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Motivation is a funny thing.

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It is the driver behind the work that we do that can be so imperceptibly lost, and unexpectedly rediscovered in the most unlikely of places.

One such place was at a recent conference, where one of our workshops, entitled “So You Want to ‘Save’ Africa?”, was presented by a pair of well-intentioned facilitators., unaffiliated with but nonetheless inspired by AfricaCanada.org.

A member of our team was present at the workshop. The session itself began well, but quickly changed into a presentation that featured problematic statements, platitudes, and dangerous generalizations surrounding ethical advocacy.

Despite good intentions, the original workshop was distorted to a point where the essential message was overshadowed. However, the unexpected occurred: the importance of speaking out about ‘true’ ethical advocacy was made blatantly apparent.

The motivation for why we do what we do so fervently, was found.

Below is an e-mail that AfricaCanada.org sent to one of the presenters. To respect privacy we have deleted names and slightly changed some details.

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Dear G,

It was quite the experience sitting in the audience, hearing and seeing the workshop presented in a very different context. Let me begin by commending you and your co-presenter, once again, on wanting to raise awareness about the (very complicated, and very convoluted) ethics behind international advocacy. I also appreciate that you incorporated an aspect of your own experiences in Togo.

Ethical Advocacy is a field that we at AfricaCanada.org are extremely passionate about, and one in which we are continually learning. Having presented “So You Want To ‘Save’ Africa?” many times, it has grown to be a message that is very important to me, and a message I personally believe in, in the strongest terms. Seeing you and your co-presenter present the workshop, and hearing the responses from the conference delegates, really made this passion apparent to me, and I would like to thank you for that.

I understand the difficulties that time constraints placed on the manner in which the workshop was presented. We’ve had occasions where we’ve had to cut down the workshop by more than half in the past! That being said, there are some issues of integrity, language, accuracy and accountability to be discussed.

What message does it send when:

On one hand: You are trying to convey the fact that Africa is not an homogenous entity, but one with diverse countries, each with their own complex histories, politics, cultures and challenges.

On the other: You do not have one case study in your workshop, and the only glimpse we have of an African country is a few minutes of children singing in Togo? (without a sense of Togo’s context)

On one hand: You are aware of how charity campaigns clearly create an “us” and “them” dichotomy.

On the other: Both presenters continually use terms like “those issues”, “them”, “those people”, and “in Africa”, without a specific level of detail?

On one hand: You want to debunk the myth that only boys are soldiers and girls are often stereotypically reduced  to “sex slaves”.

On the other: You present a statistic (Actually, 20% of females are armed combatants in Africa, etc.), without any context. 20% of females where? “In Africa?” What army? In what country? And what conflict? What is the context of that armed conflict? Are you suggesting that there is armed conflict everywhere in Africa?

Time constraints should never be a reason to present oversimplified and potentially misleading information. Especially at a platform as public and important as the conference that we were all fortunate enough to attend. As workshop facilitators, you have a responsibility to present a message that is informative, culturally sensitive, nuanced, balanced and accurate to your audience.

I understand that you wouldn’t dream of presenting misleading statistics intentionally, (irresponsible campaigns do this all the time…that’s why the workshop was created). Many people in the audience perhaps did not notice/were not bothered by this. However, all I am trying to draw your attention to is that something as small as language could cause serious offence to someone seated in your audience who had a fair bit of knowledge about certain aspects of what you are presenting on. None of us are experts, that is why we included a very important disclaimer at the beginning of the workshop.

I would love to continue and deepen our conversation about the workshop, as well as all that we do with AfricaCanada.org. Have a squizz through our website, (and our blog!), to get a feel for who we are. I’d also like a copy of your presentation, as is, and I’ll send you the notes I made about specific aspects. Please do not be discouraged! As I said earlier, I would love it if you continued to spread this very important message wherever you can. Let’s just iron out a few things, learn from each other, and make sure we’re on the same page!

Speak soon!

All the best.

Too Soon To Cheer For “Intervention Brigade”

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When the M23 rebels marched into the city Goma in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo last year, many were shocked that the UN peacekeeping force (MONUSCO) just stood by and watched. So far, UN peacekeeping missions were essentially defensive and not allowed to directly interfere. This changed yesterday, when the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2098.

This resolution established the “Intervention Brigade” as part of the existing MONUSCO peacekeeping efforts. The force will be made up of slightly more than 3,000 troops with the task of “neutralizing armed groups, reducing the threat they posed to State authority and civilian security and making space for stabilization activities.” The majority of troops contributions will come from Tanzania, South Africa, Malawi and Mozambique. The Intervention Brigade is said to launch in July of this year.

The decision to respond with an offensive force for the first time in UN peacekeeping history comes after calls for action from the African Union, specifically from countries in the Great Lakes Region. The situation in the DRC is highly complex, partially also because it involves a multitude of actors, such as the M23, FDLR and other rebel groups.

