Baraza

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 26 2008 | By: baraza

Today I received an email from Robert Williams about ‘Looking for Miza” that made me realise just how much this little book matters.

Here’s an excerpt.

“I had some good friends over for dinner the other night and when one of their kids saw my copy of “Looking for Miza”, her eyes lit up. Turns out that Tessa, who is nine years old, learned of the book through her school and got her parents to purchase it. She was clearly touched by the book and went on and on about the gorillas and Innocent. It was really quite something. She even wrote a paper on the mountain gorillas. Great job on creating a book that really speaks to kids and moves them to act”.

Thank you Tessa and Robert - You’ve made my day!!

For those who haven’t got ‘Miza’ yet you can order it online at Amazon here It would make a great xmas present for someone special. Sadly, copies in Nairobi have already sold out

Tags: Amazon, Congo, gorilla, Looking for Miza, Paula Kahumbu, Virunga National Park

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Category: Emergency appeals, Uncategorized | Date: Nov 03 2008 | By: baraza

The tension in the air can be felt in Goma from far away Nairobi. We are in touch with our colleagues on the ground I’ve just heard that the convoy trying to reach Rutshuru (50 miles north of Goma through the CNDP front line) has come across scenes of intense fighting in the recent days with the road strewen with empty shells and casing.

They describe seeing the bodies of Congolese military still lie in road side ditches.  An ugly scene but at least food is moving towards those most in need which will be a huge relief. I’m dreading what they will find when they get there though. All the news agencies are talking about is the humanitarian crisis and are filled with harrowing stories.

The missing rangers are still at large which is very worrying. Where could they be? We hope that they are safe.  At least NGO’s are feeling safer and many have been able to return to Goma.

A tiny piece of potentially good news if true, was reported in the Uganda Monitor “The rebels for now have been persuaded by Rwandan officials, according to several sources, to abandon their plan to occupy Goma which had been abandoned by government troops”.

Our thought are  with all our friends wherever they are in Eastern Congo. We’ll keep you posted as news comes in from the convoy - which is not easy - cell phone networks are on and off.

If you have any messages for the team on the ground please leave them here in comments and we will post the best of the messages here  for them.

Tags: CNDP, crisis in the congo, DR Congo, Gorillas, Rwanda, Virunga National Park, wildlifedirect

2 responses so far

Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 01 2008 | By: baraza

Over recent weeks there’s no doubt that rebel leader Laurent Nkunda’s and his CNDP troops have expanded their control creating even graver threat to the human population and the Virunga National Park. In this article in the International Herald Tribune describes the taking of Kibumba, formerly held by UN peace keepers and the Congolese military

“Kibumba is clearly theirs. Rebel soldiers were working with village elders on Friday to assess the damage caused by the departing government forces, who residents said picked clean dozens of homes and robbed the local bank, cracking open the safe and stealing the villagers’ savings. But Nkunda’s troops may have committed similar abuses.”

The EU has now decided not to send troops to the Congo or to reinforce MONUC but to handle the issue through diplomatic channels.

The United Nations is calling for a summit to be held in Nairobi, a neutral city. Indeed Nairobi has been the hub for peace talks for Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and the Congo in the recent past.

But will it work?

This quote from the Special Representative of the Secretary General in the DRC says it all

“It is not the peace agreements which make peace. It is of course the will of the signatories which makes peace.”

An online vote on the Monuc website reveals that 76% of voters do not believe that the Amani program will bring about lasting peace.

While Lindsey Hilsum of Channel 4 explains the history of the conflict rooted in the Rwanda genocide and raises an issue that so far has hardly touched the agenda – the struggle for resources as the root cause of the ongoing conflict.

“In 1994, a racist government told Rwanda’s majority Hutu people to massacre their Tutsi neighbours. It was genocide.

“When a new Tutsi-led regime took power, the Hutus, many of whom had taken part in the killing, fled to the Congo.

“War followed them: Rwanda’s Tutsi-led government pursued the Hutu genocidaires, who were hiding in the Congolese bush.

“The government of Congo joined forces with the Hutus. Four million died in the subsequent conflict.

