VII. The Role of the International Community

The United Nations and a number of bilateral donors invested significant financial and political capital in the Congolese elections, one of the largest electoral support programs in the UN's history. But with the polls finished, they have failed to invest comparable resources and attention in assuring that the new government implements its international human rights obligations. For donor governments, concern about winning a favored position with the new government took priority over halting abuses and assuring accountability.[290] MONUC proved unwilling to permit its human rights monitors to criticize violations openly so long as the future role of MONUC in Congo was not secured. Eventually Belgium stepped forward to raise concerns about abuses by the Congolese government, while UN envoys proved the most insistent in calling for improvements in human rights.

International Donors

Working through the International Committee Accompanying the Transition (Comité international d'accompagnement de la transition, CIAT), diplomats from 12 countries, the African Union (AU), and the UN coordinated their activities and met regularly with Kabila and Bemba, as well as other key actors, to keep the electoral process on track. They further established a Committee of the Wise with African former heads of state to help them in their efforts. Donor states pinned their hopes on the electoral process, expecting that it would allow them to begin drawing down the costly UN peacekeeping operation, MONUC, and to see some return on the aid money invested in trying to restore a functioning state. Preoccupied with the political and logistical challenges of the electoral process, international actors did little to plan for the period after elections.

Economic concerns take priority

After the completion of the elections and the inauguration of President Kabila in December 2007, the mood in Kinshasa among diplomats and UN officials was a mixture of celebration and relief. Many went on leave following Kabila's inauguration and those who remained focused on developing bilateral relations, especially in the economic domain, with the newly elected president and his government.[291] Shortly after the killings of BDK adherents in February 2007, Belgium signed a cooperation agreement worth €195 million for 2007-2008.[292] The World Bank pledged US$1.4 billion.[293] The French cooperation minister, Brigitte Girardin, signed a five-year partnership agreement for €235 million with Kabila in Kinshasa on March 27, 2007, even as gun battles pitted government soldiers against Bemba's guard.[294] During a visit on April 23, UK International Development Secretary Hilary Benn announced an aid contribution of £70 million for 2007, though added a caveat that his government would "judge progress by events."[295] In September 2007 Congo received a US$9 billion loan and investment package from China.

There was little scrutiny of gubernatorial and senate elections in January 2007 and little attention paid to the evident corruption of the process, so that diplomats were taken by surprise by the Bas Congo protests and ensuing violence against the protestors. Few joined the UN in publicly condemning the violence. One diplomat in Kinshasa later told Human Rights Watch that at the time, "nobody protested enough."[296] No donor provided financial or political support to the National Assembly's first commission of inquiry established to investigate the Bas Congo events, thus missing an opportunity to encourage parliamentary efforts to hold the government accountable for human rights violations.

The violence in March 2007 elicited a somewhat more robust response from diplomats and UN officials, who had begun to raise questions about the direction of the new government. The EU Heads of Mission issued a statement deploring the premature use of force and the loss of civilian lives.[297] A small group of EU diplomats met with Kabila to condemn the violence and attacks on diplomatic missions. But on March 29 the German ambassador undercut the criticism by telling reporters the EU had ruled out any suspension of cooperation.[298]

South African diplomats and UN officials played an important role in providing security for Bemba and his family in March 2007 and in facilitating his departure in April for medical treatment in Portugal.[299] Once Bemba was gone, few diplomats wanted to see him return. As one diplomat remarked to Human Rights Watch, "Kabila is much calmer now that Bemba is gone and the country is better off."[300] One of the few to recognize that the departure of Bemba could hinder the development of a strong opposition, EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Louis Michel, attempted in July 2007 to negotiate with Kabila for Bemba's eventual return to Kinshasa, but he was unsuccessful.

Ready to accept Bemba's removal from the leadership of the opposition, donor governments nonetheless hoped to ensure the opposition more political space in parliament by calling for legislation that would guarantee and specify the role of the opposition and create the position of "spokesperson" of the opposition (see above, Chapter IV).[301] International pressure apparently played an important part also in assisting opposition politicians to obtain the chairmanship of two committees. Diplomats also monitored and raised objections about fair trial lapses in the military trial of Bemba's lawyer Marie-Thérèse Nlandu.

Donor governments said they would devote considerable financial and technical resources to security sector reform programs, but have yet to insist that such programs include adequate vetting to rid the military and law enforcement services of individuals in senior positions who have been implicated in serious human rights violations.

The Belgians take the lead

In late 2007 and 2008 the Belgian government took the lead in raising concerns with Kabila over corruption, violation of human rights, and the lack of transparency in Congolese dealings with China. Belgium particularly criticized the Congolese government's unwillingness to accept the continuation of the mandate of the UN Human Rights Council's independent expert for Congo (see below). When Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht and two other Belgian ministers met with Kabila in April 2008, the session turned into an angry confrontation following which Kabila declared that Belgium should choose between "an adult partnership ... or a master-slave relationship" with Congo. He said that he would not "accept a Belgian delegation come[ing] to Kinshasa and tell[ing] us how to run our country."[302] Congo recalled its ambassador from Belgium.[303]

The Belgian effort failed to spur other donor governments to raise human rights issues, significantly reducing the impact of the Belgian intervention.

The UN Peacekeeping Mission, MONUC 

The UN peacekeeping force in Congo, MONUC, had to redefine its role in the wake of the elections. It has struggled to maintain its impartiality among contending political actors while still implementing its mandate to protect civilians.

