Trader in jail for 8kg diamonds

KINSHASA – An Indian businessman was jailed for six months and fined about R760 000 by a Kinshasa tribunal for concealing at least 8kg of rough diamonds in his luggage .

Ajudiya Pravin Kumar, a diamond dealer for six years in the Democratic Republic of Congo , had been wanted by the high court in Gombe, a prosperous community in Kinshasa, for smuggling and illegal possession of diamonds, attempted corruption and fraud.

With his prison sentence, “he will also have to pay a fine of about R684000 and R76000 in damages and interest to the DRC”, DRC lawyer in the trial Me Ruffin Lukoo said.

The state prosecutor had requested that Pravin Kumar be sentenced to 17 years in prison and fined R3,8 billion.

The diamonds, analysed by the DR Congo’s Centre for Evaluation, Expert Analysis and Certification of Precious Minerals, weighed 42000 carats and have a market value of R3,8 million . – Sapa-AFP

Rebels make Christmas Day threat

Congo-Kinshasa (MNN) ― Ugandan rebel solders of the Lord's Resistance Army are threatening a repeat of last year's Christmas Day massacres in northeast Congo.

Sam Vinton with Grace Ministries Internationa says although they're not in the heart of the danger zone, they're taking the risk seriously. "The threats always concern any of us who are working in Congo because of how it spreads."

Caritas, the world's largest alliance of aid and development agencies, says a year after the massacres, the Christian community is still vulnerable. While Caritas has responded to meet emergency needs, many lack protection, food and basic healthcare.

The Security Council discusses a peacekeeping mandate renewal this month, and Caritas is calling for security reform.

Vinton says they're watching the tinderbox situation, which is even more a concern now that rebel soldiers recently attacked a village near a GMI outpost. "I just got word that some of them attacked a village not very far from our main center south of Bukavu. That is causing insecurity; it has meant that the teams that are out doing evangelism and going to our schools have all shut down, and everyone is returning back home to find out what has happened."

The violence is blamed on stragglers from the Hutu militia who fled Rwanda after the genocide in that country. They've been been in hiding in the forest in Congo.

Troops have been sent in to control the problem, and that's a whole other problem. Pray for the GMI team. The region is their largest and oldest ministry region.

Vinton adds, "We need to pray for people who are rulers and kings, whoever they are, so that we might live in peace. We enjoy it and forget that there are so many Christians who don't have that this Christmas."

DRC: Lowering maternal mortality rates is a tough bet

Photo: Aubrey Graham/IRIN

Nearly half of Congolese women have a child by age 19 (file photo)

KINSHASA, 22 December 2009 (IRIN) - Years of conflict and instability mean the Democratic Republic of Congo is still among the worst countries in the world to be pregnant, despite a nationwide push to improve maternal, infant and childhood mortality rates.

“Every hour of every day in DRC, four women die from complications of pregnancy and labour, and for every woman who dies, between 20 and 30 have serious complications, such as obstetric fistula, which is very common in DRC,” said Richard Dackam Ngacthou, country representative of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). For every 100,000 live births 1,100 women die, he said.

But to meet a national target of reducing the number of women who die in childbirth by 75 percent and to provide all Congolese with access to contraception – in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals – new funding targets must be achieved.

The funding gap is severe: in 2008 some US$5 million went towards the fight against maternal mortality, whereas in 2009 less than $2 million was allocated. Congo’s 2010 budgetary situation is no less dire, with only around $6 million planned to finance the entire health sector, where some $60 million would be warranted, according to a member of parliament.

“The Congolese government and its partners have developed a battle-plan, which clearly maps out the steps needed to be taken to reduce maternal mortality and is backed by a national strategy to obtain reproduction and family planning materials,” said Ayigan. “All we need is the funding to put this process in place.”

Beyond the funding shortfalls, however, DRC has to overcome ignorance about family planning, contraception and reproductive health. Few Congolese men have been co-opted into the global campaign to increase the use of condoms, and child marriage remains common, particularly in the eastern part of the country.

Nearly half of Congolese women have a child by age 19, Marie-Claure Mbuyi Kabulepa, reproductive health coordinator for WHO in DRC, told IRIN – the first of an average 6.2 children born to each of the country’s nearly 35 million women, according to population figures from the CIA Factbook.

Women become pregnant too soon and continue having children for too long; they deliver prematurely or beyond gestational age; and they have too many children spaced too close together, said Mbuyi Kabulepa. Worse still, just 6 percent use contraception – compared with 15 percent in 1985.

For all these challenges, health advocates suggest the number-one solution is a stronger, better-resourced national healthcare system that responds proactively to women before complications occur. Ante-natal healthcare begins with family planning, said UNFPA’s Joséphine Bora, and continues with regular obstetric care. Reproductive health must be a component of health education, standardized across the national school system, targeting adolescents.

This can also help to reduce unwanted pregnancies; of the more than three million births recorded in 2009, it is estimated that nearly half were unwanted. In addition, there are tens or even hundreds of thousands of clandestine abortions, which also lead to death or complications that can include sterility.

The impetus would appear to be there, even if it has yet to be financially supported. At the end of the December 2009 national conference on the repositioning of family planning, First Lady Marie-Olive Lembe Kabila termed it “inadmissible [that] women continue to die as they are giving life”.

em/lg/mw

Congo-Kinshasa: New Hospital a Sign of Hope for the Victims of War

Kivu — A new hospital owned by the Catholic Diocese of Uvira in South Kivu has been set up and will act as a symbol of peace among peoples suffering war Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Pere Crippa Joseph Hospital can accommodate up to 150 beds. The hospital includes a central block with various clinics, laboratories, emergency room and offices. There is also a surgery block, the block of three internal medicine wards for men, women, and children, a section for x-rays and ultrasound, according to Fides.

It also has a maternity and gynecology ward, the section with four small apartments, a section for visiting physicians, the mortuary, a chapel, and kitchen and laundry area.

The hospital, while it awaits electricity, will have a large central generator and generator sets for the various smaller pavilions. There will also be two large tanks of water because the water supply is not constant in that region.

The hospital halls are still under construction and are located on an area of over one hectare. The masonry work is set to end in July 2010.

According to Fides a priest in the region said, "Outside the wall of the hospital will be the home for the director and assistant director, and the house for the community of sisters who will manage the hospital."

"There will also be 5 acres of land for agricultural crops (peanuts, maize, cassava, soy plant, beans, peas, legumes), and another 10 hectares to be cultivated to help self-financing of the hospital, available to the families of hospital staff and the sisters," according to Fides.

The construction is entrusted to a company of Burundi, but with staff from the town of Kamanyola. The activities are monitored on site by an Italian volunteer already working as a lay missionary in those areas.

The hospital, although owned by the Diocese of Uvira, will be officially under the Ministry of Health.

Currently, the nearest hospital is 75 kilometres away in Uvira (about 90 minutes by car). The other is in Nyangezi, 35 kilometres, but it is difficult to reach because the road is a mule track.

The majority of the citizens of the area surrounding Kamanyola will attend this new hospital.

Copyright © 2009 Catholic Information Service for Africa.

Hugo Chavez: Capitalism to Blame for Climate Crisis

US to help DR Congo victims of sexual violence

KINSHASA — The United States will finance a programme to help women who have been victims of sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the US embassy announced Tuesday.

"This seven-million-dollar (five million euro) project provides support for clinics, hospitals and community centres for women and children," who have been victims of rape, the embassy said in a statement.

The project, baptised Espoir (Hope), was jointly launched by the Congolese government and the US embassy and is financed by the development agency USAID.

