Congo
trial a small sign of progress against impunity in rape cases
By
Mary Durran
I am standing
on the gravel square in front of the Catholic church in Rutshuru, Congo,
43 miles north of the lakeside town of Goma. In front of me, a diminutive
army corporal stands, his head bowed, in front of a military judge,
flanked by other judges in the khaki Congolese armed forces uniform.
They sit, watched by lawyers for the prosecution, under a tarp tied
between two trees to provide shade from the hot afternoon sun.
The president of the Goma military court is about to rule on the charges
against Cpl. Lyamandro Ernest of rape of a woman and a teenage girl.
All stand to hear the verdict: guilty, sentenced to eight years’
prison and a fine of 100,000 Congolese francs ($112.)
A crowd of curious bystanders gather to watch the show — schoolchildren
on their lunch break; mothers with babies; youths who are so spellbound
by the spectacle that they stop texting on their cellphones to stare.
The military ushers proceed to rip the olive-green army uniform off
the young corporal, leaving him standing in his underwear. The look
on his face is one of humiliation and defeat. He is no longer a member
of the Congolese armed forces.
It is rare to hear of anything remotely functional or successful coming
out of Congo. The country has been grappling with chronic instability
since the 1996 fall of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. While most of the
immense country, the size of Western Europe, has been stabilized, the
vast majority of the population lives in poverty.
A war sputters on in the eastern provinces of North and South Kivu between
the army and different militia groups fighting over the area’s
abundant mineral resources. One of the main weapons of war used by these
groups has been gang rapes of the civilian female population.
But the fact that a gradually increasing number of rape victims are
successfully prosecuting their rapists is the most encouraging thing
I have seen in my 10 months in Congo.
Three years ago, it was inconceivable that a courtroom scene like the
one I witnessed would have taken place in Rutshuru. Any such crime would
have had to be tried in Goma, two hours farther south along a potholed
road, meaning that in practice, sexually violent offenders in this area
got off free. Today, logistical support was provided for the mobile
court by the American Bar Association, one of the international organizations
that participate in the UN-co-ordinated global strategy against sexual
violence in Congo.
Ernest was one of 18 soldiers and militia members tried for rape, murder
and armed robbery. His eight-year sentence wasn’t staggering,
but the fact that he was tried for rape and that he was convicted and
sentenced is an incredible mini-landmark in legal terms in the fight
against the endemic impunity for such cases.
“Education campaigns are beginning to have an effect on victims,”
says Telesphore Katembo, a lawyer working with the non-governmental
organization Arche d’Alliance. “Victims are becoming braver
and beginning to collaborate with the judiciary.”
Arche d’Alliance is one of the small grassroots NGOs benefiting
from a huge project funded by the Canadian International Development
Agency to tackle sexual violence in North and South Kivu. The alliance
runs one of the legal aid clinics for victims. The project also provides
medical and psycho-social assistance.
The CIDA-funded project’s statistics show that from 2006 to the
end of 2009 it had offered medical assistance to more than 36,000 victims
of sexual violence. The legal aid statistics are far more modest: From
2007, the fight against impunity project collected 2,416 cases and offered
legal assistance to 1,537 victims, leading to 508 judicial rulings by
courts.
The Goma military court, in a mobile session in Walikale in April 2009,
convicted 11 military officers to life imprisonment. It found all guilty
of a crime against humanity in the mass rape of 23 victims in several
villages. The court heard how all convicted had looted and pillaged
the villages, systematically raping women, in particular pygmy women,
in the belief that sex with such women would make them invincible.
In July of the same year, an army lieutenant colonel and a major were
sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty of the rape
of four minors and crimes against humanity. They were both ordered to
pay $5,000 to each of their four victims. Only in this case, the lieutenant
colonel escaped before the trial and was tried in absentia. He remains
free today. Neither has ever paid a cent in damages to their victims.
In fact, not one single rape perpetrator has ever paid damages or interest.
And escapes from prison, pre-trial or post-trial, are all too common
occurrences in the Congolese judicial system.
“This is difficult work,” says Patrick Mulemeri, lawyer
at a Goma legal aid clinic funded by the project. The clinic has already
opened files for 18 rape victims this year. “When the victims
see that others never get compensated, they feel discouraged, and this
encourages out-of-court settlements. This will ultimately . . . encourage
offenders.”
But Maria Eriksson Baaz, a research fellow at the University of Gothenburg,
Sweden, who has studied the psychology of rape among Congolese army
soldiers, says the sentences are starting to have a dissuasive effect.
“Word has been getting around about how soldiers can’t get
away with rape any more, as they used to,” Eriksson said. “They
are getting worried.”
Durran co-chairs the Task Force on Fighting Impunity in Sexual Violence of the Joint Human Rights Office of the UN Mission in Congo. She is on a sabbatical year from the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace and will return to Canada in August.
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