Untold Stories

DRC: Collateral Damage

Michael Kavanagh, for the Pulitzer Center
Michael traveled to the DRC on a grant from the Pulitzer Center

I spent one of my last days in Goma with my friends at the Heal Africa hospital.  The director of nursing, Papy Boendi, introduced me to the soldiers and civilians who are still pouring into the hospital with bullets lodged in their bones and open wounds from machetes and clubs. The joint Rwandan/Congolese operation against the FDLR and the integration of the "new" Congolese army has paved the way for many displaced to return home.  But the fighting is still far from over - it takes only a few minutes walking through the wards of Heal Africa to realize that. 

See related reporting at The Roots of Ethnic Conflict in Eastern DRC

DRC: New Violence

Michael Kavanagh, for the Pulitzer Center
Michael traveled to the DRC on a grant from the Pulitzer Center

The news is slowly coming in from all corners of North Kivu: Over the weekend, the FDLR stopped two buses, killed the drivers, and according to one passenger, told the people on the bus, "The RDF [Rwandan Defense Force] has come, and we're going to die.  But you're going to die, too."  

This weekend, in Pinga - the same town I was in only days before - the FDLR killed a village mayor for collaborating with the Rwandan Troops; the doctor whose home I stayed in said he's had 26 cases of rape.

Late last week in Minova, South Kivu, I met with crowds of the displaced (see picture) who'd fled FDLR attacks on their villages.  They said the soldiers are targeting anyone they think helped the RDF.

Go to The Roots of Ethnic Conflict in Eastern DRC project page

Alison des Forges

Jon Sawyer, Pulitzer Center

Alison des Forges, the Human Rights Watch researcher and Rwanda scholar who was killed in the crash of a commuter plane near Buffalo last Thursday night, touched so many people in so many different ways. For those of us who did not know her in person perhaps the best tribute we can give is to learn her story, to understand the profound difference one individual can make, and to follow her lead. Illuminating obituaries were published in The New York Times and The Washington Post. On the very day she died, ironically, The Post published a front-page article on Rwanda's military incursion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that quoted des Forges extensively and that exemplied her tough-minded insistence on accountability from nations and individuals alike. Human Rights Watch itself has become the repository for a remarkable collection of tributes and reflections. One of the individuals inspired by des Forges is journalist Michael Kavanagh, currently on assignment for the Pulitzer Center in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. His appreciation of des Forges was published Monday in Slate.

Go to The Roots of Ethnic Conflict in Eastern DRC project page

DRC: Rwanda arrives in the heart of FDLR territory

Michael Kavanagh, for the Pulitzer Center

Michael Kavanagh traveled to the DRC on a Pulitzer Center grant

Rwandan troops have marched into the heart of FDLR territory (Pinga, above) and the FDLR have fled into the forest.  But now that the well-armed, disciplined RDF force has arrived, Congolese civilians are asking where the Congolese part of the joint Rwando-Congolese operation is.  Behind the advancing column is a security vaccum....

Go to The Roots of Ethnic Conflict in Eastern DRC project page

Rape as a weapon of war in DR Congo

Michael Kavanagh, for the Pulitzer Center

War has raged through the Democratic Republic of Congo for more than a decade — it has been called the deadliest conflict since World War II.

The United Nations estimates that 200,000 women and girls have been raped in that time, some victims as young as three years old.

Both the Congolese army and rebel groups have used rape as a weapon of war.

Armed groups use rape to tear apart families, spread disease and weaken communities. Women are often victimized doubly — first by their rapists and secondly by spouses or family members who then find it dishonorable or socially unacceptable to associate with them.

Continue reading this post that includes a video report Rehabilitating rape victims and families in Congo at World Focus.org

Read more about The Roots of Ethnic Conflict in Eastern DRC

Giving a human face to Congo’s conflict

Michael Kavangh, for the Pulitzer Center

The conflict in Congo is too complicated to explain in a five-minute video, so we’ve left most of the context out in order to focus on Pascal’s story.  For more background on the recent fighting, check out my Q&A on history, rebels and crisis in eastern Congo.