The work will be carried out by the non-governmental organisation, the International Rescue Committee.

In mid-August, during a visit to Goma, the capital of the eastern Nord-Kivu province, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton committed Washington to work with the Kinshasa government and various institutions to fight against sexual violence.

Tens of thousands of women and young girls in Nord-Kivu and Sud-Kivu provinces have been assaulted, kidnapped, raped and mutilated by members of armed movements and also by soldiers of the Congolese army, the FARDC, according to the United Nations.00

Copyright © 2009 AFP

DR CONGO: Small-scale Farmers Say They Just Need Land

Emmanuel Chaco*

KINSHASA, Dec 22 (IPS) - The more than 800 small-scale farmers belonging to co-operatives around the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) capital, Kinshasa, could produce enough rice and vegetables for the capital's estimated eight million inhabitants, according to the country's agriculture ministry.

However the farmers say they cannot effectively work the land without any long-term prospects or stability. The land is being steadily being taken away from them and sold off for new construction, especially in Mimoza, Maluku, Mpasa, Bandalungwa, N'Sele and Kingabwa, which are rural areas around the capital.

The situation is especially sad for Françoise Makulu, a vegetable farmer. "For over five years, I produced more than 200 kilos of vegetables each season on just 100 square metres of land, at the nursery across the road from the Kinshasa Higher Institute of Commerce," she said.

"But a year ago, the nursery was sold to Lebanese traders who, in a matter of weeks, have put up four buildings there," she tells IPS.

"My annual harvest allowed me to meet all the food needs of my family, to pay rent for the house we live in and to pay all my children’s school fees," says Makulu.

To survive, she now sells fish bought from wholesalers at the market in Selembao, a Kinshasa district.

Yet according to Norbert Bashengezi, the minister of agriculture, fisheries and livestock, "the government is ready to help these small-scale farmers produce more crops at a cheaper price, especially as over 80 percent of them are women."

According to the minister, women are "the first to recognise the need to feed children and pay school fees, even as men abandon their work in the fields, indulging in reading the paper and watching television."

The minister’s statements are little comfort to Laurentine Vakoko, another former vegetable producer, who lost her field along Kasa Vubu Avenue which goes to Bandalungwa. "How can a government which claims to help small-scale farmers and agriculturists take from them what is so essential to their work?" she asks IPS.

For her part, Génie Kamanda, who has been farming rice in N’Sele for over five years, has this to say, "Taking land from small-scale farmers who are playing their part in the fight against hunger simply leads to greater food insecurity in our country. The only assistance we now expect from government is a guarantee around the stable use of land."

She however says she benefitted from the hoes, spades, seeds and fertilisers which government distributed free to farmers around the capital in May 2009.

Speaking to IPS, Minister Bashengezi says, "Investors in agriculture must understand that through its program to fight food insecurity, the government want to assure them of the stability of land use. This is because since January 2009, it has already invested over US$500 million to help some of them with material implements and other inputs."

John Mbaka is scornful. "Another statement, and much like any other! The minister would be reassuring our colleagues who’ve lost their fields if he told us that there is - or will be - coordinated policy between his department and the person responsible for land management."

Mbaka is a member of the agricultural cooperative of vegetable producers in Kinshasa's Changu district.

Pascal Mavungu, a Congolese agronomist, wants to see the debate extended to other roleplayers in agriculture. For him, "the search for a solution to forced removal from cultivated land should not be limited to exchanges between government and small-scale farmers. Civil society must find its place and play its role, without which an already-powerful government could not be influenced by a group of vulnerable farmers."

But, as Bashengezi angrily tells an audience of journalists and farmers, "how does one rely on a civil society that is wasting 60 percent of its finance on self-serving meetings or on associations which have no address? Which collects inputs from the department (of agriculture) and resells them 10 metres away from the warehouses?"

"It is true that the Congolese civil society is disorganised and has many weaknesses," says Fernandez Murhola, president of the Civil Society of Kinshasa. He however feels that "it is impossible to generalise on the shortcomings of certain organisations in the whole structure .

Murhola further tells IPS, "It is also true that agricultural associations are not yet sufficiently well-structured. This is because agriculture is not yet a topic of great debate in our country. But other associations in various sectors of society, which have been in existence for years, have nevertheless managed to help refocus government efforts through the concerted actions of lobbying and advocacy. "

UN ponders future of Congo mission

By Harvey Morris in Washington

Published: December 22 2009 02:00 | Last updated: December 22 2009 02:00

The United Nations is being forced into a drastic reappraisal of its 10-year military presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo where conflict, displacement, disease and hunger continue to undermine the peace its forces were sent there to keep.

By the end of this year, and most likely this week, the Security Council will meet to extend the mandate of the force, known as Monuc, its French acronym, by just five months instead of the usual 12.

A decade after the UN dispatched a few dozen military observers to monitor a ceasefire in Congo's civil war, Monuc has 19,000 uniformed personnel on the ground trying to help the government of Joseph Kabila, president, establish security amid a plethora of internal conflicts.

In the past year, the peacekeepers have been battered from various sides, castigated by human rights groups that claimed they turned a blind eye to the crimes of allies in government forces and accused of passivity in their mission of protecting civilians.

As the DRC approaches the 50th anniversary of independence from Belgium next year, Mr Kabila, son of the rebel leader who overthrew the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, wants the "blue helmets" out.

Despite reports this year from groups that include the UN's own experts of the systematic murder, rape and eviction of thousands of civilians in the east of the country - with many of the alleged crimes attributed to government forces - Mr Kabila says the situation is now secure enough for the UN peacekeepers to depart.

It is a confident assessment of a country in which relief agencies estimate that conflict kills 45,000 people a month, most from hunger and preventable disease. It also contrasts with the latest draft of the Security Council's mandate renewal resolution, which notes "extreme concern at the deteriorating humanitarian, human rights situation and the continued impunity of those responsible for human rights violations and other atrocities".

Monuc says there has been some improvement in the east but notes the continuing challenge of protecting civilians in such a vast country. The mission was reinforced this year. It is now the UN's largest peacekeeping mission and its most costly at $1.3bn (€910m, £810m) a year.

Human rights groups, believe the security and humanitarian situation will only deteriorate if the peacekeepers leave. African analysts warn a withdrawal could lead to the break-up of the country.

Mr Kabila last month rejected speculation over any imminent Balkanisation, pledging to defend the DRC's territorial integrity as he would his own eye.

The Security Council is unlikely to bow to Mr Kabila's withdrawal request and the renewal resolution does not envisage winding down the force yet. It is likely to refocus the mandate on protection of civilians and the UN staff that help them. It serves as the last potential refuge for millions of Congolese threatened by factional warfare.

This force has been sucked into the government's conflicts with a variety of armed groups. In the eastern Kivu provinces, Monuc provided support this year for a government offensive against rebels from neighbouring Rwanda. The offensive is scheduled to end this year.

Under pressure from human rights observers, Monuc withdrew support from those government units alleged to have been involved in attacks on civilians and from commanders previously identified as war criminals.

Conflicts in Middle East, Africa are top ten crises of 2009, report says

Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Afghans were pushed from their country into Pakistan

Doctors Without Borders has released a new report highlighting the 10 worst humanitarian crises of 2009. The group said that one of the crises is the dwindling funding used for fighting HIV/AIDS in the developing world.

Humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders says in a new report that ongoing conflicts in parts of the Near East and Central and Eastern Africa are among the ten worst global crises of 2009.

