Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on May 22nd, 2018

[Dr. Yolande Bouka]

If you put together this idea that countries in the region are not hallmarks of democracy and good governance—accepting that Rwanda is a slightly different space—you have an opportunity to gain economically out of the chaos. That's what happened in the early 2000s with Uganda and Rwanda.

In fact, if you follow what's going on right now between the two countries, the seeds of the current tensions between Rwanda and Uganda go back to the second Congo war, when there were disputes about where they were going, who they were aligning with, and which part of the territory they wanted to gain control over.

I'm not sure of the extent to which countries in the region really benefit clearly from the suffering that's happening in the DRC, but I know the great distraction of the international community in focusing on the DRC and countries like Burundi has allowed Rwanda to be perceived as a source of stability in the region, despite the fact that effectively it is not.

Mining companies may benefit, perhaps. Loose governance benefits people who don't have to pay taxes and who are not accountable to local and national authority. Ultimately, out of the chaos, people find opportunities. A lot of these dynamics are local. People are realizing they can benefit.

Even in the army, the AFDRC, colonels and others who are highly ranked in the military benefit from stealing weapons from the army and selling them to rebels. There is very little supervision. A lot of people are benefiting from the chaos. The people who aren't, unfortunately, are the citizens. They are vulnerable, not just to armed violence but also to all of the displacement and what happens after that.

It's really hard to answer both of your questions: who exactly is instigating the violence, and who benefits the most? Ultimately a lot of people benefit.

I'm not sure of the extent to which regional organizations have a role to play, because I think this a point people are not focusing on enough. The African Union has a responsibility to get involved. The problem with the African Union is that it often delegates the responsibility to regional organizations like the East African Community, the ICGLR, and so forth, to mediate the situation.

When the African Union sent Edem Kodjo, a Togolese diplomat, a lot of people asked questions. Edem Kodjo has very close ties with the Kabila government, so why would they send this guy to mediate?

You see that the internal politics in regional organizations make it very difficult to take the situation seriously and to impose regional sanctions. That's a challenge. The international community—countries like Canada, the U.S., and even the European Union—will rely on the African Union, and the African Union relies on regional organizations.

If they rely on ECOWAS in west Africa, they're more likely to have success than if they rely on the EAC or the ICGLR, because they're not really interested in intervening or getting in each other's way in the region. That's another challenge. It's not really an organization that benefits, but it's an organization that should be held responsible for what's happening as well.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

With this election coming up in December—if, as you say, it actually happens—where would you see the potential for positive influence in having this be a meaningful election? Would that be more of a regional role, an African Union role, or do you think it would be more local?

[Dr. Yolande Bouka]

Because the elections are a national exercise, the government and the international community have to be involved in the process to make sure that people trust it. There's very little trust between Kinshasa and the regions or among political elites. Surveys show that people are very enthusiastic about the prospect of having elections, but they are not quite sure whether the results will be respected.

They're not sure they will take place, because the electoral commission has set the date, but there is a long list of potential reasons the elections will not take place, and the security situation is one of them. Those who benefit from the violence are those who don't want to have elections because the security situation makes it too difficult to have them.

Looking at the process, we see that voter registration has started. The DRC hasn't had a census in over 30 years, so they don't actually know how many people live in the various regions and therefore don't know how many people they should have registered. This was one of the conditions that was talked about in 2016, and they still haven't had a census. Part of this has to do with the opposition's saying, “We can't possibly wait for a census before we have an election; it's going to take too long“, and then the government's saying, “We don't have the resources to do it.”

One way to build confidence is by monitoring how many people are registered, monitoring what's happening, how they vote. There has been a dispute about whether to use electronic devices to do the elections or ballots. As someone who monitored elections in Kenya, I can tell you that electronic devices are not the cure-all for trust in elections, particularly in a context in which people believe that the particular electronic system employed will be used to rig the process.

Also important is sending monitors very early, at the registration process. This is the biggest weakness of electoral monitoring across sub-Saharan Africa—and Latin America, as we've seen recently. People don't get there early enough to make sure that the institutions that are put in place a few months ahead of the elections are transparent and that once a result comes out, people actually trust these institutions.

I think this could be a way in which you regain trust. Once you regain trust, some of the armed groups who are using the political situation to say they don't believe this is a legitimate government may return home to the barracks and lay down their weapons. That would be one way in which you can use the elections as a way to promote peace. These methods would be partial, unless you address a lot of other issues in eastern Congo and the Kasai.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

We move on to Mr. Tabbara for five minutes.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If there's some remaining time, I'd like to pass it over to my colleague.

Thank you very much for coming in.

