Rape of young girls in Congo still unpunished

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 15:37 GMT

Source: Content partner // Inter Press Service/Emmanuel Chaco

A woman with a traditional Congolese hair style poses for a portrait in the village of Bangadi in northeastern Congo, February 18, 2009. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly

Inter Press Service

By Emmanuel Chaco

KINSHASA, Aug 16 2012 (IPS) - A rash of recent rape cases has sparked local criticism of the weakness of the justice system in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where inadequate resources and simple incompetence mean survivors of sexual violence hold little hope of obtaining justice.

“In the final week of July, we recorded more than 12 cases of rape committed against very young girls – some of the victims were just six years old,” said Father Jean Okutu, the parish priest at Sacré Cœur Church in Mushie Territory. “The perpetrators were adults, all civilians.”

A total of 16 rapes of young girls have been reported in recent weeks in this remote administrative district of western DRC, and the mothers of the survivors have joined forces to complain about the failure of the local and provincial judicial system to prosecute their assailants.

Maria T.*, whose eight-year-old daughter was one of the victims, told IPS that despite being treated at the Sacré Cœur parish dispensary, her little girl still complains of pain in her genitals and abdomen. “We have to go to a bigger medical centre to be sure that we won’t face more consequences later on. But we don’t have money,” she said.

Elodie K.’s ten-year-old daughter was also raped. “We need strong measures to protect young girls in Mushie. We also need the identities of all the victims to be carefully protected to ensure that they can grow up normally and have a chance to get married one day,” she said.

“The government should even consider relocating these children, or letting them study overseas at the state’s cost, to ensure they are protected from taunts and isolation by other children their age.”

According to Bandundu’s attorney general, André Mvunzu, the province has already put in place a programme to fight impunity for sexual violence.

“Twelve perpetrators of the rapes recently recorded in Mushie have been arrested and are currently in detention there. They will face trial and the court’s rulings will send a clear message to all,” he told IPS.

Mushie resident Jean Pierre N.* is sceptical. “When we hear the attorney general on the radio, we get the impression that he doesn’t have a clue about how his own judicial administration is working. Of the 12 accused that he stated are in detention, eight have escaped – including the two men who raped my daughter.”

Nzundu told IPS that security at Mushie’s prison needed to be improved, as it was not the first time detainees had escaped.

Jacques Katchelewa is head of a non-governmental organisation working to promote gender equality and food security in Mushie. He fears that if the judicial system fails them, the families will turn to informal arrangements for compensation for the crimes committed against their daughters.

“This runs counter to the law in terms of ending sexual violence,” he said. “The only way victims and families can get justice is if the local court is strengthened. In Mushie, the court has just one magistrate who cannot, all by himself, sit and rule on cases of sexual violence. We need to reinforce the team of judges.”

Congolese law requires a panel of three judges to hear such cases.

Father Okutu shares Katchelewa’s concerns about the effectiveness of the justice system in Bandundu. “I’ve appealed for justice to be served in these rape cases. The provincial attorney general has responded by sending a second magistrate to support the one who is here.”

Mushie’s local prosecutor’s office is subordinate to the provincial attorney general’s office in the provincial capital, the city of Bandundu, 500 kilometres away. It is intended to bring justice a bit closer to the people, but it lacks resources – as do local residents.

“The victims’ families are too poor to pay court costs. I’ve already had to take on the cost of medical care for most of the girls,” Okutu told IPS.

“Litigants who experience problems should write to the Minister for Justice and Human Rights and to the High Council of the Judiciary to explain their difficulties in order to obtain justice and so that magistrates will be deployed to Mushie,” said Jean Paul Nyumba, an advisor to the justice minister’s office.

But Nyumba, himself a lawyer, lamented the fact that there is a shortage of magistrates in many parts of the country while there are many idle magistrates in the capital, Kinshasa.

Joseph Ntayondezandi Mushagalusa, a lawyer and former national attorney general, said a dose of realism is required. “The problems with the justice system are the same across the country,” he told IPS.

For example, Mushagalusa told IPS, “Even with the recruitment of 2,000 new magistrates in March 2012, the DRC’s judiciary has only 4,000 members. With the population standing at nearly 80 million, we have just one judge for every 20,000 residents of DRC.