The list includes crises which are being caused by government efforts to block assistance to civilians in Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Sudan, as well as a lack of civilian safety and aid in Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Doctors Without Borders, otherwise known as MSF, from the acronym for its French name, Medecins sans Frontieres, said its report seeks to foster greater awareness of crises that do not receive adequate attention in the international press.

The group itself is best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic disease.

Scourge of HIV

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Funding for HIV is on a downward spiral, the MSF report says

Although MSF has not ranked the top 10 crises, the organization's director of operations in the UK, Vickie Hawkins, told Deutsche Welle that the new report highlights the need to keep up funding to counter diseases and viruses like HIV/AIDS.

"HIV is quite an interesting example because the funding for HIV has increased quite dramatically in recent years following a pledge at the G8 in 2005 to ensure universal coverage," she said. "Yet now we're starting to see governments retract from the commitments that they made."

The MSF report also said general funding by the international community has continued to be inadequate to fight malnutrition in some of the world's poorest countries.

"It's estimated that 55 million children worldwide suffer from malnourishment and up to five million of those die each year from preventable causes related to malnutrition," Hawkings said. "But there's never really the funding that's necessary to combat those extraordinary levels of malnutrition, it's never been available."

States also to blame

Peter Bouckart of Human Rights Watch told Deutsche Welle that much of the problem also lies with governments refusing to grant human rights and humanitarian workers access to conflict regions within their borders.

Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Ethnic Tamils were caught in the violence of the war that split Sri Lanka

"We have governments and insurgents making it much more difficult for us as human rights organizations, as well as humanitarian organizations, to operate in many of these places around the world," he said.

"And that goes for places like Somalia and Afghanistan, where insurgents are directly targeting organizations, as well as for crises like in Sri Lanka, where for more than a year now the government has effectively banned many humanitarian organizations from reaching those most in need."

Bouckart added that yearly reports like the MSF's are important not only because they alert governments to conflicts and disasters, but they are also valuable for the humanitarian community itself.

"I think it's an important reminder that there are many crises out there, and they are effectively ignored because the humanitarian community does sometimes have a bit of a herd mentality," he said. "They read the newspapers and watch the news, and respond to the crises that get a lot of attention, and there are always crises that fall off the agenda."

MSF is currently involved in 70 countries, but despite this it says it still doesn't have the resources to provide help to all the people who need it. Without effective support from governments and the public, the group says millions will continue to suffer.

Author: Darren Mara
Editor: Michael Lawton

Thousands Flee Northern Congo Insurgency Inspired by Mystic

By Michael J. Kavanagh

Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- As many as 168,000 people have fled an insurgency in Democratic Republic of Congo’s northern Equateur province that is inspired by a mystic who claims special power from a magic sword.

Since the Congolese army entered the area on Dec. 6, more than 93,000 civilians have crossed the Ubangi river into neighboring Republic of Congo or Central African Republic, Francesca Fontanini, the United Nations’ refugee agency, UNHCR, said in an e-mail yesterday.

“We expect those numbers to rise,” UNHCR representative Stephan Grieb said in an interview in Impfondo, across the border in Republic of Congo, on Dec. 18.

The conflict, which originally began over fishing rights between the Enyele and Monzaya communities in Equateur, escalated when Enyele tribesman killed at least 15 policemen sent to quell the violence in October, according to witnesses interviewed in Impfondo. The conflict is stretching a government that is already dealing with three other unrelated conflicts in the east and northeast of the country.

The Enyele leader is a mystic named Udjani who claims to have a magical sword that can poison people and pass its powers to the curved machetes wielded by many of his followers, witnesses said.

Udjani’s reputation spread after his October encounter with the police in Dongo, said Dizet Kaza, a member of the rapid police intervention force who survived the ambush. Kaza almost lost both his hands in the attack.

“His magic is at the highest level,” Kaza said from his bed at the Pioneer Christian Hospital in Impfondo. “He jammed our guns so we couldn’t shoot.”

Insurgents

Udjani’s insurgents include well-armed former supporters of Jean-Pierre Bemba, the opposition candidate in Congo’s 2006 presidential election.

Bemba’s supporters clashed with President Joseph Kabila’s guards in the streets of the capital, Kinshasa, in 2007, leaving hundreds dead. Bemba is being held by the International Criminal Court on charges of leading militias who murdered and raped civilians in the Central African Republic in 2002 and 2003.

The aims and number of Udjani’s followers remain unclear. Lambert Mende, the communications minister, said last week the insurgents were “criminals” made up of demobilized soldiers.

Congolese soldiers have killed 47 insurgents, following the arrest of 28 earlier in the week near the trading town of Dongo, Agence France-Presse reported on Dec. 18, citing an unidentified UN official.

“There are many more militants arrested around Dongo, but we don’t have exact numbers at the moment,” Mende said by phone on Dec. 18.

Refugees

Udjani’s supporters patrol the Ubangi river, shooting at barges filled with people trying to escape, refugees said.

The UNHCR uses speedboats to access dozens of refugee sites along the river. They expect the situation to deteriorate as the government offensive against the insurgents continues, Grieb said in Impfondo.

Dr. Joseph Harvey, who runs the missionary hospital in Impfondo, says he has received dozens of victims wounded by gunshots and machetes and others who fell ill during their escape.

“It’s gotten pretty gruesome,” he said.

Many of the refugees fear the government’s response to the uprising, given the history of conflict between people from Equateur and supporters of President Kabila.

“When the government reacts we don’t want to be there because bullets don’t choose whom they hit,” Engondo Engoma said in a refugee settlement along the banks of the Ubangi river on the Brazzaville side.

“Their fear is unfounded,” Congolese spokesman Mende said. Since the army secured Dongo town on Dec. 13, the government has been helping people access health care and food, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Kavanagh in Johannesburg at mkavanagh9@bloomberg.net

MONUC says 1,200 people killed by LRA in DR Congo since September 2008

KINSHASA, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- The Ugandan rebel group, the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 1,400 others in the Democratic Republic of Congo between September 2008 and June 2009, the UN mission in the central African country reported on Monday.

The MONUC mission said the LRA committed the crime mainly in Orientale province, where they abducted 600 children and 400 women.

The MONUC report was based on 14 UN investigations into the alleged human rights violation by the LRA in the districts of Haut Uele and Bas Congo in the province. The LRA actions also led to the displacement of about 230,000 people.

MONUC appealed to DR Congo and neighboring Uganda and Sudan to enhance cooperation in fighting the wandering bandits of the LRA.

Chased from Uganda in 2002 and southern Sudan in 2005, the LRA is taking refuge in the Garamba National Park in DR Congo. They are held responsible for killing, kidnapping and looting in the region.

Editor: Li Xianzhi

DRC judges request training in The Hague

“We need experience in judging international crimes”. In a meeting with the highest official of the International Criminal Court, DRC military judges requested training with the ICC in The Hague in order to improve their skills.

Since 1999 militia groups fought for control of the gold-rich Ituri region in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The war is vastly complicated by the large amounts of small arms in the region and ethnic tensions between Hema and Lendu. The conflict killed an estimated 60,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless. Although the fighting officially stopped in 2003 the region remains unstable. Radio Netherlands reporter Helene Michaud joined ICC President Sang-Hyun Song during his visit to the Ituri region.

The military judges told ICC President Sang-Hyun Song during his first visit to the country last week that military courts in the DRC lack skills in drafting judgments related to international crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. “At the ICC you have all the experts, with lots of experience, and our judges will stand to gain from interaction with those experts in The Hague,” they said.

Judge Innocent Mayembe, president of the Bunia military court in Ituri District, said that his was one of the first jurisdictions to have applied the Rome Statute that established the ICC and its functions.

