Unsurprisingly, the main stories in today's Kinshasa press are all related to the second and final round of DR Congo presidential election which was held yesterday all over the country. On Sunday, 29 October, as they went to the ballot box to select the country's first democratically president in more that 40 years, Congolese voters demonstrated a sense "discipline, dignity and responsibility", in the way they did in July's first round of voting, Le Phare notes.

Bwinja Bwinja points his digital camera at a ripped election poster of presidential hopeful Jean-Pierre Bemba and snaps away. The 12-year-old boy's camera has given him a special role in the Democratic Republic of Congo's historic election. At night he sleeps with his 10 brothers and sisters in a freight container and an old bus burned and caked in lava from a 2002 eruption of the nearby Niyarongo volcano in this eastern Congolese city.

Repeat elections have been conducted in parts of the northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo's Ituri District following disturbances during Sunday's presidential polls. Speaking on Tuesday (31 October 2006), the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Apollinaire Malumalu, told IRIN that the disturbances had occurred in Fataki, 90 km northeast of Bunia, the main town in Ituri, after a soldier shot dead two polling clerks.

Voting went peacefully in presidential runoff elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo on October 29. And both contenders have promised not to resort to force to contest the results. But there is still a significant threat of violence as the votes are counted. While most observers see the election success as a "moment of hope" for the Congo, there is also agreement that fundamental issues of security, corruption, and governance, as well as how to sustain international funding for reconstruction, are still unresolved.

The African Union on Tuesday (31 October 2006) hailed the hailed the generally peaceful conduct of the second-round presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo and called for calm as the vast nation awaits final results. In a statement released here, the AU Commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare welcomed "the smooth conduct of the second round of the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo."

Despite renewed attacks and displacement, the security situation in DRC improved in 2006 compared to previous years. The first round of presidential elections took place relatively peacefully in July 2006. Moreover, military operations to drive out militias with the support of peacekeeping troops have allowed the Congolese government to dominate large areas of eastern DRC, and permitted hundreds of thousands to return home.

Dieu–Donné Wedi Djamba considers the options of bringing lasting peace to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). He argues against the appointment to a high government position of the two militia leaders who committed atrocities during the civil war. He points out that such a move will not either bring unity nor peace in the DRC.

Reverend Bongani Finca argues that when states are drowning in conflict and there is a general breakdown of the rule of law, gross abuse of human rights occurs with a resultant loss of human life and other acts of injustice. [1]

Tina Rosenberg, the Pulitzer Prize winner, writes that “A country’s decisions about how to deal with its past should depend on many things: the type of dictatorship or war endured, the type of crimes committed, the level of societal complicity, the national political culture and history, the conditions necessary for dictatorship to occur, the abruptness of the transition, and the new democratic government power and resources”. [2]

It is against this background that the political situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) ought to be assessed. The DRC has just come out of a civil war that is reported to have killed more than three million people. That war left thousands of people displaced, and despicable atrocities were committed. However, a peace agreement was signed, in 2002, between the government, the rebels groups (MLC and RCD), the militia group (Mai Mai), civil society and the political opposition.

At the end of this transitional period, which started in July 2003 with the formula 1+4 (one President with four vice-presidents), Congolese people are focused on the second round of the presidential election which will see the incumbent Joseph Kabila opposing his challenger Jean-Pierre Bemba, and the provincial and local elections which will take place on the 29 October.

But while all the attention is focused on the elections, one of the decisions taken on 2 October 2006 by the transitional government in the name of the peace process threatens to undermine future justice in term of accountability for those responsible for grave human rights violations.

Indeed, in the name of peace, two Ituri ex-militia leaders, Peter Karim of Front des nationalistes et intégrationnistes (FNI) and Mathieu Ngudjolo of Mouvement des révolutionnaires congolais (MRC), both accused of killing, rape, and using child soldiers, have been appointed as colonels in the national army.

But the Peter Karim and Mathieu Ngudjolo cases are not the only ones in this regard. Several similar cases are to be counted. Indeed, last year four ex-militia leaders were appointed generals in the national army, as IRIN noticed. [3]

Are all these appointments helpful for peace and reconciliation in the DRC? Through this paper, I will analyze the consequences of these cases in terms of accountability for those responsible for grave human rights violations.