“And that’s without accounting for the many magistrates who are not working, such as those who are assigned new posts, but for unresolved logistical and practical reasons, never report to their new assignments or abandon them.”

The provincial governor, Jean Kamisendu Kutaka, has appealed for help from the broader population. “Everyone needs to help the government fight against the different forms of criminality that are raging in the province. It calls for more vigilance. Every citizen has the obligation to expose crimes. It’s the only way to make criminals afraid,” he said.

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http://www.trust.org/trustlaw/news/rape-of-young-girls-in-congo-still-unpunished

The Hague:opposition groups want P.Kagame investigated for war crimes

Opposition groups want Rwandan president Paul Kagame investigated for war crimes

Associated Press | Aug 17, 2012 4:02 PM ET
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Stephen Chernin / AFP / Getty Images Rwandan and Congolese groups are calling for the International Criminal Court to investigate Rwandan President Paul Kagame for war crimes for allegedly backing rebel groups in eastern Congo.

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AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Rwandan and Congolese groups opposed to Rwandan President Paul Kagame's rule asked the International Criminal Court on Friday to investigate him for war crimes for allegedly backing rebel groups in eastern Congo.

A small group gathered outside the court in The Hague, Netherlands, with banners reading "Kagame Assassin," and "Freedom for Congo."

The gesture is symbolic, as Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has not said whether she has any plans to investigate Kagame — though she is already probing members of the M23 rebel group in eastern Congo that formed this April with alleged ties to his regime across the border. Kagame denies involvement.

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Christopher Block, a lawyer for the groups that want Kagame investigated, said Friday that Bensouda need only turn to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to launch a case against Kagame, asserting it has a "mountain" of evidence against him in its archives. Kagame has been an important military leader in Rwanda since 1990 and its president since 2000.

The Rwanda tribunal itself, based in Tanzania, never pressed any charges against Kagame.

Kagame, an ethnic Tutsi, has a history of intervention in eastern Congo. Rwanda first invaded its neighbour to the west in 1996, pursuing Rwandan Hutus who fled after committing the 1994 Rwandan genocide of some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. It took Kagame a year to admit that his troops had invaded eastern Congo. They deployed after U.N. and Western powers failed to act, as the "genocidaires" used the cover of massive refugee camps to arm themselves and make incursions into Rwanda.

Alexander Joe / AFP / Getty Images / Files

Displaced Tutsis at a refugee camp in Kabgayi May 28, 1994.

Remnants of the genociders in Congo formed the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda, or FDLR, which is at the heart of a never-ending cycle of violence in eastern Congo, and which Kagame's government fears will one day invade Rwanda.

In response, Kagame orchestrated a rebellion of Congolese Tutsis led by Rwandan soldiers that toppled Congo's longtime dictatorship and precipitated back-to-back civil wars that drew in the armies of eight African nations in a scramble for Congo's massive mineral resources. Some 5 million people died before the war ended in 2003.

After Rwandan troops withdrew under international pressure, Kagame turned to proxies, supporting a Congolese Tutsi-led rebellion that engulfed east Congo in 2008. To end that insurgency, Congo's President Joseph Kabila signed a pact allowing the rebels to integrate into the army and for Rwandan troops to come into Congo for three months to again hunt down the FDLR. The mutinying soldiers who began this year's insurgency were once part of the 2008 rebellion.

Protestors outside the International Criminal Court Friday seemed most concerned with Kagame's possible involvement in events of the 1990s, especially leading up to and after the 1994 genocide. But the ICC would only have jurisdiction over any war crimes he committed after it came into being in 2002.

Kagame has long been seen as key ally for Western powers in central Africa.

But Friday's demand for action follows a report issued by the U.N. in July that accused high-ranking Rwandan officials of helping to create, arm and support the current M23 rebellion within Congo.

A bipartisan group of U.S. legislators on Aug. 3 also sent a strongly worded letter to Kagame saying they are "absolutely convinced that Rwanda is involved in supporting the unrest" in eastern Congo.

Several Western countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, have suspended some aid to Rwanda as a result.

