Wild and Mysterious Life

Twenty Twelve

2011-12-31T23:47:00.000+01:00

I like to sound of it. And the smell of it.

2012.

It's going to be magic and wild, and I am going to live it to its fullest.

I hope you are doing the same.

Happy New Year !

Keeping Hope Alive in Mogadishu - UN News Service

2011-12-23T13:25:00.000+01:00

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=40831&Cr=&Cr1=

OCHA Humanitarian Affairs Officer Ahmed Farah Roble listens to IDPs at an IDP settlement in Mogadishu, Somalia

23 December 2011 – It is a hot, dusty morning in Mogadishu, the war-ravaged capital of Somalia, and Ahmed Farah Roble is in a makeshift settlement for internally displaced persons (IDPs), listening to a mother tell him about her baby daughter.

Ahmed nods patiently, asks questions and listens attentively. He is in the camp to meet with its representatives, to learn more about their situation. Many have recently arrived from the country’s south, fleeing hunger and conflict. They have very little, and urgently need food and medicine, shelter and health care.

It is hard not to be affected by what he sees and hears, especially as the 45-year-old was born and raised in Mogadishu. As the longest-serving UN humanitarian affairs officer in the capital, Ahmed has heard many similar heart-breaking tales before.
“But it is painful, still. I can say that, before, this was a peaceful city. It was paradise. Now, these people living here have lost everything, their property, opportunities for education. There are not enough health services. There is no safe drinking water in some areas,” he says.

“I’m one of those who was here in the golden days, when the situation was good. These last 20 years, when the country was devastated by endless and continuous conflict, it is really painful for me.”

Ahmed Farah Roble and UNHCR staff see first-hand the conditions at IDP settlement in Mogadishu, Somalia.

For much of the past four years, through some of Mogadishu’s heaviest fighting, he was the lone man on the ground for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) – the part of the UN responsible for bringing together humanitarian groups to ensure a coherent response to emergencies.

The situation has been so dangerous that, until recently, OCHA was unable to deploy more staff to join him.

“It was not an easy task to work here then,” says Ahmed. “All of the humanitarian community was targeted, no matter whether they were international or national. You could be targeted, kidnapped and killed at any time.”

“It was a critical time, and even for me it was very difficult to get access to the people most in need.”

National staff members like Ahmed make up more than 90 per cent of humanitarian workers around the world, working on the frontlines. Too often, they bear the brunt of violence, as illustrated today with the deaths of two staff members of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and a colleague working for a partner organization in central Somalia.

The dangers of working in Somalia, and restricted access for internationals, have led to a greater reliance on national staff, as well as local partners.

“International staff bring a wealth of technical experience to this crisis, but the role played by national staff is just as important,” says Marcel Stoessel, the head of OCHA’s sub-office in Mogadishu. “After all, nobody knows Somalia better than the Somalis – and without the local expertise of our national colleagues, international staff couldn’t do their jobs.”

“National staff speak the local language and often some local dialects as well, so they can more easily interact with people. They also understand the clan structure in Somalia, which is important if one wants to be successful in this humanitarian operation. They help us make crucial links with the government.

“Last, but not least, it’s much safer for them to move around Mogadishu than it is for international staff. People like Ahmed are our ‘humanitarian eyes and ears’.”

Ahmed’s family is in a neighbouring country for safety. For much of the time that he has been in Mogadishu, the city has been riven by a fluid frontline dividing the two sides – fighters belonging to the Islamist militant Al-Shabaab movement and troops belonging to the Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

Ahmed Farah Roble speaks with a Somali NGO representative while in the Mogadishu sub-office.

The violence worsened the already dire humanitarian situation for the city’s existing residents, and well as the many new people who sought help and refuge there after famine struck parts of the south in mid-2011.

Since Al-Shabaab’s withdrawal from the central parts of Mogadishu in August, the frontlines have been pushed back to the city’s outskirts – but the situation is still far from secure. The use of roadside bombs, grenades and suicide bombers is a regular occurrence, and on the rise.

“The scale-up of humanitarian aid has done a lot for the situation here. Malnutrition rates and mortality rates have dropped, and access is better in some places – so I have been able to visit various IDP settlements. But there is a need for more help,” Ahmed says. “I see it and hear it all the time.”

Heading back to his car to make his way to the OCHA sub-office is no easy feat. IDPs try to grab his attention with every step. Finally back at his desk, now populated with two new national colleagues and three international colleagues, Ahmed starts preparing a report on what he has heard and seen during his visit.

The report will inform OCHA and its partners about the humanitarian needs of that IDP settlement, allowing the humanitarian system to direct essential aid to its residents.

“I have the sense of a humanitarian. That’s a real driving force which helps me to forget everything, especially when I feel so far from my family, when I am doing this night and day. I’m just happy that I am doing a good thing.”

Ban Ki-Moon with UN staff in Mogadishu

2011-12-14T17:45:00.001+01:00

Front row, fourth from right: Ban Ki-Moon. Third from right: My good self.

Duty station: Mogadishu, Somalia

2011-10-31T18:19:00.001+01:00

I don’t know what the hell I thought when I knew I was definitelygoing to Mogadishu, Somalia, to help the United Nations with the coordinationof humanitarian affairs there. I probably did not “think” in Eckhart Tolle’ssense, because at that time I was in the holistic retreat.

Reactionsfrom friends were varied. The more informed ones asked for clarificationwhether I would be based in Nairobi and rotating into Mogadishu. The answer was:No, my duty station is Mogadishu, Somalia. They said anything from a soft “That’s going to be a challenge”to an outright “You have gone totally crazy”.

I am now here since 20 days yes,it’s an enormous challenge, but no I haven’t gone crazy yet.

Amongst the unfortunate people of this world affected byconflict and other disasters, Somalis clearly rank last. That is if there is arank to be found at all. For many aspects of poverty, “Somalia” has simply “nodata”, so it shows up White instead of Deep Red on those maps. Ihave not seen yet a single house with no bullet holes. At least a generation seems lost. The security situation is still extremely volatile. Access to thevulnerable children, women, and men, remains our primary concern.

Coordination between the humanitarians seems like a boring job: Organizing meetingsand filling out tables. But it’s far from that. Coordination is saving lives.By trying to ensure that gaps in assistance are filled, and trying to avoidduplication, resources are used more efficiently for those, who need it most. Wealso work with our partners in order to be prepared and if possible avoidfuture humanitarian crisis. Presently, for example, the October – December "Deyr"rainy season is a big concern. Disease outbreak is a distinct possibility giventhe overcrowding of camps, bad drainage, no functioning garbage collection, andsewage, which could infiltrate drinking water. Partners work with highintensity to distribute more plastic sheeting to the displaced people, to do masshealth promotion campaigns, to chlorinate water sources, and stock up on medication ifworst comes to worst.

Being involved in coordination also means that you meet people from absolutely all walks of life, Somalis and foreigners from all walks oflife.

Whatever you have planned for in Mogadishu,Somalia, your day will be different: Time goes by so quickly that when I lookat my watch and its 5 p.m., I am often surprised and feel I have just got started. Every day humanitarians are working into theevenings. The needs of vulnerableSomalis are first and foremost in all of their minds. The environment is so difficult that even the basic things take an awful lot of time.

“Duty station:Mogadishu, Somalia”, means working and living under very strict security rulesand living in a communal environment. It means I get up early and go to bedlate. It means checking my Emails and answering my phones permanently,meeting staff and partners, maximizing the time I can spend on making thisoperation more effective and inclusive. I cannot overstate how much I admireour Somali staff and partners. For them, it’s not a duty station; it’s theirhome, their daily life.

Good thing I followed my instict before I went to Somalia. Some long-term humanitarian workers, like all professionals, have atendency to think “been there, done that”. I will never think that again evenwhen my tour in "Duty Station: Mogadishu, Somalia", will be finished.

Ten Principles to Live By in Fiercely Complex Times

2011-09-12T10:45:00.001+02:00

We definately live in such times, and I found some good advice on FastCompany. These ten principles are worth reflecting on. For the full explanation, click on this blog's title. This is the short version:

1. Always challenge certainty, especially your own.
2. Excellence is an unrelenting struggle, but it's also the surest route to enduring satisfaction.
3. Emotions are contagious, so it pays to know what you're feeling
4. When in doubt, ask yourself, "How would I behave here at my best?"
5. If you do what you love, the money may or may not follow, but you'll love what you do.
6. You need less than you think you do.
7. Accept yourself exactly as you are but never stop trying to learn and grow.
8. Meaning isn't something you discover, it's something you create, one step at a time.
9. You can't change what you don't notice and not noticing won't make it go away.
10. When in doubt, take responsibility.

On the last one: It's called being an adult.

An aid worker since ten years today

2011-09-02T19:50:00.008+02:00

The 2 September 2001 was one of the mysterious dates in my life, the day I became an aid worker.

There are many degrees to be a real professional in humanitarian or development aid nowadays. However, practise is undoubtedly more important than theory when you embark for working and living under sometimes very adverse circumstances in foreign countries.