Heroic judges

The court in Bunia has taken up a handful of cases which involved war crimes allegedly committed in the war-ravaged Ituri district. Judge Mayembe admitted that it had been difficult and even “heroic” to try to apply a legal instrument “that we do not know very well”.


In 2006, Judge Mayembe sentenced Mandro Panga Kawa, a former member of the militia led by Thomas Lubanga, now on trial in The Hague, to a 20-year prison term for the murder of 14 persons in a village massacre. The decision was later reversed by a higher tribunal.


According to Judge Mayembe, judges are often confronted with corruption and are submitted to psychological and political pressure. And despite efforts to reform the judiciary in Ituri district, at the national level, the system is still considered dysfunctional.


In addition, there are still no adequate means in Ituri to protect fearful witnesses in dealing with crimes against humanity.

Training needed

Currently in the DRC, military tribunals have the sole competence to judge international crimes. Colonel Nsimba Binyamwa, Deputy President at the High military court in Kinshasa, pointed out that it was still not yet clear which jurisdiction, military, civil, or a combination of both, will ultimately be allowed to judge war crimes in the DRC, but that it was important to train magistrates, as there are no appropriate programmes in Congolese universities.

“We would like to become familiar with the working methods used within the ICC. It is not enough to read a compilation of texts on international law”, he said.

Training in The Hague and exposure to the ICC’s working methods would help them judge the co-authors of the crimes that are now under scrutiny in The Hague. “This would also help us manage the participation of victims and witnesses in the trials”, said Judge Mayembe.


President Sung, the ICC’s highest official, responded that the ICC did not offer such training programmes, but that working visits for junior, not yet established members of the legal profession were possible. He referred him to the Clingendael Institute in the Netherlands and other institutions in the European Union and in the United States that can provide appropriate training.


President Song underscored the principle of complementarity between the international and national jurisdictions, with the ICC prosecuting the “big fish”, and the national courts small scale perpetrators.

Businessman caught with diamonds in luggage

Kinshasa - An Indian businessman was jailed for six months and fined $100 000 (about R767 559,28) by a Kinshasa tribunal for concealing at least eight kilos of rough diamonds in his luggage, a judicial source said on Monday.

Ajudiya Pravin Kumar, a diamond dealer for six years in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), had been wanted by the high court in Gombe, a prosperous community in Kinshasa, for smuggling and illegal possession of diamonds, attempted corruption and fraud.

As well as the prison sentence, "he will also have to pay a fine of $90 000 and $10 000 in damages and interest to the DRC", said the DR Congo's lawyer in the trial, Me Ruffin Lukoo.
The tribunal also ordered the confiscation of the package by the Congolese state.

The state prosecutor had requested that Pravin Kumar be sentenced to 17 years in prison and fined $500-million.

The diamonds, analysed by the DR Congo's Centre for Evaluation, Expert Analysis and Certification of Precious Minerals, weighed 42 000 carats and have a market value of $500 000.

The lawyer described Pravin Kumar's sentence as "derisory" and said it "does not give a strong message to discourage other fraudsters. We wait for the power of the justice minister (Emmanuel-janvier Luzolo) to lodge a complaint".

Pravin Kumar was arrested on December 10 at Kinshasa airport en route to India.

During a security check, a policewoman found the diamonds in a plastic bag at the bottom of Pravin Kumar's luggage, with no authorisation to export the minerals from the diamond-rich DR Congo.

During the five-day trial, Pravin Kumar denied he intended to export the diamonds and claimed he had "bought stones that are used in the making of women's necklaces and not diamonds". - AFP

Debate over UN mission in DR Congo

Play/Pause Video

21/12 19:02 CET

Refugee

world news

The future of the world’s biggest UN peacekeeping force in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo is under the spotlight. Amid pressure from the DRC government for a UN exit strategy after a presence of 10 years, the Security Council is meeting to debate whether its mandate should be extended. A new mission of at least five months is due to be agreed, but the UN is expected to modify its operations.

The international force of some 16,500 soldiers has been helping government troops fight rebels on several fronts, including militants from Rwanda and Uganda. The UN also recently beefed up its presence against an insurgency in the western region of Dongo.

As tens of thousands of refugees flee the fighting, human rights groups question the UN support for government military operations in light of heavy civilian casualties. There are also claims of rights abuses by government troops, while refugees risk their lives with dangerous escape routes.

One woman described on euronews how many people have drowned trying to cross this river, in small canoes, holding on to drums or pieces of drift wood, many desperately trying to grab hold of passing canoes.

Western countries have been stepping up their calls for greater protection of civilians caught up in fighting. But getting help to these refugees, over long distances and difficult terrain, has become a nightmare for aid organisations.

More than a million Congolese have been displaced over the past three years, and since 1998 wars have killed more than five million. The DRC President Joseph Kabila is understood to have called for a UN exit strategy before June next year, his country’s 50th anniversary of independence from Belgium.

Copyright © 2009 euronews

UN set to boost DR.Congo troop numbers: diplomat

KINSHASA — The United Nations said Monday it will step its peacekeeping presence in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo over fears that a Ugandan rebel group could carry out further attacks on local people.

"We are in the process of increasing our numbers to prevent attacks by the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army) on civilians," said Leila Zerrougui, the UN's deputy special representative for the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Zerrougui declined to say how many extra troops the UN Mission in DR Congo (MONUC) planned to send.

The group waged a similar campaign of violence last December that saw 400 people killed, according to non-governmental organisation Caritas.

Jeanne Abakuka, a lawmaker from Niangara in the northeast of DR Congo, told AFP on Friday that she feared a repeat of last year's bloodshed after the LRA sent threatening messages to some of her constituents.

The UN's Zerrougui told reporters that "it is important to take these threats seriously as it's the way the LRA operates." She stressed that MONUC sees civilian protection as its top priority.

Zerrougui said the violence would only stop once "Joseph Kony, LRA leader, is killed."

"If he is captured, the movement will be weakened," she added.

According to a report by Human Rights Watch published in February 2009, more than 865 civilians were killed in the Niangara region between December 24 and January 17. It also said least 160 children were kidnapped by the Ugandan rebels over the same period.

Led by Kony, the LRA has acquired a reputation for being one of the most brutal guerilla movements in the world since it took up arms in northern Uganda in 1988. From 2005, LRA fighters began to leave their bases in Uganda under pressure from the Ugandan army to relocate in northeastern DR Congo and also in the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

Kinshasa's army, with Ugandan special forces, have since April undertaken a campaign against the rebels, following another between the end of 2008 and last March jointly mounted with the Ugandan and South Sudanese armies.

The number of LRA fighters in the DR Congo is estimated at fewer than 100, compared with 500 at the beginning of 2009.

Copyright © 2009 AFP

Congo was Once One of Africas Largest Petroleum Producers

By coolcool1506

Congo is situated in Africa, bordered to the north by Cameroon and the Central African Republic, to the south and east by the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the southwest by the Atlantic, and to the west by Gabon. The Cabinda Enclave, belonging to Angola, lies to the southwest, on the Atlantic coast.

Vast areas are swamps, grassland or thick forests with rivers being virtually the only means of internal travel. The vast River Congo and its major tributaries form most of the countries border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, drawing much of its water from the swamplands in the north of the country. The narrow sandy coastal plain is broken by lagoons, behind which rise the Mayombe Mountains. Most of the population lives in the south of the country.

Upon independence in 1960, the former French region of Middle Congo became the Republic of the Congo. A quarter century of experimentation with Marxism was abandoned in 1990 and a democratically elected government took office in 1992. A brief civil war in 1997 restored former Marxist President and ushered in a period of ethnic and political unrest. Southern based rebel groups agreed to a final peace accord in March 2003, but the calm is tenuous and refugees continue to present a humanitarian crisis.

