GENERAL NEWS

UN urges ban on peacekeeping for child sex-abuse

NEWS STORY

Source: BBC

17 June 2015 - Countries should be barred from contributing troops to UN missions if their peacekeepers sexually abuse children, says a UN review of peacekeeping.

It recommends the home countries of abusers are identified annually.

The review was handed over to the UN secretary general following a French abuse scandal.

The leaked UN report claimed 16 French soldiers abused children in the Central African Republic.

The review also says peacekeepers' home countries should be given a six-month deadline for investigations of alleged sexual abuse by troops.

Currently peacekeepers can only be prosecuted in their home countries.

However, the panel's chairman, former president of East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta stressed "immunity should not mean impunity".

His review recommended that countries be required to disclose disciplinary action taken against soldiers, as well as governments' failure to report.

Mr Ramos-Horta said UN member states should fund a programme to assist children born from the peacekeepers' sexual exploitation.

The overall review of UN peacekeeping operations was commissioned before the French troops' sexual abuse scandal came out in April.

It said that the alleged abuse took place between December 2013 and June 2014 at a centre for internally displaced people in the Central African Republic capital, Bangui, according to the Guardian.

Last week another leaked UN report said hundreds of women surveyed in Haiti and Liberia said UN troops bartered goods for sex with them. One-third of the allegations involved children.

The UN currently has about 125,000 peacekeepers deployed around the world.

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DRC

RDC – CPI: le procès de Bosco Ntaganda débutera le 7 juillet à La Haye

ARTICLE

Source: Jeune Afrique

Surnommé "Terminator" car réputé sans pitié, l'ex-chef de guerre congolo-rwandais est accusé d'avoir joué un rôle central dans les crimes ethniques commis en Ituri en 2002 et 2003.

17 Juin 2015 - Le procès de l’ex-chef de guerre Bosco Ntaganda devant la Cour pénale internationale(CPI) s’ouvrira au siège de la cour à La Haye et non en République démocratique du Congo, où il est accusé d’avoir commis des crimes contre l’humanité, a indiqué la CPI lundi.

Des juges de la CPI avaient recommandé en mars que les déclarations d’ouverture dans ce procès aient lieu à Bunia, la capitale de l’Ituri, dans le nord-est de la RDC. L’objectif était de rapprocher le travail judiciaire de la Cour des communautés les plus affectées, le reste du procès devant se dérouler à La Haye.

Mais la présidence, prenant en compte des risques pour la sécurité et le bien-être des témoins, l’impact logistique et les coûts estimés à plus de 600 000 euros, a finalement conclu que les avantages potentiels de la tenue de procédures à Bunia seraient dépassés par ces risques.

18 chefs de crimes contre l’humanité et crimes de guerre

Bosco Ntaganda, 41 ans, est accusé d’avoir joué un rôle central dans les crimes ethniques commis en Ituri en 2002 et 2003. Il doit répondre de 18 chefs de crimes contre l’humanité et crimes de guerre commis par les Forces patriotiques pour la libération du Congo (FPLC), dont il était le chef militaire. Bosco Ntaganda est notamment accusé d’avoir lui-même violé et réduit en esclavage sexuel des jeunes filles de moins de 15 ans.

Si le procès s’était ouvert à Bunia, cela aurait été une première dans l’histoire de la CPI: toute la salle d’audience aurait été du voyage, les juges, le greffe, l’accusé et son équipe de défense, l’accusation et les représentants des victimes.

Le premier à se livrer à la CPI

Milice à prédominance Hema, les FPLC combattaient principalement l’ethnie rivale Lendu pour le contrôle de l’Ituri, région riche en ressources naturelles, notamment de l’or, et en proie à des violences ayant fait quelque 60 000 morts depuis 1999.

Puis Bosco Ntaganda avait été l’un des meneurs du Mouvement du 23 mars (M23), lancé en mai 2012 dans l’est de la RDC, avant de subir une défaite militaire face à une scission de cette rébellion menée par Sultani Makenga. Après l’éclatement du mouvement, il s’était réfugié à l’ambassade des États-Unis au Rwanda et avait demandé son transfert à La Haye. De fait, il avait été en mars 2013 le premier à se livrer à la CPI.

Congolese troops must be disarmed if rapes are to stop, says Denis Mukwege

OPINION

Source: The Guardian

Leading Congolese gynaecologist calls for soldiers to lay down their weapons so that recruits with no history of sexual violence can replace them

17 June 2015 - The Congolese army is mired in a culture of sexual violence and should be disarmed because many of its troops are “completely sick”, according to one of the country’s leading gynaecologists.

Dr Denis Mukwege said soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) should be stripped of their weapons and replaced by new recruits who have never committed sexual violence or fought for a violent militia.

Rapists in the the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique (FARDC), he added, ought also to be considered “victims” because they were traumatised by involvement in one of Africa’s most brutal and longest-running wars and needed psychological help that was not available.

Alluding to the town in eastern Congo where Congolese soldiers committed mass rape in 2012, Mukwege said: “In Minova and other places it is the FARDC who are the ones who were raping instead of protecting the population. The FARDC has shown that the army can destroy its population, it’s a big problem.

“If we want to fight against sexual violence then we need to be courageous and say that we need to create an army where people have never been in a militia before or have never been involved in rape or destruction.”

Mukwege, 59, who was last year awarded the EU’s highest human rights award, the Sakharov Prize, for saving the lives of thousands of rape victims, also questioned the wisdom of the international community ploughing large sums of money into a military that routinely perpetrates sexual violence.

Mukwege said: “The UK and other countries are spending a lot of money to try and build an army from people who are completely sick and destroyed. They will never succeed.”

According to UN estimates, more than a third of the rapes that occur in the eastern part of the country are committed by the army.