"Who of you has alread been in an environment of armed conflict?", an ICRC official asked a group of university students possibly interested in working for the reputed organization. Hardly any hands went up.

You only know if you're made for humanitarian work, when you are there trying it. It was the same for me.

The ICRC had a particular ceremony when announcing the first mission. Two weeks into the induction course, all newcomers had an envelope in front of them, the first ever "courrier interne" with their names on it. We knew that inside was a paper, which would change our lives, for at least a year, possibly longer.

The colourful page stated, in my case: "Sierra Leone, délégué".

Argh? Sierra... Leone? White Man's Grave? Is this not where rebels were chopping hands off? Indeed, but things were changing rapidly, and in my first week of actual mission in the field I actually found myself accompaning a child, who was separated from his parents, back after three years of separation.

Family reunion in Sierra Leone. It is not an understatement that the entire village was watching!

Everything that you do for the first time is so special because it's unknown, and boarding a chartered small Red Cross flight to take you to the rain forest certainly belongs to that category. In the meantime, taking small airplanes has by all means become an equivalent to busses at home

But to be somewhere, where life has been horrible to ordinary children, women, and men, and to play a whatever small role to make a change in their lives - often in impossible circumstances, which makes the job challenging - that mystery has never gone away, and I still feel that whatever hours put in for little money, whatever malaria episodes and security issues, whatever frustrations inherent in any large organization, it's an incredible priviledge to be out there and give your best.

And to be sure, on some Saturday evenings, aid workers party, and this is how I looked like when I did so ten years ago:

Kenema, Sierra Leone, 2001

Off to Liberia for family tracing...


Monrovia, Liberia, 2003 - displaced children due to the attacks on Monrovia.

Mass photo tracing campaign in West Africa - "We are looking for our parents". More than 800 children were eventually reunified with their parents.

And then, off to... "Israel and the Occupied and Autonomous Territories", as Head of office.


The ICRC office in Jenin, West Bank, well marked just in case, 2004.

Course in Amman, Jordan, together with Palestinian and Iraqi collegues, 2004.

Afterwards: Eastern Chad.... Head of sub-Delegation

Abeche, Eastern Chad, ICRC office (nowadays I am sure a smoke-free environment), but even the air was smoking outside at 50 degrees Celsius, 2005.


Refugee camp, Sudan-Chad border, 2005.

Next: Afghanistan, Head of Sub-Delegation.

After more than a week in remote Faryiab Province, with no cellphones or running water. "Monsieur Stoessel, I am happy to hear you again on a normal phone", my boss said afterwards. 2006

Farewell party, I better do not post the pictures with traditional Afghan dress. 2006.

Off to Port-au-Prince (in my memories classified as "Haiti I"), Deputy Head of Delegation.


Head of Haitian Prison Administration, and myself. This is not me lobbying him about the conditions in the prisons, but actually a farewell event he invited me to. A very kind man. Port-au-Prince, 2008.

And then, Good Bye to the really great ICRC, welcome Oxfam, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Head of one of our local partner organisations, Eastern Congo, 2009.

Don't worry that you may not have the attention of a lot of children, DRC, 2009.

And then, all of the sudden, I was asked to embark on a 59h52m trip from DRC to Haiti, to lead the scale-up after the earthquake (in my memory classified as "Haiti II")

The old half collapsed Oxfam office, Port-au-Prince, January 2010.

Office space was short - bathroom office for funding manager and shelter coordinator. Port-au-Prince, 2010.

And, after four months, back to DRC...

Yes I do love those violet Oxfam trucks.
Near Dungu, Province Orientale, DRC, 2011

The mystery has become a reality. I will always remember September 2011, not only because of 9/11, but also because my life circumstances so completely changed.
And where next? The most frequent question I hear. The "Where" is not really as important as the "What" and "With Whom". Stay in this channel!

70 years of my wonderful mother

2011-08-28T17:28:00.002+02:00


Pflegezentrum Fürstenau, Wil - Andrea, Ruth, Marcel Stoessel (from right)

"Perhaps I'll be a bird one day, if I am good enough"

2011-08-27T13:27:00.006+02:00

Have rarely seen a bunch of people enjoying so much what they do like them. Check 2.39 - 2.45 for example.

You know you are a humanitarian when...

2011-08-21T13:10:00.006+02:00

Family, friends, collegues, and foes, predicated it impossible that I would not work for more than two weeks. Well, it's been five weeks now. A good hand over and two moving farewell parties (one in Goma and one in Kinshasa) made it a bit easier to leave the Democratic Republic of the Congo, my chosen home country of the past three years. Since then, neither emptyness nor urge to go out there again immediately. The identity of an unemployed humanitarian is a difficult one to sell here in the rich world. So I simply don't sell it!

Ten years ago this time, I was bracing for my mother's 60th birthday, which would be followed by a trip to St. Petersburg and then by the start of my first humanitarian mission.

Today, I am luckily still bracing for my mothers 70th birthday, which until not too long ago I was not sure would happen. Thank God for life!

Ten years ago, I was by no means sure there would be a second or third mission. I found out with time that this lifestyle was for me. I can say that I see sense in my work, and that I enjoy it at the same time. As long as I can still say this, as long as I am still healthy, and as long as I haven't become cynical, why stop?

Humanitarian life has its particularities and ironies, which are often only understood by those, who lead this life. A Facebook group directed at insiders called "You know you are a humanitarian when..." brings some excellent quotes describing the particularities of being an aid worker. Great thanks to Tonton Ed for translating some of them on his blog.

Here are my highlights.

You know you are a humanitarian worker when.....

Unlike your friends who have normal lives, you don’t have a wife/husband, children, or house, and when you return home, you sleep in your parent’s place.
You have a university degree, you manage a team of at least 10 people and a multi-million dollar budget in a civil war situation, but you earn a minimum wage.
You earn a minimum wage, but you have a cook, a house keeper and a chauffeur 24 hours a day.
You enjoy sending verbal missiles at your colleagues from other non-governmental organizations.
You are always criticizing the United Nations, but secretly, you would love to work for them to triple your salary.
When you return home, your friends and family all ask the same question, “So how was it?” hoping that you can summarize 1 year of mission in 3 minutes, because after 3 minutes, they are no longer with you.
You tell your acquaintances that you work in the humanitarian field, and they respond “Ok but what’s your job?”
Upon returning home and looking for work at the unemployment office, you put in a listing under “southern coordination” and you explain to the work counsellor that he/she would be better off not wasting a lot of time on you. Anyway, you don’t fit into any of their categories!
When you return home, you love making the round of your friends, but when you realize what their every-day lives are like, you wish to return quickly on mission.
You really laugh when young street marketers stop you in the street and ask you “Have you ever heard of Action Against Hunger?”
You would love to work in Latin America or Asia, but you always find yourself in Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, or Sudan.
You understand mysterious phrases such as:
o The watsan always sends his sitrep to the HoM before leaving on R&R. (The water/sanitation guy always sends his situation report to the head of mission before leaving on break.)
o The nut and food sec want to use Plumpy Nut to combat kwash in under-5s in MdM’s CNT. (The nutrition and food security group want to use Plumpy Nut (a weight-gain product) to combat kwashorkors (one type of malnutrition) in children under 5 years of age in Médecins du Monde’s (Doctors of the World) therapeutic nutrition center.)
o The logs at Sol are working on NFI kits and shelters for the DAH proposal in RDC. (The logisticians at Solidarity are working on non-food item kits and shelters for the DAH proposal in the Democratic Republic of Congo.)
o Kilo Juliette for November Yankee, the situation is Oscar Kilo. (Kiwanja project (KJ) calling Nyanzale project (NY), the situation is OK.)
The weekend, either you work, or you recuperate from an over-alcoholised Friday night.
You always have a VHF radio and 3 different telephone chips with you.
You have an external disc drive full of films, television series, music and nothing pertaining to work.
You know that Relief Web is not a site with geography content.
For you, malaria is just a bad flue that everyone passes around.
A reinforced Toyota Landcruiser is what you call a car.
You hop on a plane like others get into their cars.
Entire villages in Africa call you by your first name, but you don’t even know the name of the person who lives across from you at home.
All your friends are called Kasereka or Abdoul.
Seeing men armed to their teeth on every street corner seems completely normal.
You watch the news on TV and tell yourself that you have a job for life.

Congo villagers grippled by LRA terror

2011-07-28T16:03:00.008+02:00

Never to forget - DRC 2008-2011

2011-07-18T23:52:00.006+02:00

Ja sie sangen es! Bella Ciao!

2011-07-18T23:32:00.004+02:00

Bella Ciao!

2011-07-18T11:57:00.007+02:00

&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;dfasdfasdfasfas&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

I hope to hear this Italian partisan song tonight in Zuerich from Hannes Wader and Konstantin Wecker, two life-long anti-fascists.

