A genocide could erupt after UPDF quits DRC

Apr 23, 2003

BUNIA, Democratic Republic of Congo - Uganda’s presence in Ituri has drawn considerable criticism. Some of that criticism has been directed at its alleged past role in playing off the Hema and Lendu communities in Ituri against each other to justify its presence in the mineral-rich district.

BUNIA, Democratic Republic of Congo - Uganda’s presence in Ituri has drawn considerable criticism. Some of that criticism has been directed at its alleged past role in playing off the Hema and Lendu communities in Ituri against each other to justify its presence in the mineral-rich district.

Some Ugandan military officers who have served in Ituri have also been blamed for exploiting the natural resources of the district. The result has been international pressure for the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) to begin leaving the DRC, a departure now set for tomorrow.

Yet observers of the political scene in Ituri worry that if a Ugandan pullout leaves a security vacuum a disaster could follow swiftly. “If there is the slightest security vacuum, there will be genocide here,” one analyst in Bunia told IRIN.

Expectations are that Thomas Lubanga’s Congolese rebel group, the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC), ousted from Bunia by the UPDF on March 6, would try to make a comeback and fighting between Lendu and Hema would erupt anew.

Uganda has repeatedly called for a neutral international force in Ituri to fill any vacuum when its forces leave. Also, it has suggested that the Congolese government organise a security structure for the district. The commander of Ugandan forces in Ituri, Brig Kale Kaihura, drove this message home at the opening of the Ituri Pacification Commission (IPC) meeting on April 4.

“We are anxious to withdraw back to our country. Indeed, we are even ready to withdraw before tomorrow,” he told delegates.

An 18-member body of the IPC is assessing the security context of Ituri and will submit recommendations to a district assembly that is to be set up to govern Ituri. So, despite the calls for an international force for Ituri, the IPC for the moment has responsibility for security in the district after the withdrawal of the Ugandans.

Another analyst, who has a military background, told IRIN that it was dangerous to ask UPDF to leave Ituri without providing an alternate security formula for the district.

“Peace needs to be created with a military presence with at least three mobile infantry brigades and one airmobile battalion for quick reaction ,” the analyst told IRIN.

In addition, an international Police Force of between 400 and 600, as well as 200 advisers were needed, the analyst said. The immediate installation of an international criminal court and the clearly declared presence of the DRC government in Ituri were a must to bring legitimacy to these actions the analyst added.

Failing that, another long-time analyst of Ituri said, the international community could pay for Uganda to carry out peace operations on condition its force cooperates with UN military observers and that the operation is conducted under the command of the present Ugandan force commander, [Brig. Kale] Kaihura who has been credited with bringing relative stability to Ituri.

He said a neutral force would need at least two mobile infantry brigades with land and air transport. (One brigade consists of about three battalions or 2,400 men).

“The incoming force would also need an air monitoring capability to cover Ituri,” Kaihura said.

On UPDF’s entry into Ituri, Uganda has denied its presence in Ituri is for material gain. Kaihura told IRIN there were several issues related to Uganda’s presence in Ituri: for example the need to secure the IPC process, which was concluded on April 13; the need to eliminate the presence of the Ugandan dissident group, the People’s Redemption Army (PRA) in Kwandruma, about 80km northeast of Bunia; the need to halt the shelling of Uganda from Ituri; and the need to stop armed cattle rustlers from crossing from Ituri into Uganda.

Kaihura said these PRA dissidents, led by former UPDF Col. Edison Muzoora, lieutenant colonels Samson Mande and Anthony Kyakabale were linked to Ugandan politician and a former army colonel, Kiiza Besigye. Kaihura said the bulk of the PRA’s arms had come through the Congolese rebel UPC group to the Aburo Hills in eastern Ituri, south of Kwandruma.

“This group [the PRA] is allied with Thomas Lubanga’s UPC and the Lendu of Kpawdroma,” he said. “The PRA wants to go to West Nile and link up with the Joseph Kony’s Lords Resistance Army,” Kaihura said.

However, Kaihura said the UPDF had been deployed along the axis to Uganda’s West Nile Province, near the northwest tip of Uganda and the border with the Congo, to block the move.

