Officers Admit Ignorance of Rules of War

When Isaac Muhindo was accused of stealing 2,000 US dollars from a local shop, it was the beginning of a two-month ordeal at the hands of the military.



“I was detained in a very dark and humid room and tortured to make me confess things,” said Muhindo who was relieved when he was eventually sent to Goma’s grim central prison then freed due to lack of evidence.



“It was only when my health was deteriorating that I was transferred to the prison.”



Muhindo is one of many residents of eastern Congo’s North Kivu province who alleges mistreatment by the country’s army – the Forces Armées de la Republic Democratic du Congo, FARDC.



Human rights groups accuse the army of killings, arbitrary arrests, detention, rape and looting. The United Nations Mission in Congo, MONUC, reported that up to 40 per cent of all violations recorded by its human rights division in late 2006 were carried out by FARDC soldiers. They included summary executions and beatings.



“The army isn’t as bad as the armed groups but there are still lots of cases of sexual violence, not mass rapes but more by individual soldiers,” said Andrew Philip, Congo researcher at Amnesty International. “And there are stories of girls taken to military camps and kept there.



“In the fighting at the end of last year, there was use of civilians as labourers, including children, to transport munitions.”



Attempts are now being made to tackle the problem. Last month, officers from North Kivu’s 8th military region were given human rights training under a European programme to curb army abuses against civilians.



Around 25 officers from North Kivu gathered in the provincial capital Goma for the course on respecting the rules of war and human rights law, which organisers say are often ignored in this country scarred by years of conflict.



“The soldiers of the FARDC are among the biggest abusers in Congo,” said Marc Dubois, coordinator of the Restauration de la Justice à l'Est de la République Démocratique du Congo, Rejusco, which organised the three-day training. Rejusco is financed by the European Commission, the United Kingdom, Belgium and the Netherlands and is tasked with improving the judiciary in the east of the country.



Course topics included the use of child soldiers in armed conflicts and legislation on sexual violence passed in 2006 intended to increase the number of prosecutions for rape, which is rampant in Congo.



Dubois revealed that a number of the officers were not aware that the rules of war prohibited the looting of villages and the rape of civilians.



“Some of them were aware of the laws while others just discovered the rules during the seminar,” said Dubois. “But this was not surprising to us. Even magistrates sometimes don’t know the law.”



One battalion commander from the 8th military region who attended the training told IWPR that the majority of soldiers – and their leaders – are unaware of laws intended to protect civilians caught up in conflicts.



“Things have been done on the battlefield because of the lack of knowledge of the commanders,” he said. “Here we learned what should and shouldn’t be done.”



Lawyer Didie Kondani who conducted the training told IWPR she hopes it will improve relations between the army and civilians and deter soldiers from committing further crimes. “Knowledge is always important,” said Kondani.



Philip applauds efforts to better train FARDC officers but says human rights courses should be available to all ranks. He also calls on those in the international community who are offering training to better coordinate their approach.



“One of the recommendations we've made is that all ranks should receive this training systematically, not just officers or the selected few,” he said.



“MONUC also does this kind of training, but I have the impression that it is piecemeal and a bit ad hoc. More consistency, coordination and systematisation are needed.”



One of the goals of the Rejusco course is to improve relations between the army and civilians which are unsurprisingly very poor. “They don’t trust the army,” said Dubois. “It is quite the opposite. They are very afraid of the FARDC. There is no trust between inhabitants of this area and the army.”



Father-of-two Luc Mburano, 29, was arrested by North Kivu’s notorious T2 military intelligence service after returning from Uganda where he’d gone to purchase a Jeep for his employer. He said he was forced to bribe his way out of this dangerous situation. “I lost everything. My watch, two mobile phones, some cash and other small things I had for my wife,” said Mburano. “But it was the only way to avoid spending the night in the T2 unit.”



Amnesty has highlighted T2 as a chronic abuser of civilians, and Philip said stories of “disrespect for basic human rights” and “torture in detention” by T2 officials is common.



Though abuse is widespread across all branches of FARDC, Amnesty is particularly concerned by Congo’s Republican Guard, an elite group of soldiers responsible for the safety of President Joseph Kabila. Around 12,000-16,000 Republican Guard soldiers are deployed around the country and answer only to Kabila. Well armed and well trained, the human rights group accuses them of targeting civilians and executing opposition supporters.



Military courts do function in Congo and soldiers are sometimes held accountable for their actions. “There are soldiers in prison on accusations of rape and so forth, but it is not consistent,” said Philip. “High profile trials have a lot of political interference and military courts continue to try civilians.”



Dubois said course organisers will follow up with the officers who participated in the March training, ensuring they have spread the word among their soldiers. Two further sessions are planned for FARDC officers in Bukavu in South Kivu and Bunia in Ituri.



Taylor Toeka Kakala is an IWPR contributor in Goma. Lisa Clifford is an international justice reporter in The Hague.