I’ve been reporting on DRC for five years now, and there’s nothing that frustrates me more than the dismissive comments I often get about how conflict in Africa is endemic.

Violence is rarely irrational — it almost always has root causes that can be addressed. We’re often just too busy or lazy to learn enough about a situation to figure out how.

Given the extent of the outside world’s involvement in Congo over the last century, I am of the school that says we owe it to Pascal, Vestine, their two children and the millions who are suffering in Congo to try.

Continue reading "Giving a human face to Congo's conflict," at World Focus.org

Read more about The Roots of Ethnic Conflict in Eastern DRC

Detained by Congo’s secret police

Taylor Krauss, for the Pulitzer Center

I wasn’t surprised when the secret police stopped me and Michael Kavanagh as we headed out to film in Rutshuru [a town in North Kivu] in October. After all, it wasn’t the first time I had been taken in by Congolese police for “carrying a camera,” and “not having my paperwork in order.”

I knew a padded handshake could solve things in a country where [former president] Mobutu used to tell his citizens to “fend for themselves.” But I also knew that when working with NGOs in Congo, you follow their lead — because without them, you’ve got nothing. On that morning, the International Rescue Committee refused to allow us to bribe the officers, and the officers were furious.

First, they demanded my camera. When it became clear to them that they’d first need to buy a saw to cut off my arm in order to get my camera, they decided to settle for my passport. I never let that out of my grip, either, so they decided they would settle for my tapes.

Continue reading "Detained by Congo's secret police," at World Focus.org

Read more about The Roots of Ethnic Conflict in Eastern DRC

DRC: Running in Fear

Michael Kavanagh, for the Pulitzer Center

There are now more than one million people who have fled their homes in North Kivu, and very few are receiving any humanitarian aid.  Before last week's fighting, most were getting by through the generosity of neighbors who hosted the displaced in their homes and yards and farms.  Now those host families are displaced, too. People are fleeing into forests, to churches, to schools (like the one above.)

Maybe this story will help to convey both the sickening fear people feel and the reason it's so difficult for aid workers to do their work.  It's the account of two extraordinary women - Americans - working for the International Rescue Committe in Rutshuru. When I visited Lisa and Jennifer in September, they made me pancakes.  Jennifer and I would play Scrabble together whenever she came to Goma.  Last week, they were caught in the middle of the fighting.  It's not an easy story to read.

Protesters pelt UN compound in eastern Congo

By Michael Kavanagh

Today, Worldfocus correspondent Michael Kavanagh reported from inside a UN compound in eastern Congo, which today faced a storm of protesters. Michael is a also a journalist for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Watch Michael Kavanagh’s interview with Martin Savidge: UN commander resigns as thousands flee in Congo.

Violence in eastern Congo reached new heights today when the force led by Tutsi rebel General Laurent Nkunda captured the Congolese army’s main base in the east.

The rebels went on to capture three other towns and are now only 20km outside of Goma, where United Nations peacekeepers blocked their advance.

See the blog as it appears on World Focus

DRC: Aging Rebels; Twilight of Amani

Two days ago I took a helicopter to visit a town inhabited by the FDLR, the Rwandan Hutu armed group whose continued presence in Congo has prolonged this war to the point of exhaustion.  They fled to DR Congo 14 years ago to escape the Tutsi-led RPF advance that ended the Rwandan genocide (and eventually brought war to eastern Congo).  The FDLR are considered a terrorist group by the US government, and because just about every government - including Congo's - has denounced their continued presence in the Kivus, they tend to be difficult to access.  Over the years i've met dozens of FDLR, and seen hundreds move through the demobilization/reintegration process in Rwanda.  I realized for the first time on this encounter: the original soldiers in the FDLR have grown old here.

Last night I sat down for a few hours with Abbot Apollinaire Malumalu, a charismatic preacher and head of the peace process (the Amani Process) - his role is most similar to that of Desmond Tutu's during SA's TRC.  In a telling merger of form and content, after a power outage we conducted at least half the interview about the state of the peace process in total darkness.

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