Unreported conflict : The North Kivu - Essay Example

? Unreported conflict: The North Kivu Unreported conflict: The North Kivu Internal conflict has been prevalent in the eastern province of South Kivu, as well as North Kivu and other LRA-affected regions within the Bas-Uele and Haut-Uele districts of the Orientale Province in Congo. This conflict has had an extremely detrimental effect on human rights, as well as security within the entire region (Stearns 2011, p. 94). The interethnic conflict in the nearby Equateur Province enhanced both the flow of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees. This further compounded the delicate situation of security in the entire Kivu region. One of the most critical fights occurred in July 2010 when fighting between FARDC and ADF-NALU contributed significantly to the refugee and IDP situation inherent in North Kivu. Armed groups located in North Kivu continue to engage in many, serious abuses with abject impunity. Some of these abuses even constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity. These acts include unlawful killings, mass rape, torture and disappearances. Moreover, these armed groups are known to recruit, train and retain child soldiers and engage forced labour (Clark 2002, p. 19). However, despite the prevalence of incidences and heinous acts, little information is provided by the media. The stories continue to be unreported or underreported by the media. This paper will examine the conflict in the North Kivu of Congo that has been unreported by the media for many years. The paper will focus intently on the chief reasons of the conflict and the reasons the media keep silent regarding the situation of even misinform the public about the conflict. The ensuing violence experienced in the eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is bewildering, particularly with regard to its complexity as a result of the multitude of grievances, which elicit conflict outbreaks such as local, cross-border, financial and political conflicts and the profusion of armed factions. The North Kivu province continues to be the epicentre of war in the Congo, which has realised numerous armed groups, with nearly 20 groups emerging over the last 15 years. It was in North Kivu that the precursors to most of the Congo wars started with ethnic-based violence in the year 1993 (Biebuyck 1996, p. 81). Additionally, it was in North Kivu that the strongest challenges to the country’s stability are still around to date. The Congolese government continues to encounter substantive challenges in North Kivu, particularly in the southern part of the province. These territories include Rutshuru, Walikale and Masisi. Although most of the armed groups that sprouted in North Kivu have various characteristics in common, there is currently no comprehensive theory, which can explain these groups explicitly. All armed groups in North Kivu draw on three significant foundations of instability: regional, national and local. The Congolese state is decaying and biased towards private interests. This means that the country neither has a viable rule of law to ascertain property rights nor the might of the law to deter the progression of armed rivals (Severine 2009, p. 49). This inherent weakness affirms the conception that the only way to defend individual freedoms, as well as property, is via armed force. As a consequence, the violence in North Kivu has aggravated the tension between local communities, especially creating a rift between indigenous groups whose presence is most prevalent and the Tutsi and Hutu populations who are immigrants. These immigrants arrived in the course of the colonial and post-colonial years. Most of the conflict witnessed today in North Kivu draws directly on this rift, which has been widened by decades of murders on both fronts. Moreover, local political and economic elites, particularly in Goma and Kigali have established stakes in the armed groups, which they consider as critical to the maintenance of their interests. These interests are either directly, through the provision of protection on a personal and business basis, or indirectly by enhancing their influence and providing them with political leverage. This forceful intermingling of ethnic discrimination, elite interest and state weakness has represented the conflict in North Kivu, in the eyes of most outside observers, as intractable. The media has played a critical role in covering up the atrocities encountered by people in North Kivu. In choosing not to report the heinous crimes against humanity perpetrated in North Kivu, the media perpetuated the aggression experienced by innocent individuals in the region. Armed groups in North Kivu differ rather significantly. Although some of them sprouted purely from the modalities of rural life, other groups were created deliberately by local political elites while others are exploited to fulfil the interests of urban business people. Notably, most armed groups have lost touch with their original purposes, but a few stick to the search for their initial principles (Prunier 2009, p. 211). An intriguing aspect of these armed groups is in the policy and advocacy perspective, which notes that some groups have become disintegrated while others continue to resist and persist. Unravelling the root of these disparities is critical in helping determine the key obstacles to peace within North Kivu and the entire region. North Kivu is a peculiar case in the DRC. This is primarily because, in the year 2002, various warring sides signed a peace accord that prescribed an official cessation of the conflict, which had engulfed the nation since 1998. Although the peace agreement was highly successful in reuniting warring factions within the transitional Congolese government, as well as producing extremely credible elections in 2006, the agreement failed to bring a complete end to the conflict and violence. Fighting became exceedingly prevalent in the eastern Kivu region, escalating to levels as high as they were during the war. Peace failed to pacify people in North Kivu, despite working in other regions such as Ituri and Katanga, which saw a marked decline in cases of violence (Moller & De Zayas 2009, p. 76). The chief reason behind the ongoing violence in North