This morning ... I got up
oh bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao
this morning I got up and detected the invader

oh partigiano ... I'll go with you
oh bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao
partigiano I'll go with you because here I'm feeling my death

And when I fall ... in the guerrilla
oh bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao
And when I fall in the guerrilla I'll leave you my gun

dig a grave ... on the mountain!
oh bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao
dig a grave on the mountain next to the shadow of a flower!

so the people ... when they see it
oh bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao
so the people when they see it they'll shout REVOLUTION!

That's the history ... of a guerrilla fighter
oh bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao
that's the history of a guerrilla fighter who died for liberty

Desired things

2011-06-25T16:20:00.009+02:00

As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy."

Desiderata (Latin for "desired things"), Max Ehrmann (1872-1945)

Congo’s Violent Rape Epidemic Needs a Cure

2011-06-25T00:01:00.014+02:00

Can the U.S. Army help stop an epidemic of rape and sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo? By David Axe

November is hot in Congo. Every month is hot in Congo. So it’s likely their faces shone with sweat when the first residents of Duru, in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, raced from mud hut to mud hut with a warning that sounded like, “El are ah!”.

That’s “LRA,” in French or the Congolese dialect Lingala. For years, the rebel Lord’s
Resistance Army has haunted northeastern Congo. Chased from neighboring Uganda in 2005 by the Ugandan army, the LRA found heavily forested, poorly governed Congo ideal for hiding and ripe for pillage. For more than two decades, the LRA had fought to establish a theocratic government based on a bizarre mix of fundamentalist Christianity and the voodoo messianic creed of founder Joseph Kony. In Congo, Kony and his few hundred surviving LRA fighters quickly lost all touch with their politics. Now they fight for no other reason than they can. What they need, and want, they simply take from
Congolese villages. That includes slaves: boys to carry looted goods; girls as prizes.

It was November 2009 when the LRA came to Duru, an isolated farming town of some 5,000 residents in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, just south of the Sudanese border. Word of the rebels’ approach spread quickly. Terrified Congolese streamed onto footpaths connecting Duru to Dungu, the nearest large town, some 50 miles away. They carried what they could, usually just the simple clothes on their backs and the colorful plastic sandals on their feet. Big families divided the children between mother and
father and fled in separate directions, so at least some might escape.

Elisee Anidawe and her older brother Jean-Pierre Balemgba followed their father through the low doorway of their hut and rushed down the path to Dungu. Beyond the open spaces of the town center, the tangle of 10-feet tall grass and 100-feet-tall trees rose on either side, forming a reedy green tunnel. “We had gone a distance on the road when we saw two men,” Anidawe recounted nearly a year later. She was 13 at the time of the interview, with a beautiful round face, perfect skin and dark brown eyes. When she described that day, her voice faded to a nearly inaudible whisper, and she sometimes stuttered. She said the men were armed. “Don’t be afraid,” she remembered them saying. “We’re soldiers.” “We thought they were Congolese soldiers,” Anidawe recalled.

They weren’t. And had they been, they still might not have helped. Over the years, the Congolese army has periodically deployed soldiers to Duru on orders to defend against LRA attacks. But the poorly-trained government troops never remain long, often being drawn away by the opportunity to extort workers at small-scale, “artisanal” mines. And even when they are present, the soldiers are sometimes as dangerous to civilians as their enemies are. “They raped, they stole, and when they saw the LRA, they ran away,” Ferruccio Gobbi, a Catholic priest, said of Congolese troops garrisoned in Duru in
2005.

It dawned on Anidawe that the armed men were not there to protect her. She, her brother and their father ran through the forest, but the LRA fighters, long accustomed to moving through the thick underbrush, quickly captured them. The children, the LRA wanted as slaves. A grown man, they had no use for. “They killed my papa,” Anidawe said, casting her eyes to the ground. What happened next was visibly painful for Anidawe to describe. The rebels carried her to their camp, where she was offered as a trophy to a rebel officer.
That same day, he raped her for the first time. He would continue to rape her for several months, like clockwork. As if that weren’t enough, the rebels handed the shy, delicate girl with the close-cropped hair a machete and told her she would become a killer like them, or they would cut off her rations.

She refused. They starved her. The cycle of torture continued until Anidawe and her brother managed to escape amid Ugandan army counterattacks.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

In late 2010, with her father dead and her mother missing, Anidawe and her brother lived with a foster family in a neighborhood of Dungu populated mostly by people displaced by the LRA. Anidawe is just one of at least 15,000 girls and women violently raped in Congo every year, according to the aid group Oxfam International. Thousands of additional sexual assaults likely go unreported. The U.N. has declared the country the “rape capital of the world.”

Oxfam has warned that escalating sexual violence in Congo could lead to countrywide anarchy.

Congo’s rape problem has compelled Oxfam to take action that has surprised some observers in the typically pacifist humanitarian community: In 2009, the group began actively lobbying Congo, the U.S., the U.K., France, the U.N. and the E.U., among other governments, to undertake in Congo a military initiative called “security sector reform” — the process of rebuilding a country’s security forces. “Congo needs to create an army that’s actually helping civilians rather than being a threat to them,” Oxfam’s Congo director Marcel Stoessel says.

The U.S. State Department and military — motivated not just by humanitarian concern but also, in part, by America’s large and growing demand for the rare minerals concentrated in Congo — have responded, as have the French, Belgian and South African governments. American troops have begun deploying to the country in hopes of addressing the sexual-violence epidemic.

Thanks to escalating American involvement, the basic elements of a reform campaign have started to fall into place. But more help and better coordination are clearly required, because so many of Congo’s gravest problems intersect in the culture of entitlement and sexual violence inside the Forces Armees de la Republique du Congo.

The FARDC is barely an army at all by Western standards; it’s more accurately described as a collection of loosely trained gunmen and former rebels who were offered military jobs in exchange for leaving opposition groups — and who routinely exploit the Congolese people instead of defending them. In principle, the Congolese army should represent the first line of defense against the Lord’s Resistance Army and other armed bands of serial rapists. In reality, the Congolese army is at best irrelevant and, at worst, actually part of the problem. The army’s failure to protect civilians allows groups such as the LRA to perpetrate systematic rape. Moreover, Congolese soldiers themselves are guilty of many rapes during their long marches across the country’s interior.

For reformers, the Congolese army offers a way into the rape crisis: Reform the FARDC, and you just might reform the rape state. Or so the thinking goes. The U.S. could play perhaps the biggest role in what Oxfam hopes will become an international campaign of army reform in Congo. Altruism aside, the world’s governments certainly have reason to join in. A more reliable FARDC would be better able to combat Congo’s many armed groups without also endangering civilians in the process – thus ensuring Congo’s stability and the world’s continued access to the country’s mineral reserves.

This access is no trivial matter. For many countries, including the U.S., Congo is the only economical source of certain vital minerals, including cobalt, a key component in electronic devices. Though deposits of the element do exist in some Midwestern states, the U.S. no longer mines them, instead importing the metal at a rate of 10,000 tons a year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. That’s $300 million of cobalt. The biggest sources are China and Congo. It’s not an overstatement to say that the U.S. needs a stable Congo because it needs Congo to reliably churn out thousands of tons of valuable rocks.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Minerals have been a factor in military interventions throughout Congo’s modern history. On June 30, 1960, Belgium formally granted sovereignty to its former colony. In early July, the Congolese army mutinied. Four years of fighting ensued as Congo fractured along ethnic lines. Belgian business interests backed the secession of two provinces rich in diamonds, copper, uranium, gold, tin, tungsten, cobalt and other important minerals, some quite rare. The Belgians, the U.N. and the U.S. all sent troops.

For a period in 1960 and ’61, there were no fewer than four competing regimes in Congo, each with a different mix of foreign backers. The strongest belonged to army chief of staff Joseph Mobutu, who enjoyed the loyalty of troops in the capital and the support of powerful Western countries, including the U.S. In 1965, the CIA backed a successful coup by Mobutu.

Over the next 30 years, Mobutu crushed all political opponents in his drive to transform Congo. He renamed the country “Zaire,” nationalized major industries and amassed a personal fortune reported to be as large as billions of dollars. Meanwhile, Congo’s roads, cities and schools crumbled. When Mobutu died in 1997, Congo once more came apart at the seams. Rwandan troops chased Hutu extremists over the border and set themselves
up in lucrative, illegal mining operations. Rwanda and Uganda threw their support behind rebel leader Laurent Kabila, whose troops captured Kinshasa and installed him as president. When relations soured between Kabila and his former allies, Ugandan and Rwandan troops invaded to bolster anti-Kabila rebellions. Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe all took Kabila’s side.

The resulting conflict became known as “Africa’s World War.” Between 700,000 and 3 million people died, according to the most reliable estimates. Kabila was shot and killed by a bodyguard in 2001. His son Joseph took over on an emergency basis and, in 2006, won the country’s first democratic election in four decades.