“At one point five African countries were involved in the war in Democratic Republic of Congo. Local Tutsi rebels fighting Congolese forces were backed by troops from Rwanda and Uganda.

“The Congolese government then called on Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia, all of whom sent troops.

“The result was plunder and slaughter. Until a peace deal was signed, foreign armies, local warlords and government soldiers fought for control of mines producing tin, copper, coltan and cassiterite - valuable minerals.

“As foreign armies withdrew, new local warlords emerged, including Laurent Nkunda, a Congolese Tutsi backed by Rwanda. Last year, he celebrated a peace deal with the Congolese government.

“But now, he’s breached that. He says he’s trying to defeat the last of the Rwandese Hutu genocidaires, to protect the Tutsis. Others say he just wants power and money.

“Now, UN peacekeepers fear the conflict will spread, drawing in neighbouring countries once more.”

To be effective, the proposed Nairobi summit meeting has to be different. There have been peace talks, agreements, and ceasefires in recent years, yet none seem to have brought about lasting peace.

One analyst Elizabeth Dickenson writing for Foreign Policy writes in a short well armed piece

“The DRC sounds like a basket case — a mess of groups and interests fighting over land, pushing civilians back and forth in an endless humanitarian trap. This week’s violence is part of a long story that even most historians struggle to recount, one that began with the end of colonization, erupted after the Rwandan genocide, accelerated with the fall of President Mobutu Sese-Seko in 1997, and has seen the world’s largest United Nations peacekeeping force on the ground for the last 10 years. The International Criminal Court opened its first case against a warlord from the Congo conflict.

There is just one reason this war keeps going: Congo is one of the best-endowed countries in the world, with rich reserves of gold, cobalt, zinc, uranium, copper, and yes, oil. The former Belgian colonizers, the current Congolese government, the Rwandan government, the Ugandan government, and all the rebel groups that each party supports are funded and motivated by that wealth.

This is not a war of the innocent and the evil. It is a conflict of buyers and sellers in which the world is intimately involved. “

And she closes with

“Discussion and promises of peace can only stop the hemmorhaging for a short while. Until economics are part of the mix, Congo will continue to steadily bleed to death”.

The conflict is devastating the human population, destroying the natural assets of eastern Congo as valuable minerals are stripped, as well as destroying the environment in which now one million refugees are ekeing a living off. This will leave a lasting impact that is unlikely to attract global attention.

The view about the role of minerals in the conflict is shared by Patrick Alley co-founder of resources protection organisation Global Witness, called on the United Nations to take tougher steps to confront the problem.

Demand from resource-hungry countries like China had made it easier for African nations to sidestep schemes designed to stop insurgent groups from using profits from commodities to fund wars, he said.

Alley, a driving force behind efforts to outlaw the trade in “blood diamonds”, said a much broader approach was needed which banned the use of all natural resources to fund conflict not just by rebel groups but also governments.

It would need to be backed up by the threat of U.N. sanctions, he said.

“If you look at the biggest wars in Africa over the last decade-and-a-half they have all been resource wars and they have been characterised by some of the worst human rights abuses,” Alley said, citing a decade of conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo which has killed some 5 million people.

It’s hard to imagine how our colleagues in eastern Congo can operate and keep the Virunga National Park alive through this crisis. But they are trying to defend that great world heritage and the 200 mountain gorillas that live there.   They have launched an apppeal for humanitarian support for rangers and their families on gorilla.cd and we continue to raise fund for them on the gorilla protection blog here.

Tags: CNDP, Congo, DRC, north kivu, Virunga National Park

One response so far

Category: Emergencies, Gorillas, National Parks and protected areas, WildlifeDirect news, wildlife | Date: Oct 09 2008 | By: baraza

We have been following the alarming developments in Eastern Congo on the Gorilla protection blog and here we bring some of the latest reports on BBC here and from the United Nations official site

There is additional inforamation at the UNITED NATIONS Monuc website here Oct 8, 2008 - The Democratic Republic of Congo’s envoy to the United Nations called Wednesday for an urgent UN Security Council meeting to discuss what he called an “imminent” Rwandan attack on the eastern DRC city of Goma.