Mukwege’s comments follow the revelation that, despite spending £5.2m on hosting a high-profile summit on ending sexual violence in conflict, the UK government has committed less than a fifth of that amount to tackling rape in warzones in 2015.

A UK parliamentary inquiry will this week begin scrutinising Hague’s initiative and also details of an Observer investigation that found rapists in the army are still operating with impunity within eastern DRC, where Mukwege’s Panzi hospital has helped treat more than 30,000 survivors of sexual violence perpetrated by the military and militias.

Mukwege said: “We should be more courageous. Why can’t we start sending the FARDC to do social work like fixing roads, protecting houses or producing food? They can keep their uniforms but not their guns, that way they can be useful for society.”

Mukwege added that many military recruits had already fought for violent militia and committed rape, meaning that sexual violence was woven into the mindset of the country’s military.

“Many of the perpetrators are themselves victims because many of them were children when they joined the army and there is no psychological support to help them,” said Mukwege.

“We are trying to build something with people who are mentally unsafe … studies show that most have post-traumatic stress disorder. How can you give them guns?”

On Sunday an investigation found that the biggest rape tribunal in the country’s history was allegedly fixed by the government and military prosecutors, while rape prosecutions in eastern DRC have fallen and incidents of sexual violence increased despite political pledges at the London summit to act on sexual violence in conflict.

The findings raise questions about the UK government’s commitment to the issue, with data from freedom of information requests revealing that last year just one trip was made to the Congo by a member of the UK team dedicated to sexual violence.

Funding to the DRC from the Department for International Development (DfID) is £149m this year, a portion of which is dedicated to helping the country’s army “increase their ability to fight against impunity”. Other initiatives aimed at defence reform in the country. In addition, the Ministry of Defence says that a handful of officers are based in the east of the country, “working with the UN and Congolese government”.

Despite such efforts, Congoloese troops continue to be implicated in ongoing sexual violence. Rebecca Masika Katsuva, who runs a women’s refuge in Minova, calculates that of the 800 rape victims her centre has helped since the start of 2014, 600 were attacked by the army.

Emmanuel Baboo, of the Heal Africa hospital in Goma, which treats up to 10,000 victims of sexual violence a year, describes cases where soldiers from the 10th military region in eastern Congo deliberately rape children to “corrupt” them early.

On Sunday an investigation found that the biggest rape tribunal in the country’s history was allegedly fixed by the government and military prosecutors, while rape prosecutions in eastern DRC have fallen and incidents of sexual violence increased despite political pledges at the London summit to act on sexual violence in conflict.

The findings raise questions about the UK government’s commitment to the issue, with data from freedom of information requests revealing that last year just one trip was made to the Congo by a member of the UK team dedicated to sexual violence.

Funding to the DRC from the Department for International Development (DfID) is £149m this year, a portion of which is dedicated to helping the country’s army “increase their ability to fight against impunity”. Other initiatives aimed at defence reform in the country. In addition, the Ministry of Defence says that a handful of officers are based in the east of the country, “working with the UN and Congolese government”.

Despite such efforts, Congoloese troops continue to be implicated in ongoing sexual violence. Rebecca Masika Katsuva, who runs a women’s refuge in Minova, calculates that of the 800 rape victims her centre has helped since the start of 2014, 600 were attacked by the army.

Emmanuel Baboo, of the Heal Africa hospital in Goma, which treats up to 10,000 victims of sexual violence a year, describes cases where soldiers from the 10th military region in eastern Congo deliberately rape children to “corrupt” them early.

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RWANDA

Rwanda: Changing constitution to allow President Kagame third term 'will undermine peace and democracy'

OPINION

Source: International Business Times

17 June 2015 - Two members of the Rwandan Parliament and a member of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) have resigned for reportedly disagreeing with the ruling party's decision to change the constitution to allow President Paul Kagame to run in the 2017 election.

The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) announced that it approved an amendment to article 101 of the country's constitution after some 3.6 million people – about 72% of Rwanda's electoral roll – signed a petition asking the Parliament to change the document, which restricted the president to running for two seven-year terms

However, some reports claimed that part of the population was forced to sign the petition by officials.

RPF member Connie Bwiza Sekamana resigned earlier in June after allegedly being summoned by the Criminal Investigations Department, the East African reported.

However, sources told the East African that she was dismissed after criticising the government for its decision to change the constitution.

Chamber of Deputies Giovanni Bushishi and EALA member Celestin Kabahizi also resigned from their positions. It is not yet clear why they abandoned their posts, but sources told East African the catalyst was their disagreement over amending article 101.

Changing the constitution will undermine peaceful transfer of power

Earlier in May, the country's main opposition party Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR) filed a lawsuit to the Supreme Court attempting to block the change to the constitution, arguing that article 193 concerning amendments of the document does not allow the number of terms to be changed, but only their lengths.

DGPR's President Frank Habineza told IBTimes UK: "We don't support the change of the constitution, but we are not surprised [that this happened] because many people have been protecting this move."

Habineza also said that there are allegations that some people were forced to sign the petition, but added that DGPR does not have any evidence to prove this.

"Changing the constitution will not only undermine the democratic process but also the peaceful transfer of power," he said, adding that since the kingdom of Rwanda – which ended when King Kigeli V was overthrown in a 1961 coup d'etat resulting in a referendum that abolished the monarchy – the non-democratic successions of leaders had led to deaths and unrest.

It is not yet clear whether Kagame will back the RPF's decision. Earlier in April, the president said he did not support changes of the constitution, but he was open to debate.

"In a democratic society, debates are allowed and they are healthy," he said.

Kagame also urged politicians not to coerce people into signing the petition. "If the allegations that some people have been forced are true, that's a concern and you should also have that concern," he said.