The younger Kabila’s most important moves were to sign peace deals with Rwanda and, later, with several of the bigger rebel groups. As part of the latter deal, thousands of rebel fighters, some of them wanted war criminals, were invited to join the Congolese army in lieu of prosecution. “In Congo, peace must come before justice,” Kabila famously said.

While the major state-on-state fighting has now ended, uncounted rebel groups, both foreign and domestic in origin, survive in the rugged eastern half of the country, alongside rogue Congolese army elements also involved in the illicit “conflict minerals” trade. A 17,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force guards humanitarian workers and maintains eastern road and air links. The U.S., France, Belgium and other powers periodically send in military trainers and Special Forces units. The Ugandan army quietly tracks rebels, including the LRA, in the far east.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

On a typically muggy September day in the capital of Kinshasa, in Congo’s extreme west, Stoessel, the bookish former Swiss journalist now serving as Congo director for Oxfam, hauled a laptop computer and a stack of documents to a wooden table in his large, sunlit office. Oxfam has spent years and thousands of man-hours studying rape in Congo: These were the group’s findings. He opened a report dated June 2010. “Sexual violence was reported to be on the increase in 83 percent of the communities surveyed,” it read, “with the perpetrators largely militia fighters or soldiers.”

“It is estimated that tens of thousands of women have been systematically raped by combatant forces,” stated another of Stoessel’s reports, this one a collaboration between Oxfam and Harvard University dated April 2010. As for why the problem is getting worse, the report speculates that there’s a sort of feedback loop: the more sexual violence in a society, the more sexual violence there might be moving forward. “Have the years of rape by armed combatants exacerbated the low valuation of women within Congolese
society?” the report asked.

It seems they have. Between 2004 and 2008, the incidence of rape perpetrated by civilians, as opposed to combatants, jumped 17-fold in Congo. To Oxfam, that statistic heralds the possible unraveling of Congolese society. “Civilian adoption of sexual violence is quite disturbing, since it may well have longterm implications that will not be easily reversed,” the report with Harvard asserted. “This rise in civilian rape speaks to the reversal of a society’s norms and values.”

The patterns of sexual violence vary in different parts of eastern Congo. In North and South Kivu, border provinces rife with ethnic tension and teeming with Rwandan rebels, mass assaults are common. It was in the Kivus that at least 300 women, girls and babies were raped over a four-day period starting in late July 2010, allegedly by the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda rebel group. In Orientale province and other northeastern LRA haunts, abductions and forced marriages are the rule. In towns garrisoned by the Congolese army, soldiers assault women passing through checkpoints or invade their homes at night.

“Rape is an extremely effective wartime weapon,” the Oxfam-Harvard report explained. “It is strategically used to shame, demoralize and humiliate the enemy. By systematically raping women and girls, armed groups assert power and domination over not only the women, but their men as well.” For Congolese troops, rape is a way of punishing civilians suspected of collaborating with the indigenous Mai Mai rebel group, the report asserts.

Where rape is worst, so is instability. In just one case in May, limited attacks by a small number of LRA fighters along the border between Congo and Central African Republic sent some 15,000 refugees streaming south into Congo’s Bondo territory. It took the U.N. months to mobilize and transport the personnel and supplies necessary to build a temporary refugee camp in Bondo. In the meantime, people went hungry, fell sick and in some cases were exploited. Ironically, at least one girl was raped by some of the very people to whom she fled to escape sexual violence.

Oxfam estimated there are 2 million displaced people in Congo, though the real number could be much higher. Displacement disrupts health, education and agriculture, resulting in long-term food shortages, permanent unemployment and depressed life expectancy — currently just over 40 for a Congolese born today. Rape isn’t just a tragedy for the victims. It’s a key link in the chain of misfortune that binds all 65 million Congolese. The roughly 100,000-strong Congolese army is directly responsible for as much as 60 percent of the sexual violence in the country, according to Oxfam. And so, the group says, Congo can’t stop being a rape state until its security sector is reformed.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

U.S. efforts to recruit and train up the Iraqi and Afghan militaries may be the world’s most visible examples of security sector reform, but it has also played an important role in formerly heavily militarized societies in Indonesia and Ukraine and across Latin America and West Africa. This type of reform involves putting responsible leaders in the right positions and tweaking laws to shift the military’s roles and methods. Most of all, it means retraining foot soldiers to make sure they’re protecting, rather than preying on, civilians.

Security sector reform can be expensive, time-consuming and even dangerous, especially in a country like Congo, where security forces are strewn across all but inaccessible jungle and corruption is deeply entrenched. “It’s difficult to reform the Congolese army because it’s a collection of armed groups that’s been integrated — it’s not an army that’s been constructed from scratch,” Stoessel said. “There is very little discipline.”

Still, Stoessel said reform of the army is the only way to change Congo’s rape state. An end to rampant sexual violence would not only mean safer lives for girls like Anidawe, it might also mean greater stability for Congo and the rest of Central Africa, as an increasingly professional FARDC renders the country off limits to rebels and invading armies alike. This stability would also allow developed countries easier access to Congo’s resources.

Everyday Congolese have also called for security sector reform, although they don’t call it that. “When we as Oxfam speak with communities on the ground, they really cry out for army reform,” Stoessel said. It was nearly noon in Kinshasa as he spoke. The sun burned through the city’s signature haze of car exhaust, wood smoke and dust to illuminate the street crowds visible through the office windows. Stoessel sighed. “It will take at least 10 years for comprehensive security sector reform,” he said. “But it’s the only way get out of the horrible cycle of violence we’re in right now.”

It’s been roughly 18 months since Oxfam started pushing security reform in the world’s capitals. Though Kabila seems open to the idea, elsewhere it’s been tough going. Individually, countries are willing to work with the Congolese military; the Congolese military, by and large, is willing to have them. The French have sent soldiers, as have the Belgians and the South Africans. The Ugandans have offered to send trainers. But there’s no single vision, no grand plan. The 10-year countdown to meaningful reform still hasn’t started.

Economics might help explain the lack of an overarching plan. Basic access to Congo’s resources requires only a moderately functional Congolese state; slightly improved access to resources might not seem to justify the potential cost to donor nations of using their armies to drive lasting reform in Congo. Stoessel pointed out that donor nations spend roughly $1 billion every year keeping Congo on humanitarian life support. In comparison to the cost of aid and the premium importers now pay for Congolese minerals, security sector reform may not look quite so expensive. Still, overarching security-sector reform is a tough case to make. Of late, though, Stoessel has had some reason for optimism. The world’s leader in security sector reform, the United States, has gotten more involved.
America’s current intervention in Congo — if the limited efforts the U.S. has made there can be called that — began with a visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in August 2009. Clinton toured a hospital and a refugee camp and met with rape victims. She came away visibly shaken. Congo’s epidemic of rape was “truly one of mankind’s greatest atrocities,” she said. She promised U.S. assistance, starting with an initial grant of $20 million for new health clinics and expanding into a more comprehensive program of training for the Congolese military. “We will be deploying a team comprised of civilian experts, medical personnel and military engineers from the U.S. Africa Command to assess how we can further assist survivors of sexual violence,” Clinton vowed.

“Security-sector development has a number of areas, but the real objective is to help or sustain and support the government of Congo, so they can do things like better protect the civilian population and better provide security,” said Marc Dillard, a spokesman at the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

It took a year, but the troops that Clinton promised finally began deploying in September 2010. Around a hundred U.S. Army National Guard doctors, dentists, medics and administrators, plus a command staff and a small coterie of media handlers, arrived in Kinshasa on a commercial flight. A fleet of hired SUVs whisked them through the sprawling, polluted city to the Grand Hotel, the biggest and priciest in town.

A week into their stay, the hotel’s air conditioning failed, coughing out a spray of long-moldering dust and debris. Several soldiers came down with respiratory problems, including Lt. Col. Todd Johnston, the mission commander, and his top media handler Maj. Junel Jeffrey. Between the hotel’s exorbitant cost and the sometimes uncomfortable conditions, the Americans were beside themselves. Few had ever been to Africa. Fewer had been to Congo. Fewer still spoke French — never mind Lingala, the lingua franca of the country.

But the soldiers had not come to Congo to enjoy Kinshasa. The point of the Americans’ visit was a two-week exercise with nearly 300 of their medical counterparts from the Congolese army. The exercise was code named “Medflag ’10.” “It’s a chance to learn some techniques from the U.S. Army,” Johnston said through his worsening congestion.
As always, the issue of access to minerals was never far off the radar. “The U.S. has determined it wants to be more involved in Africa,” Johnston said.

The ultimate effect, he added, would be “to bring Africa into the mainstream of the world economy.” But for Congo, that integration is predicated on the country possessing an army that does not rape and that can prevent other groups from raping. The American medics call this “professionalism.” The Americans’ job, as trainers, was to “professionalize” the FARDC.

“Professionalization of a force does, in fact, make a difference,” said Maj. Gen. David Hogg, Johnston’s boss.

