Ituri forms part of the eastern province Orientale, whose capital is Kisingani. Ituri is made up of five territories: Aru, Djugu, Irumu, Mahagi and Mambasa, with its capital in Bunia.42 Ituri is one of the richest areas of the Congo with deposits of gold, diamonds, coltan and oil and an important cross-border trade with Uganda.43 The competition for control of these resources by combatant forces has been a major factor in the evolution of the crisis in Ituri as in the rest of the DRC.44 The war in Ituri is a complex web of local, national, and regional conflicts that developed after a local dispute between Hema and Lendu was exacerbated by Ugandan actors and aggravated by the broader international war in the DRC.45
Ituri is home to eighteen different ethnic groups, with the Hema/Gegere and Lendu/Ngiti communities together representing about 40 per cent of the inhabitants. The other major groups are the Bira, the Alur, the Lugbara, the Nyali, the Ndo-Okebo, and the Lese.46 After the Belgians withdrew, the Hema elite were left as a landowning and business class and as the administrative core, with greater access to wealth, education and political power,47 with Hema elites seeking to assert or protect their control of the political and economic spheres in Ituri.48 Land-motivated local conflicts periodically emerged (1966, 1973, 1990, and 1997) between Hema landholders and Lendu communities that felt disadvantaged and marginalised. These conflicts were mediated before they could escalate into large-scale fighting, and the great majority of
41
www.humanrightsfirst.org/international_justice/regions/DCR_Bckgrnd.pdf [accessed on 10th September 2011]
42
Amnesty International (2003 ). "Democratic Republic of Congo-Ituri: A Need for protection, a thirst for justice." from www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AFR62/032/2003/en/19e9a76f-a3a0-11dc-9d08- f145a8145d2b/afr620322003en.pdf [accessed on 10th September 2011]
43
HRW report, "Ituri: 'Covered in Blood' Ethnically Targeted Violence In Northeastern DR Congo.", Op, cit.,
44
Amnesty International report, "Democratic Republic of Congo-Ituri: A Need for protection, a thirst for justice.", Op, cit.,
45
HRW report, "Ituri: 'Covered in Blood' Ethnically Targeted Violence In Northeastern DR Congo.", Op, cit.,
46
Ibid.,
47
Amnesty International (2003). "Democratic Republic of Congo: On the precipice: the deepening
human rights and humanitarian crisis in Ituri." from
www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR62/006/2003 [accessed on 10th September 2011].
48
HRW report, , "Ituri: 'Covered in Blood' Ethnically Targeted Violence In Northeastern DR Congo.", Op, cit.,
poor Hema were rarely involved.49 In this sense, the Ituri conflict is a conflict between the agriculturalist Lendu and pastoralist Hema ethnic groups,50 although historically there has been a high degree of co-existence between the two groups and intermarriage has been common.51
‘After the discovery of the resource-rich highlands of Irumu and Djugu, the Ituri region was of particular interest to the Belgian colonists… on the eve of colonialism, the Hema dominated both the political and economic fields’.52 Belgian colonial rule exacerbated ethnic divisions between the two communities, however, by trying to reorganize traditional chieftaincies into more homogeneous groups and by favouring the Hema over the Lendu.53 After independence, the Hema were not only in a more favourable position to take over the plantations left by the Belgian settlers, but they also had the intellectual, political and financial resources to manipulate Mobutu’s state to their advantage and increase their economic domination.54
Therefore, the conflict in Ituri should be understood as a complex of dynamics which expresses the inner logic of the existing local social, economic and political order.55 The conflict originally began as an economic conflict, but soon evolved into an ethnic one. Violence committed by traditional Lendu communities in the course of protecting their land eventually evolved beyond simply targeting landowners to targeting anyone of Hema ethnicity.56 When a small number of Hema allegedly attempted to bribe local authorities into modifying land ownership registers in part of the Djugu district of Ituri, the Lendu decided to retaliate. In the absence of a strong local authority the incident quickly turned into a confrontation between the two communities.57 According to a report of the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), ‘one month before the first eruption of violence Lendu chiefs had warned the Hema of an imminent attack, ordering them to leave their land and
49
International CrisisGroup (2003). "Congo Crisis: Military Intervention in Ituri." from www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/africa/central-africa/dr-congo/064-congo-crisis-military-intervention- in-ituri.aspx [accessed on 10th September 2011].
50
www.haguejusticeportal.net/eCache/DEF/11/284 [accessed on 10th September 2011]
51
HRW report, "Ituri: 'Covered in Blood' Ethnically Targeted Violence In Northeastern DR Congo Op, cit.,
52
Vlassenroot, K. and T. Raeymakers (2004). "The Politics Of Rebellion and Intervention in Ituri:The Emergence Of A New Political Complex ?" African Affairs 103(412): 385-412. p. 389.
53
HRW report, "Ituri: 'Covered in Blood' Ethnically Targeted Violence In Northeastern DR Congo.", Op, cit.,
54
International Crisis Group report, "Congo Crisis: Military Intervention in Ituri.", Op, cit.,
55
Vlassenroots, Op, cit., p. 388.