Ugandan jet bombers destroyed the PRA camp and airstrip at Kwandruma, Kaihura said. Scared by this action, he added, the Lendu in the area turned in 22 PRA, loyal to Muzoora, but he escaped to the Blue Mountains, east of Fataki. Kaihura said this group “was neutralised” on March 16, forcing the PRA to scatter. Four of the PRA surrendered to UDPF in Bunia, he said.

Besigye, a former Ugandan presidential candidate, has denied any link with the PRA. A privately owned Kampala daily, The Monitor, reported him as saying on April 12 that the PRA was “a concoction” of the Ugandan intelligence services “competing for a cut in the hefty budget of the intelligence industry.”

Disposition of the Congolese UPC, Kaihura said the remaining UPC elements and the PRA were allies. He said they were concentrated and were reorganising around Drodro, Largo, and Mblukwa. Some of Lubanga’s remnant ‘army” and those of the PRA, he said, were moving towards Lake Albert along a north-south line running from Largo to Kasenyi, a lakeside town southeast of Bunia.

“Ugandan troops have now confined themselves along the lakeshore between Lidyo and Kwandruma,” Kaihura said.

The UPC retreat followed their expulsion from Bunia. Observers and residents of Bunia say that before Ugandan troops moved into Bunia under Kaihura, Lubanga had introduced a harsh regime spreading fear among people in Bunia. Movement of people was curtailed to the point where access to different parts of the district was close to impossible.

Ugandan forces moved into central Bunia after the UPC shelled the UPDF’s tactical headquarters at the airport and planted four mines across the airport road. The attack had been expected since March 1 after the UPC former chief of intelligence, Ali Ngabo, and other local informants passed intelligence to the UPDF.

On improved security, whatever the reasons for Uganda’s entry into the DRC, observers in Ituri told IRIN that since UPDF troops forced the UPC out of Bunia, security has improved considerably in Ituri. Under this political climate, roads have reopened, Bunia’s residents are able to walk the streets without fear, and food has started appearing in the town’s tiny market.

The Ugandan army says it has reopened the Bunia-Kasenyi road and has enabled fish catches to reach Bunia’s market. The Bunia-Komanda and Bunia-Djungu roads are also open.

“Following the defeat of the UPC at the hands of the UPDF on March 6 and its retreat from Bunia entire communities of the Ituri District may now become accessible,” OCHA reported in its draft Open Ituri Humanitarian Action Plan document.

Loolomg at the Lendu, Hema rivalry it is noted by analysts that a security vacuum would probably lead to the resurgence of the worst forms of rivalry. The underlying and complex web of ethnic rivalries in Ituri that date back centuries and appears to be at the cor of Ituri’s current problems.

In Djugu territory, in the centre of Ituri District, the Lendu (a Sudanic ethnic group) are pitted against the northern Hema, also known as the Gerere, who are a pastoral people. In the southern Ituri area of Gety, the southern Hema are pitted up against the Ngiti, also a Sudanic group.

The north and south Hema are allied against the Lendu and Ngiti who speak different languages. Age-old land feuds between Lendu and Hema grew in intensity with the breakdown of government control in Ituri and with the power play of foreign and local political heavyweights.

“There was no protection so little by little communities started to protect themselves,” Ruhigwa Baguma, a Hema chief and delegate to the IPC, told IRIN.

Baguma, who is a professor of agronomy, said gold, timber, Coltan and fish are the new spoils for which the rivals were fighting. Other analysts said that because of their cattle wealth, the Hema were traditionally stronger than Lendu, who worked the land.

When state control broke down in the district, the Lendu attempted to break their underling status. Where previously they used bows and arrows to settle scores, the proliferation of arms increased the intensity and volume of violence.

“The anger with which these killings have been carried out is indescribable,” Kaihura said.

In August 2002, the Hema-Gerere communities (that dominated the UPC, took over the administration and the UPC assumed its repressive rule of other communities. Soon various ethnic militias formed self-defence units and political parties set up paramilitary forces “operating uncontrolled throughout Ituri”.

German Agro Action, which fights hunger worldwide, estimates that 80,000 IDP families (some 224,000 individuals) were immediately victims of the on going inter-ethnic fighting before, during and after the UPC took over Ituri.

Analysts said constantly shifting alliances and the initial UPDF support to one particular community created an anarchic environment that never allowed Iturians to recover from a period of continuous persecution which began in 1997. However, that changed with the UN report on the exploitation of DRC’s resources and the UPC alliance with the Rwandan-backed RCD-Goma. With this knowledge, Uganda finally dropped its support for the UPC.

