Illegal Timber Trade Threatens DR Congo Forests

 taken from: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/wild-west-timber-trade-threatening-congo-forests-global-witness-2012-10-26

Officials in Democratic Republic of Congo are colluding with foreign logging firms to support illegal logging, harming local communities and risking the destruction of the world's second largest forest, a report by a campaign group says.

Derelict ports in Congo's riverside capital Kinshasa are piled high with logs ready to be shipped out to China and Europe as part of the lucrative timber trade.

Much of the timber has been harvested using permits signed by the ministry of environment in direct contravention of Congolese law, advocacy group Global Witness said in the report.

Congo's forest is part of the Congo Basin that spans six countries in the central Africa region covering about 500 million hectares, over 130 million of which is in the Congo. It contains thousands of species and a quarter of the world's remaining tropical forest.

According to the report on Thursday so-called artisanal logging permits - meant only for small scale tree felling by Congolese nationals - are being awarded to foreign firms.

The companies then use industrial methods to cut and export large quantities of wood out of the country, while sidestepping the environmental and social obligations demanded of industrial logging operations.

Attempts to bring order to Congo's chaotic forestry sector have seen a ban on all new industrial logging licences since 2002, but this has done little to improve the situation according to Colin Robertson, one of the report's authors.

"Basically this is a new system to get around the moratorium... Officials have been giving out artisanal permits to industrial loggers, and it's created a completely chaotic situation in the forests," he told Reuters.

Robertson said that licences seen by Global Witness - many of them for Chinese or Lebanese companies - had been signed by a former environment minister.

In the heavily forested province of Bandundu at least 146 artisanal logging permits have been issued in the last 2 years according to the report, which also shows evidence of some firms having cut far more than is allowed by artisanal licences.

Local chiefs are paid off with anything from motor bikes or beer to allow the trees to be felled, while rural communities see no benefit at all, the report states.

Congolese conservationists say the situation is as bad if not worse elsewhere in the country, which is home to 86 million hectares of forest.

Victor Vundu, director of the ministry of environment's legal team said they were working on clarifying and tightening up legislation under a new minister.

"It's not surprising, in a post conflict country where the administration has been really weakened, that the state should be accused of not sufficiently controlling the application of the law," he said.

Industrial logging output from Congo has dropped in recent years and currently stands at around 350,000 m3 per year, as companies say that without far tighter regulation they cannot compete with the illegal market.

Congo signed a contract with Swiss company SGS in 2010 to introduce a traceability programme for the logging trade, but they are still waiting for the green light from the government to go ahead, according to Lionel Nardon, head of the SGS project in Congo.

Nardon said they had already identified more than 100 000 m³ of illegal wood in Kinshasa's ports and described the sector as being like the "wild west" in which contraband timber is traded in the port before being transported out by lorries under the cover of darkness.

"The cost (to the Congo) is millions of dollars, and to the forests, it is incalculable," he said.

taken from: http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/09/water-in-drc-more-often-cause-of-death-than-source-of-life/ 

MBUJI MAYI, DR Congo, Sep 5 2012 (IPS) - Despite the desperate lack of access to water for domestic use in Mwene Ditu, in the central Democratic Republic of Congo, Dieudonné Ilunga spent a good part of July blocking up residents’ wells. “They’ve dug them in old cemeteries, in newly-demarcated lots, next to toilets,” said Ilunga, head of the Water Resources Research Department in the city, the second largest in DRC’s Kasaï-Orientale province.

 Just ten percent of Mwene Ditu’s 600,000 residents are connected to the water supply network – and even for these lucky few, water flows through the taps only on Monday and Friday. Vianney Muadi, a mother of two in the city’s Musadi neighbourhood, said she stores as much water as possible when it runs. “Sometimes, we go whole weeks without access,” she told IPS. “But drinking water must not be left open to the air,” said Ilunga. He wants to see the network rehabilitated and extended into outlying neighbourhoods, but the public water utility, REGIDESO, is facing severe challenges across the province. Few of the 3.3 million residents of the provincial capital, Mbuji Mayi, are served by the city’s aging pipe network. “Our network only reaches 3,000 clients, and basically all of them are in Mbuji Mayi,” admitted Jean-Pierre Mbambu, head of the REGIDESO’s water works in the city. Pipes are frequently damaged by uncontrolled runoff from rainwater. And even when these breaches are repaired, the utility is often unable to pump water, due to power outages.

