“It’s either a church or a nightclub,” my roommate says as we sit in our living room. She’s talking about the booming music we hear, coming from somewhere across the lake. I recently moved into a new apartment with a gorgeous view of the lake. Sound seems to pass easily across the water, so on Friday nights I have the pleasure of listening to everyone’s business. From my porch, I hear a couple of what I assume to be Congolese men, singing as they float in kayaks on the water. When I first arrived in Congo, I also lived on the lake, and heard the sounds of the night. Music often came from one particularly loud place throughout all hours of the night, interspersed with silence and collectives groans at what I assume was the power going out. My roommate Moise said it was a church having an all night worship session. I’ve yet to attend an all night worship service, but it sounds like they’re quite riveting.
Although I do occasionally miss my host family, I’ve been enjoying the new sense of self-autonomy that came with moving into my new apartment (autonomy mostly consists of me eating large cheeseburgers, then collapsing on the couch while my roommate laughs at me). I’ve had a little more time to socialize with the international community. Last week, I met an Italian woman who has been working in the Congo for five years, and currently works for a peacebuilding organization called International Alert. She told me that her work often feels futile (a feeling that I can very much relate to), but also that she feels like her organization has made some difference on a local level. She also told me about the complicated community dialogue process her organization uses called Participatory Action Research (PAR). The basic theory behind this process is that conflict needs to be addressed on a local level, and needs to include community members as participants. There have been many critiques in recent years that the national peace process that occurred from 2004-2006 failed to address local conflict, particularly in the Eastern Congo. Many local conflicts over land rights and ethnic issues have persisted. This is why various NGOs are now working at peacebuilding on a local level. You can find an interesting report that International Alert released about PAR in the Eastern Congo here.
Because there’s not much going on at work right now, I spend a lot of my time reading reports. In the past few weeks, I’ve been particularly interested in the Usalama project, a series of reports on the various armed groups in the Congo. I’m currently reading one on a group called Raia Mutomboki, which means outraged citizens. There are many different versions of Raia Mutomboki, such as Raia Mutomboki Akilo, Raia Mutomboki Mirage, and Raia Mutomboki Elenge. The report describes it as a franchise. A series of loosly connected groups, with no real central leaderships. The groups originally began in a few places in 2005, created to provide defense against foreign armed groups like the FDLR. After a series of massacres which the national military failed to respond to, a Kimbanguist minister named Jean Musumbu rallied local youths to create a self defense force. Musumbu had no military experience, but did provide religious rituals and amulets meant to make the wearer impervious to bullets. The franchise remained small in the early days, largely disappearing after 2007. Unfortunately, the complicated military/political/international community system of governance again failed to protect citizens from horrific attacks in 2011. This led to a larger resurgence of Raia Mutomboki in 2011.
Outraged citizens is a pretty good name, because the things these people live through are without question horrific. One passage from the report reads,
“The FDLR killed 36 people in Nduma, they buried people alive, they made them eat cassiterite [a tin oxide mineral], or tied them to the trees and beat them to death. Three of these miners survived and came to tell us about the massacre. But when we went to tell the Congolese army, they arrested us! They made us pay a fine of $100 to set us free!
It was this FARDC (National Congolese Army) behaviour in response to the Nduma massacre that provoked local outrage. This outrage was most vividly expressed after a visit by the South Kivu governor, Marcellin Cisambo, to Shabunda centre in July 2011, in response to the security problems there. Replying to a question in a town hall meeting about the withdrawal of Congolese troops, he reportedly said: ‘Liberate yourselves!’ This event is now widely recounted to justify the emergence of the Raia Mutomboki.”
After reading a story like this, it’s easy to understand why these groups are motivated to take up arms. One could even call them heroes. They succeeded in what the central government has failed to do for the past 20 years, drive the FDLR out of areas. Unfortunately, the line between hero and not so heroic can be easily crossed. A former FDLR commander who surrendered said that he fears the Raia Mutomboki much more than the Congolese army “as the former targeted their women and children.” There have been various accounts of abuses against the very people that the groups have sworn to protect, There have also been times where the Raia Mutomboki has fought against the Congolese governments forces. These types of clashes probably don't improve the security of civilians. People I've met usually refer to them as bandits rather than heroes. So it seems that what started out as a heroic self defense group has just turned into another problem.
Patrick sometimes comes by my office to work when the electricity is out at his office (the electricity is also out at my office regularly). He asked me if my phone had a camera and before I knew it we were having a photo shoot.
My new apartment has a really awesome view.
I recently borrowed my friends bike, and took a few good rides around the city. The beautiful view totally makes up for all the little kids making kissy noises at me. It's also kind of fun because the roads are so bad, it's almost like mountain biking. I don't know who that guy is but he really wanted to be in the picture.
Anyway, everything is going well here. I'm looking forward to going to Rwanda next week for a Seed retreat. I hope that everyone reading this is doing well. Bye bye for now.