The first week of Medflag ’10 was mostly classroom instruction and hands-on medical training. In unadorned rooms at an overgrown parade ground once favored by Mobutu, American sergeants and junior officers addressed Congolese medics seated in neat rows, elementary-school style. Every sentence or so, the Americans paused, and let interpreters repeat their words in French or Lingala. It was a halting, tedious way of conducting a class. Sgt. Stuart Hammer, a medic, said he was told to expect delays for interpretation,
so he had planned his teaching schedule accordingly.

The lectures were about nitty-gritty medical matters, mostly: how to evaluate a patient, stop bleeding and properly lift and carry a stretcher. The Americans discovered the Congolese already knew a lot of what the Americans were teaching. The big difference was that the Americans were accustomed to using electronic equipment and vehicles for certain tasks; the Congolese usually made do with manual tools and muscle-power.

Still, the Congolese were “very eager to learn,” says 1st Lt. Coty Sicble, overseeing the lectures from a weedy patch outside the classrooms. In a sense, the free instruction from the Americans was the “carrot,” the reason the Congolese government would invite in a foreign army in the first place. What came next was, from the U.S. government’s point of view, the “stick” — that is, the opportunity to get what it wanted in Congo, which is an army that looks after civilians instead of exploiting or neglecting them.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

With the Americans nudging them along, in the second week of Medflag the Congolese soldiers organized a bare-bones health clinic at a shambling youth center on the outskirts of Kinshasa. Two thousand city residents registered for free dental and medical care courtesy of the U.S. and Congolese armies. There were malaria cases, advanced gum disease and tooth decay and lots of diabetes. Behind a sheet in one corner, an American doctor took an old man’s blood pressure. A Congolese dentist pulled a woman’s rotted teeth as she curled her toes and screamed. American and Congolese pharmacists slung
prescription medicines as fast as they could process the paperwork.

On the clinic’s sidelines, a sniffling Jeffrey was orchestrating her own miniature reform
of the Congolese army’s public affairs apparatus. After welcoming a gaggle of
American and Congolese reporters to the clinic site, Jeffrey spotted a Congolese army
media handler steering a Congolese reporter through a crowd of waiting patients, clearly
trying to keep the reporter from talking to the civilians. Jeffrey grew furious. Marching
across the clinic site, Jeffrey confronted the Congolese officer. “They can talk to anyone
they want to!” she insisted. Wide-eyed, the Congolese officer nodded his assent.

By week’s end, thousands of Congolese were a little better off than they were before. For once, they had the Congolese army to thank. In a country where the army is usually part of the problem, the clinic represented a profound change — one that, multiplied a thousand times, could mean an end to the rape state.

But lasting reform will take more than one medical exercise. Concurrent with Medflag ’10, a U.S. Special Forces team deployed to Kisangani, 500 miles east of Kinshasa, to work with a Congolese infantry battalion. And future exercises are likely. “This is not a one-time thing,” said Col. Gilbert Kabanda, the Congolese army’s top medical officer.
All the same, Stoessel says it would be better if the Americans’ efforts were part of a coordinated, international reform campaign. “What would need happen for army reform are two things, really. First, the government [of Congo] should show a clear willingness and leadership for army reform. And the main donors, on their side, should match that with serious, long-term funding based on a comprehensive plan agreed on with the government. Without those two things, the efforts will be piecemeal and won’t have an effect.”

“We have hope this will happen,” he said, “that the world will wake up to this call.”

RDC : Le conflit oublié des médias

2011-06-14T08:58:00.002+02:00

de: afrikarabia

La République démocratique du Congo (RDC) est-elle maudite ? Depuis plus de 15 ans cet immense pays d'Afrique centrale cumule les conflits et les drames humanitaires... dans l'indifférence générale. Pourquoi les médias internationaux sont-ils plus prompts à couvrir la guerre en Libye, le conflit en Irak ou en Afghanistan, que la catastrophe humanitaire en cours en RDC ? Explications sur un pays plongé dans un "trou noir médiatique".

Trop long, trop compliqué, trop loin, trop cher à couvrir pour les journalistes, le conflit oublié en République démocratique du Congo (RDC) ne mobilise pas les médias... et donc pas les opinions publiques. Pourtant ce vaste pays, grand comme 5 fois la France, en plein coeur de l'Afrique, est un concentré de catastrophes divers : plusieurs guerres à répétition, des millions de morts (2, 3 ou 4 millions ?), 1,7 million de réfugiés, le viol de masse utilisé comme arme de guerre, l'enrôlement de milliers d'enfants soldats, le pillage des ressources naturelles, un Etat défaillant dans le top 10 des pays les plus pauvres au monde... voici le rapide portrait de la situation en RDC. Pourtant, les médias ne semblent guère y prêter attention alors que 18.995 casques bleus de l'ONU sont sur place pour la plus importante opération de maintien de la paix au monde. Afrikarabia a demandé à Marcel Stoessel*, responsable de l'ONG Oxfam en RDC, de nous éclairer.

- Afrikarabia : Qu'est-ce qui explique l'absence de la RDC dans les médias malgré une situation humanitaire extrêmement préoccupante ?

- Marcel Stoessel : Tout d’abord, j’aimerais confirmer les deux affirmations que vous faites : une situation humanitaire préoccupante, et une certaine absence de la RDC dans les médias. Cette absence est assez choquante. Une recherche récente a montré qu’entre septembre 2006 et avril 2007, il y avait 1.327 articles référencés sur la RDC, 19.946 sur Israël et les territoires occupés, 29.987 sur l’Afghanistan, et 43.589 sur l’Iraq. Pour moi, il y a plusieurs raisons à cela :

Premièrement, la population qui souffre se trouve aujourd’hui, dans des zones très isolées du pays, comme en Haut Uélé, à Shabunda, ou à Fizi. Il est très difficile et coûteux pour les humanitaires ainsi que pour les médias d’y accéder. Les problèmes de sécurité et de logistique sont des barrières importantes. J’ai récemment visité un de nos projets humanitaires dans un village au Nord de Niangara, en Haut-Uélé (au Nord-Est de la RDC). Il nous a fallu plusieurs jours pour arriver à Niangara, et une fois sur place nous n’avons pas vu un seul véhicule de toute la journée. Souvent les journalistes n’ont pas les moyens financiers et le temps pour se déplacer dans ces zones reculées. Ils sont donc forcés de travailler dans les régions plus proches de Goma ou Bukavu (les principales villes de la région). Dans certaines zones il manque aussi de réseaux téléphoniques et il est donc difficile d’informer les journalistes sur la situation humanitaire.

Deuxièmement, les personnes déplacées vivent aujourd’hui principalement dans des familles d’accueil et non pas dans des camps de déplacés. En cas de crise, les familles congolaises accueillent très souvent leurs sœurs et frères réfugiés. Ce n’est pas une mauvaise chose, bien entendu. Mais la souffrance des personnes vivant dans des familles d’accueil est visuellement moins impressionnante que lorsqu’il s’agit de grands camps de déplacés. Il est plus "spectaculaire" pour les journalistes de faire des photos ou de tourner des vidéos dans ces immenses camps. Aujourd’hui, les femmes, les enfants et les hommes souffrent loin des caméras, mais cela ne veut pas dire que leur souffrance soit moindre.

Troisièmement, les conflits en RDC sont compliqués. Il est plus facile d’expliquer un conflit binaire « A contre B » dans un contexte comme la Libye ou en Côte d’Ivoire que de parler de la pauvreté, de la mauvaise gouvernance, de dizaines de groupes armées, des ressources naturelles, des tensions intercommunautaires... Je pense aussi qu’il y a une certaine fatigue avec la RDC, parce que la situation ne semble pas s’améliorer significativement tout au long de ces années. Pourtant, ce n’est pas vraiment exact : il y a des solutions et la situation dans certaines zones s’est améliorée ces dix dernières années. Mais il faut une analyse approfondie et surtout, il faut de la patience.

- Afrikarabia : Que faudrait-il faire pour que ce conflit soit mieux couvert par les médias ? Faut-il adopter d'autres stratégies ?

- Marcel Stoessel : Je pense qu'il faudrait sortir des statistiques et commencer par parler des êtres humains, derrière les chiffres. Il faudrait pouvoir montrer la famille qui a accueilli chez elle cinq autres familles déplacées suite à une attaque d’un groupe armé ; la responsable d’une organisation locale qui a réussi à améliorer la sécurité du village en parlant avec le commandant local de l’armée ; le staff local d’Oxfam qui doit même réparer des pistes d’atterrissage et des ponts avant de pouvoir délivrer l’assistance, etc... Le célèbre photographe de mode Rankin est déjà venu deux fois en RDC pour raconter ces histoires très humaines, très concrètes... et nous devons continuer dans cette direction. Nous avons aussi un projet de « citoyen journaliste », qui devrait permettre à ces populations enclavées de raconter directement et sans censure leur quotidien. Les réseaux sociaux comme Facebook ou Twitter ont un potentiel énorme pour mettre en contact des personnes des pays "développés" avec des Congolais. Il y a donc des solutions pour sortir du "trou noir médiatique". C’est notre devoir moral de continuer à tenter de le faire.