The provincial administration has tried to help with diesel to power generators, but this is a costly option – especially with REGIDESO struggling with funding problems linked to bankrupt customers. The many people who are not connected to the grid have to fend for themselves. Dozens of boreholes have been drilled, particularly in Mwene Ditu, and in other parts of Kasaï-Orientale province in the east of the country. People have also turned to rivers and springs near various towns for water. “But these supply points are badly looked after and even less well protected,” said Placide Mukena Kabongo, head of the National Rural Water Department (SNHR) in Ngandanjika, some 90 kilometres southeast of Mbuji Mayi. He said his staff members were doing their best to explain to people how to prevent contamination of their water sources. “SNHR dug 578 wells and constructed 480 water points in eight of the 16 territories that make up the province,” Mukena told IPS, adding that these waterworks dated back to colonial times though they were rehabilitated by the SNHR after independence. Many other shallow wells have been dug by unemployed youth trying to earn a living. “But they’re doing this without respecting standards, making the quality of the water doubtful,” said Kankonde. He also complained about the use of unclean buckets to draw water and the absence of drainage to keep dirty water from pooling around the wells. “We took a dead toad out of our well one day last year,” Adjany Tshimbombo told IPS.

Since then, Tshimbombo, a student at the University of Mbuji Mayi, won’t drink the water without boiling it first. The unsurprising consequence has been increasing rates of waterborne disease, according to provincial medical authorities. Dr. Musole Kankonde, head of hygiene at the provincial health department, told IPS that diseases like diarrhoea, dysentery, bilharzia, and typhoid fever are affecting increasing numbers of people, striking children and adults alike, in both rural and urban areas. “In just the first half of 2012, we recorded more than 79,000 cases of diarrhoea and dysentery, with 29 deaths,” said Jean-Pierre Katende Nsumba, the doctor in charge of disease control in the province. Kankonde told IPS that his hands were tied when it comes to addressing the problem. “I can’t forbid people to drink water from wells or springs. All I can ask is that they maintain wells carefully and treat their drinking water to avoid falling ill,” he said. His colleague Nsumba said people in the province are generally unable to afford water purification tablets. “I advise that all drinking water – whether it comes from REGIDESO, rivers, springs or wells – be boiled before use to prevent disease,” he said.

