Revealed: how the world turned its back on rape victims of Congo

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/13/rape-victims-congo-world-turned-away

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On an imposing hill above the town of Minova, at the end of a trail down which rivulets of rainwater run past tarpaulin-tented homes, a small women’s refuge can be found.

Here, groups of women silently till the land. Others stare warily over Lake Kivu towards the distant mountains, waiting for news of the fighting.

Three years have passed since a column of Congolese soldiers entered Minova after being defeated and ousted by M23 rebels from the nearby city of Goma. Many were drunk, firing their guns in frustration towards the sky, but mostly they were humiliated. Over the next three days they took their defeat out on the women and girls of Minova.

The town, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is the site of one of the darkest episodes of sexual violence in a country that the UN has called the “rape capital of the world”, a place where one study estimated that 48 women are raped every hour.

Hundreds of women were systematically raped by the soldiers, an atrocity that drew international outrage and the promise of intervention. A London summit – hosted by William Hague, then foreign secretary, and the film star Angelina Jolie, who is a UN special envoy for refugees – would later pledge to eradicate sexual violence in war zones, with its lead focus on eastern Congo.

That summit was almost exactly a year ago. But the Congolese troops in the hills around Minova continue to rape with impunity. A recent army offensive against a nearby militia has prompted a fresh wave of sexual violence.

Related: William Hague’s summit against warzone rape seen as ‘costly failure’

Every day, muddied and traumatised, new arrivals stagger up the hillside to the only sanctuary around. Masika Katsuva, 47, who runs the local refuge, says: “They keep attacking us, we have no protection, no support.” So much was promised: what went wrong?

When Jolie and Hague travelled to Congo in March 2013 to promote the UK government’s campaign to end sexual violence in conflict, details were still emerging of the rapes in Minova. The UN condemned the atrocity as “horrifying” in its scale and systematic nature. Commanders had allegedly ordered subordinates to “go and get women”. Victims were gang-raped in front of their children. At least 30 of those attacked were children themselves.

The visit of Jolie and Hague, one a globally renowned star, the other a distinguished western politician, had an electrifying effect on what had been a barely functioning investigation into the crimes.

Days after their visit, prosecutors began assembling a case that would become known throughout the world as the Minova trial. It was heralded as the largest rape tribunal in the country’s history, a defining chapter in the creation of a viable legal system in eastern Congo. Leaked excerpts of pre-trial meetings reveal the Congolese army’s senior prosecutor promising “all the big fish will be arrested and prosecuted”, and adding: “This case is being watched by everyone, and the Congolese state cannot afford to stage a parody of justice.”

But other confidential legal documents and testimony from several Congolese lawyers – speaking out at great risk to their lives – reveal how the military rigged the trial’s outcome.

The sources, speaking in Goma to the Observer on condition of anonymity, reveal that UN officials repeatedly raised private concerns with the Congolese authorities over their approach and at one point “even decided not to support the trial when it started”, according to one lawyer involved. However, the case continued because the international community accepted that something had to be seen to be done.

The UN, they claim, raised concerns privately that the trial contained no provision for an appeal by the women, in clear breach of the country’s constitution. Several lawyers involved have come forward to also allege that the DRC government parachuted in a prosecutor from the capital, Kinshasa, to manipulate the direction of the trial.

“The prosecution received orders from the government. In a high-profile case like this, if the line is dictated by the big prosecutor from Kinshasa who has talked to the government minister, then you have the line,” says one lawyer, who receives daily death threats because of his work on sexual violence. “Behind the Minova case you have the executive, governmental actors,” he said.

One way the government influenced the trial, he said, was by prematurely curtailing the investigation, exploiting pressure from the international community to act quickly. As a result, evidence was incomplete or contradictory, or no forensics were conducted. Even the number of victims was unresolved.

Within the well-guarded Goma offices of the American Bar Association, files detail the names of 1,014 victims. The UN recorded that 126 women and girls had been raped, of which 56 testified in court. “They took advantage of the situation to please the international community, but organised a trial which would achieve nothing,” says another legal source in Goma.

The Congolese government, he alleges, made certain that no commanding officer was prosecuted over Minova. Legal correspondence, dated last month, describes how prosecutors refused to level charges against commanders whose men were accused of mass rape.

Transcripts of pre-trial meetings between military prosecutors and UN officials show that, when challenged over why no commanding officers had “been bothered [sic] or taken into temporary custody”, the authorities stated that no women could identify their rapists, so there was no point arresting high-ranking officials.

Twelve senior officers suspended over the rapes were never brought to trial. Of the 39 Congolese soldiers who eventually appeared in court, only two junior soldiers were convicted of rape.

Throughout the trial, exhaustive security measures were introduced, with the women wearing hoods in court to protect their identity. Yet Katsuva and other victims recount being frequently threatened and attacked since, contradicting assurances they would be protected after the trial. Anne-Marie Buhoro, 39, who was raped in Minova, says: “It’s very dangerous now because of the Minova case: it has become very unsafe for everyone involved.”

Katsuva says that after the trial they received an anonymous letter saying their throats would be slit. She handed it to the military administrator, but heard nothing. Of the 56 women who testified, 50 have since been threatened, according to Katsuva. So grave is the risk of reprisal that they spend nights hiding in the dense bush.

She points north, towards military outposts less than two miles away. “Their units are not very far. We are beaten by the militaries,” she says. Senior officers implicated in the rapes are often seen in nearby Goma.