Kivu is grievances regarding identity and land, greed among local and international political and economic elites and a venal and weak Congolese state. The stakes are extremely high since various analyses result in differing solutions regarding the conflict in North Kivu. Despite the noted increase in violence in North Kivu, the media continues to stay mum regarding the conflict, choosing to underreport various incidences of the conflict such as the humanitarian crises inherent in the region and the violations of human rights. North Kivu and the entire Congo nation are considered one of the worst global humanitarian crises. The country is extremely rich in terms of natural resources such as diamonds, gold and other minerals. However, millions of Congolese continue to suffer from the lethal blend of hunger and diseases, most of which is caused by the unending displacement and conflict, particularly in North Kivu. Since the inception of the war in 1998, at least 5.4 million Congolese have died from hunger, disease and violence (Huggins 2010, p. 88). This violence is considered perhaps one of the deadliest conflicts since the Second World War. In addition to arbitrary killings, other heinous crimes associated with the war include acts of sexual violence perpetrated against tens of thousands of girls, women and men, as well. Sexual violence against men is a common tool used as a weapon of war in the North Kivu region. However, since a vast majority of crimes against humanity in North Kivu go unreported, it is difficult to measure the exact extent of the violence. The media continues to play a critical role in hiding the goings on in North Kivu. As mentioned previously, the media fails to report accurately cases of violence in North Kivu, thereby compounding the problem. The media has not provided adequate editorial priority to the violence witnessed in North Kivu (Lemarchand 2009, p. 117). This is primarily because the media is compromised in terms of its provision of editorial priority of the news in the region and the interest of political and economic elite that control most of the goings on in the region. Greed amongst local, regional and international economic elites serves as a deterrent to the media’s adequate coverage of stories regarding violence in North Kivu. Businessmen and politicians who own major stakes in the region’s economic and political wellbeing, especially with regard to the mineral mining business, have immense powers that allow them to dictate people’s and journalists’ access to the North Kivu region. As a consequence, journalists and other media platforms are mostly unable to gain access to North Kivu, and are thereby unable to cover adequately the occurrences in the conflict zone. In addition, widespread corruption in various levels of government has allowed for the bribing of local, regional and international journalists who seek to relay stories of conflict in North Kivu to the rest of the world. In the North Kivu region, many journalists have been bribed or threatened in order to deter them from reporting about the conflict in the region. Some journalists have accepted bribes in the form of money or precious metals in exchange for reporting falsities to the rest of the world regarding conflict in North Kivu. Local businessmen use armed groups to ensure that journalists in search of truths regarding conflict in North Kivu do not publish the truth about the region (Moller & De Zayas 2009, p. 91). Armed groups are known to kidnap and kill journalists who do not adhere to these prescribed rules. Therefore, in order to save their lives, both local and regional journalists, steer clear of the issue of the conflict witnessed in North Kivu, thereby painting a false picture that all is well in the region, when, as a matter of fact, people continue to die as a result of the enduring conflict. Most mineral mining companies in North Kivu are affiliated with massive multinational organizations, which hold massive sway in the global economy. These corporations have the power and resources to manipulate the stories published in the media, regarding their areas of interest such as North Kivu (Turner 2007, p. 102). These organizations benefit immensely from the ongoing conflict. This is because the corporations are able to finance guerrilla militia to govern mineral rich regions of North Kivu, thereby deterring other mineral companies from penetrating the area and exploring the minerals. The conflict also serves to provide constant and cheap labour for mining companies in the region, which saves their affiliates in the Western countries millions of dollars in labour costs (Wills 2009, p. 84). In essence, the North Kivu region is a pool of minerals and other natural resources, which corrupt elites exploit at the expense of the communities residing in the area. The media’s capacity to report the occurrence in North Kivu in an accurate manner is hampered by such widespread corruption and the use of guerrilla tactics to deter them from reporting the truth regarding conflict in North Kivu to the rest of the world. References Biebuyck, D 1996, Rights in land and its resources among the Nyanga, Centre des Science d’Outre Mer, Brussels. Clark, J 2002, The African stakes of the Congo war, Palgrave MacMillan, New York. Huggins, C 2010, Land, power and identity: Roots of violent conflict in Eastern DRC, International Alert, London. Lemarchand, R 2009, The dynamics of violence in Central Africa, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. Moller, JT, & De Zayas, AM 2009, United Nations Human Rights Committee: Case law 1977- 2008; a handbook, Engel, New York. Prunier, G 2009, Africa’s world war: Congo, the Rwandan genocide, and the making of a continental catastrophe, Oxford University Press, New York. Severine, A 2009, The trouble with the Congo: Local violence and the failure of international peace building, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Stearns, J 2011, Dancing in the glory of monsters: The collapse of the Congo and the great war of Africa, Public Affairs, New York. Turner, T 2007, The Congo wars: Conflict, myth and reality, Zed Books, London. Wills, S 2009, Protecting civilians: The obligations of peacekeepers, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Read More