Past efforts – locally and internationally – to stabilize the region have failed. The responses on social media platforms have generally been very positive towards the Intervention Brigade. There is definitely potential in sending this offensive force to the DRC. However, if one expects that this measure would finally solve the crisis, disappointment will likely follow soon.

Furthermore, there are numerous concerns connected with the deployment of an offensive UN peacekeeping mission. For example, Refugees International estimates that the number of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) will increase and further pressurize the already overburdened humanitarian network dealing with the forced migration crisis in the DRC.

Some crucial concerns have also been addressed by members of the UN Security Council, where the resolution was passed unanimously.

“Despite the unanimous approval, several speakers expressed reservations about the text, with Guatemala’s representative questioning Council actions that could involve the United Nations in “peace-enforcement” activities.  Such a move might compromise the neutrality and impartiality so essential to peacekeeping work, he cautioned.  Indeed, the Organization should always be seen as an “honest broker”, he said, adding that, while he understood the logic behind the proposed deployment, he would have preferred the brigade to be a self-standing unit with specific duties distinguishable from those of MONUSCO’s other brigades.

Echoing the warning that MONUSCO now risked indirect conversion into a peace-enforcement mission, Argentina’s representative said that although the text stated clearly that the brigade would not set a precedent, the idea of “enforcing peace rather than keeping it” required deep reflection, certainly more than a week of negotiations.  Negotiations on the text had not been as broad as Argentina would have hoped, she said, adding that the resolution should have included a broader complement of troop contributors so that they could be better apprised of all the new brigade’s activities. [emphasis added]”

AfricaCanada.org definitely sees potential for this Intervention Brigade to be part of a stabilizing process. However, it is too early to praise or endorse this step as positive, since it remains to be seen what effects this will have on the local population and the dynamics of this multifaceted conflict situation.

Returning from the LRA

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“The international community appears to be more interested in the infamous Kony and his LRA outfit than in their many victims in CAR and other countries in the region. The LRA threat will hopefully diminish and eventually disappear – with Kony and other LRA leaders brought to justice – but the victims will remain.” – Godfrey Byaruhanga, Amnesty International Central Africa Researcher in a 2012 report.

It is believed that in the coming months the numbers of those leaving the LRA will steadily increase. It is time to look at some of the challenges that come with reintegrating into society.

Recently, Invisible Children sent out an update to its subscribers with the following headline “Top LRA commander killed in combat.” Finding news sources that confirm this was an unexpectedly difficult task. However, not because it is not true, but because in large the media seems to take little interest in this recent development as our television screens focus on efforts to regain control in Mali.

A Ugandan newspaper does report on the death of Binani – according to them “Kony’s chief bodyguard.” While that sounds essentially different from “Top LRA commander”, it is clear that Binani had been at the centre of LRA structure. The source further reports that in the last 6 months, 200 women and children had been freed from the LRA. In addition, the hopes are high that the death of the commander will lead to more people leaving the LRA.

With this in mind, we want to delve a little into some aspects of the process of reintegration into society of those that had been abducted, because the story does not end when they return home…

The 2000 Amnesty Act and “Justice”

While the LRA is now mostly in the Central African Republic (CAR), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), it is still worthwhile to look at Ugandan legislation, because many of the rebels have been abducted within Uganda as children.

“Amnesty” means a pardon, forgiveness, exemption or discharge from criminal prosecution or any other form of punishment by the State” – Ugandan Amnesty Act, 2000

In an effort to end the atrocities, the Ugandan government enacted Amnesty in 2000. This basically meant that any LRA rebel would be forgiven by the State, so long as they turned themselves in and renounced rebellion. The idea behind this was that if the rebels knew that they had no punishment to fear, they would return to society. So Amnesty was supposed to bring peace.

And it proved successful. This statement by the Enough Project laments that the Act has not been renewed after it expired in May 2012. Roughly 26,000 rebels from over 25 different armed groups had received the Certificate of Amnesty.

But as things usually go there is a ‘however’… Many Ugandans were not satisfied with the Amnesty Act. Grace Acan, who had talked about this matter at an event in the Liu Institute in UBC Vancouver, has denied the government’s amnesty offer. As a former LRA abductee, she finds that it is not her that needs to be granted forgiveness, but the government, for failing to protect her and many others who were then children.

The UN has also released a report on the impacts of the Amnesty Act. While recognizing a state’s sovereign right to grant amnesty, they are critical of the long-term impacts of such a policy. “Experience has shown that a culture of impunity and a legacy of past crimes that go unaddressed are likely to undermine a lasting peace.”

Reintegration into the military

After having been pardoned by the government, some former LRA members choose to become part of the army and help track down those who used to be their comrades, as the UN organization IRIN reports. This may sound like a good plan from a military perspective, but there are grave concerns with this strategy. The above article points out the negative effect this can have on LRA victims. It specifically mentions a woman that recognizes the man who raped her among those that had been pardoned.