(*) Marcel Stoessel est le directeur d'Oxfam en République démocratique du Congo depuis 2 ans et demi. Cette ONG intervient dans l'humanitaire, mais aussi dans le développement durable et les plaidoyers auprès des décideurs politiques ou économiques. En RDC, Oxfam travaille sur l'accès à l'eau, l'assainissement, l'hygiène, la sécurité alimentaire, la protection des populations et l'éducation.

Propos recueillis par Christophe Rigaud
Photo : Ch. Rigaud (c) afrikarabia

This is to have succeeded

2011-06-11T14:30:00.001+02:00

"To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

10 Remarkable Individuals in Aid

2011-05-28T01:05:00.003+02:00

I found this hillarious blog called "Hand Relief International", who kind of reminds me of so many things that happened in the past 10 years.
I pay hommage today to the 10 Remarkable Individuals in Aid. They are the development work's equivalent of the unknown soldiers. The change they have gone through, will never be truly appreciated. This is why they deserve to be unnamed here.

That guy who, having been an incompetent bureaucrat his whole career, has become an efficient, result-oriented employee after having attended a HRI management training;
The guy who changed his domestic ways to become a loving, caring husband after having been exposed once at a road-crossing to a billboard that said: "Stop GBV Now! (HRI with support from Country South of Canada)";
The underpaid employee of a community-based HRI affiliate who felt a sudden commitment-inducing calling after a brief meeting with a HRI consultant who spoke to him about HRIs "Vision and Mission Statement" during a short field-trip;
The Donor representative who, every month, reads every one of the 76 reports they receive from relevant HRI affiliates and therefore has a very clear idea of what each affiliate is doing and where they need most support;
The refugee-camp dweller whose quality of life has suddenly improved after her camp was visited briefly by Angelina, who successfully "declared" an "end to violence now";
The inhabitant of the village in "Africa" whose life has changed to the better once she received a slightly used pair of shoes from a mythical place South of Canada;
The owner of a yogurt-business in Baltimore who succeeded to "give something back" during his one-month trip to the Philippines, when he gave a free lecture abut yogurt to a group of local entrepreneurs, facilitated by his local church back home;
The government employee who has successfully made the transition from a cynical, underpaid, mis-qualified relative-of-someone-important to a dynamic, modern element of change in the government, after having interacted with a HRI "Technical Advisor" during a capacity building workshop;
The guy who returned part of his per-diem after a trip to Nairobi, claiming that the three meals and tea offered during the training were quite sufficient for his subsistence;
The "social media enthusiast" who learns something from the daily platitudes posted on the HRI official twitter account ("HRI Executive Director mentions importance of right-based approach in speech given at meeting with African Delegates")

Here's to all these remarkable people. The world of aid would just not be the same without you.

Cockpit: "Slight problem approaching Kinshasa"

2011-05-24T04:50:00.062+02:00

I have flown so much in my life that if God considers climate change in his ultimate call "heaven or hell", I will have little chance of paradise. There used to be a time when flying was extremely mysterious and fascinating to me, when the taking off and (less so) landing of an aircraft was an experience I would be looking forward to. Now, I really only fly when strictly necessary, despise the security lines and transit halls.

My coping mechanism to the waiting times or boredom that may come with flying:

a) Listening to music on Ipod
b) Working on the extension of my anatomy called Sony Vaio
c) Sleeping in airplanes, like a baby nowadays

I just came back from a trip to advocate for things we care about, such as protection of civilians, with UN security council members and key government representatives in capitals. Six or seven countries in three weeks or so. On my last flight from Nairobi, where I had spent the night in transit, to Kinshasa, I was so much into my a/m coping mechanisms that I almost did not take note of anything going on in the aircraft. We landed on a normal stop in Brazzaville, just a short hop from Kinshasa (where Brazza and Stanley met and divided the Congos amongst each other). When we took off, I only looked with 1.5 eyes from time to time into the quite thick clouds, which unfortunately blocked the view from the Congo river.

I continued to listen to the Ipod, Fly Modus of course. When more than half an hour passed, I was wondering why we had not landed yet. The Public Announcements (PA) had escaped me. Then the plane goes through the clouds, and I started seeing the houses on the ground. All ok. Stop Ipod. We are landing.

Not really. We were on our way, but the pilot pulled the plane back into the clouds and then above the clouds. We circulated there for 30-45 minutes. There can't be so heavy traffic in Kinshasa.

Then comes a PA:

"Ladies and gentlemen, we had a slight problem approaching Kinshasa. Nothing to be alarmed about. We have solved the problem, and we will now be approaching Kinshasa again".

So we did, and landed safely.

On the ground, some Congolese, who had seen the plane approaching and going up again, had started discussing what this could be about, some had prayed.

No one seemed particularly worried in the plane. One does remember the recent crash of a MONUSCO airplane in Kinshasa in a situation like this, but the weather was better today.

This was probably just a measure of precaution for a small technical problem either on the ground or in the air. Or indeed a weather problem. Anyway, a slight problem, which they have fixed, as they said...

People clapped when the plane landed. That's their habit.

This time, I clapped as well.

My sister's music talent (on the right)

2011-05-16T21:56:00.008+02:00

Her interpretation of Indigo Girls - isn't it wonderful? "Impossible she's his sister", I hear someone saying. (Marianne is on the left, this is just to be sure my sister is identified)

I sit two stories above the street
It's awful quiet here since love fell asleep
There's life down below me though the kids are walking home from school

So long ago when we were taught
That for whatever kind of puzzle you got
You just stick the right formula in a solution for every fool

I remember the time when I came so close to you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school
And I bought you that ring cause I never was cool

What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

So I just sit up in the house and resist
And not be seen until I cease to exist
A kind of conscientious objection a kind of dodging the draft

Boy and girl are holding hands in the street
And I don't want to but I'll think you just wait
It's more than just eye to eye learn things I could never apply

I remember the time I came so close with you
I let everything go it seemed the only truth
And I bought you that ring it seemed the thing to do

What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

Oh I'm just a mirror of a mirror of myself
All the things I do
And the next time I fall I'm going to have to recall
It isn't love it's only something new

I sit two stories above the street
It's awful quiet here since love fell asleep
There's life down below me though the kids are walking home from school

I remember the time I came so close to you
Sent me skipping my class and running from school
And I bought you that ring cause I never was cool

What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated
What makes me think I can start clean-slated?
The hardest to learn was the least complicated

Na na na na na na na (least complicated)
Na na na na na na na (least complicated)
Na na na na na na na
Na na na na na na na

Marcel is soon on the job or consultancy market

2011-05-11T17:55:00.003+02:00

http://linkd.in/lwLNnF

One rape every minute in Congo

2011-05-10T12:58:00.008+02:00

Sydney Morning Herald

A STUDY by American scientists estimates that nearly 2 million women have been raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with women victimised at a rate of nearly one every minute.

The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, is one of the first comprehensive looks at the prevalence of rape in Congo. It says that the problem is much bigger and more pervasive than previously thought. Women have reported alarming levels of sexual abuse in the capital and in provinces far from Congo's war-torn east, a sign that the problem extends beyond the nation's primary conflict zone.

''Not only is sexual violence more generalised,'' the study said, ''but our findings suggest that future policies and programs should focus on abuse within families.''

For the past 15 years, Congo has been racked by rebel groups that terrorise civilians, particularly in the east, often to exploit the country's mineral riches. UN officials have called Congo the centre of rape as a weapon of war, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited rape victims in eastern Congo in 2009 in an effort to draw more attention to one of Africa's most intractable and disturbing conflicts.

Many areas of Congo are inaccessible - cut off by thick forests and warring groups - and many victims have been too frightened to speak out.

The conclusions in the new study, by three public health researchers - Amber Peterman of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Tia Palermo of Stony Brook University and Caryn Bredenkamp of the World Bank - are based on extrapolations from a household survey done in 2007 of 3436 Congolese women nationwide. The researchers found that around 12 per cent were raped at least once in their lifetime and 3 per cent were raped in the one-year period before the survey.

Around 22 per cent had been forced by their partners to have sex or perform sexual acts against their will, the study showed. The women, aged 15 to 49, were interviewed in a demographic and health survey partly financed by the US government.

The study's authors used current population estimates, which put Congo's population at around 70 million, to extrapolate that as many as 1.8 million women have been raped, with up to 433,785 raped in the one-year period - almost a rape a minute.

Michael VanRooyen, director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, which has sent doctors to Congo to treat rape victims, said that there were ''some limitations in the methodology, such as the sampling methods and the sample sizes'' of the study. But ''the important message remains: that rape and sexual slavery have become amazingly commonplace in this region of the DRC and have defined this conflict as a war against women.''

