Global Policy Forum

By Anjan Sundaram

Hundreds of combatants in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are said to be joining a nascent militia based in the north-east of the country: the Congolese Revolutionary Movement (Mouvement Revolutionnaire Congolaise, MRC). This comes just weeks before the first nation-wide elections to be held in 40 years, and is undermining prospects for a successful poll.

"The situation cannot remain like this; we cannot have elections like this. Something must be done," says United Nations military spokesman Djibril Samassa, who is based in Bunia, the principal city of the north-eastern Ituri district.

The combatants are drawn from the ranks of those involved in earlier conflict. A war waged from 1996 to 1997 caused long-time ruler Mobutu Sese Seko to be ousted from power in what was then Zaire. A second conflict erupted in 1998, pitting the Congolese government, backed by Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola, against rebels in the east supported by Uganda and Rwanda. Control of the DRC's vast natural resources lay at the heart of the war, which ended with a peace accord in South Africa in 2002.

Nearly four million died in the 1998-2002 conflict, both as a direct result of fighting, and because of food shortages and disease. In spite of the 2002 agreement, thousands of fighters in eastern Congo have refused to disarm -- and much of the region remains volatile. A 17,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission, the world's largest, is in the DRC to assist the army with disarmament and securing the elections.

But poorly-trained and undisciplined government forces are struggling to clamp down on militias. And with just one blue helmet for every 250 square kilometres in this vast central African country, the thinly-stretched U.N. force has also battled to establish a foothold in areas under militia control.

The MRC was established in Ituri in December, uniting nearly a dozen loose factions that failed to observe a July 2005 deadline to lay down their arms, says Samassa. He estimates that about 1,500 MRC militiamen now roam the district's hills and forests -- at least 500 of whom have joined the movement since February. Reports indicate that the MRC has formed an alliance with another grouping, the Ituri Patriotic Resistance Front.

A former rebel who joined the national army as a general and then defected, Laurent Nkunda, also remains at large in eastern DRC's North Kivu province. Hundreds of troops from the national army are still loyal to him, having joined Nkunda when he attacked the Congolese military in January.

Militiamen integrated into the national force are given 110 dollars in exchange for their weapons, and a monthly stipend of 25 dollars for a year. But many question the benefits of this arrangement when they could do far better using their weapons to harass civilians. There are also indications that some soldiers collect wages as disarmed militiamen, while secretly spending month-long stints in the bush as fighters.

"They are clever because they make money from the government and from the militias," says Pierre Amos, 25, once a fighter for the Uganda-backed Nationalist and Integrationist Forces in Ituri. Amos now lays bricks under the blazing sun in Bunia: "Soon maybe we will all go back to the bush. During the rebellion we were fine. Now, we just suffer."

U.N. sources say army offensives carried out with support from peacekeepers have enabled government troops to win back territory from the MRC -- but that progress has been limited. An operation in February near the village of Tcheyi in Ituri also ended in disaster when some 30 Congolese soldiers opened fire on the blue helmets backing them up, the U.N. said -- the incident highlighting the lack of control exercised over the DRC's army. U.N. officials say this situation is unlikely to change soon.

"Maybe in ten years Congo's army will be ready to defend its borders effectively without outside help," General G.V. Satya, responsible for U.N. forces in North Kivu province, told IPS. "But even that is contingent on consistent and adequate aid to train and equip them over that period."

Similar words come from the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank. "Far more must be done to create an effective, unified army with a single chain of command, rather than simply demobilising militias and giving ex-combatants payout packages," the group noted in a February report.

An apparent lack of respect for human rights amongst Congolese troops is also giving cause for concern. A U.N. report issued this month noted an increase in the number of rapes and killings by the security forces, who committed some 1,200 of the 1,866 rapes investigated by the U.N. between April and December 2005. This compared poorly to the figure of about 800 rapes the forces committed during the same period in 2004.

"The routine use of physical violence against civilians by members of the security forces was observed everywhere the army or police had been deployed...often motivated by the desire to obtain money, goods or minerals from civilians," the document stated. Adds Sonia Bakar, a senior U.N. human rights official in the DRC, "The Congolese army continues to violate human rights even today, but their crimes largely go unpunished."

In their defense, government soldiers rarely get their salaries, rations or ammunition in time, even during military operations. Too poor to afford transport, the troops often hitch rides on civilian trucks to reach military operations -- then enlist mostly-unwilling villagers as porters to carry heavy ammunition and weapons.

Flori Kitoko, an official with the National Commission for Demobilisation and Reintegration, admits to hitches with payments. But, he maintains this has not undermined efforts to bring former rebels into the fold: "There have been delays with our payments but it has not affected the disarmament programme."

For his part, defence ministry spokesman Delion Kimbu takes a relatively positive view of the situation. "Every army has its problems -- even the United Nations has been accused of abusing civilians. Our army is no different. We are doing our best," he told IPS. But with the Jul. 30 election date looming, these words risk falling on deaf ears. In the eyes of many, time is running out for the Congolese army to get its house in order.

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