The role of the International Criminal Court

It is not just Ugandan law that has failed to provide the justice that people seek – some regard the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as even more controversial.

The ICC has indicted 5 of the LRA’s top commanders (the first indictments ever of this organization). Joseph Kony, Vincent Otti, Dominic Ongwen and Okot Odhiambo are all on the list (Raska Lukwiya deceased in 2006). These indictments were a wake-up call to the international community and raised hopes locally that the problem could soon come to an end.

Of course things are more complicated than that…

The ICC decisions made the LRA less willing to have peace talks. It was more difficult to bring the LRA to the negotiation table, since they had little incentive to leave their hiding places. This has attracted critiques, stating that the ICC indictments would interfere with local efforts. Indeed, the ICC contradicts the Amnesty efforts of the Ugandan government. On the other hand, as we saw earlier, that system is also problematic. There is also the argument that the LRA had more than enough time to come to a peace agreement and chose not to.

While institutions struggle to find a way to bring justice, civil society fights for reconciliation.

Civilian Efforts

Regardless of the justice system, those who return from the LRA or other armed groups often face other challenges or strong stigmas upon returning home. Many grassroots and civilian organizations have formed. We would like to highlight one group who we are partnering with.

The Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN)

The WAN is a local grassroots organization composed of several advocacy groups in Uganda. These women support each other in many ways: together they raise the money for their children’s school fees, they approach the government with a unified voice and they support each other with everyday challenges of post-conflict northern Uganda.

Being in a network of others that have had same or similar experiences has helped many of the women to process their time in the LRA. Many of them also face the same daily challenges – such as illiteracy, if they were abducted before receiving an education.

In the end justice remains a vague and difficult concept. The international community and the Ugandan government have been contradictory in their approaches. However, more recent developments show that joint efforts are on their way.

And as the Women’s Advocacy Network initiative (and many others) shows, there is progress. And there is hope.

Rwanda and the M23: New Year, New Challenges

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Recently, Rwanda was able to secure a seat on the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member.  This appointment has been met with some controversial reactions, especially in the wake of the recent violence in the eastern region of DR Congo, involving the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group, as well as the recent UN decision to slap sanctions on them.

Eastern DR Congo was embroiled in conflict in the past two months when the rebel group M23 seized Goma, the capital of the North Kivu region.  According to a recent UN report, the Rwandan government is accused of providing  the rebel group with considerable military support , as well as indirect support through medical care, and weapons during the November 2012 conflict. Despite being aware of the atrocious human rights record of the M23 rebel group, the Rwandan government’s assumed continued support has significantly damaged their reputation with the international community.  The Rwandan government has denied these allegations despite the widespread acceptance of these claims by analysts and experts on the region.

The international community, specifically the U.S., has also come under criticism for not only approving Rwanda’s appointment, but also because of the Obama administration’s willingness to turn a blind eye to Rwanda’s involvement in the conflict, a decision which many blame on the residual guilt of the Rwandan genocide. One of the main Kagame’s main defenders within the Obama foreign policy team is UN Ambassador Susan Rice, who was a senior member of the State Department’s Africa team both during the Rwandan genocide and the height of the Congo conflicts.

Rwanda’s support for the M23 – a rebel group that stems from a series of demobilized armed groups supported and allied with the current Rwandan leadership during the First and Second Congo Wars – can be be chalked up to several factors. Although the motives of the Kagame government are difficult to discern, academics and Great Lakes Region-watchers have presented a few theories. Perhaps, it’s due to Kigali’s economic interests in areas such as mining resources that necessitate propping up a rebel group like M23, or national security imperatives. Some have attributed Rwanda’s recent economic growth on the export of minerals such as Coltan, which are curiously found in the Eastern Congo but not Rwanda itself. Also, since the FDLR -some of whose leaders were involved in the 1994 genocide- are still based in the eastern DR Congo, the region can be seen as a threat to Rwanda’s stability where forces who seek to destabilize the country can congregate. The continued existence of M23, who seeks to undermine groups like FDLR, can thus be seen as Kigali to be politically advantageous. That is, only if the Rwandan government is willing to ignore the rebel group’s crimes against humanity.

With the recent peace talks in Kampala between the M23 rebels and the Congolese government progress, the UN security council has also put an arms embargo on the two rebel groups in the Eastern DR Congo, the M23 and FDLR on new year’s eve. () Despite these targeted sanctions, many fear that such a measure will prove inadequate in weakening the rebel groups and securing peace.  UN experts believe that as long as the M23 are able to receive external support, they will continue to pose a threat to Congolese stability. Many have called on the US to take stricter measures, such as threatening to cut aid from Rwanda in order to get Kagame to cut off support to the rebels. Perhaps, the suggestion that donors tie aid to Rwanda on the conditioned success of the peace talks should be taken into consideration. Considering that Rwanda is one of the top countries to receive military and development aid from the US government, international pressure on Kigali to reign in their support for groups like the M23 that are destabilizing the DR Congo may prove to be enormously beneficial.