The Only Way to Help Congo

Since the end of the country’s transition to peace in late 2006, living conditions in the country (formally the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire) have become the worst in the world, according to the most recent Index of Human Development. Average life expectancy at birth is 48 years, and close to 80 percent of the population survives on less than $2 per day. Various armed groups, including the Congolese army, are committing horrific human rights violations, especially in the eastern part of the country. About 200,000 people have fled their homes since late April to escape the fighting and abuses. The civil war in Congo was the deadliest conflict since World War II, and it created the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. More than five million people died from 1998 to 2007 as domestic and foreign armed groups fought to control the territory, destabilizing much of Central and Southern Africa. Babies and elderly grandmothers were raped. Some two million people — and as many as 80 percent of the inhabitants of Congo’s eastern provinces — fled their homes to escape the violence. African and Western diplomats, along with U.N. officials, actively supervised negotiations to end the war. In 2002, they brokered a peace deal, and in 2006 they organized the first democratic elections in Congo’s history. To this day, the peacekeeping mission they set up is the only force capable of protecting the population from the ongoing violence. But it has been a case of misguided intervention. One reason is that foreign diplomats, U.N. peacekeepers and many NGOs tend to view the fighting exclusively as a consequence of national and international tensions — especially power struggles among Congolese and foreign elites — and a spillover from the Rwandan genocide. And they typically consider intervention at the national or regional levels to be their only legitimate responsibility. They neglect to address the other main sources of violence: distinctively local conflicts over land, grassroots power, status and resources, like cattle, charcoal, timber, drugs and fees levied at checkpoints. Most of the violence in Congo is not coordinated on a large scale. It is the product of conflicts among fragmented local militias, each trying to advance its own agenda at the village or district level. Those then percolate and expand. Consider tensions between the Congolese of Rwandan descent and the so-called indigenous communities in the eastern provinces of South Kivu and North Kivu. These have roots in a longstanding competition over land and traditional and administrative power that began in the 1930s under Belgian colonial rule. The conflict escalated after Congo’s independence in 1960 as each camp recruited allies outside the province. With the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the crisis in the Kivus took on a regional dimension: local actors forged alliances with various Congolese and Rwandan armed groups, all in the interest of promoting their own agendas. Rather than address these issues, though, international peacemakers have lately singled out three features of the ongoing conflict: as a primary cause of violence, the illegal exploitation of natural resources by Congolese and foreign armed groups; as a main consequence, sexual abuse against women and girls; as a central solution, reconstructing state authority. International programs have thus emphasized three priorities: regulating the trade of minerals, providing care to victims of sexual violence and helping the central government extend its authority. This approach has provided a simple narrative that was easy to sell to audiences and donors in the West. It has also backfired. Perversely, attempts to regulate the trade of minerals — like Section 1502 of the U.S. 2010 Dodd-Frank Act and a temporary mining ban imposed by the Congolese government from September 2010 to March 2011 — have enabled armed groups to strengthen their control over mines. These measures focused on stopping the illegal trade of minerals but did nothing to destroy the actual power base of armed groups. In the absence of any broader political, economic or social reforms, local military leaders have managed to remain the principal power brokers in the rural areas of eastern Congo. In some cases, they have even expanded their mining operations while vulnerable populations lost their livelihood. The international community’s disproportionate attention to sexual violence has also raised the status of sexual abuse in a dangerous way. Some combatants now use it as a bargaining tool by threatening to commit mass rape if they are excluded from negotiations. And state-reconstruction programs have done little more than boost the capacity of the authoritarian central government, and of administrative officials at all levels, to oppress the population. Addressing the consequences of sexual violence and these other abuses is important, of course, but donors should do more to address their underlying causes. Most important, they should approach the resolution of conflicts in Congo from the bottom up. They should assist local groups — official authorities, NGOs and civil-society representatives — with the funding, logistical means and technical capacity necessary to implement narrowly tailored programs. For example, it’s worth supporting the work of the Life and Peace Institute and its Congolese partners. After extensive field investigations in South Kivu, including interviews with some 800 local actors, LPI and its partner Action pour la Paix et la Concorde set up intercommunity forums to discuss the specifics of local conflicts over land and manage the violence. And in cooperation with other Congolese organizations, LPI has helped broker precise agreements among pastoralists, traditional chiefs and state authorities to regulate the seasonal movement of livestock, including by establishing pathways to guide the cattle through the lowlands with minimal disruption to farmers. As the U.N. Security Council convenes this coming week to renew the mandate of its peacekeeping mission in Congo, it should refocus its efforts on supporting grassroots projects directed at resolving local conflicts, especially over land. If the international community continues to address the consequences of the violence in Congo rather than its most important causes, it will only add to the death toll. Séverine Autesserre is assistant professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University, and the author of “The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding.”

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Dag Hammarskjold: Was his death a crash or a conspiracy?

BBC News Magazine
17 September 2011 Last updated at 11:05 ET
Dag Hammarskjold: Was his death a crash or a conspiracy?
By Stephanie Hegarty BBC World Service

Exactly 50 years ago, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold died in a plane crash on a mission to prevent civil war in newly independent Congo. Suspicions that the plane was shot down, never fully laid to rest, are now again on the rise.

After his death, Mr Hammarskjold was described by US President John F Kennedy as the "greatest statesman of our century". He was a man with a vision of the UN as a "dynamic instrument" organising the world community, a protector of small nations, independent of the major powers, acting only in the interests of peace.