Promises that the women would receive reparations have similarly never materialised, despite the court authorising compensation. Confidential legal documents, dated last month and addressed to Jeanine Mabunda, Congo’s leading government official in the fight against sexual violence, says the Minova rape victims are each entitled to £15,000.

From the moment the verdict that no senior officers would be prosecuted was announced, weeks before the summit began, says Charles-Guy Makongo of the American Bar Association in Goma, it felt as if the rapes of Minova were being airbrushed from history.

So much for the domestic investigation. But did the international community at least act upon its expressions of outrage and concern?

News of the Minova verdict prompted a statement from Hague urging “the Congolese authorities to continue their efforts to seek out and prosecute the remaining perpetrators”. The British embassy in Kinshasa registered its disapproval.

But, according to Goma lawyers, that was the extent of the UK government’s quest for justice. It was left to a solitary Goma law firm to launch an appeal on behalf of the victims – a move that military prosecutors attempted to block and which has made its team, too, the focus of death threats.

“When I asked for help from the international community, we got none. We are totally alone,” says Makongo. During the trial he had four armed guards; these days he never walks the streets. “The international community seemed happy just to see the military in court. We cannot afford to fight this by ourself, we don’t have the funds.”

The summit convened by Hague, who had been appointed David Cameron’s special representative on preventing sexual violence in conflict, and Jolie, did make headlines, however.

The largest assembly of its kind was called last June with the express intention of tackling sexual violence in conflict. As delegates flew in, the hope was of preventing another Minova. Increased funding was promised to support survivors of sexual violence and challenge attitudes to what Hague called one of the “great mass crimes” of modern times.

When the Minova women heard about the summit, they hoped to be among the 1,700 delegates from 123 countries invited. But no one – not even Katsuva – was invited to join a three-day convention where the food bill alone reached £299,342.01.

Makongo of the, – whose American Bar Association in Goma has received 18,000 complaints of sexual violence since 2008 – says it is scandalous the women of Minova were not invited. “No one wanted to know. The women of Minova should have been there to share their experiences.” Nevertheless, delegates gave Hague a thunderous round of applause as he promised that “we owe it to future generations to end one of the greatest injustices of our time”.

In the past year, according to those in eastern Congo, the situation has worsened. This month 19 new cases have arrived at the refuge in Minova. The Panzi hospital in Bukavu has reported a spike of children being raped, while the Heal Africa hospital in Goma, which cares for between 8,000 and 10,000 rape victims a year, says that, although conflict has subsided in some areas, the frequency of rape victims remains constant.

As part of their eastern Congo trip, Hague and Jolie visited the Heal hospital, praising its commitment to the cause but neglecting to reveal that the UK’s funding would be extremely limited. “They only gave us money for one year. It’s gone,” says Emmanuel Baabo, in charge of Heal’s sexual violence project.

A Foreign Office statement released during the tour announced UK funding of £205,000 to the charity Physicians for Human Rights, based in Panzi hospital. The money was to help “document and collect evidence of sexual violence”. But that funding, too, has run out. One worker says: “The money was crucial, paying for experts to provide training on how to collect and preserve forensic evidence on rape cases.”

Some budgetary choices seem quixotic, to say the least. Figures obtained through Freedom of Information requests reveal last year’s entire UK budget dedicated to tackling sexual violence in conflict – £3.5m – was dwarfed by the £5.2m spent on the Hague/Jolie summit. The money spent on hotels and transport over three days, £576,000, was roughly equivalent to the amount earmarked for eastern Congo at the summit.

The UK’s funding retreat mirrors a broader trend throughout eastern DRC. There, charities report decreasing donor interest; clinics for rape victims are closing and refuges are becoming vital as the support network shrinks.

Tamah Murfet, of the International Rescue Committee’s women’s protection unit in the Congo, says: “Funding is very low for tackling sexual violence: across the board it has decreased. Major donors have dropped out of this area and it’s become very difficult to even get minimal coverage.”

Victims in rural areas are no longer getting help.Many rape cases are not being reported

Baabo, who has just lost another major donor from Heal hospital, says: “Victims in rural areas are no longer getting help. Organisations no longer go to remote areas; many rape cases are not being reported.”

The short-termism of the funding that came out of the London summit has infuriated those on the frontline. Baabo says that only five-year programmes can deliver lasting change. Makongo accuses the international community of getting bored too quickly, when a long-term commitment to tackling an ingrained culture of rape was required. “You need the will to change a mentality, that takes a generation,” he says.

Back on the hills above Minova, Katsuva no longer has any hope that justice will be done. She has been raped twice, on one of the occasions by 12 men. Like the other women in her refuge, she expects to be attacked again, perhaps not by the same men, but probably by a man wearing the same military uniform. “They want me silenced,” she says.

Her refuge, above a cluster of grubby, temporary tents and encircled by the smallholdings of rape victims, feels vulnerable, a world away from the brightly lit world stage where Hague aspired to combat sexual violence in conflict. Last week it was quietly announced that he had stood down as the prime minister’s special envoy on the issue.

The refuge has repeatedly asked for financial support from London. “I have tried to contact the UK government many times, we have no money to help women or children, but they never listen,” Katsuva says. Despite her penury, she has helped 84 youngsters born through rape and is now caring for 130 women and children at the refuge.

Crouched in the shadows of her cramped home, above the sound of women singing outside, she says: “We gave everything to the trial. We trusted them. How could they leave us like this?”