As Rwanda gains more clout on the international stage through its appointment on the UN security council, we must still keep in consideration its stake and human rights record in the DR Congo. All in all, the New Year ushers in a newer and more volatile set of challenges for the Congolese government and stability in DRC, which not only call for the support and the involvement of the regional leaders, but also for the support of the international community.

Women & Justice – A night of inspiration, complexity, and solidarity.

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“As you can see, there are more questions than answers in this respect, but thinking about the different ways in which women find themselves within conflicts will then allow us form analyses that are not based on dichotomies, but that tackle complexity, particularities, and possibilities” – Eliana Pinto Velasquez

Last Thursday, November 29, 2012 AfricaCanada.org hosted “Women & Justice”, a cross-cultural discussion on the role of women in building peace and searching for justice and reconciliation.

In particular, the night was made by the contributions of our three panelists:

Juliane Okot Bitek, an award-winning writer and scholar at the Liu Institute for Global Issues who works with Dr. Erin Baines and the Women’s Advocacy Network on using stories of survivors of captivity in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to remember and heal.

Veronica Fynn has earned a BSc (Ghana), BA (UBC), MPH (Nottingham), LLM (York), and is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, teaching public health law. As the founder of EV Research Inc. and the Journal of Internal Displacement, she has authored several publications. Veronica’s blog on the rights of women in war can be found here.

Eliana Pinto Velasquez is a social worker and holds a Master in Gender studies from the National University of Colombia. She is a researcher in the University Initiative Program for Peace and Co-existence at the same University. She works with the University Javeriana in a project about access to justice of indigenous women and peasants in Colombia and Guatemala. She worked in the area of land and conflict in the Historical Memory Group of the National Commission for Reparation and Reconciliation.

Each panelist had thoughtful perspectives to share on the struggles of women in the different contexts of Colombia, Liberia and Uganda.

Social Work – Colombia

Eliana shared her research on the experiences of women and girls demobilized from the diverse armed actors in Colombia’s civil conflict such as the ELN and FARC guerrillas and the paramilitaries or the AUC under the auspices of The Colombian Institute for Colombian Welfare (El Insituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familial) programs.

Pertinent points were how in Colombia a number of forced combatants or ‘child soldiers’, are not forcibly recruited. Eliana also emphasized reintegration into civilian life for women, particularly those who became mothers during their time with illegal armed groups. For demobilized women and girls, Eliana said, the violence they experience within the armed group is gendered, evidenced by how armed groups would regulate romantic relationships and dress codes within communities in addition to practicing forced abortions and sterilizations for women within armed groups. Moreover, the experience of civil integration for females is also marked by gender as the program focuses on, for example, making sure that women “are proper mothers”.

A very interesting point surrounding the ‘voluntary’ nature of female recruitment in Colombia was how, according to Eliana, women often took up arms in order to create a space of agency in their lives. Often, women who join armed groups are fleeing social exclusion, poverty, or intra-familiar violence, and by becoming a part of an armed group they can show that as women they can not only manage life, but also be agents of death.

A highlight of Eliana’s presentation was how -through quotations- she integrated the voices of 6 women she had personally worked with who had been demobilized from Colombia’s largest insurgent group, the FARC, ending with a note from a woman from the Caribbean coast of Colombia:

“The transitional process is not just a judicial one, it is a process of social and political reorganization, and the reconstruction of the personal, familial, and communitarian institutions for women”

Law – Liberia

Veronica, for her part, spoke of the challenges of indigenous Liberian women in the post-conflict context, particularly focusing on the challenges of seeking justice for victims of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) from a judicial point of view.

In 2005, Liberia established its first criminal rape law. However, there are struggles of applying this law with respect to the customary law that exists in Liberia as well as the corruption within the legal system. Veronica provided specific examples of perpetrators during the war who had yet to be brought to justice.

Veronica also touched on the extremely problematic nature of unequal power relationships within international development projects and social justice activism in general. She poignantly and frankly critiqued uncritical Western ‘saviour’ complexes, as well as spoke of the complexities of her own positionality with respect to her work, as she is both a survivor of Liberia’s conflict but at the same time enjoying the privilege of graduate education at a Western institution.

Building on the theme of supporting grassroots women’s groups, Veronica shared the courageous work of three local grassroots women’s NGOs in Liberia working to reduce the extremely high levels of impunity for SGBV crimes.

Storytelling – Uganda

Juliane Okot Bitek spoke of the power of storytelling. Juliane spoke of her work trying to rebuild the stories of female survivors of captivity in the LRA and how she has worked along with Dr. Erin Baines to help the women tell their stories.