The Republic of Congo was once one of Africas largest petroleum producers, but with declining production it will need to hope for new offshore oil finds to sustain its oil earnings over the long term.

Equatorial climate with short rains from October to December and long rains between mid January and mid May. The main dry season is from June to October each year.

Sights include the beautiful Basilique Sainte Anne, the colourful suburb of Poto Poto, the Temple Mosque, the markets at Oluendze and Moungali, the National Museum, the Municipal Gardens and the house constructed for de Gaulle when Brazzaville was the capital of Free France.

The first church in Congo was built in 1882 by a French priest and is located in Linzolo, 30km from the capital. The city is also home to the regional seat of the World Health Organization and a very good market.

About 60 percent of the country is covered by tropical forest, roughly half of which can be exploited economically. Forestry is thus an important part of the economy and, along with agriculture, employs about two thirds of the working population.

Tags: country, french, the country, congo, republic, october, from the, the republic, congo was, the capital

UN urges countries to bring LRA leaders to face ICC

GENEVA — The UN's human rights chief called for the elusive leaders of Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army to be brought to justice for crimes against humanity after two new reports Monday catalogued an orgy of killings and torture.

In two reports, Navi Pillay urged countries to bring LRA leaders to the International Criminal Court after about 1,300 civilians were butchered in dozens of attacks in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo until June.

The reports documented harrowing accounts of often "carefully synchronised" attacks on villages where civilians were slaughtered with a varietry of balded wepaons or guns, mutilated, tortured and raped.

At least 1,400 people, including 600 women and children were also abducted in DR Congo alone, to serve as sex slaves or porters, said the office of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"These attacks and systematic and widespread human rights violations carried out by the LRA... may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity," Pillay's report on DR Congo said, echoing a similar statement on crimes against humanity in her report on Sudan.

"The international community, including governments in the region, should cooperate with the International Criminal Court to search for, arrest and surrender the LRA leaders accused of crimes against humanity," the report said.

The LRA guerrilla group first appeared in northern Uganda in 1988.

LRA chief Joseph Kony and two other leaders are wanted by the International Criminal Court since 2005 on 33 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to the UN rights office.

The reports said that some 230,000 people fled the attacks in DR Congo's northern Orientale province as well as another 38,000 in south Sudan.

In southern Sudan's Western and Central Equatoria states, close to the border with DR Congo, at least 81 civilians were killed and many more wounded, raped or abducted between December 2008 and March 2009, the report said.

"The brutality employed during the attacks was consistent, deliberate and egregious," it said, saying they "may amount to crimes against humanity."

Witnesses told UN investigators that the LRA operated in groups of five to 20, armed with a variety of bladed weapons, axes, clubs and spears, as well as AK 47 assault rifles and machine guns.

The report said that in attacks on two villages "attackers used pangas, axes, bayonets, hoes and knives on the majorty of victims."

"They reserved their firearms for those who attempted to escape," it added.

One witness reported discovering the mutilated body of a neighbour.

"The villager's leg had been chopped off, his jaws had been dislocated and his teeth had been pulled out," it said.

A similar but more extensive pattern was reported between September 2008 and June 2009 in DR Congo.

Women and girls were raped before being killed, and many of those seized were subjected to sexual slavery, forced to marry LRA members and act as porters for the rebel group, according to the report.

Copyright © 2009 AFP

DR Congo military says more FDLR rebels killed in North Kivu province

KINSHASA, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- The armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) killed more Rwandan rebels including a captain in its anti-insurgency operation in the eastern province of North Kivu, the military said on Thursday.

The communication unit of the Kimia ll operation said in a communique that seven combatants including a captain of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) were killed on Tuesday, when the FARDC also seized three AK47 rifles.

Combats against these Rwandan Hutu rebels were reported in the areas of Nyanzale, Bukumbirwa and Kanyabayonga within the Rutshuru territory. One FARDC soldier was killed.

In their frantic retreat, the FDLR rebels attacked and looted the villages of Kayilenge and Ngenge on Tuesday night, without report of losses of life, the communique said.

The military also announced the return of the 27 FARDC soldiers taken hostage for three weeks by lieutenant-colonel Nsengiyumva, an officer who had deserted the FARDC and joined the FDLR camp.

The FARDC had killed dozens of FDLR rebels in previous attacks in both North Kivu and South Kivu provinces with the backing of the UN mission in the DRC (MONUC).

MONUC also said on Thursday in Kinshasa that it had reinforced its deployment in North Kivu in the past days to boost security for the local people.

MONUC called on FDLR members to surrender to the FARDC and MONUC. Since Tuesday, the FARDC has intensified the military operation against the FDLR combatants in the territories of Walikale, Masisi and Rutshuru in North Kivu, where the Hutu rebels have been holed up after committing the 1994 Rwanda massacre.

Editor: Liu Anqi | Source: Xinhua

Grand theft Congo – who are the plunderers?

by Sokari Ekine, Black Looks

Most of us probably havent even heard of cassiterite – the mineral used in electronics especially laptops. There was a time when laptops used to be hugely expensive. Now you can pick up one for a couple of hundred pounds. I dont know whether there is a relationship between the cheap price of laptops and the slave mining of cassiterite but it is quite possible.

At a remote mine in central DRC, workers with torches and pick axes hack at the ruddy earth. They are mining cassiterite, a mineral vital in the production of laptops and mobile phones. But dispersed among the miners are Congolese Government troops — in plain clothes for the camera — literally forcing most workers to work at gunpoint. ‘The soldiers always steal everything. They even come to shoot people down the mineshafts,’ complains Regina Maponda. Western greed for cassiterite is fuelling the boom — at an airfield near the mine, soldiers jealously guard their loot as it makes it way to Japan and the West. Conflict mining is a curse, and it is difficult to see what the G8 leaders can do. [Ota Benga]

There is much the G8 can do where mining feeds conflict. Oil bunkering in the Niger Delta is made much easier through the low intensity war taking place between militants and the Nigerian army. Both are involved as well as politicians – there are huge amounts of money to be made. Like with diamond mining in Angola , copper and cassiterite in the DRC, oil from the Niger Delta are all traded on the London and New York stock exchange. Buyers, sellers always claim they know nothing about the conditions of the mining but that cannot be true. Some named multinationals involved in the trade of mineral in the DRC are Anglo-Gold Ashanti [financial support to armed groups in exhange for concessions] Belgian company Sogem and the UK’s Afrimex though not named in human rights violations, its hard to imagine they dont know the conditions in which the mining takes place since they, Afrimex, buys the cassiterite in it’s raw form. Across the border in Rwanda in the town of Gisenyi there is a cassiterite smelting plant owned by Metal Processing Association which is owned by South Africans.

This comment speaks on a video produced by Journeyman speaks to what the G8 could do if there was a will – after all the minerals end up being shipped, traded and made into electronics by G8 countries.

Another white man sailing up the wrong river. Instead of sailing up the Congo, he should be sailing up the Thames, which is where Coltan is traded – at the London Metals Exchange. And who owns these concessions? Who is the plunderer? HOW does coltan end up in London? Start acting like a journalist and do your job for a change.

Here’s how the supply chain works.

The metal is mined by slave labour many under the guard of soldiers from various armies in the Kivu region. It is then moved by more slave labour to central loading locations where it is bought by private traders who fly the minieral to Goma and or Kigali in Rwanda. The ore is further purified and then shipped by road to Mombassa or Dar es Salaam traveling via Uganda. Now the Uganda / DRC border, Bunagana is controlled by various armies of course they collect taxes on the mineral exports.