The authors believe the rape problem may be worse than their study suggests. The findings are based on survey results from females of reproductive age, but many reports and witness accounts have shown that armed men often gang-rape young girls - some even toddlers - and elderly women in their 70s and older, in addition to a growing number of men and boys. Also, many rape victims never report being assaulted because of the shame and stigma.

Dead man in sea - Osama talks to medium

2011-05-08T18:32:00.008+02:00

by Nadeem F. Paracha on May 5th, 2011

We asked world famous occult medium, Mr. Abdul Qadir Awami Badami, to connect and communicate with Osama bin Laden’s soul, to ask him what really happened on the night he was shot dead in Abbottabad …

Mr. Osama, can you hear me? Mr. Osama?
Bubble … bubble … bubble

I think I have made contact with the departed soul. Mr. Osama, can you hear me?
Yes, where am I? Is this heaven?

No, sir, you are at the bottom of the sea.
Sea? Hmmm … yes, it does seem that way. Am I dead?

Well, yes. Kind of.
Hmm … how did I die?

I was hoping you could tell me that.
All I remember is that it was night and I was waiting for the Kakul guys to get my dinner, and then I heard these ’copters and thought maybe the Kakul guys were throwing me a surprise party or something and I got very excited, and …

The Kakul guys used to give you dinner?
Well, yes. Biryani on Mondays and Tuesdays, chicken chowmein on Wednesdays, steak on Thursdays, mixed veggies on Saturdays and Sundays …

And on Fridays?
On Fridays I used to call them over for dinner. One of my wives makes a darn good Yemeni stew.

I see. So they knew you were hiding there?
Of course, they did! They’re my wives!

I mean the Kakul guys.
Oh. Well, according to their intelligence reports, I was some rich Arab camel breeder and exporter.

Really? They didn’t bother to cross-check?
Let’s just say, I was not on their radar.

Must be the same radar that failed to pick the American ’copters …
I tell you, my men have better radars, hehehe … bubble, bubble..
By the way, you said that I was in hiding?

Weren’t you in hiding?
Not at all!

Then why did the Americans take 10 years to find you?
Those fools don’t know much about caves.

But you weren’t hiding in a cave, sir.
My friend, let me tell you, all of Pakistan is one big cave!

Then did the Pakistanis really know you were in the country all along?
My friend, they wouldn’t have been Pakistanis had they not known. Hehe … bubble, bubble.

Huh?
Never mind.

So you are saying they knew?
Well I was … excuse me, I think I have a fish stuck in my ear. *Plop!* Ah, a red snapper! So, what were you saying? By the way, what is your name, brother?

Abdul Qadir Awami Badami
That is a strange name. Are you by any chance a Hindu?

No.
Hmm … I guess I will have to kill you anyway.

But you are dead.
Oh, right, of course. Then I guess I will kill some fish instead.

Are you a seafood fan?
No, I just like killing infidels.

Infidel fish?
Yes, you have a problem with that, you idol worshipper!

How can fish be infidel?
Look at them! Swimming in the sea, all naked!

But they are fish!
And stark naked! Shameless.

Whatever, tell us about your stay in Pakistan…
It reminded me of home.

Saudi Arabia?
No, Afghanistan, but with better cars and escalators.

But you’re a Saudi.
I’m a Muslim first. The best there was. And if you disagree I will get you killed. You are a Christian Crusader anyway.

No.
Non-Muslim!

Human being.
Infidel!

Any difference between human beings and Muslims?
Of course there is. That is why we only kill human beings.

But you and your al Qaeda and Taliban friends have killed thousands of Pakistani Muslims.
They were all bad Muslims.

How can you say that?
I don’t say. I blow!

No, you say, while others blow...
Those who blow have true faith.

Even the small children and infants who have died in these attacks?
Yes!

So people who blow themselves up in mosques, shrines and markets are the only true Muslims?
It is much more complicated than that. A very complex concept.

Please explain.
You see, only those Muslims who blow themselves up in mosques, shrines and markets are the only true Muslims.

But that’s what I said.
You did?

Yes.
I see … you Hindu!

Why did you say that?
Because you worship idols.

But to some, you are an idol too.
I am an ideal.

A pretty violent one though.
Yes, mashallah.

But I’m not forcing my beliefs on you.
That is because you are a chicken!

So I should impose them on you?
Yes. Come on, I invite you to convert to my faith. Where is your suicide jacket?

Where’s yours?
I deal in suicide jackets, not wear them, fool.

I know so many Muslims who are nothing like you.
They are not Muslims!

Then who are they?
Human beings! Ugh!

But I thought a good Muslim also meant being a good human being.
Jewish propaganda!

What?
Well, as I … excuse me, I think I see a shark approaching.

Why don’t you move from there?
No worries. You know that red snapper that got stuck in my ear?

Yes…
Well, I trained it to become a suicide bomber. It just exploded over the shark’s head!

But the shark did not attack you!
But it could have.

You’re sounding like George W. Bush. He, too, was into pre-emptive strikes, remember?
Ah, good ol’ Bushy. He was good for my business. But this Obama guy turned out to be different.

Different, how? In policy and in strategy?
No, in colour. He is black.

A human being, nevertheless.
That is the problem. The whole world should be Muslim, instead.

Yes, just like Bush wanted the whole world to become American.
Ah, good ol’ Bushy. Those were the days. Right, I guess I’ll kill you now.

But you’re dead. Buried deep in the sea.
They buried me here?

Yes, the Americans buried you in the sea.
Wow! Has Obama converted to Islam?

What do you mean? You were a Salafi, right?
Yes. I am amazed. How did he know we didn’t believe in marked graves?

But some of your fans around the world are criticising him for not giving you a decent Muslim burial.
Infidels!

So you are happy that they buried you in the sea?
Of course! Otherwise bad Muslims would have made a shrine at my grave. We blow up shrines, you know.

Yes I do. But this is amazing. You are actually happy at what Obama did?
Yes, but minus the shooting-me-in-the-head part, of course.

So you do remember that you were shot in the head?
Well, I really do have this bad headache and … well, I’ll be dammed! There’s a hole in my head! The buggers did shoot me!

The Americans?
Yes, who else? The Pakistanis?

So Pakistanis weren’t at all involved in your assassination?
Well, their only contribution to this was that on that fateful, tragic night they delayed my dinner. Buggers. Had to be shot on an empty stomach.

But the Taliban are blaming them and saying that now their top target is Pakistan.
Really? What was our top target before my death? Guatemala?

You tell me.
Hmmm … better warn Mullah Omar.

Why, is he hiding in Pakistan too?
Follow the dinner trail, follow the dinner trail …

So the Pakistanis did know you were there, right?
Pakistanis don’t know where they themselves are, forget about knowing where I was. What is the Pakistani media saying?

Some of their TV anchors seem shocked and sad.
Yes, one of them once worked as a cook for me and another used to give me great massages.

Can you name them?
No. Don’t want to give them undue importance. Let the ISI do that.

The ISI gives them importance?
Sort of. They give the ISI great massages too.

Can you be more specific?
Yes, I can. I. Want. To. Behead. You. You. Hindu. How is that for being specific, you cunning Jew?

Human being.
Same thing.

Whatever.
Chicken! Come on fight me, you Buddhist coward!

I am disconnecting from you now. May God deal with you in whatever way he thinks you are to be dealt with.
Darn. I almost forgot. You are right. Now I will have to meet the maker. Do you think he likes seafood?

A very powerful plea from LRA-affected communities

2011-05-07T22:25:00.003+02:00

If you are wondering why we are making such a fuss about the Lord's Resistance Army and the three million people, who live in fear because of the LRA, watch this.

Let Us Be Free: A Plea for Relief from the Violence of the LRA from DTJ on Vimeo.

DR Congo Coup Attempt: Unstable Army or Election Apprehension?

2011-05-04T10:31:00.009+02:00

Unrest in the army and changes to electoral law are potential sources of instability.

BY LEWIS BROOKS

The events of an attempted ‘coup’ on February 27 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are still shrouded in mystery. What is known is that a group of men armed with light weapons - rocket-propelled grenades and machetes - attacked the Kinshasa residence of President Kabila before being repelled by the Presidential Guard.
They then attacked an army base close by before order was eventually restored. Official reports have suggested that there were about 60 people involved in the attack, while a UN source has been quoted by the AFP agency as suggesting that the number was closer to 100. After this the details become a lot more uncertain. In particular, the motives behind the attack are still unknown.

The Information Minister, Lambert Mende, gave an interview shortly after the attack claiming that some of the attackers appeared to have had military training, before quickly denying that the attack came from members of the Presidential Guard unhappy with living conditions.

Even if concern over living conditions is not the cause, there are several other possible explanations. The involvement of foreign powers appears credible at first as all the major developments in the ongoing regional conflict have involved one or more of the DRC’s neighbours. However, since the agreement in November 2008 (the details of which remain secret) between Kabila and his enemy during the war, Paul Kagame, the likelihood of external powers tampering with Kinshasa has somewhat diminished.