Juliane made clear the immense difficulty with respect to ethics of trying to create artistic expressions which reveal truth without defining it, and the fragile nature of dealing with the stories of others.

Since many of the stories she works with are stories of suffering, she also spoke of the second-hand trauma/anxiety that can come with reading such powerful, vivid, and at times disturbing accounts from survivors of their experiences in the LRA. Juliane then read an eloquent piece of writing that worked with strong and original symbols and metaphors to characterized one such experience.

The night did raise more questions than answers and more complex issues than an hour and a half could do justice to.

The diverse approaches – through law, through storytelling, through grassroots initiatives and much more – show that there is not one way to go about these challenges. Each of them is essential in processing the past and thus creating a hopefully better future. In all of these places, during and after the war, there was great pain and injustice. With even greater courage and resilience women struggle with the ongoing fight for reconciliation, justice and peace.

~
The Women’s Advocacy Network (WAN) in northern Uganda has displayed great courage and agency, despite tremendous challenges. They were our inspiration to host this event. They created a mutual support network, fight for support from the government and make their voices heard.  For more information on these grassroots initiatives please see some of our earlier posts.

Finding the Right Language…

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When talking about delicate issues, there is always the difficulty of finding the right way to frame one’s message. Too boring? Too sensationalist? And is there a way to do justice to what one wants to say and still maintain the reader’s attention?

You tell me…

The award-winning writer Juliane Okot Bitek and the women’s advocate Grace Acan have set themselves a challenging task: They composed a book of stories, poetry and reflection on justice in and after the war in Northern Uganda. All that under the humble of “Stories from the Dry Season.”

Out there are already too many narratives that victimize, criminalize, disregard the agency of locals, simplify, … the list is long. And why concentrate on the bad examples, when there are good ones to turn to?

On October 2nd, Julie, Grace and Kalina Kojwang held a reading of some already finished pieces. The audience was positively surprised by what they heard – an alternative narrative.

So how did they do it? (in a nutshell)

Firstly, they provided a balance in the stories they chose to share. They did speak of the hardships and difficulties of abduction, but they also provided us with heartfelt child memories that made the audience laugh. This was not to ridicule the serious matters, but to provide a more well-rounded understanding of their lives and thus counter the victimizing tendency.

Secondly, some pieces were presented in Luo to acknowledge cultural diversity and beauty. Short summaries of the contents were provided for the audience.

Thirdly, the danger of a single-narrative was avoided by collecting stories from different people. In the news, justice and war might be covered within a couple of articles, in reality though, there is multitude of stories.

So, did they find the right language?

This question assumes that there is a “right” language – and if there was, the search would probably not be that difficult. However, these artists have understood that they cannot create one truth about justice and war in Northern Uganda. But by collecting diverse insights, they have found the right framework.

Several members of the audience expressed their deepest admiration at the end. We have a good book to look forward to.

Africa-Canada will keep you posted on how it “Stories From the Dry Season” progresses.

 

Harper’s visit to the DRC – A chance (foregone)?

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Today, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be in Kinshasa,  the capitol of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for meeting of the International Organization of La Francophonie.

Harper’s visit to the DRC has been marked with controversy, given the DRC’s troubling human rights situation, and Canada’s recent silence on this point.

Harper, for his part, has committed to meeting with civil society and opposition leaders to “send a signal” to Congolese President Joseph Kabila that Canada is paying close attention to the situation of human rights and democracy in the region. The Prime Minister’s argues that through engaging and not isolating the DRC, he is seeking to promote the Francophonie values of freedom, human rights, brotherhood, and equality.

Although we applaud the Prime Minister’s efforts to deal with the DRC and we are delighted to see the DRC receiving some much attention, we believe these claims needs some critical analysis and contextualizing.

Trade – Mining Investments

Jamie Kneen of Mining Watch Canada points out that Canada’s Corporate Social Responsibility policy is named “Building the Canadian Advantage.” While interstate cooperation is often (if not always) driven by national interest, the name of this project suggests little hope for mutual benefit. As we have blogged about before, CSR is more about promoting a positive brand for the Canadian extractive sector, than about actually engaging in more ethical and sustainable practices.

As ACAC has written in our 2009 report, Canada is, after South Africa, the largest mining investor in the Congo. Although the armed conflict in the East of the country is a political and social conflict, mining resources have been used to fund armed groups and as documented in the same ACAC report, the UN has alleged that Canadian mining companies have been implicated in turning a blind eye to human rights abuses on more than one occasion.

Development

Canada’s new Minister for International Co-Operation, who is also the head of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Mr. Julian Fantino, will be joining the Prime Minister’s delegation to the summit.

