Amnesty calls on Ireland to act as crisis worsens in Congo

For every two children released, five are taken and forced to be child soldiers, said Amnesty International, in a new report issued today (29/09/2008) on the ongoing conflict in the province of North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“Since 2005 Ireland has provided over €20 million in humanitarian assistance to the DRC and members of the Defence Forces are serving with the UN mission (MONUC) as military observers,” said Colm O’Gorman, Executive Director of Amnesty International Irish Section.

“Our report shows that despite an uncertain peace process human rights abuses continue on a shocking scale in the Congo with hundreds of reports of rape and the ongoing recruitment of child soldiers by all parties to the conflict.”

According to Amnesty International, of the former child soldiers who had been reunited with their families in North Kivu through a national demobilization programme, as many as half may since have been re-recruited by armed groups.

“It is precisely their previous experience with armed groups that makes them valuable recruits and puts these children at greater risk,” said Andrew Philip, Amnesty International’s expert on the DRC, who collected eyewitness testimony in the region. “The more they know, the more they are at risk of re-recruitment. In this case, experience can be deadly.”

The report includes harrowing eye-witness testimony of continuing physical and sexual abuse of women and children, despite commitments from government and armed group to bring such atrocities to an end.

Child soldiers who attempt to escape are killed or tortured, sometimes in front of other children, to discourage further escapes.

One former child soldier told Amnesty International how two youths were beaten to death in front of him and other child recruits ‘as a lesson to all of us not to try to escape’:

“[The boys] were brought out of a pit in the ground…[An armed group senior commander] then gave the order to beat them. Two soldiers and a captain pushed them down into the mud. When they tired of kicking them…they beat them with wooden sticks. The punishment lasted 90 minutes, until they died.”

But it is not only children who face extreme abuse in the eastern DRC.

“The human rights situation in North Kivu is appalling,” said Andrew Philip. “Armed groups and government forces continue to rape women and girls. Even infants and elderly women are among the victims – some of whom have been gang raped. Disturbingly, rapes are often committed in public and in front of family members, including children.”

Minister Dermot Ahern told the Dáil in February that the EU has expressed particular concern over the systematic sexual violence which has become routine in this conflict, and which is spreading to the civilian population.

One 16-year-old rape survivor described how she had been abducted by two junior army officers and held captive in an army camp in North Kivu for several days before she was released. In the camp, she was raped nightly by one of the officers.

“The other officers and soldiers in the camp didn’t seem to care or be willing to take responsibility”, she told Amnesty International. She now suffers flashbacks and persistent ill health.

In its report, Amnesty International issued comprehensive recommendations to the armed groups, DRC government and the international community aimed at stopping human rights abuses.

“Ireland is on the record as having ‘warmly welcomed’ the agreement reached at the Goma Peace Conference, which included commitments by all sides to release child captives,” Mr O’Gorman pointed out.

“We are calling on the Government to play an active role in ensuring these pledges are met by supporting the necessary resourcing of MONUC and other humanitarian agencies operating in the DRC and by assisting the DRC government to develop strategies to eliminate violence against women and children and to bring those responsible to justice.

Background

• In an “Act of Engagement” signed on 23 January 2008, armed groups in the operating in the North Kivu province of the DRC agreed to end the killing, rape and torture of civilians, and the recruitment of child soldiers.

More than 100,000 people have been displaced by renewed fighting in North Kivu since 28 August 2008, adding to more than 1 million people displaced by earlier violence in the region.