Accountability for those responsible of grave human rights violations.

The ICTJ recommended that the government stop appointing the ex-commander militia ‘suspected of participation in massacres and other war crimes’ to the national army and instead to prosecute them. [4]

To add his voice to this issue, Juan Mendez, the President of the International Center For Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and United Nations (UN) Secretary General special counsel, declared that if the DRC wants a lasting peace, the country should not appoint individuals into the army when there is irrefutable evidence that those individuals have committed grave atrocities. [5]

But in the case of the last appointment, Adolph Onusumba, the Congolese Defense Minister argues that the objective of these nominations is the pursuit of peace. [6] The term of peace has a broad meaning, but in the context of a post-conflict situation such as the DRC, the term peace raises a couple of questions:

What is peace? Does that mean peace for the woman who was raped? Does it mean peace for the man who saw his wife and/or daughter being raped? Where is peace for those who witnessed their families being slaughtered and their houses burnt to the ground?

For the victims of war in the DRC, ‘peace’ means positive peace, one in which justice is addressed, human rights are respected and people live without any fear (as opposed to a negative peace such as a ceasefire, which is negative because it stops the war but does not address other issues) [7]. And this ‘peace’ has to be based on the concept of justice. There is no peace without justice. But this justice has to be taken into the transitional justice perspective .

Describing transitional justice, Alex Boraine, chairperson of the ICTJ and former deputy chairperson of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) said: “…transitional justice offers a deeper, richer and broader vision of justice which seeks to confront perpetrators, address the needs of victims and assists in the start of a process of reconciliation and transformation.” [8]

Responding to the appointment of the two militia leaders, Joel Bisubu, deputy director of Justice-Plus, a Bunia-based human rights group, said that people who kill and massacre Congolese should not be rewarded with high positions. [9]

The Defense Minister argued that the recent appointment of the two militia leaders was made by the government as a strategy to pacify the troubled northern-east district of Ituri. [10]

If all these appointments are a strategy for the government to lure all these militia out of the bush, then it is welcomed. However, that does not mean that those who committed atrocities during the war should not be held accountable. In this regard, the Defense Minister has publicly stated that the government is determined to work with the International Criminal Court to help bring war criminals to book. [11]

If the objective, however, is to protect war criminals from facing the law, then this strategy has to be condemned. It will send the wrong message to the victims of the war. It will further undermine any reconciliation between victims and their perpetrators, for the victims will feel betrayed by the government.

Joseph Yav Katshung argues that accountability for human rights violations is an important instrument in breaking the cycle of violence and impunity and is an indispensable component of the process of healing the wounds. [12]

Reconciliation can begin when the need for reparation is acknowledged and acted upon. The response by former victims to these initiatives can increase the potential for greater stability and increase the chances for sustainable peace. [13]

Conclusion

The DRC is making herself ready for 29 October and the second round of presidential elections and local elections.

But this challenge is not the only one she faces. Among those challenges are the restoration of peace and reconciliation after the war, which is reported to have killed more than three million people and increased HIV/AIDS infections.

The aim of this paper was to attempt to explore the challenge facing the DRC of how a post-conflict government reconciles an ethnically divided country. Further, I have attempted to show that appointing militia leaders who committed atrocities during the civil war to high governmental offices will not bring unity, peace and reconciliation in the DRC.

• Dieu-Donné WEDI DJAMBA is a lawyer (Advocate)at the Lubumbashi Bar association/DRC; Assistant lecturer in the College of Law in Lubumbashi/DRC; Human Rights Activist; Writer; Currently fellow in Fellowship Programme in Transitional Justice co-organized by the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) in collaboration with the University of Cape Town(UCT) in Cape Town, South Africa. Tel:+243812485222 ; +27738362921 ; +27216862044 Email: [email][email protected] or [email][email protected]
• Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org/

