In the eastern Congo, a conflict involving several governments and four militias has displaced hundreds of thousands, yet many European countries refuse to get involved, writes Brian O'Connell
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AT LUSHEBERE FARM, six kilometres outside the commercial centre of Masisi, in North Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Muda Hikiamana wraps two rounds of cheese and forensically examines the $5 note I've just handed him. A commercial cheese-maker, he operates his business in the middle of a war zone, surrounded by four different militias and thousands of displaced persons.
Behind several disused buildings, Hikiamana opens up a large store room where hundreds of rounds of Goude cheese are stored on rusting shelves, ready for shipment all over central Africa. The factory has been here since 1974, and the land is leased from the local clergy, which takes a sizeable chunk of his profits in return. In the late 1990s the factory ceased production, following a large influx of Hutu fighters from Rwanda. Among these soldiers were the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and some of these militants would later form the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR).
The factory re-started in 2001 but last year there were temporary stoppages, when the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) advanced in the region. CNDP is a band of mainly Tutsi militia under the command of Laurent Nkunda that is sympathetic to the government in Rwanda. A former general of the Congo's armed forces, Nkunda has since rebelled against the government and in November he threatened to topple DRC President Joseph Kabila.
"My grandfather and my whole family worked in this factory," says Hikiamana. "Thankfully the machines have not been stolen following each round of fighting so we have been able to re-start. From here, the cheese goes to Goma, and then on to Rwanda, Kinshasa, Uganda and all over Africa." There are 10 employees working for Goude cheeses, producing 105 rolls a week, which generates revenues of $2,000 a month.
The town is currently under the control of the Congolese army (FARDC), the FDLR and various other local militias, while the UN's Monuc force also maintains a battalion on a hillside overlooking the area. I am waiting to interview General Edmo Gandi from the FDLR. Our driver points to a laneway where three rebels with AK-47s signal for us to shadow them down the narrow path. Before sitting down on a grass embankment, the general asks for a list of questions, most of which he answers in a roundabout way. His forces are fighting to be allowed back to Rwanda and their struggle goes back as far as the 1970s. "The Rwanda government's goal is to come and conquer North and East Kivu. They are interested only in diamonds and gold." However, there were two questions he wouldn't answer: who funds his rebel group, and why did he have to leave Rwanda in 1996?
I am here with Concern, the only NGO in Masisi. The team includes Reka Sztopa, Rachid Boumnijel and our translator Kangele Janvier, who were all returning to the town after being forced to evacuate during fighting in October. The route has become one of the most dangerous passages in North Kivu, with several armed groupings controlling parts of the mountain territory. The road is a glorified dirt track prone to landslides and large mud-filled craters. Drivers pay local rebels to keep guard while they sleep in their vehicles and set up small cooking stoves at the roadside, as they wait for the rains to stop and the roads to become more stable. This is the only way from the capital city Goma to some of the most destitute areas of North Kivu, which makes getting supplies to the estimated 13,500 displaced persons in Masisi so difficult.
The separation of territories is in constant flux, in one case demarcated by an adolescent in an oversized Eminem T-shirt with a Kalashnikov hung low over his shoulder, who demands two dollars to allow us to pass. We leave Goma at 7am and arrive in Masisi at 1.30pm - six and a half hours for a 78km journey. One local UN commander said it took him 22 hours the previous week. "If you can make it in one day, then it is good. In fact, if you make it full stop, it is good," he said.
OUR FIRST MORNING IN Goma is spent surveying the growing humanitarian crisis in the four internally displaced camps (IDPs), which are trying to accommodate the latest influx of people fleeing homes that are under attack. Most people arrived between August and December 2007, but in December, following fighting throughout the region, more people have arrived. The World Food Programme (WFP) last delivered provisions to this town in May; its scheduled October shipment wasn't able to get through. In Eastern DRC, "pendulum displacement" is common, a term used to describe more than one population movement from the same demographic.