By controlling the Bunagana border post, the CNDP is able to tax exporters on North Kivu’s busiest transportation route. Rwanda potentially benefits from this arrangement as well because travelers have few viable options if they do not want to deal with the CNDP. Ore transporters can take the Ishasha-Kabale route, but the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda/ Forces Combattantes Abacunguzi (FDLR-FOCA) and the FARDC periodically clash in this area.

Once at the ports shipping agents take over responsibility for the mineral and getting it over to Europe, Japan and China Some of the shipping names are Interfreight Panalpina and a Dutch company, C. Steinweg. The origins of the trade lies with the privately owned business known as Comptoir. Here is one comptoir story.

Senator Edouard Hizi Mwangachuchu, owns a comptoir called MHI. In 1996, Mr. Mwangachuchu was a political refugee in the United States after leaving the country following the invasion by Laurent Kabila’s Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL-CZ) and the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), along with some Burundians and Angolans. When he returned to the Congo in 1998, he founded MHI with his business partner; an American physician from Baltimore named Robert Sussman. They were interested in mineral deposits in Masisi Territory. There are smaller cassiterite deposits around Luwowo in Masisi Territory, but the infrastructure is so poor, it can only be worked by artisanal miners at the present time. The Mumba/Bibatama mine, also located in Masisi Territory near Rubaya, has coltan, wolframite (tungsten) and cassiterite deposits. They purchased land-use rights on Mataba Hill from the Rally for Congolese Democracy’s (RCD) Mining Department, bypassing the approval of the Congolese Ministry of Mining, the recognized state entity in charge of mining licenses. They then proceeded to hire armed guards to protect their investment.

The Comptoir sell on to middlemen who then sell to the people that actually turn the metal into a product to be used in an electronic component. Along side the supply train is a parallel train of war and continued conflict and militarisation of the mining and commerce. Governments in the G8 also turn a blind eye so towards something they could well take action.

Whats being done ? Germany and plans to initiate a certification process which would be for all the G8 countries. In the US the “Conflict Coltan and Cassiterite Act” is being considered plus a certification process. And there have been some minor censures in the UK but without prosecutions these are pretty worthless. So at a very minute level something is being done but nothing that will make much impact on the slave labour at the source. On a final note – Nokia is planning to expand it’s Congolese market and the Chinese government have signed a deal with Rwanda to build a mobile phone plant which of course will need copper, cobalt, tantalum and tin – all from the DRC.

The 'principled pragmatism' of the Obama administration

Its foreign policy is vastly different in many ways from the Bush era, but human rights activists in many places are still wondering just how committed the White House is to real change.

Historically, when U.S. leaders have spoken of pragmatism or realism in foreign policy, it has often been code for subordinating ideals to other strategic and geopolitical priorities. That's why alarm bells went off among human rights activists last week over Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's policy of "principled pragmatism," which she laid out in a speech at Georgetown University. Just days before, in his Nobel acceptance lecture, President Obama had grandly reaffirmed the role of the United States as a standard-bearer for the universal aspirations of human rights and dignity. Clinton also committed firmly to those lofty goals, saying people must be free not only from tyranny but from hunger and "the oppression of want." But her admonition that tactics must be "pragmatic and agile" led some to wonder if the rhetoric would be matched by action. Coupled with the administration's policy of engagement with adversaries such as Iran, North Korea and Myanmar, some worried this would signal to U.S. diplomats and foreign leaders alike that the Obama administration might turn a blind eye to abuses.

The administration has sent conflicting messages and produced a mixed record on human rights in its first year -- admittedly still early days in a presidency. But we don't think it is ignoring abuses. Obama took office with a promise to clean house and restore the United States' image abroad after the self-inflicted damages of the Iraq war and the global campaign against Al Qaeda. To that end, he banned the use of torture and ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, a move that is still incomplete. The administration rightly decided to try self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in federal court, although regrettably many of the more than 200 other remaining prisoners apparently will continue to be held in preventive detention or face only military commissions. And although the administration has not fully abandoned the rendition of prisoners from the countries where they are captured to others where they may be interrogated harshly, Obama has declared a moratorium on secret prisons. He recommitted the United States to the Geneva Convention governing war practices, joined the flawed but potentially valuable U.N. Human Rights Council and has engaged with the International Criminal Court. In sum, although far from perfect, Obama has gone a long way toward fulfilling his goal of restoring lawful practices and, with them, U.S. moral authority.

Obama also sought to distance his human rights policies from those of President George W. Bush, whose pursuit of democracy and freedom was perceived internationally as bullying and inextricably linked to regime change. Whereas Bush called out tyrants publicly and tried to isolate rogue regimes, Obama has struck a conciliatory tone and called for dialogue. This page generally supports the idea of engagement, whether to bring about nuclear deals with Iran and North Korea, a rapprochement with Cuba or other goals, and understands that it often means sitting down with those responsible for grave abuses. There is no inherent contradiction between engagement and pressing a human rights agenda. The administration has shown this with Myanmar; sanctions against the country remain in place, and Obama used his Nobel speech to support arrested opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, yet he has opened communication with the military dictatorship for the first time in decades.

We share the concern of human rights activists that the administration may have gone too far in some cases, such as when Obama postponed a meeting with Tibet's Dalai Lama until after his visit to Beijing in November to avoid antagonizing the Chinese leadership. There are limits to U.S. power and influence, but we believe the administration must not pull punches with allies or adversaries when speaking out on human rights in order to confront other problems -- the global economy and climate change in the case of China, sanctions against Iran with Russia or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Egypt, for example. Human rights are a strategic interest too. We have seen the costs when we cease to stand for liberties and lose the support of civil society activists and ordinary people around the globe; Americans suffer the consequences when there is no free press or consumer advocates to report on tainted goods we might import.

The world still looks to the United States for moral leadership: In China, it is on behalf of minority Tibetans and Uighurs, lawyers, consumer advocates and AIDS activists; in Russia, toward an end to impunity for the killing of journalists and human rights activists; in Egypt, for the protection of opponents of President Hosni Mubarak's 28-year state of emergency. Latin America is watching to see if Colombia and Mexico will receive unfettered aid in the war on drugs, regardless of the abuses committed by their militaries; in Africa, activists seek to ensure implementation of the 2005 peace accord between northern and southern Sudan, and peace in the country's western region of Darfur, in exchange for U.S. incentives offered to the government of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes. In Congo and Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka, to name but a few more, human rights activists are looking for the Obama administration to apply pressure.

Clinton said last week that there is not a single formula to use in pushing for rights around the globe, and that tactics must reflect realities on the ground. We agree, and in that regard we believe the administration has correctly maintained a distance from the Iranian civic opposition to prevent Tehran from branding the protesters as Western puppets, although attention to their cause must be sustained. She was almost brutally honest in acknowledging that it's easier to get tough with a small country that receives substantial U.S. aid, such as Honduras, than it is with a world power such as China. Fair enough. But in Oslo, Obama warned of consequences for regimes that brutalize their own people. In the next year, we too will be watching for progress.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

Congo’s Parliament President Pays Honor to African Martyrs in Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 19 (acn) A delegation from the Congolese parliament paid tribute today in
Havana to Patrice Lumumba and Laurent- Désiré Kabila, martyrs of that African nation.

The president of Congo’s National Assembly, Evariste Boshap, unveiled the busts of Lumumba and Kabila at a park dedicated to the African Heroes in Havana, accompanied by member of the Cuban Communist Party’s Central Committee Jorge Risquet and the president of the Cuba-Africa Friendship Association Rodolfo Puente Ferro.