The elections scheduled for November provides another possible explanation for the attack. The last election in 2006 prompted an upsurge in violence in Kinshasa which required a European Union peacekeeping force to quell it. Kinshasa was also an opposition stronghold, with Kabila’s rival Jean-Pierre Bemba receiving a greater share of the Presidential first round vote than Kabila did.

If the election was a factor in the coup, Bemba’s direct involvement can then probably be ruled out - he is currently in The Hague being tried for two counts of crimes against humanity and three counts of war crimes for which he is pleading not guilty.

A particular election-related grievance occured just over a month before the attempted coup, when a change in the constitution saw the scrapping of the run-off for the Presidential election if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote. Opposition parties have been outraged by the move. Given the seemingly poor organisation of this coup, the hand of a united opposition in guiding it seems unlikely; however, the possibility that opposition elements were involved cannot be ruled out.

Despite this possibility the most likely cause rests in the army. Even with the training of units by foreign forces and the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the country, MONUSCO, the national army (FARDC) remains ill-disciplined and has been accused of human rights violationsand exploiting mineral resources for personnel gain.

The army has also received members of former rebel groups - such as the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) - responsible for a rebellion led by Laurent Nkunda in 2008. With soldiers and rebels now in the same army the risk of ill-discipline has grown. Either former rebels harbouring a grudge against the government or soldiers unhappy with the new favouritism shown to the CNDP could well be behind the attempted coup. The suggested military training of some of the men involved is a real indicator that former-rebels or disgruntled soldiers were part of the group that attempted the coup.

Whatever the reason, the government is keeping likely motivations a secret for now. Its response of over 100 arrests suggests that the government is keen to stop any threat in their tracks, particularly as tension in the country increases with the elections drawing nearer. It may have succeeded in quelling this mysterious coup attempt but time will tell if it can handle the ill-discipline of the FARDC and the opposition of political rivals in Kinshasa.

Marcel's 4411 favorite songs - in alphabetical order

2011-05-02T02:11:00.000+02:00

Music always played a very important role in my life. ITunes helps you nowadays to actually know what you like most. Here are the songs I either rated highly or played often. Only displaying four thousansand and eleven. I am not indesisive, or am I?

Humanitarian crisis and international responsability

2011-05-01T19:36:00.000+02:00

I was invited to this panel discussion of the European Institute for Security Studies in Paris.

Panel 3. Humanitarian crises and international responsibility from EUISS on Vimeo.

1.2 mio people in DRC SPEAK OUT via their phone

2011-04-22T20:37:00.011+02:00

My favorites out of the 2011 Time 100 Most Influential Things in the World

2011-04-21T20:51:00.006+02:00

Well, I guess it's the "world" from the US angle, but it is an intresting and amusing list.

Here are some of my favorite comments from the editors.

3. Youth unemployment

Causing unrest throughout the third world and uncomfortable interactions when buying Big Macs from people older than you.

4. Bombs

Like protests but far more effective.

7. Diplomatic cables

"[Gadaffi] sleeps in a tent when in hotel rooms and travels with a voluptuous blond Ukrainian nurse. Making him the world's most powerful 12-year-old."

19. Conflict minerals

Not as sexy as blood diamonds but still pretty sexy.

20. Birth certificates

In the age of Photoshop, people still want to see them.

22. No-fly zones

".. the great 1990s euphemism for not having sex is the 2010s euphemism for war"

24. Eyjafjallajökull

Despite the weak dollar, Iceland's volcano was able to stop Europeans from heading to America.

28. Greece

Hadn't heard from the Greeks in 2,400 years. Turns out they were spending a lot of money

44. Irish banks

Spending money like drunk Irishmen.

71. Military tribunals

Lost influence in 2008 but are now back to making the U.S. look as bad as it did when we had a white President.

75. Pelicans

Making people care about oil spills.

88. Kiva.org

Microlending without anything scammy going on. Plus, for $25 you get to feel like an international bank that, unlike many of them lately, doesn't lose money.

The world with Marcel's friends on a map

2011-04-05T15:54:00.006+02:00

Writing these lines from Switzerland, where I rolled my mother in a wheelchair from an old people's home to a dentist today, I have been thinking a lot about my roots recently. Since ten years almost permanently in the field, even before very frequent, sometimes long travels, and moving within Switzerland from place to place... Have I just adopted home everywhere and nowhere, loosing any sense of belonging to some place?

The center of the world is - of course - Kinshasa. But from there, a particularly strong set of lines still lead to Switzerland.

Not exactly. I generated this map of my Facebook friends. There are hardly any friends, who are not on Facebook these days, particularly not amongst the people, who share my lifestyle. And except if my eyes are really bad, there is a particular accumulation of red lines to ... Switzerland!

All the wisdom of this world in one song: Baz Luhrmann - Sunscreen

2011-04-03T10:42:00.008+02:00

This song has a lot of meaning to me. One of our wise Belgian employees in Afghanistan played it one evening in the ICRC guesthouse in Mazar-i-Sharif. I could not handily read the lyrics as in this video, so I listened to it over and over again. Finally, I came to the conclusion that all the wisdom in a human lifetime is contained in this song.
Sorry for those, who like complicated things. I like simple things.

My favorite lines, which are almost all...

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubblegum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm
on some idle Tuesday.
...
Do one thing everyday that scares you.
...
Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes
you’re behind… the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with
yourself.
...
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your
life… the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they
wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year
olds I know still don’t.
...
Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe
you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky
chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary… what ever you do, don’t
congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your
choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.
...
Enjoy your body,
use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people
think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own..
...
Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the
people most likely to stick with you in the future.
...
Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you
should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and
lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you
knew when you were young.
...
Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will
philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize
that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were
noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders.
...
Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of
fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the
ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

Deadly protest exposes cracks in Afghan strategy - BBC

2011-04-02T15:53:00.013+02:00

The protest began after Fridaz prayers in Mazar-e-Sharif

After protesters in the normally peaceful Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif turned their wrath on the UN, killing seven foreign staff, the BBC's Paul Wood in Kabul examines what might have been behind the attack and what it means for Nato's strategy.

No one saw this coming. Not the UN, not Nato, not the Afghan police.

Mazar-e Sharif was the last place in Afghanistan where such an attack might have been expected.

The city usually has a bustling air about it. The local economy is thriving. It is usually quiet and calm. You might even see the odd tourist wandering around the famous Blue Mosque.

Outside the Blue Mosque yesterday, an imam began to harangue the crowd. Hundreds of Korans had been burned in the US, he said, not just one.

He was referring to events at a church in Florida on 20 March, when Pastor Wayne Sapp set light to a copy of the Koran. He was supervised by Pastor Terry Jones, who last year aborted a plan to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Taliban "infiltrators"

At the main Friday prayers in Mazar-e Sharif, the worshippers had been told to demonstrate.

But then it was the street sermon, outside, which seemed to inflame them.

What happened next is a matter of dispute. The provincial governor insists that the (so-far) peaceful protesters had not even intended to march on the UN until Taliban "infiltrators" diverted the crowd.

For some Afghan - and international -- officials, this was a pre-planned attack, carried out by the Taliban, using the anti Koran-burning protest as cover.

Officials said the protest had been peaceful before the attack

If that is true, it shows how the insurgency retains the capability to strike even in places where it traditionally has very little support.

Despite some Pashtun-Tajik ethnic tensions in Mazar, the Taliban has never really had a foothold there.

The city was considered so safe, it was among the first seven locations named as ready to be handed over from Nato to Afghan security control in July.

The Afghan police could not protect the UN mission on Friday.

Questions will now, inevitably, be raised about security transition in Mazar-e Sharif, and perhaps elsewhere too.

The Taliban denies it was behind the attack there or the trouble in Kandahar on Saturday.

These were "the pure acts of responsible Muslims," said a spokesman - foreigners burning Korans had brought down the wrath of ordinary Afghans upon their heads.

Latent hostility

This is a deeply conservative, deeply religious country. An insult to Islam will inflame passions as no other issue.

If the violence was spontaneous, that is perhaps more worrying for the international community than if there had been a Taliban guiding hand.

It would show how precarious is the position of the international community here; even how much latent hostility there is for the international presence in Afghanistan.

A statement by the Afghan police that some UN workers were beheaded may in fact not be correct. But at least one of the victim's throat may have been cut; others were stabbed, it seemed, rather than shot.

The UN is not, so far, evacuating its personnel. The US military, for its part, is worried not just about Afghanistan but about many other Muslim countries where it has troops.

That is why General Petraeus, who is in charge of US forces in Afghanistan, personally appealed to Pastor Terry Jones last year not to burn a pile of Korans, as he had been threatening to do.

When the Koran was burned in a Florida church two weeks ago, there was little immediate reaction.

But news is getting out and spreading now and the fury - in Afghanistan - seems to be building.

Even if the Taliban did not orchestrate the events in Mazar-e Sharif, it may be strengthened by them.

---

And here's what the pastor head to say afterwards: Not feeling guilty at all.