Small settlements have set up temporary camps within a few hundred yards of the main camps, and this is worrying aid workers. Temporary camps are not registered by UNHCR and therefore not properly managed or supplied. Concern is here to finish handing out kitchen sets, blankets, tarpaulins, jerry cans, sleeping mats and soap, and to also oversee several livelihood programmes, including a cash for work and agriculture programme. Many of the people we meet in the camps are now afraid to return home. In the Bihiti camp, Nizeimana Bahati from Kalonge describes the CNDP forces arriving in his area: "They were taking children into the army by force and others were being killed. To get a solution to this problem is to chase General Nkunda [the leader of the CNDP] out of Kalonge."
Bangamwabo Semasaka, from an area called Busimba, says he ran away twice in the past year, most recently a few weeks ago, when the CNDP attacked his village. "We were running away and crossed the river. Some of the adults went across first and then we intended to come back for the children. A hand grenade was thrown at them and two of my children, aged 11 and seven, were killed. Now I go to the roads to beg and try and get some money and feed my family that are left."
We ask to take Semasaka's photo inside his makeshift home. As the photographer approaches, one of the children starts crying as the camera is being removed. "I'm dying, I'm dying. My God protect me, he's going to shoot me," she shouts, clinging to her father.
Walking down the hill jammed with muddied tents, we came across Sanzumuhire Amani in a US Aid tent, sleeping on a bed of leaves. He tells us his children sleep in a school and the rest of his family sleeps in the tent. He came from Butari, which is a village near Masisi. "I arrived here one month ago," he says. "The war is a catastrophe. We were living in the bushes. The Pareco [an armed pro-government militia] said we were living in a CNDP area and accused us of living with the enemy so they attacked us. When the Hutu came from Rwanda they were refugees and they won't leave this land because we have riches here."
Even in the designated areas there is no guarantee of safety. Some of these "temporary" camps have been in existence for more than a year, and new groups arriving creates tension. Camps near Goma reported killings in the days before I arrived, which have led to the inhabitants needing to relocate. Masisi itself has been attacked four times in the past eight months and the CNDP has taken up positions in surrounding hills. On our first night, a volley of gunfire went off directly outside our compound, followed by screams from heavy-handed beatings at the nearby police station.
The Congolese Army (FARDC) appears to have little discipline, rank or order, and soldiers are frequently drunk. I noticed several instances where soldiers were forcing locals to carry produce for them, threatening to beat them with belts if they refused.
What's also alarming is the carefree intermingling of FARDC and FDLR soldiers, both of which have gone to great pains to claim independence from each other. The Congolese government is adamant that it is not supporting the rebel group and is doing its best to quell the conflict. However, recent reports presented to the UN clearly demonstrate that the Rwandan and Congolese authorities are supporting opposite sides of the conflict.
The eastern DRC situation has become a cross-border proxy war with a high humanitarian cost, which the international community has tip-toed around. UN figures show that since December 2006 some 834,569 in North Kivu have been displaced, or about one in four people living in the province. Of these, 362,823 fled their homes between September and November 2008 alone.
Meanwhile, European leaders argue over how best to respond to the situation. An EU force has been called for, but several countries don't see this as workable. France won't commit any soldiers because of its past involvement in Rwanda. Belgium, which left the Congolese with a failed colonial legacy, has committed 500 troops to any EU initiative. The current UN force of 17,000 is hugely inadequate for a country the size of Europe. The additional 3,000 soldiers committed to strengthen the force won't arrive until later this year. By that stage, the humanitarian and military situation in towns such as Masisi will inevitably have claimed more lives, adding further despair to an already hopeless situation. Back in a classroom adjacent to the Bihiti camp, three men volunteer to tell us their stories. They have slept here, on top of clumps of straw and strips of tree bark, since arriving a week earlier. None of them has eaten in two days.
Habanabakize Mburame stares at the floor, tracing circles in the dust with his finger as he recalls the escape from his village. "Some of us were strong and could run, others stayed and were killed. My grandfather was killed because he had no strength to run. This is what is happening in this area. But nobody is listening. And we have stopped shouting."