The only person to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize after his death, he established the first armed UN peacekeeping mission following the crisis in Suez.

Just after midnight on 18 September 1961, he was heading to negotiate a ceasefire in a mineral-rich breakaway region of Congo, where another of his peacekeeping missions was getting bogged down in the complex politics of decolonisation and Cold War rivalry.

But his DC6 aircraft crashed in darkness shortly before landing, in a forest near Ndola in Northern Rhodesia - now Zambia.

Knut Hammarskjold, his nephew, visited the crash site days later.

"It was just scattered all over the place, the pieces of the aircraft," he says. "I did not see any bodies, they had been removed earlier, I think."

He remembers the reaction at home in Sweden, where his uncle was a national hero.

"Everybody was so shocked. I can say the whole of Sweden was affected by this. All the shops had his picture in the window, and he had a state funeral which was very unusual for a foreign office person."
Iron will

Eight years earlier, when the members of the Security Council appointed the unassuming Swede secretary general, they could not have predicted the zeal he would bring to the job.

"He was a very spiritual, intellectual, cultured man, and that was all part of his mystical approach to life," says Dame Margaret Anstee, the first female under-secretary at the UN, who was starting out on a 40-year career at the organisation. "He had a certain reserve, and a certain unique kind of dignity."

But he soon gained a reputation for independence and daring, and instead of staying in his New York office, a hands-on approach became his trademark. He personally negotiated the release of 15 American airmen who had been imprisoned in China at a time when the People's Republic was not represented at the UN.

"He had the skills of mediation and persuasion, combined with this almost iron single-minded will of where he wanted to go," says Margaret Anstee.

"But of course by that very token it brought him into conflict with people who wanted to use the UN for their own ends."

In Congo, one issue was who should control the southern province of Katanga, rich in copper, uranium and tin. Belgium, the ex-colonial power, backed a secessionist movement led by Moise Tshombe, as did the UK and US who had mining interests in the region.

But Mr Hammarskjold from the start backed Congo's elected central authorities - the Soviet-backed government of prime minister Patrice Lumumba, and later, after Mr Lumumba was deposed and murdered, Prime Minister Cyrille Adoula.

Mr Hammarskjold wanted to pursue a negotiated solution between Mr Tshombe and the central government, a goal that became even more urgent after UN peacekeepers found themselves outgunned during an aggressive operation to drive foreign mercenaries from Katanga.

Mr Tshombe was waiting to talk to him in Ndola on the night he died.
Airbrushed photos

The crash of his aircraft has never been fully explained. Two investigations held in the British-run Central African Federation, which included Northern Rhodesia, were followed by an official UN inquiry, which concluded that foul play could not be ruled out. So people have never stopped coming forward with new explanations, and asking new questions.

Some 30 years after the crash, in 1992, two men who had served as UN representatives in Katanga just before and just after Hammarskjold's death - Conor Cruise O'Brien and George Ivan Smith - wrote a letter to the Guardian claiming to have evidence that the plane was shot down accidentally, by mercenaries. In their view, a warning shot intended to divert the plane to alternative talks with industrialists in Katanga, in fact hit the plane and caused it to crash.

In 1998 South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, led by Desmond Tutu, published eight letters that suggested CIA, MI5 and South African intelligence were involved in sabotage of the aircraft. British officials responded that these were likely to be Soviet forgeries.

In 2005, the head of UN military information in Congo in 1961, Bjorn Egge, told the Aftenposten newspaper he had noticed a round hole in Hammarskjold's forehead when he saw the body in the mortuary. It could have been a bullet hole, he said, and it had been mysteriously airbrushed out of official photographs.

Over the past four years, Swedish aid worker Goran Bjorkdahl has carried out extensive research and British academic Susan Williams published a book on Thursday - Who Killed Hammarskjold? Both conclude that it is likely the plane was brought down.

Mr Bjorkdahl began his study after inheriting from his father, who had worked in Zambia in the 1970s, a piece of the plane fuselage containing unexplained small holes. He tracked down 12 witnesses, in whose accounts of the night three points appeared repeatedly:

The DC6 circled in the air two or three times before it crashed
A smaller plane flew above it
A bright light flashed in the sky above the large plane before it went down

Six witnesses also recall seeing uniformed personnel near the crash site that morning, even though official reports claim it was not located until after 15:00 that day.