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Associated Press/nationalpost.com, August 17, 2012

"Rwandan and Congolese groups opposed to Rwandan President Paul Kagame's rule asked the International Criminal Court on Friday to investigate him for war crimes for allegedly backing rebel groups in eastern Congo…"

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/08/17/opposition-groups-want-rwandan-president-paul-kagame-investigated-for-war-crimes/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

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http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96117/DRC-Children-young-men-flee-M23-recruitment DRC: Children, young men flee M23 recruitment Photo: UNICEF/HQ03-0555/LeMoyne MONUSCO reports that more than 150 children have been recruited by armed groups in eastern DRC since the beginning of 2012 (file photo) KINSHASA, 16 August 2012 (IRIN) - Thousands of children and young men are fleeing rebel-held areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern North Kivu Province to escape forced recruitment by the insurgents, NGOs say.  "One day, five rebels of M23 stormed our town [Rugari, north of Goma, the capital of North Kivu]. They went to the chief asking him to show them all houses where they can find young men. The chief resisted, they tied him up and went on searching into houses until they arrested 36 children and [took] them away to train as fighters," said Barthelemy Schilogolo, head of local the NGO, Paix et Justice pour la Reconciliation, told IRIN.  M23 - a group of former DRC national army (FARDC) soldiers who mutinied in April - is fighting government troops in North and South Kivu; the conflict has caused the displacement of close to half a million people. A number of other local militias - known as Mai Mai - are involved in the conflict and have also been accused of human rights abuses.  According to Schilogolo, M23 fighters are under pressure to increase recruitment. "Every two days, commanders of M23 come from Bunagana [an M23-held town on the DRC-Uganda border] to Rugari for regular patrols to control how their fighters are keeping positions. I've witnessed areas where a front commander is forcefully picked up when he failed to show how many recruits he recruited," he said.  The NGO World Vision recently highlighted the issue, reporting that nearly 200 children had been forced to join the fighting. The group says the majority of refugees - an estimated 57,000, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - fleeing into neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda are children, with some reporting that they were fleeing recruitment into armed groups.  The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has also documented over 100 civilians forcibly recruited by M23 over the past four months, most of whom were young men aged 24 and under.  Auguy Sebisimbo was forcefully recruited alongside 15 other youths - including children as young as 12 - by M23 in July in his home area of Rutshuru, the main town in the area controlled by M23.  "They took us to Bunanga, gave us arms and military uniforms without any training apart from a few exercises to show us how to shoot a gun," he told IRIN.  A week into his capture, he fled during a fierce, day-long battle between M23 and FARDC forces; now back at home, he says the conflict continues to make his life difficult. "We are existing but feeling like we are not, because if the rebels recruit you by force and send you to the front line you may die. If not, it is not easy to endure the heavy gunshots that traumatize you. It is like you are dead," he said.  They took us to Bunagana, gave us arms and military uniforms without any training apart from a few exercises to show us how to shoot a gun According to a statement by the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO), at least 26 children are documented as having been forcibly recruited by M23 since April 2012, although reports indicate that the actual number is significantly higher; overall, the mission reports that more than 150 children have been recruited by armed groups in eastern DRC since the beginning of 2012. Individuals interviewed described how they were forced to carry looted goods, supplies and ammunition over long distances. Upon arrival at their destinations, they were handed uniforms and weapons and underwent military training in camps.  It added that there were also reports of the execution of civilians who resisted recruitment.  "Whilst forced recruitment by various armed groups has long characterized conflict in the DRC, numbers have increased substantially since the upsurge of recent hostilities in the east, and in particular the actions of the M23 in Rutshuru territory, North-Kivu Province," Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of MONUSCO Roger Meece said in the statement. "Using children and youth in armed conflict will create generations trained in violence, tearing apart the fabric of Congolese society."  pc/kr/rz  Theme (s): Children, Conflict, Human Rights, Refugees/IDPs, Security, [This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

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Remembering Habyarimana’s tragic end: How the United States all along knew exactly what happened

Remembering Habyarimana's tragic end:  How the United States all along knew exactly what happened