Speaking to AFP, Atoki Ileka said DRC authorities had “observed concentrations of Rwandan troops in the Rwandan border town of Gisenyi,” and that this suggested that an attack on Goma, located just across the frontier, was “imminent.”
In an earlier statement, the United States has responded angrily to Nkunda’s recent declarations in this statement from the US Department of State

“The United States condemns and rejects the statements made by General Nkunda, leader of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), claiming the CNDP intends to overthrow the elected and universally recognized Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (GDRC). The U.S. calls on the international community to support the GDRC as it works to consolidate its democracy and capacity to govern justly its entire territory. The U.S. opposes all those who seek to foment instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The Goma Agreement and the Nairobi Communiqué remain the only true viable framework to bring stability to eastern Congo. The signatories should respect their commitments and implement them swiftly. All concerned parties should also respect the current cease fire and move quickly to disengage their forces in accordance with the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (MONUC) Global Disengagement Plan. The U.S. applauds MONUC for its efforts to stabilize eastern Congo and calls on all parties to cooperate with those efforts. Conflict between the CNDP and the DRC Armed Forces only detracts attention from resolving the root problem causing instability in the region posed by the ex-Rwandan Armed Forces (ex-FAR), the Interahamwe, and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
The U.S. remains committed to supporting the GDRC and the people of the Congo to ensure a strong, democratic state, free from all illegal armed groups. At the October 3rd UN Security Council meeting on DRC, the U.S. condemned statements made by Nkunda and called for the improvement of MONUC capabilities to better carry out its mandate. The U.S. will continue to work with the DRC and the Great Lakes countries both bilaterally and through the Tripartite Plus process to strengthen regional cooperation and build a stable and prosperous region.
The U.S. will work to bring to justice those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in eastern Congo and elsewhere”.

Tags: CNDP, Gorillas, MONUC, Nkunda, rebels, Rwanda, Virunga National Park

3 responses so far

Category: Gorillas | Date: Oct 04 2008 | By: baraza

After spending a day with Lucy Spelman a vet with the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP)  in New York and hearing her amazing stories about live as a gorilla vet I realised that I’d much rather be in the rainforest experiencing what the MGVP does first hand. Well, I may yet get to do it one day but for now I can only experience it virtually.  So can you!

The Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP) is an innovative gorilla health initiative first established in 1985 when Dian Fossey asked the Morris Animal Foundation for help in response to a crisis situation for these gorillas. MGVP established veterinary care and health resources in the Rwanda rainforests. To watch the video go to the Morris Animal Foundation website and watch this video about MGVP.

Dr. Lucy is currently on a promotional book tour of USA so if you don’t yet have her book “The Rhino with Glue on Shoes” then you must get it.

Tags: Lucy Spelman, MGVP, mountain gorillas, Rwanda, Veterinarians, Virunga National Park

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Category: Gorillas | Date: Sep 12 2008 | By: baraza

Last month, US and European Union diplomats warned that despite a peace deal that was signed in January, the situation in eastern DR Congo was becoming increasingly tense and that all sides were rearming and that fighting would soon beak out. Their prediction came true, heavy fighting broke out on 28 August.  Tens of thousands of people are again fleeing - Pierre posted numerous photos illustrating this in the gorilla blog here.

Clashes have occurred on the main road between Goma and Bukavu, the capitals of North and South Kivu, respectively. The UN has 17,000 peacekeepers in DR Congo. The unit called Monuc, is the largest peace keeping force in the world! They are supposed to monitor a 2003 peace deal to end a conflict that drew in at least eight other African countries.

Black lines represent movements of people in the 1990s, red lines are more recent movements in the 2000s. Tents are IDP camps.

Rwindi and Kibirizi are just south of Lake Edward. Fighting is occurring right inside the Virunga National Park.

According to the BBC, “Monuc, have mobilised to block the advance of troops loyal to General Laurent Nkunda. The head of the Monuc in DR Congo, said that his forces had intervened using force to assist the DR Congo Armed Forces re-establish their position.

“We used force to send out a strong signal to say that we shall not allow the CNDP (Gen Nkunda’s forces) to occupy Nyanzale,” he said.