The official inquiries held at the time also contain witness testimony referring to a second plane in the sky.

One of the key questions Ms Williams asks in her book is why this and other inconvenient observations were discounted, or in some cases doctored during the official Rhodesian investigations. She says it is clear to her that there was a cover-up.

She places particular emphasis on three of her discoveries:

The photographs of Hammarskjold after his death are either taken in such a way as to conceal the area around his right eye, or, where the eye is visible, they show evidence of having been touched up, possibly to hide a wound
The sole survivor of the crash, Harold Julien, said there was an explosion before the plane fell from the sky - his evidence was discounted in the original inquiry on the grounds that he was ill and sedated, but Ms Williams has found a doctor's statement insisting that he was lucid at the time (he died of his injuries within days)
A US intelligence officer at a listening station in Cyprus says he heard a cockpit recording from Ndola, in which a pilot talks of closing in on the DC6 - guns are heard firing, and then the words "I've hit it"

"There is no smoking gun, but there is a mass of evidence that points in the direction that the plane was shot down by a second plane," she told the BBC. "That is a far more convincing and supported explanation than any other."

There were a range of people, including white Rhodesians and the Belgian and British mining companies in Katanga, "with a sense of being at war with the UN and with African nationalism", she says - and with a motive for preventing Mr Hammarskjold and Mr Tshombe reaching a negotiated settlement.
Model diplomat

Mr Hammarskjold's main adviser at the time, Brian Urquhart, says it is "so wrong" to think that "at night without ground control you could shoot down a plane or even locate it". But Ms Williams says experts have told her that the DC6, on its way in to land at Ndola airport on a moonlit night, was a "sitting duck".

Ms Williams argues that the time has come for a new inquiry, and Mr Hammarskjold's nephew Knut is reported to have called for one himself, after hearing of Ms Williams' new evidence.

Fifty years later, his uncle is still a model for people working at the UN, says Knut Hammarskjold.

"Many, I've been told, still have his photo on their desks, and [former Secretary General] Kofi Annan says he always asks when there is a problem: 'What will Dag have done in this situation?'"

Dame Margaret Anstee says he had the courage to stand up for his principles and to the strong member states, which his successors have lacked.

"There was a tacit agreement never to have such a single-minded secretary general again," she says. "I think we can say they haven't."

Additional reporting by Stephen Mulvey

Susan Williams' book, Who Killed Hammarskjold?, is published by Hurst and Company.

BBC World Service's Witness programme on Monday reports on Dag Hammarskjold's life and death, featuring contributions from Knut Hammarskjold and Dame Margaret Anstee

BBC

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Blood In the Moblie-Trailer

Sunday, August 21 at 4pm

Tickets and event info:
www.sausalitofilmfestival.com/films/blood.html
http://www.sausalitofilmfestival.com/films2011.html
Sausalito Film Festival Office: 415 887-9506

Crisis In The Congo: Uncovering The Truth

http://congojustice.org/

We Have Updated Our Website!

Come and see the new website! I am blogging live from the 2011 Annual Conference, it promises to be a good one.

Visit us here: www.lejabulela.org

Crisis In The Congo: Uncovering the Truth

ALMOST THERE

The Kalala Muzeu Health Center is up and 2 babies have been born already! This is a cause for a celebration, but there is still more work to be done. We need to have an equipment upgrade, interior design, power, and water all finalized to make this center live up to its potential.

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In Memory of Floribert Chebeya

The lifeless body of Floribert Chebeya Bahizire was found in the back seat of his car on June 2 in a neighborhood not far from his home in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When he was last heard from, Floribert was on his way to meet the Inspector General of Police, John Numbi, known for his corruption and power; but otherwise the circumstances of Floribert's death are both unclear and suspicious. His loyal chauffeur, Fidele Bazan Edadi, is still missing.