Despite Canada’s commitment to promoting development in the DRC mentioned on the eve of Harper’s visit, that Canada extracts a sizable amount of the Congo’s natural resource wealth, and that the DRC is among the poorest and least-developed countries in the world, the DRC actually did not make it onto CIDA’s (Canadian International Development Agency) list of 20 ‘focus’ countries, which receive 80% of Canada’s bilateral aid.

However, to his credit, the Prime Minister did today emphasize CIDA’s support for The Fight Against Impunity and Support to Survivors of Sexual Violence Project. Whether this is a new project or a continuation of CIDA’s contribution to UN funds is unclear.

Security

When asked to provide military assistance in 2010 through mhelicopters for the UN Stabilizing Force in the DRC (MONUSCO), the Harper government declined the request as the Canadian military was, according to the Canadian government, completely committed to the conflict in Afghanistan.

Comparison’s to Sri Lanka and Language Politics

Prime Minister Harper already announced his plans to boycott the Commonwealth Summit 2013 in Sri Lanka, because of human rights issues. Many identify that as a contradiction in Harper’s policies, since he is meeting with Kabila despite similar concerns in the Congo. It might not be that much of a contradiction in the end: after all DRC has mining resources and Sri Lanka does not.

Another point to consider is the recent victory of Quebec nationalists/le Parti Quebecois in the Quebec provincial elections. In terms of language politics, Prime Minister Harper must counter the presence of Quebec’s Pauline Marois (who gets her own seat at the summit as a representative of Quebec) and show that Canada is still very much committed to it’s Francophone heritage, and promoting it internationally. Again, Canada’s involvement in the summit have here more to do with internal Canadian political conflicts than the building of a mutually positive relationship between the Canada and the DRC.

Democracy and the current human rights situation

This year’s election in the DRC have been controversial, to put it politely. Many critics say that Harper’s meeting with President Kabila signals that Canada considers the government legitimate now. However, Harper is also planning to meet with opposition leaders.

Other approaches and a failed opportunity

Pauline Marois, the Premier of Quebec who will also be attending the Summit, has refused to meet face-to-face with President Kabila in protest of his policies towards human rights in the DRC. Although the merits of isolation versus engagement is a separate debate, it is clear that certain leaders are taking a much less lenient and more vocal stance towards Kabila than Harper is.

French President Francois Hollande, for example, will be using this summit as a launching pad for a new relationship between France and Africa, and has been extremely vocal about not only the lack of democracy in the country after the troubled 2011 elections, but also he has openly condemned Rwanda for supporting a new Congolese rebel group that formed last spring, M23.

When Western political leaders go to African countries and speak about the importance of human rights and democratic principles, one has to keep the national interests of that country in mind. As we see it, Canada could benefit from this meeting in two ways. First, Harper tried to reaffirm Francophone relations. Second, Canada wants to secure its place as an investor in the mining sector of the DRC – a country where Chinese investment rapidly changes the market. The remaining question is how exactly is the DRC benefitting? It is interesting to note that in the DRC, where Canada has mining investments, Canada chooses to “engage in dialogue”, whereas in Sri Lanka, where the economic stakes are less, we then isolate.

Hot Topics – Thomas Lubanga is Guilty… Now what?

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Thomas Lubanga is Guilty… Now what?

Now that the International Criminal Court has delivered it’s first-ever conviction, there is hope that the victims and survivors of the war crimes committed by Thomas Lubanga Dyilo will receive reparations for their suffering.

After a prosecuted person has been declared guilty of the crimes charged before the Court, the ICC has the power to order a criminal perpetrator to pay reparation to a victim who has suffered as a result of the perpetrator’s criminal actions.  Though there is a long standing history of aggressor states being required to pay reparations to other states (e.g. Treaty of Versailles), the need to ensure that compensation is delivered at the level of the individual perpetrator/victim has only been recently formalized international forums like the ICC and United Nations.

With the conviction of Lubanga, the ICC will commence it’s first-ever reparations proceedings. Throughout this process there will be many complex ethical, legal, and political sensitivities that will need to be navigated. These are outlined in an interview between a Congolese activist with years of experience working with victims in the DRC about the issue of reparations and Olivia Bueno, the International Refugee Rights Initiative’s Associate Director.

The issues outlined in the article above are also reflected in the experiences of other conflict survivors and victims. In 2005, the ICC delivered it’s first ever arrest warrants to five leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army,  a rebel group based in Northern Uganda. To date, no arrests have been made and two of the suspects are presumed dead. With limited prospect for the remaining suspects to be tried in a timely manner, there are questions about what will be done for alleged victims to access to justice, specifically reparations, that are outlined by the Justice and Reconciliation Project.

Similar questions exist for survivors and victims of the 1994 Rwandan, many of whom have not had access to reparations through the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda or through the locally-based gacaca courts. Within the last month the mandates of both of these institutions have ended and no clear plan is in place to issue reparations.