I want to go along the lines of my colleague in talking about the drivers of conflict.

I'm looking at the overall situation and how we can bring to an end many of the human rights abuses. I'm seeing that, as you mentioned in your testimony and some of your answers, after the first and second war there was impunity, and not many officials have been held accountable. They're using their resources and their efforts to stay in power.

Arguably, Congo would be one of the richest countries, rich with a lot of minerals and resources—cobalt, diamonds, gold, etc. Now there are around 20,000 peacekeeping troops deployed there. They're putting in a lot of measures to sustain peace, but is there something the international community can do—any type of bilateral negotiations, or speaking with officials to say that if these human rights abuses continue and are ongoing, we're going to stop the supply of the minerals? Maybe I'm a little bit naive, but would this not put pressure on a lot of the governing forces? It seems that they're fuelling their power through all this wealth of resources.

[Dr. Yolande Bouka]

In an ideal world, yes. A lot of these resources are not only used by government or people in power but also the informal mining, for instance, is both used by ordinary people to feed their families but it's also used by armed groups who gain control over mining sites to gain resources to pay for weapons and their soldiers and so forth.

In the large scheme of things, it has been difficult to put in some of these sanctions because some of the countries in the west have companies with a vested interest in being able to extract resources.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but it would be very difficult to impose rules on any mining company, whether Canadian or American or Swiss, to say they are not respecting human rights, therefore they are no longer allowed to operate in the country until the situation is normalized. It would definitely have an impact on the political elites' desire to restore some sort of order, but then the question is what are the laws within each of these countries or regional economic blocs with regard to how they are to interact with their own companies.

I think Glencore is a Canadian mining company. How do you then tell them they're no longer allowed to operate there, not because it's not benefiting you, but because from a human rights perspective, we don't want you to do business in DR Congo?

That's where some of the challenges come. It goes beyond simply saying we're imposing sanctions on Kabila and his family and freezing his assets, but we're saying you will be sanctioned if you operate in DR Congo. It's a little like what people are doing or want to do in Iran now.

I don't know if you have the economic or political will across the global north to disengage economically from the political elite in DR Congo. Would that make a difference? I think it would because let's remember, a handful of people end up benefiting from these backdoor deals between themselves and some of our mining companies. I'm just not sure if there's a political will to engage that way with those private institutions and private companies that we have at home and in Europe.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

How much time do we have left?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

You have about 30 seconds left but if you want to go ahead, we'll just switch it up. I have some questions, and you're the next round.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I don't think I have enough for 30 seconds. Go ahead.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay.

I wanted to ask you about the environment because you mentioned many of these situations where these armed groups begin, at least, as local protection so they're not “expeditionary forces”. What is it like for NGOs to try to deliver aid right now? Are there some areas where they are successful and other areas where it's a life-and-death situation for them to be able to help these displaced people?

[Dr. Yolande Bouka]

Absolutely. I wouldn't have the know-how to tell you exactly which regions are difficult and which ones aren't. I remember in 2017, at the height of the violence in Kasai region, people couldn't get in to get water and food to the displaced people because the situation was so tense and after the UN investigators were killed, NGOs decided to be a little more concerned.

For a very long time, there was this sense that if you were a humanitarian organization, a UN organization, and even a western researcher in general with white skin, you could navigate this space because you would not be seen as a target. That has changed dramatically in the past year, starting, I think, to a certain extent with the assassination of the two UN investigators, which has made a lot of humanitarian organizations rethink the safety of their employees.

The last thing you want to see in the Congo is what you saw in South Sudan where humanitarian workers ended up being targeted for food and water and medicine, which resulted in the death of a lot of humanitarian workers. I know for a fact that in some places it's been difficult. A lot of these organizations operate out of Goma and they assess the security situation depending on how things change. Sometimes you have operations in Beni, sometimes you don't. When the military pulls out of Beni, things calm down and that may be seen as an opportunity to go.

It's definitely affected the way in which NGOs and humanitarian organizations respond; where they're willing to go. The safety of international aid workers and international organization employees has changed tremendously in the past 12 months. It's leading them to recalculate where they send people, where they do not. Unfortunately, the delay in that thinking and cost-benefit analysis makes people even more vulnerable.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Are child soldiers part of the human damage there as well?

[Dr. Yolande Bouka]

Yes, with some groups, absolutely.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Do some groups recruit more than others?

