One Disarmed Rebel for Every Seven Women Raped

by Michael Bear · 2009-10-14 22:05:00 UTC
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[Sexual violence in the DRC - video from Human Rights Watch]

Earlier this week, the Congo Action Coalition released a statement highlighting the "unacceptable cost for the civilian population" of the ongoing Congolese army offensive against rebels in North and South Kivu provinces.

The UN-supported offensive is aimed at neutralizing the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (French-acronymized to FDLR), a particularly vicious rebel group operating in eastern Congo.

According to the Congo Action Coalition -- comprising 84 international and Congolese NGOs -- things haven't gone exactly as planned: "Since the start of military operations against the FDLR militia in January 2009, more than 1,000 civilians have been killed, 7,000 women and girls have been raped, and over 6,000 homes have been burned down in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu. Nearly 900,000 people have been forced to flee their homes and live in desperate conditions with host families, in forest areas, or in squalid displacement camps with limited access to food and medicine."

Overall, 1,071 rebels have been disarmed. As the Coalition points out, this leads to some uncomfortable arithmetic: "for every rebel combatant disarmed during the operation, one civilian has been killed, seven women and girls have been raped, six houses burned and destroyed, and 900 people have been forced to flee their homes."

Yay. Victory.

Overall, the UN has spent over $6 million so far supporting the Kimia II offensive.  Which, in turn, leads Texas in Africa to levy a rather damning indictment against the UN: "What I don't get is why you insisted on persisting with this operation even when it was clear that Kimia II was causing massive human suffering. We knew within six months of the operation's launch that it was a disaster. And yet you continued. Why?"

For satellite imagry of the devastation, see here.

Of course, the Congolese army (FARDC) is hardly blameless, as the above video shows.

Michael Bear
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