References

[1] Bongani Finca, ‘They treat the wounds of my people cheaply’, in transitional justice and human Security, (2006) pp56
[2] Tina Rosenberg ‘After word: Confronting the Painful Past’, in :Martin Meredith, coming to Terms: South Africa’s Search for Truth,1999,pp330
[3] IRIN:News:’Great Lakes: Le CITJ exige de poursuites judiciaries contre les ex-chefs de milice en RDC’,pp2
,Accessed 10-1-2006
[4] IRIN,op.cit.pp1
[5] IRIN,op cit pp 2
[6] IRIN,DRC:Two miltia leaders appointed army colonels,pp1 ,Accessed,2006-10-13
[7] Professor Jannie Malan used the terms “negative and positive peace” during the course session for the fellowship in Transitional Justice(2006) in Cape town/South Africa.
[8] Alex Boraine, ‘Definiting Transitional Justice:Tolerance in the search for justice and peace’, in transitional justice and human Security,(20006),pp22
[9] IRIN,op.cit pp1
[10] IRIN, ibid. pp1
[11] IRIN,op.cit.pp1
[12] Joseph Yav Katshung,’DRC:Healing the wounds of war through reparations’, in Pambazuka, pp1 ,Accessed,2006-08-26
[13] Alex Boraine,op.cit.pp30-31.

As presidential rivals Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba prepare for an electoral run-off in the Congo on Sunday (29 October 2006), the two international forces in charge of security during the polls, say they are ready to quell any violence that erupts. So far though, violent incidents between supporters of the two have been isolated.

Congolese President Joseph Kabila, who faces Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba in a second-round presidential poll, has agreed to include one of the sons of late President Mobutu Sese Seko in his government should he win the 29 October contest.

In 2004 the United Nation’s World Health Organisation estimated there were 25,000 survivors of sexual violence in South Kivu, the Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern province, but those working to rebuild shattered lives consider this a fraction of the real number. "I have no doubt that over 100,000 women have been raped in this province," said Christine Schuler-Deschryver.

The UNHCR convoys arriving in Burundi in the past four years have carried refugees returning home from Tanzania, but now more and more of the singing, clapping returnees are coming back from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

With two weeks to go to the second round of the presidential election of the 29 October, Mr. Ibrahim Gambari, UN Under Secretary General in charge of political affairs, met with media representatives on 14 October, 2006 at MONUC headquarters to speak about the outcome of his meetings with the two remaining presidential candidates and the president of the Independent Electoral Commission.

Three days into presidential election campaigns, tensions remain high in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as supporters of candidates Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba burn effigies and stone vehicles involved in the campaigns. "This tension is deliberately maintained by those who have no hope of winning the elections, who already know they have lost," said Lambert Mende, the rapporteur of Kabila's electoral platform, known as Alliance pour la marjorité presidentielle (Alliance for the Presidential Majority).

Reporters without borders (RSF) has condemned the 12 October 2006 destruction by unidentified gunmen of a transmitter in the southeastern province of Katanga, which relayed the satellite broadcasts of Canal Congo Télévision (CCTV), a station owned by presidential candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba. In the 12 October raid, a group of gunmen forced their way into the relay station 15 km south of Lubumbashi, beat and tied up three police officers who were present, and then poured acid on the CCTV transmitter.

New research by the Control Arms Campaign: Amnesty International, Oxfam International and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) has found that Bullets manufactured in Greece, China, Russia and the USA have been found in the hands of rebel groups in the Ituri District of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which is under a UN arms embargo.

AS CONGO PREPARES FOR A RUN-off election between incumbent Joseph Kabila and Jean Pierre Bemba, the focus will be on the country's Electoral Commission, which urgently needs to deal with the many organisational weaknesses witnessed during the first round of polling. The first round was, in many ways, a success, with 18 million voting in around 50,000 polling stations.

The Congolese government and the international community must move quickly to secure the run-off presidential election between Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba on 29 October 2006. “Securing Congo’s Elections: Lessons from the Kinshasa Showdown”, the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, analyses especially the situation on the ground in the capital, which events after the first round demonstrated is the most sensitive point in the country.

As Congo waits for the final leg of its presidential elections, new lessons have been learnt about how a partisan press can be detrimental to peaceful electioneering. Indeed, the Congo elections have given new insight into what happens in an environment where most of the media outlets are owned by players in the same elections.

Senior aides to the two candidates running for president in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have agreed to make Kinshasa a weapons-free zone to ensure that the fighting that followed the first-round results in August is not repeated.

A new national assembly was inaugurated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the first such body to be democratically elected in the country in more than 20 years. "The new parliament can only lead to peace," Jean-Pierre Nemoyato, one of the newly inaugurated parliamentarians, said.