MONUC peacekeepers helped rescue civilians during the March 2007 violence and attempted as soon as was possible to visit places where people were detained and where summary executions and torture were reportedly taking place, though such attempts were often rebuffed. MONUC's human rights section regularly monitored places of detention in Kinshasa, attempted to intervene in individual cases of wrongful detention and of torture, and stayed in regular contact with political opponents and others who were intimidated and harassed. The daily interventions over the course of weeks and months assisted scores of people who would otherwise have gone unaided.

MONUC also assisted some 160 of Bemba's guards who sought protection during the March 2007 violence, protecting them with more than 250 family members at a secure compound in Kinshasa. MONUC refused to hand them over to Congolese government authorities without guarantees for their safety. When MONUC prepared a draft agreement providing such guarantees, Congolese authorities deleted references to common article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, modified the provision concerning the death penalty, and insisted that MONUC have prior authorization from Congolese judicial authorities before being able to visit any persons who might subsequently be arrested by the government.[304] MONUC refused to accept a number of these conditions, and at this writing the group remained under MONUC protection.[305]

Unfortunately, lack of high-level political support from within MONUC and obstacles to publishing reports in a timely fashion to demonstrate the pattern and scale of the abuses seriously limited the impact of work by the mission's dedicated human rights professionals. Following the killings in Bas Congo in February 2007, MONUC sent a multi-disciplinary team to investigate. Its report was not published for five months as it was deemed "too sensitive." UN officials did not want to criticize the new government before securing its agreement on the role of MONUC in the post-electoral period.[306] Similarly MONUC delayed publication of its report on the March 2007 events for fear of upsetting relations with Kabila. Both reports were blocked by the head of MONUC, Ambassador William Swing, who deflected repeated requests from the UN Department for Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) in New York and from the then UN high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, for the reports to be made public.[307] If the reports had been promptly published, they could have contributed to wider awareness of the serious violations committed and might have led to additional diplomatic pressure on the Congolese government to halt the abuses and hold the perpetrators accountable. The March 2007 investigation report was eventually published in French on January 4, 2008, after a copy was leaked to the press; no English version has been made public.

In what may represent a change of policy, MONUC published its investigation report on the 2008 Bas Congo violence in a more timely fashion, three months after the events.

© 2008 Anthony De Bibo/Human Rights Watch

UN Human Rights Envoys

The most vocal and detailed criticisms of human rights violations in Congo came from UN experts and special rapporteurs who visited Congo in 2007 and 2008. The most high-profile visitor was then-High Commissioner Arbour, who met with Kabila in Kinshasa in May 2007. She criticized the "culture of impunity that reigns virtually throughout [the] country" and remarked that "grave human rights violations occur almost every day in DRC."[308]

After visiting Congo in April 2007, the UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Leandro Despouy, concluded that "uniformed men, such as soldiers and [intelligence officers], often carry out arbitrary arrests and detentions - which is beyond their authority - and often for activities that do not constitute a crime."[309]He added that interference by the executive and the army in judicial proceedings was "very common."[310]In June 2007 Despouy wrote the Congolese government to express serious concern about the lack of judicial action for grave human rights abuses committed by the army and law enforcement services in Bas Congo and in Kinshasa in March 2007. He commented, "The lack of action by military judges on these serious cases is extremely worrying and contributes significantly to a climate of impunity and insecurity in the country."[311]

In annual reports to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2007 and 2008 the independent expert on Congo, Titinga Frédéric Pacéré, also raised serious concerns about human rights violations in Congo. In his 2008 report he condemned the March 2007 violence in Kinshasa and noted that "despite the undertaking by President Joseph Kabila and the Congolese Government to prioritize efforts to combat impunity following the elections, little progress has been made."[312]

Despite these serious criticisms, the Human Rights Council discontinued the mandate of the independent expert on Congo in March 2008. Kabila had privately assured diplomats in Kinshasa that he would support the continuation of the mandate, but Congolese government officials in Geneva actively lobbied against it.[313] The EU and states which had said they would make renewal of the mandate a key priority did not vote against the motion discontinuing the mandate and agreed to a weak compromise scheduling the next discussion on the human rights situation in Congo for March 2009.

The Deficiency in International Attention to Congo

In the press to establish good relations with the newly elected president, donor nations and other international actors have given little attention to the grave human rights violations of the first two years of the Kabila government and the failure to hold accountable the perpetrators of these abuses. Although they took some steps to ensure political space for the opposition, they failed to act otherwise to check executive power, even though some Congolese were voicing concerns about the lurch to authoritarian rule. In May 2007, one of Kinshasa's main newspapers, Le Potentiel, ran an opinion piece about the ruthless behavior of the government.  Questioning the electoral process and its bloody aftermath in Kinshasa and Bas Congo, the author lamented, "We were ardently searching to become a democracy, but we are on our way to becoming an absurd dictatorship."[314]

Elections themselves cannot bring democracy. Congolese and international actors must work to establish an independent judiciary and a vibrant parliament with an effective opposition to improve human rights, hold the executive to account for its actions, and counterbalance the restriction of political space. Failure to establish such counterweights will endanger Congo's young democracy. The same kind of focus and international cooperation that brought about the elections must be replicated in the cause of improving human rights and opening up democratic space if the hopes for stability and improved governance for this war-torn nation are to be fulfilled.