As Canadian or international advocates we can stand alongside survivors in solidarity by calling on our governments to support the reparations process.  By working with both international institutions like the ICC and with local actors and mechanisms (see the above articles for examples), Canada and the international community can encourage the Congolese, Rwandan, and Ugandan governments to establish national reparations policies that will be effective and responsive.

Hot Topics – July 8-15

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ICC issues new charges for Congolese warlords

Fatou Bensouda, the new Chief Prosecutor at the ICC, has issued her first arrest warrants. Bosco Ntaganda, who was first indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity in 2006 for his role in the Ituri conflict, was charged yet again. The other indicted Congolese was Sylvestre Mudacumura, leader of the FDLR rebel group. Both warrants are related to human rights abuses against civilians such as sexual slavery and murder.

Changing the images used in advocacy – Humanizing, not victimizing.

Check out this piece from Meredith Hutchison describing her new initiative. Hutchison’s campaign asks “What if campaigns replaced images that emphasize destitution and dependence with photographs that highlight the aspirations and agency of the people they depict? Can we use images to try to better understand the feelings, thoughts and goals of others living in poverty, and could such images spur the global community to meaningful action? ”

Her project, Vision not Victims, is partnering with local women’s organizations in the Eastern DRC, hoping to create humanizing  images that emphasize the agency of Congolese women.

The Justice and Reconciliation Project (JRP) launches a new youth programme

JRP has recently launched a “Transitional Justice IQ Gauge, an educational programme designed to connect youth from different parts of northern Uganda to build a critical mass around transitional justice…Its aim is to increase awareness among the young people about the conflicts in Uganda with special focus on northern Uganda and ongoing Transitional Justice debates within the country.”

Embassy Magazine’s Kristen Shane provides an extremely critical look at the new head of CIDA, Julian Fantino.

Lubanga given 14 years for conscripting child soldiers

The former leader of Ituri-based armed group, the UPC and the first person to be convicted by the ICC, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, this week became the first to be sentenced. Lubanga was convicted of recruiting minors for combat and was given a sentence of 14 years. For an in-depth analysis, see this post over at Lubangatrial.com.

Sexual violence committed against female minors within the UPC was not considered as an aggravating factors in sentencing as the judges felt it could not be attributed to Lubanga directly. However, the fact that Lubanga was in a position of authority and was relatively well educated worked against him in the judges sentencing criteria. The prosecution had asked for 30 years, which the judges considered excessive relative to the gravity of Lubanga’s crime.

But what about the survivors of Lubanga’s crimes?

As Melanie Gouby notes, almost a decade has passed since the end of the Second Congo War and many of Lubanga’s former child soldiers are now adults who are struggling to support their families.

Gouby goes on to explain how many social integration programs for demobilized forced combatants when the war ended did not focus enough on local needs, leading many to fail.

One former forced UPC combatant, expressing his discontent with reintegration programs, poignantly remarks: “I am not a child anymore. Our childhood is long over…I have a family now and I have to earn a living…I don’t have time to go to meetings where we sing stupid songs.”

Unfortunately, no financial resources from Lubanga have been identified to go towards the reparations fund for his victim.

Uganda’s Amnesty Act is not only about Uganda

Alistair Dawson of the Enough Project published a very interesting piece about the lapsing of Uganda’s Amnesty Act. Dawson notes how it is not just Northern Ugandan civil society groups, but also Congolese, South Sudanese, and Central African Republican groups that are calling for Kampala to renew the act. Since 2000, over 26,000 (13,000 of which  were from the LRA) combatants have demobilized. The act is seen as a key component necessary for peace, as it partially addresses the complex and dual ‘victim/perpetrator’ status of many forced combatants.

South Sudan’s first independence anniversary

Journalist Jina Moore’s blog this week featured a collection of pieces reflecting on the one-year anniversary of South Sudan’s independence. Of particular note is Howard French’s piece which “contrasts the rosy view of Western donors and aid workers, “whose agencies, careers, and sometimes personal feelings are deeply invested in the birth and success of this new nation[,]” with Southern Sudanese intellectuals, independent journalists and civil society activists, who describe a familiar catalog of entitlement behaviors by rebels-turned-governments.”

Rwandan President Paul Kagame went on the BBC’s “Hard Talk”, where he vehemently denied the allegations that his government was supporting the M23 rebels in the neighbouring Eastern Congo.

 

Hot Topics – July 7

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New leadership at Canada’s aid agency

Bev Oda, resigned as Canada’s Minister of International Cooperation, the position in charge of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). It has been suggested that Oda resigned in a face-saving move responding to rumours of a small cabinet-shuffle in which she was set to be demoted. Oda had recently been the source of controversy. She had been criticized for her spending practices in a time of fiscal austerity, and for the inappropriate way in which KAIROS (a Canadian NGO) had their funding cut (the word “not” was written over a grant document). Oda also presided over important changes at CIDA, such as the shift to a list of 20 ‘priority’ countries for bilateral aid, the Muskoka Initiative and an increased emphasis on maternal health projects, untying some Canadian aid, creating new aid partnerships with Canadian companies working overseas, as well as tightening the regulations around CIDA-supported Canadian NGOs who do political advocacy. Click here for more on Oda’s  ‘legacy’. The new Minister for International Cooperation is Julian Fantino, the former Associate Defence Minister.

