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Helmet and flack jackets of a South African contingent of the UN Peacekeeping Mission in DR Congo (Photo:Marie Frechon)
A top UN official is briefing the Security Council today on her recent trip to eastern Congo to investigate the mass rape of civilians in the Walikale region in late July and early August of this year. The World’s Jeb Sharp looks at what UN peacekeepers can do to better protect civilians and prevent sexual violence by armed groups in the eastern DRC. Download MP3
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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. The United Nations is still grappling with a devastating failure in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This past summertime, hundreds of civilians were raped by armed groups in the Walikale region. UN peacekeepers were stationed nearby, but they failed to act. Today, the UN Security Council heard a briefing on the matter. The World’s Jeb Sharp looks at what more can be done to prevent these atrocities.
JEB SHARP: The scale and brutality of the sexual violence in eastern Congo is not a new story, but this incident was particularly shocking. More than 300 people, mostly women but also men and boys, were raped over the course of several days. Margot Wallstrom, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict says it could happen again.
MARGOT WALLSTROM: The peacekeepers have to become much better in catching the early warning signals that were there when these rebel groups are on the move when they start to block off roads, when they start to pillage or loot the small villages then you can assume rape.
SHARP: Anneke van Woudenberg of Human Rights Watch agrees. She says UN peacekeepers have to patrol more often and be more visible in the communities they’re trying to protect. And they have to ask questions.
ANNEKE VAN WOUDENBERG: There was a patrol that was done in the days as this was unfolding but the UN peacekeepers didn’t know that rape was happening. They hadn’t spoken to women in that particular case. So I think one of the lessons learned here is that peacekeepers need to be asking the right questions and asking the right questions of the right people. Not just talking to men, or not just talking to the community leaders, but proactively seeking the view of women.
SHARP: Van Woudenberg says that’s especially true in eastern Congo where an estimated 250,000 women and girls have been raped in the past decade. Lisa Shannon wrote a book about the sexual violence in Congo called A Thousand Sisters. She says it’s not surprising no one in Walikale told the peacekeepers what was happening.
LISA SHANNON: One of the issues people have talked about is that the UN wasn’t notified that perhaps one patrol drove through the area but no one told them. Well I’m trying to imagine who the Congolese woman is that would flag down a foreign man and tell them she was just raped.
SHARP: You have to establish strong relationships with the community Shannon says. And that means getting peacekeepers out of the barracks and out of their vehicles.
SHANNON: I’m not an expert on how you train military to reach the hearts and minds of locals, but I do know simple things like getting out of the car, shopping at the local market, saying hello, would probably make a big difference.
SHARP: UN peacekeeping officials acknowledge the failure in Walikale. Spokesman Nick Birnback says it has shaken people throughout the UN.
NICK BIRNBACK: From our perspective and from a human perspective that’s really hard to come to grips with. That you’re there and that you fail in the most fundamental of your mandates, which is to try to do everything you can to protect the vulnerable populations of the Congo.
SHARP: Birnback agrees the UN mission can do a lot more, including better communication and intelligence gathering. For a start it’s working to get more radios and cell phones into the villages so people can stay in touch with UN bases. But Birnback says more expensive fixes are harder to come by.
BIRNBACK: The first thing that comes to mind is helicopters. That in dealing with these distances if we had more air assets to move around we would be able to get to these places in a more timely fashion when we get news that things are happening. We don’t have the helicopters. The helicopters are provided by the member states and we have a great deal of difficulty in getting them to provide them.
SHARP: Peacekeeping in eastern Congo is notoriously challenging because of the vast distances, forested terrain and lack of roads. In the end though, peacekeeping is only a bandaid. The larger task is to tackle the root causes of conflict and to end the near total impunity for crimes of sexual violence. There was a bit of good news in eastern Congo last week when one of the alleged perpetrators of the Walikale attacks was apprehended. One human rights advocate said “That was a good day. We need more of them.” For The World, I’m Jeb Sharp.
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