Yesterday diplomats based in the DR Congo made a rare joint appeal for the army and rebels to stop fighting in the east. The statement was signed by representatives of the UN, African Union, EU and the US demanded that all forces return to the positions they held last month.

The diplomats’ want all sides, including the Congolese army to stop all movements . , except for those undertaken alongside Monuc against the FDLR (Army for the liberation of Rwanda which is made up mainly of Interharamwe and armed forces of Rwanda)  - a different rebel group based in the area.”

To me, one of the saddest fall outs of this war is that children make up 30 per cent to 50 per cent of the fighting forces in eastern Congo. Boys are used as soldiers and porters, girls become sex slaves. According to UNICEF, only 4 in 10 children in the region have been enrolled in school

THIS IS MADNESS!!! WHY WHY WHY?

I’ve struggled to find some sense in what is going on in Eastern Congo ever since I joined WildlifeDirect. The best sugestion  I can find, is that the FDLR leaders are accused of fleeing to DR Congo after taking part in the genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda more than ten years ago.

Most people agree that their presence in DR Congo lies at the heart of years of recent unrest. Gen Nkunda, believes he is protecting Hutu’s from these killers who are also known as the Interharamwe. He has previously refused to disarm, accusing the army of working with the FDLR against Tutsis who live in the region.

If this is true then the solution is almost impossible to envisage. Nkunda claims to be protecting Congolese Tutsi’s and in doing so is keeping the ruthless killers from returning to Rwanda. But he is also illegally occupying some places in eastern Congo where his militia  and those of the Congolese army keep pushing against each other. Both sides are guilty of atrocities too painful to describe here.

So what can be done? What if we just remove the Interharamwe to a neutral country? Would this unleash a lasting peace? How could it be done? There are nearly 20,000 of these people. Who would have them?

We’d love to read your thoughts. What do you think?How can peace be achieved in eastern Congo?

Here are some related news stories and web sites with additional information

United Nations News Center

Intstitute for Envirinmental Security

BBC News online http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7610913.stm

Global Security: Timeline of violence in Eastern Congo

Tags: eastern DR Congo, gorilla blog, MONUC, Virunga National Park, wildlifedirect

8 responses so far

Category: Emergencies, Gorillas | Date: Jul 09 2008 | By: baraza

It’s another sad day for conservation. We’ve just seen it on the wires and it’s been reported on Gorilla Protection blog that a WWF vehicle carrying 11 passengers including ICCN staff in the Virunga National Park was attacked and two people have died. Sadly they were both women, the wife and daughter of the Park warden. The attackers were the Mai Mai - you can read about it on the BBC piece on the attack

This incident reminds me of how complex the political and security situation is in this part of Africa. The Mai Mai are not Nkunda’s men, but a community-based militia that formed to resist the invasion of Rwandan forces and Rwanda-affiliated Congolese rebel groups, they are also exploiting the war for their own advantage by various illegal acts.

I’ve just spoken to someone at WWF Nairobi but they haven’t got any more update than what Radio Okapi has reported

According to Wikipedia the “Mai Mai” include armed forces led by warlords, traditional tribal elders, village heads, and politically motivated resistance fighters. The Mai Mai are particularly dangerous because they have had only the most tenuous internal cohesion, and different Mai Mai groups ally themselves with a variety of domestic and foreign government and guerilla groups at different times. The term Mai Mai does not refer to any particular movement, affiliation or political objective but to a broad variety of groups.

Confused? Not to worry, so am I!

The Mai Mai have been particularly active in the provinces in the east bordering Rwanda, North Kivu and South Kivu (the “Kivus”), which were under the control of the Rwanda-allied Banyamulenge-dominated rebel faction, the Rally for Congolese Democracy-Goma (RCD-Goma).

This is not the first time they have attacked park wardens. In May of 2007, Mai Mai killed a wildlife officer in Virunga National Park and threatened to kill mountain gorillas if the government retaliated. Watch the video made by Elie Mundima last year

All WildlifeDirect staff offer their sincere condolences for the families and relatives of those who were involved in the attack and we wish all ACF staff and ICCN are safe.

Tags: , Mai Mai, Virunga National Park, Warden attacked

4 responses so far