Daily Brief Audio Series
Yesterday, Rwandan-backed M23 rebels announced the capture of the city of Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Their arrival into the second largest city in eastern Congo, follows the fall of the largest, Goma, just three weeks ago.
Events are moving very quickly, and what the people of Bukavu can expect from occupying forces isn’t known for sure just yet.
But if it’s anything like what the people in Goma and other occupied areas have been going through, it’s not good.
The fighting between the M23 armed group and Rwandan forces on one side, and the Congolese military and allied militias on the other has brought miseries and atrocities to the region for the last three years. It’s exposed civilians to mass displacement, indiscriminate shelling and killings, widespread sexual violence, and other violations by all parties to the conflict.
The humanitarian crisis is dire, with hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the M23 and lacking access to humanitarian aid. Some have been displaced multiple times. In the last ten days, the M23 ordered tens of thousands of people living in displacement camps around Goma to leave.
This is not only cruel but also possibly a war crime.
Closing of camps appears to have become standard operating procedure for the Rwanda-backed M23. As one man who fled the fighting told Human Rights Watch:
“We know when the M23 arrive somewhere, they force everyone out and close the camps. They do that everywhere they go.”
Forcing people to move with no support or assistance in their hometowns makes providing them with humanitarian aid incredibly difficult. Add to that the looting of aid warehouses during the fighting and the closure of the airport in Goma, and it becomes near impossible to get help to the people who need it.
The M23 and Rwandan forces controlling Goma and Bukavu are responsible for the civilians under their control. They shouldn’t be forcing them to move nor denying them access to items essential for their survival, like water, food, shelter, and medicine.
International actors need to go beyond speaking out. The UN, the African Union, and donor governments need to put pressure on the Rwandan government to end its support to the M23, lest it be held liable for its actions.
The EU needs to end its “lack of coherence” on what’s been unfolding in eastern Congo. Brussels has issued one strong statement, but the EU still hasn’t suspended its minerals deal with Rwanda. The EU and members states also haven’t stopped military cooperation and arms sales that further Rwandan military operations in Congo.
There are international levers that can be pulled here to help people facing an increasingly desperate humanitarian disaster.
Human rights organizations do not generally have a reputation for speed. We don’t tend to respond quickly to events as they happen.
When a major news story breaks somewhere, we’re not usually the first to react with a clever comment on social media.
A quote from a human rights organization most likely won’t get out in time to be included in the immediate news wire stories.
A human rights expert’s face will probably not be the first talking head you see on your favorite TV news channel.
Sure, sometimes it happens, but more often not.
However, there’s a good reason. For human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch, truth is more important than speed.
Breaking news is often unclear and confusing. The details are still coming in. The facts haven’t been established yet.
And for us, facts are what matter most.
Of course, everyone says facts matter, but we don’t just say it. We live it. The core of our work is confirming facts, and that means investigation, research, and expert technical and legal analysis.
We don’t talk about what’s going on until we’re sure about what’s going on and confident we can bring some of our experience and expertise to it.
That takes time, and it means we miss opportunities to be seen and have influence in some breaking news stories.
Admittedly, this can be frustrating, especially for those in communications dealing with the media. Journalists call, they’re on a super tight deadline, and they need an immediate reaction. The story is ready to be published online. The TV studio is ready to patch you in live.
It’s hard to let such opportunities slip away. It’s even harder to see them get snatched up by others with fewer scruples – to watch the public debate get filled with politicians’ lies and professional pundits’ fact-free commentary.
But if we joined the media circus before knowing the facts, would we be any better?
A lot of people appreciate this slower, more careful approach. Even not pouncing on every news story, Human Rights Watch still gets hundreds of thousands of media mentions around the world every year. More and more people are watching our videos and subscribing to our newsletters, too.
True, it may all seem a bit old-fashioned these days – knowing what you’re talking about before opening your mouth – but we’ll keep sticking to truth over speed.
How do you measure progress? Specifically, what statistics, what numbers do you look at to see if a country is improving or backsliding?
The most well-known economic indicator around the world is surely gross domestic product, or GDP. You get that number by calculating the total market value of all the goods and services produced in a country over time.
Many politicians and policy makers talk in terms of GDP, almost to the point of obsession. It’s not hard to understand why. A country and its economy are an incredibly complex system, and people want to simplify things with a single number. Things are good if the number goes up. Things are bad if the number goes down.
However, that’s all really far too simple.
Note specifically that the definition of GDP doesn’t say anything about how a country’s goods and services are produced. It also doesn’t look at how “total market value” is shared and enjoyed among the population.
Things like human well-being and environmental sustainability aren’t considered in the GDP figure. There could be a country where just a few people own all the wealth and everyone else is practically enslaved, surrounded by ecological collapse – but the GDP number might still be nice and large. It might even be growing.
That’s not progress.
The need for better indicators of progress has been clear for some time, and many folks at the UN and elsewhere have been working on it.
Just yesterday, the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva discussed how to move beyond GDP and develop indicators to measure progress with human rights in mind. Human Rights Watch made a statement to the panel.
