development assistance from Africa to Latin America The DRC was not identified as one of the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA) priority countries

to receive bilateral assistance Disconcertingly, the GoC has recently instructed its foreign service not to use the terms “gender equality,” “justice for victims,” “impunity” and “international

are real and sobering and have life and death implications for civilians in the Congo At a time when the international community is taking a renewed and robust interest in ending impunity and promoting equality and justice, Canada is no longer a leader in this realm President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton have demonstrated strong leadership in African development and security through two visits to Africa since coming to power in January 2009 Canada has a long history of showing leadership in addressing political and humanitarian crises, but has increasingly lost prestige on the world stage for its recent reversal in commitments to global justice and equality

The GoC has demonstrated that the DRC is no longer a foreign policy priority despite shared economic, cultural and political links Worst of all, the GoC is destroying its ability to effectively address mass rape in the worst place in the world to be a woman or a girl, a place from which Canada has a history of profiting politically and economically In a region where impunity for rapists keeps all females under constant threat, a region where justice is denied daily to survivors

of some of the most horrific crimes that have ever occurred and a region where international humanitarian law is the tool through which the world can collectively denounce mass rape, the current Canadian policies towards the DRC are not acceptable

“Canadian diplomats that were [in the DRC] showed no interest at all [in committing to acting to stop the vicious cycle of violence and control in the region] I would regularly brief diplomats from the UK, U.S., European Union, Belgium, occasionally France Never saw a Canadian I tried, no interest." 96 Dr Philip Lancaster, retired Canadian major and recent head of the UN's

demobilization program in the DRC (2007-2008)

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THE RISE OF MASS RAPE IN THE DRC

Women’s and girls’ bodies as the battlefield of war

Women and girls are disproportionately affected economically, physically, politically and socially by conflict in the Kivus Armed groups, including FARDC and the Congolese police,

Women who give birth to children conceived by rape are often ostracized by their families and

security is compromised and access to education is restricted as women and girls monitor their movements and stay home from school and their fields to avoid the armed groups that patrol their

Council passed Resolution 1820 (UNSCR 1820), which demanded a cessation to the use of sexual violence and rape as a weapon of armed conflict However, law enforcement and justice

accused of rape and, though many senior officers have been implicated in rape, the most senior officer convicted of crimes of sexual violence in the Kivus to date has been a captain—no major,

groups to intimidate the survivors, witnesses and human rights defenders who try to report

Ongoing conflict has disintegrated the relationships between men and women in the Kivus and entrenched a social system that promotes the use of rape as a tool for violent armed men to exercise power over women, girls and communities Some explanations for the onset and unprecedented severity of the mass rape crisis are found by analyzing a unique combination of conditions specific to the Kivus: women’s and girls’ subordinate position in Congolese society, decades of economic ruin caused by a parasitic government and the resulting military culture of abuse, repeated foreign military interventions and the ubiquitous presence of mineral wealth

Inequality: precursor to crisis

Before the wars, Congolese women and girls were legally and socially defined as subordinate to

men were socially defined as breadwinners, the purchasers of marriage and protective,

An unequal and abusive relationship between civilians and the military was entrenched during the final years of Mobutu’s parasitic rule that destroyed the Congolese economy and ruined

public service infrastructure With Mobutu’s direct encouragement, a culture of ‘la

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débrouillardise,’ was established throughout the DRC, which literally encouraged people to fend

they provided for themselves and their families by imposing illegal taxes and fines and by using

the Congolese embodied this relationship in the popular expression: civil azali bilanga ya

militaire, ‘the civilian is the [corn] field of the military.’115

The Kivu Provinces in the DRC: At the centre of ‘Africa’s World War’

The outbreak of war in the DRC exacerbated the abusive and unequal woman-man and civilian relationships, instigating the mass rape crisis As foreign armies invaded and violence

displaced from their families and farms, cut off from their male relatives’ income and forced to

Many male Congolese were unable to live up to their expected societal roles and were

grim, were deployed far from their families and surrounded by the “craziness of war,” and its

‘ethnicized’ armed groups; controlling, humiliating, and torturing rivals by targeting the

arrival of the UN Organization Mission in DRC (MONUC) in 1999 did little to alleviate the situation; within four years of its deployment widespread abuses perpetrated by peacekeepers,

Long-term peace in the DRC requires addressing this social breakdown However, action is needed now to stop the catastrophe in the Kivus’ conflict zones, where the majority of the 1,100

mineral resources, the use of mass rape has diversified In addition to being a tool for obliterating

the social fabric of rival groups and reinforcing a male’s masculinity, rape is also a tactic for securing profit through the control of mineral wealth By using mass rape to terrorize communities, armed groups force them to submit to the militarized confiscation of their lands

The Kivus also border three countries, and profiteering opportunities lure local and foreign groups Some Mayi Mayi have stopped defending local populations and exist solely to profit

and their supported rebel groups are repeatedly implicated in illegal mineral exploitation in the

mining proceeds to purchase the weapons from FARDC, one of the largest perpetrators of rape,

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militarization in the Kivus’ conflict zones is clear; though rape perpetrated by civilians is on the

fighting to survive here, where the economic and social factors that continually promote rape intersect with the politics of impunity

A vibrant civil society: hope amid crisis

It is rightly acknowledged that the Kivus’ conflicts and Congo wars produced barbarism, horror and evil There must also be recognition for the humanity and heroism of many Congolese women and men who are the long-term hope of their society Dr Jo Lusi, an internationally respected Congolese orthopaedic surgeon, works in conflict prone North Kivu, running a hospital that provides free holistic care to thousands of survivors of rape each year Dr Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynaecologist recognized as ‘African of the Year’, performs hundreds of free vaginal reconstruction surgeries in South Kivu each year to restore health and dignity to survivors of rape Members of the South Kivu Women's Media Association, a group of young women

Namegabe, the leader of this association, risked retaliatory violence from perpetrators by publicly

Justine Masika of North Kivu continues to document rape with the Congolese women’s

organization, Synergie des femmes contre les violence sexuelles, despite having to send her

diverse backgrounds united at a peace talk to form a human wall that physically prevented armed

Kivus, like the father of Munguiko, a nine-year-old Congolese girl, who walked through a conflict zone for three days with his daughter to find her life saving medical care after a violent rebel attack.139

Too often, the strength of Congolese society is not harnessed by large-scale international aid efforts Civil society, particularly Congolese women’s groups, have firsthand information about attacks in their communities, a wealth of experience caring for survivors of rape and the bravery

to advocate for their rights to security and equality in the midst of the war that has singled out their bodies as the battlefield Canadians have a stake in the worst place in the world to be a woman or a girl and have both the ability and the responsibility to listen to and partner with the

international and grassroots communities to take co-ordinated action in accordance with the

demands of the affected to help stop mass rape in the DRC We must ensure that the result of Canadian mining contracts, peacekeepers, support for peace talks and foreign aid is a positive legacy

‘I come to these meetings on violence against women It is always a so-called expert talking about

us rape survivors I have never seen that they give the floor to us to talk about ourselves We have

a voice and we can articulate what has happened to us and how that has impacted our lives.’ Honorata Kizende, survivor and Congolese activist 140