Systematic rape in eastern Congo continues despite pleas for intervention

Dennis Bueckert:

Eric Schiller has visited some of the world's most notorious trouble spots, from Gaza to Haiti, but nothing prepared him for what he saw in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Schiller, who spent six weeks in eastern Congo as a volunteer with Christian Peacemaker Teams, says the distinguishing feature of the conflict is the systematic use of rape to control the population.

At first he thought the claims must be exaggerated but he met victims everywhere he went.

"It is very extensive, it is ongoing, it seems to have become a modus operandi," Schiller said in an interview. "All groups use this to terrorize the populations they want to control.

"Women are often raped in front of their families, in front of their children and husbands. When the woman is raped she is most often rejected by her husband and by her own family.

"Every church seems to have its group of raped women they're dealing with."

Rape as a weapon of war is nothing new; what's unusual in Congo is the extent of its use, year after year, and the indifference of the outside world.

"As long as the climate of impunity persists . . women and girls will continue to be targeted in the war within a war," said Human Rights Watch in 2001.

That, and many similar warnings, have gone unheeded.

"We must end this tyranny of silence," said Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, in a news release last month.

He estimated that more than 1,200 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo die every day from the effects of the war.

UN agencies estimate Congo's tragedy has claimed far more casualties than the Rwandan genocide - some four million lives since 1996, making the Congo hostilities the deadliest since the Second World War.

The conflict has its roots in the Rwandan crisis of 1994; the perpetrators of the genocide took refuge in the forests of Congo and continued to pursue their ways.

The Rwandan army pursued them and, discovering the riches of the region, became reluctant to withdraw. Neighbouring countries on all sides were drawn into the conflict.

A peace agreement was signed in 2002, and the United Nations sent a peacekeeping force, but it has been ineffective.

Schiller says the peacekeepers tend to hunkered down in their encampments while terror continues in the countryside.

"There's no government, what government is there is corrupt. The infrastructure is totally shattered. The place is run by wandering gangs that are not subject to any law except the law of the gun."

The terror in is directly linked to the region's mineral wealth, says Denis Tougas of Montreal-based Entraide Missionaire, who has been a frequent visitor to Congo over the past 15 years.

He says the violence is concentrated around mining sites where warlords have organized small-scale mining operations.

"They take power on a piece of land where the sites are, they organize their power there, and rape is part of maintaining the terror."

UN refugee chief asks world for more help for Congo

UN troops kill militiamen as chief peacekeeper due

Analysis: Congo's deepening crisis

Congo troops turn on U.N. peacekeepers