We emphasized keyaspects of human well-being, based in fundamental human rights, that GDP ignores. These include education, health care, and a clean, sustainable environment. They all need to be measured when examining a country’s progress, or lack thereof.
Also, when these rights-based aspects are measured, they shouldn’t simply be averaged across a country’s entire population. That could hide critical imbalances between rich and poor.
Improvements in education or health care for a small minority, for example, may raise an indicator number nationally. However, if most people have seen no improvements, it makes no sense to talk about the country making progress overall.
When you hear that experts are discussing economic indicators, it may sound like a technical, even academic, debate. But the numbers our governments use to describe progress have a major impact on our rights and our lives.
We all deserve indicators beyond GDP.
Sometimes readers and friends get in touch to ask for advice. They’re struggling to cope with an onslaught of human rights abuses in their country, or they’re bracing for an onslaught soon.
Maybe the political situation has shifted dramatically – away from democracy and toward authoritarian rule – and they feel they need to do something other than doom-scrolling. Resist.
But how? They’ve never been an activist for democracy and human rights before. Where do you even start?
Books have been written about this, of course, but start with three things:
First, hold on to truth. Authoritarian rulers and wannabes flood information channels with lies. Sometimes the aim is to gaslight the public into believing those lies and adopting their worldview. Sometimes it’s simply to confuse people so they doubt their own eyes and ears, making them passive – if you’re no longer sure what’s real, you’re unlikely to resist.
Do something active to hold on to the facts and, more importantly, the idea that facts exist and still matter. Write in a diary, post on social media, make a video, send emails to friends – anything that gets you to remember and/or share the facts.
When doing so, try not to repeat politicians’ lies, not even to “debunk” them. Their lies get too much attention already, and communications research shows repeating a lie only reinforces the false idea in people’s brains. If you feel you absolutely must mention the lie, use the “truth sandwich” technique.
Second, do what you’re good at. You may not have experience in activism (yet), but you do know how to write songs, set up servers, bake cakes, paint signs, organize events, drive a bus, spread information, do first aid, and other things that may be useful for local and national movements.
Don’t start by focusing on what you don’t know how to do. You will learn those things as you go along. Focus on what you can offer and contribute to the cause, working as part of a larger team in your area.
Third, keep yourself healthy. Any struggle for democracy and human rights against authoritarian political forces will be long and difficult. It’s frustrating, often exhausting emotionally, and maybe even dangerous physically. Realize it’s multiple marathons, not a single sprint.
Take breaks. Spend time with friends. Eat healthily. Exercise.
Don’t become addicted to the media of online outrage. You won’t do anyone any good if you have a break down.
Finally, one bit of advice for old hands. There are so many people out there who want to get involved right now but don’t know how. Help them find pathways to you, and most of all, welcome them.
Sometimes, veteran activists and the long-time socially engaged look at newcomers with an attitude of, “what took you so long?” or “why didn’t you speak out earlier?” But everyone has their own learning curve.
Holding grudges about the past is not going to help accomplish anything in the future. Welcoming fresh recruits and new allies just might.
If you’re in a club, you’ve got to pay your dues.
The US is a founding member of the United Nations, and it’s not paying what it owes to help keep the UN and its programs going.
Let’s go back to the beginning…
Established in 1945 as World War Two drew to a close, the United Nations was given a clear mission. In the preamble to the founding UN Charter, this includes:
“to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…” and
“to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights…” and
to help maintain justice and respect for international law…
This may all sound a bit lofty today, but remember, this was not simply some high-minded idealism. This was practical thinking based on the immediate horrific reality of the war. It tries to set out the means necessary to prevent yet another global apocalypse in which tens of millions of people are killed.
Now, has the UN lived up to all its objectives all the time since its founding? No. Obviously not.
But like any club, the UN can only ever be as good as its members. Governments that don’t pay their dues to the club aren’t offering solutions to make the UN work better; they are part of the problem, making it function more poorly.
The United States is the UN’s top financial contributor, but today, it cannot be trusted to honor its commitments.
Even before Trump returned to office, the UN was struggling with a shortage of cash, due largely to the failure of the United States and the UN’s second biggest contributor, China, to pay their assessed contributions. As of last month – again, this was before Trump took office – the US owed nearly US$3 billion for the UN’s regular budget, peacekeeping, and tribunals.
The UN’s lack of funds has undermined human rights investigations into atrocities in Sudan, Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, and elsewhere.
The US failure to pay its share is not a new problem, but the Trump administration is making things worse with additional measures. The administration has suspended most foreign aid, with severe implications for millions of people around the world. Trump’s new cuts also will impact funding for various crucial UN programs.
One of Trump’s first executive orders was to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, the UN agency responsible for global public health. Last week, a new order confirmed the administration would review US membership in all international organizations and treaties.
The order said the US would cease engagement with the UN Human Rights Council and review its membership in the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which focuses on the health of women and girls around the world, may also get defunded, as it did under the first Trump administration.
The UN has been around for 80 years, and it will continue to play a vital role in international affairs for many years to come. With the US increasingly abandoning its commitments to the United Nations, the UN will need to work with more trustworthy partners.
Other countries should take note – and step up.