Last week a number of eyewitness reports came out of the depths of rebel-held territory in the Democratic Republic of Congo, alleging that rebel soldiers have been killing and eating Pygmies in the remote Ituri region. The militias hire or force Pygmies to hunt for them; those who return empty-handed are reportedly murdered and cannibalized instead. Bishop Melchisedec Sikuli Paluku of Beni-Butembo region says that some refugees report that the rebels have forced Pygmies and other prisoners to eat their own toes, ears and other body parts.
The Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), the Congolese Democratic Movement (RDC) and another rebel faction, the RCD-K/ML (Kisangani-Mouvement de Liberation), have renewed intense fighting since the signing of a ceasefire agreement on December 30, 2002. The clashes have forced over 100,000 people to flee their homes. The UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) recently announced it will start investigations into the reported abuses in North Kivu province.
Jean-Pierre Bemba, leader of the MLC, this week announced that his movement had arrested some of its own officers in connection with the abuses. He denied that his soldiers had practiced cannibalism, but promised to investigate and punish those found responsible for the incidents of arbitrary execution, rape and torture that have been reported.
The latest atrocities in the eastern DRC serve as a sad and shocking reminder of the brutality, intractability, and chaotic nature of Central Africa’s longstanding and bitter internal conflicts. From the dense Ituri Forest to the Nuba Mountains to the Central African Republic, the indigenous and marginalized inhabitants of these war zones have experienced institutionalized oppression, extreme violence and lawlessness, often as victims of conflicts they want no part of. The recent tentative efforts at creating a lasting peace in some these countries, while cause for hope, have in no way slowed the aggression towards indigenous groups such as the Mbuti (Pygmies) and Nuba of southern Sudan.
Three weeks ago, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the Sudanese government extended until the middle of 2003 the ceasefire for the Nuba Mountains region that was agreed to nearly a year ago. A general “cessation of hostilities” is also set to last into March. Yet the Khartoum government has ratcheted up its belligerent rhetoric recently, and has faced accusations that its army has attacked SPLA positions in defiance of the ceasefire.
One of the biggest sticking points in the current negotiations between the two sides is the fate of the Nuba Mountains; Khartoum refuses to include the region in any formula of possible southern self-determination. The Nuba people, culturally and ethnically distinct from both the predominantly Muslim groups of the north and Christian and other animist groups of the south, have long experience as both a bargaining chip and a tactical target. As recently as October, despite the “cessation of hostilities”, critical shipments of humanitarian aid to the Nuba were held up by the Sudanese government’s flight ban in the region. At least 350,000 people did not receive scheduled food deliveries and 790,000 children were not given planned polio vaccinations.
The 20-year old war has led to an influx of refugees from the Sudan into the Central African Republic (CAR) and other bordering countries. Tensions with local groups have created a set of peripheral spiraling conflicts: last year hundreds of Sudanese herders were killed in clashes with CAR villagers near the border.
Meanwhile, reports have emerged this week of rebel advances in the province of Nana Mambere, in the northwest part of the CAR. A ‘successful’ government operation to recapture the city of Ouham Pende on 20 December 2002 has led to the displacement of large numbers of people. A government minister described the humanitarian situation in Nana Mambere, where many refugees have fled, as “catastrophic.” UN agencies are trying to gain access to the area to address the refugees’ needs.
The fractious politics of the CAR, Sudan and DRC - with rebel factions in some cases fighting the governments, each other, and splinter militia groups – have created desperate conditions for the indigenous inhabitants of the war zones. They have suffered enormously due to “guilt by location”, whereby opposing military groups enter an area and simply assume the residents support the other side. Systematic terrorization of civilian populations is the rule rather than the exception, particularly in the DRC. The latest events in these countries demonstrate the enormity of the task before peace brokers, who will have to address the task of dismantling this culture of arbitrary violence, and ensure that the indigenous communities who are among its most frequent victims are given a voice in any new order that is to emerge from the chaos.