Floribert was undoubtedly Congo's most prominent, committed, courageous human rights activist. From his early years when he won the Reebok Human Rights awards in 1992 for fighting the Mobutu dictatorship, through the national conference process, the civil war, the Laurent Kabila regime, the Congolese elections, and the current deteriorating dispensation – Floribert persevered, finally paying the ultimate price for his vision of a free and democratic Congo. He should be remembered as one of Congo's greatest freedom fighters, a leader of Africa's democratic movement, and an international human rights giant. His murder is an enormous outrage.

I first met Floribert about 20 years ago when he was visiting the U.S.; shortly thereafter, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) made its first grant to the organization he led, La Voix des Sans Voix, in 1991 for U.S.$31,289, "to support the VSV's efforts to increase the understanding of and commitment to human rights and democracy in Zaire through a civic education program that includes a monthly bulletin, audiovisual materials, and public meetings." It was the first grant NED made in Zaire, and there can be no question that Floribert paved the way and set the standard for all that followed.

Floribert was both gentle and fierce. His small stature, soft voice, thick glasses and warm smile belied the toughness and determination that landed him in and out of detention on multiple occasions, and that elevated him to be the widely acknowledged leader of Congo's human rights movement in several networks such as Droits de l'Homme Maintentant, and mentor to scores of human rights NGOs across the country. When the pressure and threats became too great, Floribert would send his wife and children across the river to Brazzaville, but he stayed behind in Kinshasa to continue his work. His family had to move from time to time for security reasons, but the occasions when I was honored to have dinner at his home were filled with the love and warmth of his devoted wife and children. When he spoke before mass audiences his eloquence and passion were captivating, but unlike so many other tribunes of the people, his integrity was incorruptible, he never lost his connection with the Congolese people whose voice he had become. I sat with him once as he interviewed an alleged recent victim of human rights abuse. He was delicate, yet probing, and rather than rushing to judgment, determined that her case was doubtful; promising to follow up with her later. He and the staff of VSV investigated and sought redress for hundreds of such cases.

Floribert was a realist. He understood politics, but never sacrificed principles. He was as unafraid to criticize American policies as those of his own government. When most other Congolese, including some human rights advocates, were denouncing the Tutsis and Banyamulenge after the Rwandan invasion, Floribert defended the rights of innocent civilians who were targets of human rights abuse no matter what their ethnicity. He had enormous energy. Leading a committed team, Voix de Sans Voix has issued hundreds of press statements over the years, meticulously documenting human rights abuses and denouncing them. VSV has likewise held hundreds of workshops, training conferences, civic education events, and campaigns. Floribert undoubtedly inspired hundreds of activists throughout the country who still cite VSV for getting them off the ground, showing them how to do human rights work, and counseling them on strategy. He distributed his Reebok Human Rights Award among other civil society organizations rather than keeping it for himself or even his own organization. His impact on the human rights movement and the understanding and appreciation for democracy in Congo was profound.


Whether or not the gunman or the person who gave the orders is ever identified, we know who killed Floribert Chebeya. The Congolese political system has become increasingly repressive, human rights organizations are continually threatened, journalists have been murdered, the political opposition emasculated, and the rule of law flouted. In the east the vicious killings, looting, and mass rapes committed by the Congolese army continue unabated. The UN peacekeepers are being pressed to leave, and the prospects for any democratic elections in the future are fading. The Congolese people have lost one of their most ardent defenders. Floribert will be remembered among the pantheon of African martyrs and freedom fighters such as Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko, and Tom Mboya. But those who committed this crime will not go unpunished. Floribert's death will not be in vain. This time, the torturers have gone too far, and the local and international furor over their act is already shaking the regime; Numbi has been suspended pending an investigation. And Floribert's many friends will not allow his vision of a free and democratic Congo to die. He would have demanded no less.

Dave Peterson is director of the National Endowment for Democracy's African Program. This article was originally published on 11 May 2011 on Save The Congo's website, and has been reprinted with the permission of the author.