Boshap said he was moved a few days before the 49 anniversary of Lumumba’s
murder, “because I see that his democratic work surpasses frontiers and is not forgotten.”

“We will continue fighting for the liberation of the five Cuban revolutionaries unfairly imprisoned in the United States,” he added.

Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and Gerardo Hernandez are imprisoned in the United States for having warned Cuba of terrorist attacks schemed by anti-Cuba organizations based in Florida.

In conversations with Ernesto Guevara’s daughter Aleida Guevara and with Victor Dreke, second in command of Che’s guerrilla in El Congo, Boshap said his country will never forget the blood shed by the Cubans who fought for the independence of his country.

Critics slam BBC’s online poll on Uganda gays

A debate in the House of Commons last week labelled Uganda’s proposed Bill on homosexuality as abhorrent.

The debate followed some sustained criticism for the BBC, which posted a comments section on its website asking whether homosexuals should be killed.

The Bill proposes the death penalty for any HIV positive person who takes part in a homosexual act, and life imprisonment for anyone convicted of the “offence” of homosexuality.

More than 600 people posted their views and while some agreed that gay men and women should be killed, others were appalled that the debate was being conducted online, terming it as “disgusting”.

In the House of Commons debate, Eric Joyce, the Labour member for Falkirk, told fellow MPs: “We should be looking at what is going on in Uganda with abhorrence. We should be condemning it, and the BBC should be condemning it, just as we do sexual violence in the Congo or genocide in Rwanda or Darfur.”

Mr Joyce described the BBC debate as a “disgrace” adding: “Is the BBC really there to provide credibility to a vile discussion around a profoundly hideous and savage piece of legislation? No, of course not.”

However, the editor of the World Service Africa programme, David Stead, told the Daily Telegraph that staff had “thought long and hard about using this question..... which has already sparked a lot of debate around the world, and understandably led to us receiving many e-mails and texts. We have sought to moderate these rigorously while at the same time trying to reflect the hugely diverse views about homosexuality in Africa.”

There are an estimated 500,000 gay people in Uganda out of a population of 31 million, according to homosexual rights groups.

DR CONGO: Minister gives students pep talk

Democratic Republic of Congo Higher Education Minister Léonard Mashako Mamba met student representatives in Kinshasa to talk about the country's higher education and his vision of how it should be, and to advise them to stick up for their rights during negotiations with university managements.

The meeting took place just a few weeks after Mashako Mamba said he intended to rid higher education in the DRC of 'fraudulent money-grabbing dumps', as he described some institutions. He told the students he was determined to restore the sector's tarnished image but that this could not succeed without the assistance of those most interested - the students themselves, reported La Prospérité of Kinshasa.

The minister said they should not let university authorities take them hostage, said Le Potentiel of Kinshasha. Students were in partnership with academic, scientific and administrative representatives and with the management committee, and they should present a common view to defend the interests of the student community.

On the thorny question of fees, Mashako Mamba said university authorities were only allowed to charge students the official fees fixed by the government through the Ministry of Higher Education. He stressed that the fees had not been increased for five years, said La Prospérité, though universities charged more.

He said supplementary fees, which varied depending on faculty, course and location, should be agreed between the management committee, the teachers - and the students themselves, reported La Prospérité.

Le Potentiel said these fees had been the subject of a misunderstanding by the students who accused the minister of raising them. But Mashako Mamba told them they had been substantially reduced to ease the financial burden on students and their parents.

"We cannot continue to treat students as cash cows, as people we can extort money from," he said. Unfortunately, many management committees had deliberately withheld relevant documents from the students, said the paper.

Mashako Mamba also told the students of initiatives he was planning for higher education. Priorities included extending English courses to all students, and developing information and communications technologies.

Playing with fire in Congo

The UN has lent its support to government efforts to drive out rebels. But ordinary people are suffering as a result

Furaha, a 40 year-old mother, was working in her field when she was seized by a group of armed men and raped. For the next six months she served as their sex slave and was forced to sleep with around six men a day.

"One day they beat me so hard that I thought I was dead; they left me there and I don't know how long I was unconscious. The first thing I remember is the peacekeepers rescuing me."

Furaha's story shows why 10 years into its mission, the Democratic Republic of the Congo's UN peacekeeping force – better known by its French acronym Monuc – is as vital as ever. She literally owes them her life.

But the UN has taken a wrong turn and Monuc has let down the very people it was meant to help. This year a military strategy, planned by the Congolese government and backed by the UN, aimed to bring peace by aggressive action against a rebel group. But it has gone catastrophically awry.

Since January, 900,000 people have fled their homes and more than a thousand civilians have been killed. Homes have been burned to the ground and women and girls – some as young as four – have been brutally raped.

This violence is the direct result of the Congolese army's offensive against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a group formed by some of those responsible for the Rwandan genocide, who have hidden in Congo since 1994. The highest echelons of the UN security council have given this offensive their backing and the peacekeepers supported it by providing the Congolese army with food rations, fuel and transport, and occasionally fire-power.

On the face of it, support for removing rebels might not seem so bad. But the suffering the offensive has unleashed is disproportionate to any results it has achieved. As of October, for every rebel combatant disarmed during this offensive, one civilian was killed, an estimated seven women were raped, six houses were torched, and 900 people were forced to flee their homes, according to a group of 84 Congolese and international NGOs.

The UN should have realised that this outcome was likely. The Congolese army is poorly paid, undisciplined and known human rights abusers serve in the officer class. As a result, many units have treated civilians as if they were the enemy. Sections of the army have burned, looted and raped wherever they have been posted.

The FDLR has also wreaked havoc and has deliberately responded to this year's offensive with vicious reprisals against civilians. People in eastern Congo have told us that the operations have "woken a sleeping devil" and the FDLR are now more aggressive. Indeed a report by the UN's own independent specialists on Congo, the Group of Experts, said that the offensive had failed on its own terms: the FDLR has not been dismantled and is still a threat to civilians.

The "highest priority" of the peacekeepers according to their mandate is protecting civilians. This military misadventure, however well intended it may be, goes completely against that.

After many months of downplaying the stark humanitarian consequences, Alan Doss, the head of UN peacekeeping in Congo, has said that the operation will end on 31 December, to make way for a new phase of joint UN-Congolese operations. The UN is attempting to put in place better safeguards for civilian protection this time around. The people of eastern Congo will be waiting to see if they can make that happen.

Yet there are other ways to weaken the FDLR that are less harmful to civilians. Depleting their ranks through offers of resettlement is one. Likewise, members of the FDLR in Europe and beyond have kept the militia going with funding and advice on military tactics, and need to be clamped down on. Legal action is being taken against The FDLR's president in Germany but other members overseas are continuing their activities unhindered.

For the sake of Furaha and others like her, the UN security council must learn from the mistakes made this year and start charting a less destructive path to peace in Congo.

Congolese band bring wheelchair groove to Europe

1 of 1Full Size

By Estelle Shirbon

PARIS, Dec 14 (Reuters Life!) - They may be paralysed from the waist down, but Congolese band Staff Benda Bilili are bringing crowds to their feet all over Europe with their unique blend of sounds straight from the streets of Kinshasa.

Wrapping up a sell-out tour of seven countries, the eight-man band including four in wheelchairs and one on crutches were at the Cafe de la Danse in the party district of Bastille in Paris on Sunday night, bringing the house down as usual.

"Our tour has gone very, very well. Everyone dances at all the concerts," said singer, guitarist and songwriter Coco Ngambali, in an interview with Reuters hours before the concert.