The way the British and American  Media and politicians have been supporting  Paul Kagame of Rwanda during and after  genocide demonstrates that they were involved in the preparations of the Rwandan genocide through the assassination of former President Habyarimana of Rwanda.

http://www.thelondoneveningpost.com/remembering-habyalimanas-tragic-end-how-the-united-states-all-along-knew-exactly-what-happened/

Kagame's Agent Expelled from Sweden After Gasasira Disappears

Kagame's Agent Expelled from Sweden After Gasasira Disappears

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8Nc-gG7vIY&feature=channel_video_title    2012 Prepare for the Alien Invasion? First Contact?  Von Braun reveals all. Von Braun explains(he wanted to stop the weaponization of space), a series of lies to justify the weaponization of space. Beginning...the evil Russians, rogue nations, terrorist threats, asteroids, the final card...the threat of alien invasion...supported by media propaganda. They are not a threat, but they want to use them as an excuse. The Old Guard doesn't want change." 1977

From: Nzinink <nzinink@yahoo.com>
To: Nzinink <nzinink@yahoo.com>
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2012 9:38 PM
Subject: *DHR* Kagameâs Agent Expelled from Sweden After Gasasira Disappears

 

http://www.africandictator.org/?p=7271 Kagameâs Agent Expelled from Sweden After Gasasira Disappears 19 hours ago  by RockD 3 Rate This While Kagame is fooling the world that he is rid Rwanda of poverty, and achieving over 90% of development goals, the serial killer is still hunting for victims to silence. Winning elections by over 90%, achieving development by over 90% and killing people by over 90% precision â the new name for Kagame should be Mr 90%. In any event, John Bosco Gasasira, the editor of exiled online newspaper Umugugizi is the latest victim of Mr 90%. We trust Gasasira is safe and sound. What we know so far is that Kagame agent, so-called senior official of the Rwandan Embassy in Sweden has been expelled in connection with subversive activities. One Evode Mudaheranwa, the so-called Second Counsellor to the Embassy, and intelligence officer aka Kagame killer has been ordered to leave the Swedish territory within 48 hours. The Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs would not comment on that decision. The expulsion takes place, almost a month after the disappearance of Gasasira, a brave Rwandan journalist that has consistently exposed Kagame thieving and criminal activities. Gasasira has not been seen in public since 23 January 2012, a date on which he published the last article on his online newspaper Umuvugizi. Butcher Kagame is determined to eliminate Gasasira at all cost as the trail of evidence show: Gasasira was beaten senseless and maimed by Kagame security agents several years back. Gasasira went into exile in Uganda and narrowly escaped assassination in 2009. Gasasiraâs Umuvugizi was shut down by the Kagame regime before the rigged elections in 2010. Gasasiraâs deputy was assassinated in 2010 for publishing a story on the attempted killing of General Kayumba Nyamwasa. Gasasira thought he had distanced himself from Kagame killing machine by leaving the nearby Uganda and re-locating to Sweden. What a pity that Gasasira has been a victim of what he relentlessly sought to expose â he has denounced over and over the presence of Kagame criminal agents sent to Europe to hunt down Rwandans. Gasasira was among the first to break the story in 2011 on how Britain warned the Kigali regime that London would not allow Rwandan exiles in the UK to become victims  of criminals operating under the orders of Kagame. More broadly, Umuvugizi is synonymous with exposing Kagame excesses from the butcherâs $100,000,000.00 Bombardier planes to $20,000.00 a night hotel rooms, and 43-acre farm. We can see how Kagame will never give up silencing the journalists. We just lost in 2011 Inyenyeri editor Charles Ingabire. We pray that Gasasira is unharmed and that Umuvugizi keeps playing its brave role of exposing the Rwandan butcherâs thieving and looting. Lastly â thumbs up to Sweden for not tolerating Kagame agents in terrorising Rwandans on Swedish soil. Kagame's "Long Walk to Freedom" From His Crimes (1.000) Kagame Sells to Kagame Nyagatare Milk Plant (1.000) Kagame Closer to Stealing Cannibalized Rwandatel (1.000) Kagames Caught Red-Handed Again (1.000) Kagame has nowhere to hide (0.707)

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