Dr. Mukwege Wins International Honor

Brussels, 24 May 2011 – Esteemed Congolese gynecologist, Dr. Denis Mukwege, has been awarded the 2010/2011 King Baudouin International Development Prize for his commitment to helping thousands of women victims of rape and war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Dr. Mukwege founded Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, which offers free, comprehensive care for women victims. The specialized treatment offered at Panzi Hospital integrates psychological and physical treatment with social support to help cope with the stigma many victims face after they are assaulted. In the past 10 years, Dr. Mukwege and his team have treated more than 30,000 victims of sexual violence.

The prevalence of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo is widely recognized as one of the highest in the world. In the war-torn region, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of women have been raped or severely maimed. Sexual violence is used as a weapon of war by rebel forces, strategically perpetrated to institute a reign of fear in order to seize control of mineral-rich areas.

Beyond his work at Panzi Hospital, Dr. Mukwege has also gained recognition for advocating tirelessly on behalf of the victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At risk to his own life, he has appealed to policymakers for increased protection for the women of the region and championed an integrated health care system that meets the unique challenges of violence and chaos in the Congo.

Dr. Peter Piot, Chairman of the King Baudouin Foundation and Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Dr. Mukwege is one of Africa’s great humanitarians whose work is a source of hope and inspiration for people across the African continent. Through his work as a doctor and advocate, Dr. Mukwege is shining a spotlight on one of the most pervasive and pernicious human rights abuses in the world – violence against women. His dedication and commitment to this issue are a perfect fit with the values of the Prize.”

Dr. Mukwege (in photo) received the Prize at the Royal Palace in Brussels, at a ceremony attended by King Albert II and Queen Paola of Belgium and other esteemed guests such as Margot Wallstrom, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

“It is a privilege and an honor for me to be receiving the King Baudouin International Development Prize. Most importantly, I am grateful for the opportunity to reiterate the critical need for all of us to take action for women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We cannot risk being silent on this grave injustice – destroying women means destroying life,” said Dr. Mukwege.

The King Baudouin International Development Prize was established in 1978 to recognize and support pioneers who have made outstanding contributions to addressing key challenges and advancing social progress in the developing world.

The Prize winner receives 150,000 euros (approximately US$210,000) and the opportunity to meet leaders of key international organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations and the European Union. Past recipients of the Prize include such distinguished humanitarians and advocates as Ousmane Sy and Paulo Freire, both now recognized around the world for their innovative contributions to critical development challenges.

DR Congo Names Squad

Orange 2012 Afcon qualifier :DR Congo release rooster for Mauritius game
The DR Congo have published a list of 22 players to begin camping ahead of their crucial Orange 2012 Afcon qualifier against Mauritius.



Head coach,Robert Nouzaret made no change to the selection that thrashed Mauritius last March three nil as the same 22 players have been called up.However,the three players expelled from the squad for improper conduct during training were not called up.They are Larrys Mabiala (Nice), Cédric Mongongu (Monaco) et Dieumerci Mbokani (Wolfsburg). Nouzaret replaced them with 20 year old midfielder Andréa Mutombo Mbuyi who plies his trade in Belgium.The players are mostly from DR Congo’s leading club, TP Mazembe,recently expelled from the Orange CAF Champions League.



The 22 players called up



Goalkeepers: Robert Kidiaba (TP Mazembe), Parfait Mandanda (Altay, Turkey), Leya Matampi Vumi (DC Motema Pembe).

Defenders : Eric Nkulukuta (TP Mazembe), Rodrigue Dikaba (Beauvais, France), Joel Kimuaki (TP Mazembe), Pamphile Mihayo (TP Mazembe), Landry Mulemo (Bucaspor, Turkey), Simbi Ebunga (AS V.Club), Tshinyama Tsholola (Lokeren, Belgium), Christian Kinkela (AC Ajaccio, France).

Midfielders : Ilongo Ngassanya (DC Motema Pembe), Albert Milambo Mutamba (Beauvais, France), Youssouf Mulumbu (West Bromwich Albion, England), Hugues Bedi Mbenza (TP Mazembe), Matumona Zola (Mons, Belgium), Cédric Makiadi (Fribourg, Germany), Patou Kabangu (TP Mazembe), Andréa Mutombo Mbuyi (Saint-Trond, Belgium).