“President Yoweri Museveni found out that if he supported UPC against other communities, Uganda would be forced to leave Ituri (leaving him unable to defeat Ugandan dissidents),” an analyst told IRIN. “Uganda could only control Ituri with the cooperation of at least one of the major groups.”

Till recently vulnerable communities in Ituri had been living under a climate of lawlessness and disorder.

“Sometimes clothing is very difficult to acquire,” a humanitarian worker told IRIN.

In 2002, access was very restricted when the UPC denied aid agencies permission to go beyond Bunia’s immediate surroundings, a representative of a humanitarian agency told IRIN. But, aid agencies said, UPDF had been cooperative. For example, the UPDF has been guarding WFP warehouses since March 6 and humanitarian actors are no longer targeted.

Despite these improvements, the continued presence of pockets of armed groups, the very poor road network, hostile communities and the presence or suspected location of landmines still prevent full-scale humanitarian action district wide. The presence of mines in Ituri, planted by the UPC and earlier by the Armee populaire du Congo of Mbusa Nyamwise, has caused humanitarian agencies to limit the reach of their operational areas.

“Our concern today is these mines. There are areas suspected and areas of known land mines,” a humanitarian worker told IRIN. UN Mine Action (known as UNMAS) and Handicap International are trying to locate and clear these areas of mines.

For humanitarian actors to work effectively, there must be access to the vulnerable after the departure of the UPDF. Therefore the international community must follow through on the UPDF’s efforts to pacify Ituri, observers say.

Some humanitarian organisations are ready to spring into full action once security improves. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is unable to reach large areas such as Gety, in the south of Ituri and armed elements still exist.

However, the agency is shipping food deliveries from Kasenyi to Bunia, although quantities are limited to 150 metric tonnes of relief food each week due to a lack of trucks, Robert Deckker, the WFP head of sub-office for North Kivu and Ituri, told IRIN.

Water and sanitation remain one of Ituri’s greatest needs and the British charity, Oxfam, is the only NGO involved in this line of work in Ituri. Its first objective is to work with IDPs and returnees. Six months ago Hema prevented Oxfam from helping the Lendu but since March 6 Oxfam has found it easier to enter all areas of Ituri. But needs remain significant, Oxfam’s Flory Balaga told IRIN in Bunia. He said that 200,000 people needed aid in the town.

“It would be suicidal if Oxfam left Ituri,” Balaga said.

As far as the health situation is concerned, Ituri lacks all functional health and medical facilities. It only has seven practising doctors in the area, a doctor with the humanitarian NGO Medair told IRIN. Again, health workers say their greatest need is security so they can access certain localities and help with the rehabilitation of medical facilities.

Medair has still not reached the western district town of Mambasa from Bunia because of perceived insecurity. So Medair is serving Mambasa from its North Kivu base of Beni.

Since March 6, Kanyamanda said, the situation had improved with people moving freely. However, pockets of danger remained such as the Ngiti towns of Gety and Songola, and the Lolwa-Mambasa road.

Kanyamanda said if Ituri’s medical facilities were to provide a minimum service at pre-war levels, it would need at least 15 doctors who are paid regular salaries. Those who have stayed throughout the war out of dedication to their jobs, get monthly stipends of between US $70 and $100 from Mediar.

Children have also suffered grossly in the four-year war in Ituri and have been prime candidates for recruitment into the various armies. Kassi Conda Ntare of Save the Children UK in Bunia said some children had joined fighting forces out of the need to protect their parents. In other cases parents have compelled their child to join the militias because they have been unable to give cows, money or other material goods.

“In the African context, to have a weapon is a sign of virility,” Ntare said. By February, the UPC had 6,000 children aged between eight and 17 years in its ranks. Lenti Ngiti leaders told SAVE UK they had about 5,000 child soldiers in their ranks. All child soldiers are also used as bodyguards, spies, cooks, guards and munitions porters.

SAVE UK is sensitising communities to disallow recruitment of the children. Girls (10%) have been recruited to serve as concubines of “officers” while boys serve as cools, spies and munitions porters.

“These horrors have affected these children,” he said.

IRIN
http://www.irinnews.org/webspecials/Ituri/default.asp

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