[Dr. Yolande Bouka]

Yes. In the Kasai, it is prevalent. People have documented young people, young boys, being recruited. It's one of the gendered dimensions of this conflict that a lot of young boys are being taken and forcibly recruited to engage in these groups. Sometimes it's not so forcibly; sometimes some of them just want to join as well, definitely, but not all of them, and I think that's important to know.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

We did a study some years ago in regard to the psychological effect on children of the Rwandan genocide, and I wonder if we're seeing a migration of frustrated 24-year-olds or 20-year-olds who are disenfranchised in Rwanda and looking for a place to go. Have you seen any evidence of that at all?

[Dr. Yolande Bouka]

I have not. DRC and Rwanda have this agreement where former FDLR from Congo are being demobilized and sent back to Rwanda, where they go through a re-education process and try to reintegrate.

I have not heard of people in Rwanda leaving Rwanda to go to the DRC to fight, but we have heard of people from Burundi leaving Burundi to fight in RED-Tabara and Forebu, which are armed groups specifically linked to the Burundian crisis.

What you are mentioning could be true, but I haven't seen evidence of it or reports.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

There are five more minutes for the Liberal Party if somebody has a question.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I'm afraid I'll ask you another general question, but I can't get over this six million figure, six million people dying because of the conflict.

I have the strong sense that if, in North America, over a two-decade period, six million people died because of conflict, it would have our attention. Our attention would be seized on it day in and day out, media attention and otherwise.

What explains the world's lack of attention when it comes to the Congo?

I'm not setting up a straw man question for you, because one could immediately say racism, and I think that's a factor here. One could also say that there is conflict fatigue because Africa has been home to so many wars and civil wars.

What are your thoughts? You're an expert. You've studied this for some time. Why is the world not focused on the Congo?

[Dr. Yolande Bouka]

I think people have focused on Congo.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

They have, but why is it not at the forefront of global attention?

[Dr. Yolande Bouka]

I think one of the reasons is that it's lasted for a while. Congo has been in the news for the past 25 years, almost. Pretty soon it will be almost 25 years.

There has been, I think, this resignation on the part of Western donors with regard to various initiatives and the lack of.... I go back to the region a lot. The neighbouring countries have made a huge difference, but there is often the sense that, if you send American diplomats or French diplomats, and you put a little bit of pressure and a little bit of threat of sanctions, you'll see a development, and if you don't, there is nothing you can do.

I think what has been very apparent in the past decade or so is the importance of putting pressure on the neighbours to do something. I will give you a brief example to illustrate that point. In the 1990s, when Burundi was in the middle of a civil war, what made a difference was not the European Union crying and saying, “Oh, you're going to have a genocide”, but it was Uganda compelling all the countries in the region to have a full blockade on Burundi, forcing the Tutsi elite to negotiate when their country was completely blockaded. Blockades work really well. If you follow the history of war, they work pretty well, particularly when you are landlocked.

I think there is this idea that, if you come and if you pay attention, things will get solved. I think the Western partners have not found a way to compel the region to assess and to address the DRC.

I think as well one of the reasons we don't see it so much is that, unlike Syria, you don't have long trails of migration that cut across all the way to Europe. Regional actors have been very, very good and very generous with regard to refugees. Tanzania has taken hundreds of thousands of refugees, and Malawi and Kenya have, too. The countries in the region are doing as much as they can in order to at least absorb the massive influx of people so that it doesn't become an emergency.

The dynamics now have shifted from the DR Congo to South Sudan and to Somalia with the global war on terror, and now the Sahel, Mali, and so forth. If it's relatively contained, people will go to it once it explodes. That's just the nature of politics and security, and DRC seems to be this country where we've had the same dynamics. Oftentimes people think it's the same dynamics, but they've evolved, and they're focusing on another part of the region. It's just limited resources and political imperatives.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

I have one last question. Typically, in these kinds of circumstances, rape is used as a tool to intimidate those people who you are against politically. Have we seen that in the Congo?

[Dr. Yolande Bouka]

We have. We've seen the use of sexual violence as a means to intimidate and to subjugate groups for quite some time. The use of sexual violence varies across different groups. I think it's important to know that some of these groups use it as a way to get soldiers to bond together. It's a way of consolidating the ranks. That's the case in Congo. It has been the case in other wars in other parts of the world as well. Some of the sexual violence is also used as a weapon of war. In other cases, sexual violence is simply permitted, but not necessarily promoted.

There are these various ways in which you have the prevalence of sexual violence across a region, across a lot of countries on the continent, and elsewhere in the world. For a long time Congo was seen as the resource curse, diamond conflict, or mineral conflict, and then the sexual violence capital of the world. There are a lot more complicated dynamics, but yes, absolutely, because of the chaos and the lack of governance, we have a prevalence of sexual violence, but it's not always weaponized.