Striker: Yves Diba Ilunga (Najran, Saudi Arabia), Ilombe Mboyo Pelé (La Gantoise, Belgium), Alain Kaluyituka (TP Mazembe).

Congo-Kinshasa: Kiss of Life for Pygmies

(source: allAfrica.com)
Bolenge — "Most of the houses in our villages are still made with small branches that we have collected, while our timber and our medicinal plants are taken by people who are enriching themselves elsewhere," said Ampiobo Amuri, a traditional pygmy chief.

"It's been several weeks now since I stopped listening to the requests of these people who come and bring us drink, give us used clothes, sometimes even salt, in exchange for our products," he said.

"I want our children to study," said Antoinette Ambulampo. "The animals and the trees have been taken ... When we arrive to work in the forests where someone has cut down the trees, we are hot. We work a lot for the people who come and court us."

IPS met Amuri and Ambulampo in the village of Bolenge, in the Equateur Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Marginalised minority

There are roughly 200,000 pygmies living in the forests of the Republic of congo, Cameroon, Gabon, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo - with smaller numbers as far east as Rwanda and Burundi, according to ethnologists Serge Bahuchet and Guy Philipart de Foy.

Across the Congo Basin, indigenous peoples are a marginalised minority. They often provide the workforce in the fields for others, exploited and sometimes paid in kind or with worthless scrip.

At the second International Forum of Indigenous Peoples, which took place from Mar. 16-18 at Ifondo in the Republic of Congo, Henri Ndjombo, that country's minister of forestry and sustainable development, acknowledged the suffering of indigenous peoples.

"We are going to have to come up with appropriate responses to indigenous peoples' problems for their survival, because they are up against a number of obstacles, notably, access to resources, which must be increasingly monitored. This is necessary in order for the development of alternative activities that allow this population to live better," he states.

There have been some successes in securing the rights of indigenous people in conjunction with conservation of the forest they traditionally depend on for a livelihood.

The international non-profit organisation The Forest Trust (TFT), based in Geneva, is part of a wider group whose work for the rights of pygmies Amuri views in a positive light. The TFT has announced the certification of sustainable environmental and humanitarian practices of an additional 571,000 hectares of forest managed by the Congolaise Industrielle des Bois (CIB), a logging company operating in the Congo basin.

TFT says this brings the total area of tropical forest under sustainable management in the Congo Basin to more than 5.3 million hectares.

The certification of the Loundoungou and Toukoulaka concessions, according to TFT, means that all of the forest regions under CIB's management have been certified by the independent standard-setting body, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a milestone in the protection of both the fragile environment of the forest and the livelihoods of local communities, especially semi-nomadic pygmies.

Certification alone not enough

But the lack of demand for sustainable wood and wood products (which command higher prices than other timber) could mean that the positive response of the industry to pressure from European and U.S. activists amounts to nothing, says TFT's executive director Scott Poynton.

"The consumers aren't there and the NGOs aren't pushing the sale of this certified wood. And without economic returns, the companies can't maintain these practices," he adds.

Robert Hunink of the CIB confirms that opportunities in the market are still lacking. "Nevertheless, the staff and management of the CIB are in support of the FSC process," he says. "The buyers will start to reward companies that have responded positively to the certification of their forestry operations."
Jerome Bokele, the first pygmy to be elected to the provincial legislature of Equateur Province, in the north-west of the DRC, said: "The certification of 571.000 hectares by the FSC is a good thing. But it's only an announcement. Thousands of logs are thrown into the Congo river - and often come from lawless exploitation of the tropical forests. More than 70 percent of the indigenous people in Africa are trapped in dire poverty..."

Odon Munsadi, an environmentalist in the DRC points out: "Environmental practices in this case involve the rational use of forests for their future existence. Bad practices lead to global warming and grassy plains."

"Certification can be a breath of oxygen for the indigenous people if there is rigorous monitoring and if they develop and come to the fore. If not, the theory will prevail," he warns.