Army Urged to Tackle Impunity
There have been some prosecutions, but many crimes go unpunished.
Tuesday, 1 September, 2009
Army Urged to Tackle Impunity
There have been some prosecutions, but many crimes go unpunished.
Tuesday, 1 September, 2009
On July 27, a military court found Colonel Ndayambaje Nyangara Kipanga guilty of raping three young women in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to pay 5,000 US dollars to each of the victims. Kipanga, however, was not in court when the verdict was handed down as he had escaped from prison on May 9, two days after his arrest.
Nonetheless, the trial represents one of the few times that such a high-ranking officer in the DRC has been convicted.
Kipanga was also accused of offering women to two men serving beneath him.
One of these military officers – Major Njoloko Lusungu – has now been sentenced to ten years in prison for rape. The other man was acquitted.
Prior to joining the Congolese armed forces, known by the French acronym FARDC, Kipanga was a member of the National Congress for the Defence of the People, CNDP, a rebel militia that had previously waged war against the government.
When the CNDP split at the beginning of 2009, many former rebel fighters were integrated into the military.
Rambo, a sergeant in the Congolese armed forces, says that a lack of money pushes many soldiers into criminal activities.
“I have not been paid for five months. How can I live with my wife and children?” he said. “Nobody can withstand the conditions in which we live. If we do not [loot] civilians, then we have no way to live. Our leaders know this and they tolerate us, knowing that they cannot punish us because they give us nothing.”
Juliane Kippenberg, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, HRW, who recently drafted a report on abuses in the Congolese military, says the issue of impunity is being addressed with but there is still a long way to go.
“A few years ago, there were practically no prosecutions of anyone at all,” she said. “Now prosecutions are taking place relatively regularly, although this is nowhere near the number of crimes committed and top-level officers are still not being prosecuted.”
Kippenberg says that the conviction of Kipanga was an exception, and the fact that he escaped points to other weaknesses in the Congolese justice system that need to be addressed.
Kippenberg is critical of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, MONUC, for failing to do enough to protect civilians from sexual violence by the armed forces.
“MONUC has not put enough pressure on the military to end human rights abuses within its ranks,” she said. “If the army still has officers that are committing abuses, MONUC should stop cooperating.”
For its part, MONUC says that it has made the fight against impunity in the armed forces a priority.
“In the past, higher-ranking officers have never been brought to justice for sexual violence,” Leila Zerrougui, deputy special representative at MONUC, told IWPR. “We must make it clear that the will is there to start bringing these men to justice. There must be a zero-tolerance policy towards impunity.”
At the beginning of April, MONUC unveiled a comprehensive strategy for combating sexual violence in the DRC.
Key aims include making military personnel more accountable for crimes and introducing a better vetting mechanism for accepting people into the armed forces.
The strategy has so far only been rolled out to North and South Kivu provinces and is already starting to show some signs of success. Kipanga's prosecution was carried out under pressure from MONUC. A further 20 trials of military abuses are due to take place in September, throughout North and South Kivu.
Zerrougui says that 6,433 incidents of sexual violence have been reported across the DRC over the past six months, half of them in the Kivu provinces, with 2,075 coming from North Kivu alone.
“Since the east of the country is where most of the cases have been coming from, this is where we have been concentrating our efforts,” said Zerrougui.
She would like to see the strategy rolled out to other provinces in the DRC, too, but this could only be done if donors are ready to sponsor its wider implementation.
Kippenberg, from HRW, welcomed the far-reaching nature of MONUC's strategy, but remains concerned that, without adequate funding, it may not be able to meet all of its objectives.
“If MONUC'S strategy is properly implemented, it will definitely help,” she said. “But this will require a lot of funding and a lot of political will, and I'm not sure that either is there.”
In May, a UN Security Council delegation visited Kinshasa to urge President Joseph Kabila's government to take more of a stand against abuses in the military.
The delegation presented Kabila with a list containing the names of five leaders of the FARDC, who they accuse of carrying out acts of sexual violence.
They asked Kabila to take necessary action to bring these officers to justice, but HRW says that nothing has so far been done.
The Congolese government has responded to criticism from HRW by insisting that it maintains a zero-tolerance policy towards those who commit human rights abuses.
“In terms of robbery, rape and violations of human rights, military personnel, whatever their rank, will be arrested and brought to justice,” said Colonel Leon Richard Kasongo, spokesman for FARDC.
The spokesman recognised that the integration of former CNDP rebels into the military could have caused some problems, but insisted that such abuses remain isolated events.
“Today we have an army consisting of elements that come from all sides,” said Kasongo. “Not everyone who joins the army knows the military regulations. But, once integrated, they are able to internalise the core values of the army. Perhaps one or two officers may commit a particular act, but these are not systematic abuses.”
There are signs that the government is prepared to take a tougher stand against soldiers who step out of line, but HRW is worried that such enthusiasm to defy critics could lead to miscarriages of justice.
On July 8, Sergeant Eric Ndagijimana, a low-ranking officer, was arrested on suspicion of raping a pregnant woman in South Kivu.
Three days later, at a high-profile trial than took place in the town of Wanga, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Unusually, and despite Ndagijimana's relatively low rank, the trial was held in public. It was widely advertised and many senior military commanders from the surrounding region were invited to attend.
“This trial, which happened in a very short time, is a worrying development,” said Kippenberg. “It was quickly organised by the army to show that things are being done.”
MONUC has raised similar concerns about the trial, and was on the ground to make sure that everything happened according to due process.
“Our main concern was that the trial happened very fast, making it difficult for the accused to prepare an adequate defence,” said Zerrougui. “However, the accused did benefit from access to a lawyer and does not appear to have been ill-treated.”
Zerrougui also fears for the safety of the victim, since the trial was conducted in public and she was unable to conceal her identity while giving testimony.
Meanwhile, in the Kivu provinces, abuses by soldiers are continuing.
Andre Kasereka, a hotel owner in Kirumba, 180 kilometres from the North Kivu capital of Goma, complained, “Officers come here and take rooms. They pay for the first week and then they stay up to six months, before leaving without honouring their invoice.”
Germain Kambale, owner of a shop in Kanyabayonga, 155 km north of Goma, says that soldiers in the village repeatedly loot property. “They begin by taking what they need and say that you should simply register for a debt,” he said. “But such debts are never paid.”
Taylor Toeka Kakala is an IWPR-trained journalist. Blake Evans-Pritchard is IWPR’s Africa editor.