 Deconstructing language – Re-examining ‘Failed States’

The DRC, and other African nations experiencing armed conflict, are routinely described as being or nearing “failure”. Claire Leigh on the Guardian’s Global Development blog, criticizes Foreign Policy’s promotion of the Failed States Index and their ‘Postcards from Hell’ feature on failing states. She poignantly argues “…the label “failed state” implies no degree of success or failure, no sense of decline or progress….Failed means a binary division between those countries that are salvageable and those beyond redemption. It is a word reserved for marriages and exams. It does not belong in a pragmatic debate…What might appear to Foreign Policy readers as postcards from hell appear to millions of others as pictures of home.”

The latest UN report on the Congo – A smoking gun of Rwanda’s support to Congolese rebels?

The controversial (and nearly unreleased)  annex of the UN Group of Expert’s midterm report on the DRC conflict, points to senior members of the Rwandan military (RDF) having strong links to the leadership of the M23 rebel movement, as reported by Colum Lynch, over at Foreign Policy’s Turtle Bay Blog. The named Rwandan officials are cited as mobilizing political and military support for the rebels, providing logistics support, helping with recruitment, and supplying arms. Of note is James Kaberebe, the Rwandan Minister of Defense who has previously been a major actor in recent Congolese history. Kabarebe led Rwanda’s support of eastern Congolese rebel groups such as the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democratie (RCD), the group which played a significant role in the sparking of the Second Congo War, and the AFDL during the First Congo War who overthrew Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. The Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Louise Mushikiwabo, has denied that Rwanda is again supporting Congolese armed groups.

In defense of Rwanda’s support to Congolese rebels, Mwenda claims things are more complex than they seem.

Take a look at this must-read piece by Great Lakes political analyst Andrew Mwenda. Mwenda offers a perspective that is kinder to the Rwandan leadership than the “poorly informed, often prejudiced international observers and `experts’, and local and international human rights groups [that give] a blanket condemnation of Kigali as the mastermind of the rebellion”. Mwenda looks at the recent crisis through the lens of Rwanda’s security concerns, arguing that the relationship between Rwanda and certain predominantly Banyarwanda (Congolese of Rwandan descent) rebel groups is more complex than many observers think. A common explanation for Rwanda’s support of these largely Banyarwanda Congolese rebel groups is ethnic solidarity and the common enemy of the FDLR. Mwenda proposes that the Rwandan government is more interested in security in the Eastern Congo than the Congolese government itself, as a stable east is key for Rwanda’s ambitious plans for development.  There is also this:

“Therefore, to understand the complexity of the current flare up in fighting in DRC is to first appreciate the fears and temptations people in Kigali face. First, the Tutsi militias in Congo, even without Kigali’s active support, act as a buffer between Rwanda and the FDLR. Second, they protect local Tutsi populations that face existential threats from the FDLR and other Congolese communities. Third, these militias and their warlords ensure order in a region where the Congolese state in almost absent. Therefore, their defeat would present a key security challenge to Rwanda. Hence Kigali finds itself in a position where it cannot support the Tutsi militias in Congo while at the same time it cannot condemn their cause.”

Malnutrition and food insecurity in the Great Lakes Region: Less sensational than war, but no less important.

The Congo Resources blog reminds us that one of the biggest issues facing the populations of the Great Lakes Region is not as sensational or widely reported on as refugees, war, and mass human rights abuses, but is nevertheless extremely important. Recently, banana wilt and cassava diseases, among other agricultural and livestock diseases, are negatively affecting food production and nutrition in the region at alarming rates. Read the post here for more.

Another issue rarely in the spotlight: Men as victims

Yovanka Perdigao, of Think Africa Press, examines how there is a dearth of services and attention and an abundance of stigma for Congolese men who are victims of sexual violence.

Check out this interesting piece at the Wall Street Journal which gives a  look into Bosco Ntaganda, and the history of the latest UN Mission in the Congo.

An ‘Arab Summer’ in Sudan?

Although not a part of the Great Lakes, over the last while there have been developments in Sudan that, if escalated, may have implications for South Sudan and consequently the Great Lakes Region. Omar Al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, has ramped up arrests of activists and journalists in response to increasing protests and popular discontent with his regime. Some have said that the rise in opposition to Bashir is driven by Sudan’s latest austerity measures. The Sudanese government is under increasing fiscal pressure after having lost extensive oil revenue when South Sudan became independent, and with large military spending on the continued conflicts in Darfur and South Sudan.