He wasn't exaggerating. The music, a fast-paced mix of Afro-Cuban rumba and 1970s funk with a smattering of blues and reggae, is not compatible with sitting down. Halfway through the first song, seats were empty and hips were swaying.

The band's energy belied their disabilities. Stylishly dressed in suits and hats -- and in one case, a red beret paired with aviator sunglasses -- the paraplegic musicians soon had the audience forget the four wheelchairs at the front of the stage.

Their guitars looked shabby and the drum kit appeared to include two tin cans and a plank of wood, but the quality of the sound did not suffer.

Most extraordinary was the "satongue", a metallic-sounding harp fashioned from a coffee can, a wooden arc and a single guitar string. Its inventor and sole player is Roger Landu, a former street child who is the youngest member of the band.

LOOK BEYOND APPEARANCES

The story of Staff Benda Bilili, which Ngambali translated as "look beyond appearances", is the stuff of legend.

Struck by polio in childhood, confined to rickety motorised tricycles, eking a living by trafficking cigarettes across the River Congo, the band's founders launched their musical careers from the parking lot outside a restaurant.

Spotted by a French film-making duo, produced by a Belgian record label, they recorded their first album in the grounds of Kinshasa's dilapidated zoo. It is called "Tres Tres Fort" which means "very, very loud" or "very, very strong" in French.

The lyrics broach a wide range of subjects, from the vicissitudes of life on the streets to the sadness of living apart from loved ones. One song, entitled "Polio", encourages mothers to have their children vaccinated against the disease.

Since they began their tour in October, Staff Benda Bilili have packed concert venues in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Germany and Britain. And a documentary film about them is due to come out later this year.

Success does not seem to be going to the men's heads though.

"All our lives we have struggled to find work. Now we have lots of work lined up, it's good. We want to work, work, work so that we can support our families," said Ngambali, who is in his 50s and has seven children.

He did concede that life had improved, however.

"Being in this band is better than trafficking cigarettes."

Congolese journalists awarded for their commitment to peace

---

Kinshasa, 14 December 2009- In advance of International Human Rights Day, MONUC sponsored an awards ceremony for six journalists from the Association of Congolese Journalists for Peace (AJCP). The ceremony took place on Friday 11 December last in Kinshasa, in the presence of several MONUC officials and representatives from the Congolese media.

According to Benoît Kambere, national coordinator of the AJCP, this ceremony is an opportunity for the AJCP “to innovate while rewarding modestly those journalists who distinguish themselves.”

For Louis-Marie Bouaka, deputy director of the Joint MONUC Human Rights office in the DRC, this ceremony was also an opportunity to put “the focus on the liberty of the press, one of the fundamental principles of the democratic system, on which rests the liberty of opinion and expression.”

Mr Kambere said that “nowadays, it is not an exaggeration to say that the concepts of the media, human rights and freedom of speech are inseparable.”

Unfortunately in the DRC, the exercise of the journalistic profession is not always safe. Mr. Bouaka, underlined that since 2006, seven journalists have been murdered because of their work, affecting the performance of other journalists.

However Mr. Bouaka laid emphasis on the role of the media concerning de-marginalization and citizenship that consists in “understanding that the liberty of the press doesn't limit itself to reporting the facts and commenting on them; the press also has a big responsibility to give the public the information and knowledge to participate actively in the political life of the country.”

For him, the awarding of prizes to AJCP journalists is justified by their contribution to the process of supporting peace in the DRC.

Mr. Bouaka said that a journalist must be able to practice their profession without fear.

“They must be able to move freely to establish the facts and to collect different points of view, to distribute news, to call to account those in power and to be allowed to protect their sources.”

The prize winners were: Patricia Amuli of Antenna A, Philémon Longonya of RTGA, Lydie Mangungu of RLTV, D. Ndomba of the RNTC, Adele Luizi and Nkiere from the ACPJ and Eyenga Sana of Le Potential. The PAREC also received a prize.

The Association of Congolese Journalists for Peace (AJCP) was established on 21 September 2005, on the occasion of the 24th International Day of Peace. It is a framework for the training, information and sensitization of Congolese journalists on peace, human rights, and on the rights and liberty of the press.

ICC continues to push for transfer of Bosco Ntaganda to the Hague

By Gema

KINSHASA, Dec.14 (Xinhua) -- During his six-day visit since Thursday in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the president of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Justice Sang-Hyun Song, reiterated the demand that the DRC government transfer Bosco Ntaganda to the Hague.

He revealed the concern of this institution on Thursday during a parliamentary conference on justice and peace in the Great Lakes region and Central African region which was being held in the Congolese capital.

The ICC president pointed out the importance of international justice system in the DRC, especially the cases concerning the heads of rebel movements who are also the troublemakers. He indicated that the question of justice and peace cannot be left to one individual alone and that the victims of very serious crimes are the ordinary people.

"It's a must that the perpetrators are held accountable for their actions," he said.

Justice Song, however, welcomed the changes witnessed in recent years.

"I am speaking of the contribution of the ICC to bringing justice to this country and in the two neighboring countries, meaning Uganda and the Central African Republic," he noted.

He said he was convinced that sooner or later, justice, whether delivered by the ICC or the national courts, will be able to bring peace back to the region.

During his stay, the president of the highest international court will meet with the DRC officials, members of the civil society and the communities affected by conflicts in the eastern Ituri district.

His mission involves a working meeting with the Congolese minister of foreign affairs, the head of UN in the DRC (MONUC), and the members of the diplomatic bodies.

After Kinshasa, Song will visit Bunia in Ituri where he will meet with the leaders of local authorities, the magistrates of local courts, members of local human rights organizations, the journalists, as well as the victims of the criminal activities which are currently being investigated by the ICC.

OVERVIEW OF BOSCO NTAGANDA.

Ntaganda is being sought by the ICC which suspects him of having proceeded to enroll children as young as 15 years old in the ranks of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UCP) of Thomas Lubanga, who is facing justice at the ICC.

After the arrest and transfer of Lubanga to the ICC, Ntaganda rejoined the Congolese National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) of Laurent Nkunda, where he became the chief of staff.

In January, he rejoined the Kinshasa government and was integrated in the armed forces of the DRC (FARDC) with the rank of general, angering the leaders of ICC who are still seeking his transfer.

The demand by the ICC president came after that of the special counsellor to the ICC prosecutor, Beatrice Lefrapere, who made the same request on July 5.

"It's high time the DRC government arrested Ntaganda and delivered him to the ICC," she indicated at that time.

But the Congolese minister for Communication and Media who is also the government spokesman, Lambert Mende, declared that everything will be done according to the schedule already given to the ICC.

Last month, Mende clearly stated that the DRC government "will conform to the requirements of the Rome Statute for which the DRC is a signatory. But for the moment, security of the eastern parts of the country is the priority." The same stand was voiced by in February by Congolese President Joseph Kabila.

Kabila, speaking on the issue of Ntaganda, said the choice is very clear: peace and security of North Kivu province comes before anything else.

Ntaganda's shift to FARDC dealt a heavy blow to Nkunda's CNDP, which was advancing in late 2008 and early 2009 to the gate of Goma, the provincial capital in North Kivu, posing a real threat not only to the DRC government, but the entire Great Lakes region, where the 1998-2003 Congo war sucked in several neighboring countries.

The CNDP was routed in a join military operation between the DRC and Rwanda, which arrested Nkunda after he fled across the border. The DRC has since defused the major flare in the troubled east although insurgents are still active in small groups.

Editor: Wang Guanqun