56
www.haguejusticeportal.net/eCache/DEF/11/284 [accessed on 10th September 2011]
57
HRW report, , "Ituri: 'Covered in Blood' Ethnically Targeted Violence In Northeastern DR Congo.", Op, cit.,
crops’.58 In response, the Hema started organizing armed groups to defend their property. On 5 September 2002, Lendu combatants brutally slaughtered almost a thousand Hema and Wabira in the local hospital of the Nyakunde.59 Fighting in the Ituri and Kivu provinces intensified in late 2002 and early 2003, partly because of the withdrawal of Rwandan and Ugandan troops as part of peace accords signed in 2002. The Ugandan, Rwandan and the DRC governments have been widely accused of supporting rival military groups, often defined along ethnic lines.60
Uganda occupied Ituri from 1998 to 2003, when the last of its troops returned to Uganda in accordance with the Luanda agreement of September 6, 2002. Uganda’s withdrawal immediately increased instability in the region, and external support from Kampala, Kinshasa, and Kigali flowed in to fill the power vacuum and gain control of the resource-rich region.61 Ethnically based armed groups continue to fight against each other as well as against soldiers of the national army and the UN peacekeeping force, MONUC. War crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed following systematic abuses of human rights,62 with combatants often using sexual violence to target persons of ethnic groups seen as the enemy. According to the October 2004 estimate of humanitarian agencies, eight to ten persons were being raped each day in the town of Bunia and a limited number of other locations in Ituri.63 Five armed political groups are contesting control of Ituri. Uganda, at one time or another, has backed all these groups, often simultaneously. The Rassemblement
congolais pour la Démocratie – Mouvement de Liberation (RCD-ML), Congolese Rally for Democracy – Liberation Movement, is led by Mbusa Nyamwisi, while the UPC is led by Thomas Lubanga. This group, formed in April 2002, is drawn almost exclusively from the Hema ethnic community. Internal divisions subsequently emerged within the UPC, with one faction favouring alliance with Rwanda and another with Uganda. This latter faction emerged as a new armed political group, the
Front pour l’Intégration et la Paix en Ituri (FIPI), led by Gegere Chief Kawa Mandro
58
Vlassenroot, Op, cit., p. 392.
59
Ibid.,
60
Humanitarian Issues in Ituri, Eastern DRC, www.odi.org.uk/hpg2003
61
ICTJ report, "A First Few Steps: The Long Road to a just Peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo.", Op, cit.,
62
Human Rights Watch (2004). "Making Justice Work: Restoration of the Legal System in Ituri, DRC A Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper ". from www.hrw.org/en/reports/2004/09/01/making-justice- work-restoration-legal-system-ituri-drc [accessed on 10th September 2011].
63
Human Rights Watch (2005). "Seeking Justice: The Prosecution of Sexual Violence in the Congo War." from www.hrw.org/en/node/11816/section/1 [accessed on 10th September 2011].
Panga. Beyond these major armed political groups are a number of other armed groups and militias operating in Ituri. The Hema militia are now closely identified with the UPC (or the FIPI), while Lendu / Ngiti militia have increasingly allied themselves with the RCD-ML.64 Since early 2002, the RCD-ML has sought ‘greater rapprochement with the DRC government,’ and has reportedly been supplied with arms from Kinshasa although this has been denied by government officials.65 Early in 2002, the involvement of the Kinshasa Government centred on the military assistance that it provided to RCD-ML in Beni. Kinshasa sent trainers, weapons and also some military elements in support of the Armée Populaire Congolaise66 (APC), which was reportedly sending weapons supplies from Beni to Lendu militia.67
These national groups, as well as local ethnic groups in Ituri, have been and, in some cases, still are supported by the Ugandan, Rwandan and DRC governments.68 In fact, the availability of political and military support from external actors, whether national governments or rebel movements, has encouraged local leaders to form new groups, generally based on ethnic loyalty.69 Armed groups have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other violations of international humanitarian and human rights law on a massive scale in Ituri. Human Rights Watch estimates that at least 5,000 civilians died from direct violence in Ituri between July 2002 and March 2003. These victims are in addition to the 50,000 civilians that the UN estimates have died there since 1999.70 Armed groups have also committed summary executions, forcefully abducted persons whose whereabouts remain unknown, and arbitrarily arrested and unlawfully detained others, some of whom they subjected to systematic torture. The UPC conducted a ‘man hunt’ for Lendu and other political opponents shortly after taking power in August 2002. Many Lendu were arrested. In addition, Human Rights Watch has observed that senior UPC military officers were in charge of two prison areas that became infamous places of summary execution and torture.71
64
Amnesty International report, "Democratic Republic of Congo-Ituri: A Need for protection, a thirst for justice." Op, cit.,
65
Ibid.,
66
Congolese People’s Army
67
A special report on the event of Ituri, 2003- UNSG report to the UNSC
68
HRW report, "Ituri: 'Covered in Blood' Ethnically Targeted Violence In Northeastern DR Congo." Op, cit., 69 Ibid., 70 Ibid., 71 Ibid.,