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INSIDE AFRICA
French Charity Faces Kidnapping Charges; The Fighting in Eastern Congo
Aired November 3, 2007 - 12:30:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FEMI OKE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Femi Oke. This is INSIDE AFRICA, your weekly look at life and issues on the continent. In this week's show, a bizarre episode involving the Chadian government, a French charity and more than 100 children. Members of the charity, a flight crew and three journalists are now facing some serious charges.
Also ahead, we're examining growing fears that a major conflict in Central Africa could escalate. Nearly 400,000 people have already been displaced by fighting in eastern Congo, and human rights activists say women are especially vulnerable.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We walked very far with them. Even if someone screamed, nobody would hear.
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OKE: And we meet the filmmakers behind "Lumo," a documentary that chronicles a Congolese woman's journey of healing after her brutal rape by a band of soldiers.
We begin our program in Chad, where 17 Europeans stand accused of trying to smuggle 103 children out of the country. Chad's president called it a case of mass kidnapping. The French charity at the center of the scandal says it was just trying to help orphans, but two U.N. agencies and the International Red Cross say most of the children are not orphans.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Under heavy guard, defendants in the alleged mass kidnapping were flown from close to the border with Darfur to Chad's capital. Most were silent, including the six French aid workers from Zoe's Ark, the charity at the center of the rapidly growing scandal. Chadian authorities say the defendants are being held at the city's military police compound, awaiting trial by Chad's supreme court.
For the 103 children at the center of this drama, most barely 5 years old, aid workers are trying to piece together their past, find their families. A Herculean task in a war-torn region with no paved roads and more than half a million refugees and displaced people.
SERGE MALE, UNHCR REPRESENTATIVE IN CHAD: We have about 85 children, out of the 103, who seem to give information precise enough about villages where they were living. The rest either cannot talk because they're too young, or were still a little bit too confused to be able to for us (ph), to believe that it was reliable information.
ROBERTSON: They're taking photographs of the children to show in villages, help speed their return. Some, they are discovering, are brothers and sisters, but even this work is slow.
MARIAM COULIBALY NDAIYE, UNICEF: Everything we are doing, we are following children's pace. We are not going too fast for them. We are not going in such a way that they will still be traumatized.
ROBERTSON: And when the aid workers do go and look for the families, they'll face another obstacle - local resentment; people angry children were being taken away.
MALE: They felt humiliated. They felt a lot of anger. And they have one way or the other to show this anger. And they hardly can make a difference between one group or the other.
ROBERTSON: It could take months of hard work to chase down all their leads.
Aid officials fear that despite their best efforts, some of the children may never go home. A one-year-old baby girl is giving them the most worry. She has no brothers and sisters in the group. They have no way of finding out who she is.
Nic Robertson, CNN, Enjamina (ph), Chad.
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OKE: We wanted to learn more about international child custody procedures, and specifically what went wrong in this case. I spoke to Tom DiFilipo, president and CEO of the Joint Council on International Children's Services.
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TOM DIFILIPO, JOINT COUNCIL ON INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S SERVICES: Many things went wrong. The first thing that went wrong is that any time there is a situation in a country or a region where there is a conflict or a war, natural disaster, children should not be considered for adoption at that point. We need to make sure that we've done all the due diligence and make sure these children are reunited with existing family members or extended family, their local village, community. Those efforts need to be made first.
OKE: It's distressing to look at the pictures of the children as we followed this story. How is it possible that this could happen? How is it possible that we don't have some kind of certainly in Chad and other parts of Africa, some kind of regulations that would stop this from happening with youngsters?
DIFILIPO: Well, the good news is that these people were caught and stopped. So there are some precautions and regulations that allowed that to happen. That's certainly a good thing.
On the bad side, they got as far as they did. Each government needs to have a competent authority that regulates children's movements. So if a child is going to be leaving the country, both the country where the child leaves from, so in this instance Chad, needs to have a competent authority to say, yes, the child can leave. And in France, needed to say yes, these children can come in. That supposedly exists, but obviously not to the level that it needs to. The origin of the children had not been determined. The circumstances under which they were supposedly orphaned had not been determined. Whether they were eligible for, you know, adoption or immigration - that had not been determined either. And that's where we started to see this fall apart.
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OKE: A major conflict in Central Africa threatens to grow. Still ahead on INSIDE AFRICA, a look at what's at stake in the Democratic Republic of Congo and beyond.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Making business news in Africa this week. Ebay has launched a new Web site that helps low-income entrepreneurs in Africa and other regions get loans. Microplace acts as a liaison between small investors and micro finance organizations. Investors can contribute as little as $100.
Africa is open for business and looking for partnerships. That's what the head of the U.N.'s telecommunications agency said at the Connect Africa summit, hosted by Rwanda. Among the deals announced, a $150 million loan from the African Development Bank, to bring inexpensive, high-speed bandwidth to at least 23 countries.
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OKE: Hello again. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. Now, for many in the Democratic Republic of Congo, peace and stability for the entire country seems a long way off. Though rich in natural resources and economic potential, the eastern part of the country remains mired in conflict and a humanitarian crisis. The fighting involves multiple parties, including government forces, and Hutu and Tutsi militias. As Nick Valencia tells us, the bloodshed threatens to escalate beyond the country's borders.
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NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: U.S. President George W. Bush plays host to his counterpart from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One of the things the president recognizes is the need for there to be investment in this country so people can find work, and the stability that comes with economic development.
VALENCIA: But stability is in short supply in the DRC. Despite a 2003 peace deal that was supposed to end a bitter five-year conflict, the killing continues.
Fighting in North Kivu province has displaced some 400,000 people over the last 10 months, and fears are growing that Congo could slide back towards full-scale war, perhaps drawing neighboring Rwanda into the conflict.
The Kabila government is threatening to launch an all-out offensive against the rebel forces of former Congolese General Laurent Nkunda. Meanwhile, despite the country's vast mineral wealth, most ordinary Congolese spend their lives in grinding poverty, their average life expectancy around 45 years old.
JOSEPH KABILA, PRESIDENT, CONGO: We need continued support from the United States in order to achieve these two remaining goals, which is peace and stability throughout the whole country, and embark on a very, very long journey of development, and really try to combat poverty, which is the biggest issue.
VALENCIA: Both government and rebel troops have been accused of human rights violations, including the use of mass rape as a tool of war. Now, the U.S. is considering a role in training the Congolese army, something it says could improve discipline and respect for human rights. Perhaps a long shot for a country wrecked by years of war and decades of dictatorship.
Nick Valencia, CNN, Atlanta.
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OKE: Human rights activist John Prendergast of the Enough project says a military offensive by the Kabila government would be catastrophic. He told CNN's Isha Sesay that the U.S. should press Kabila to seek a political dialogue with rebel factions instead.
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JOHN PRENDERGAST, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: It was very important I think for President Bush to have presented some kind of a plan, some kind of an approach, at least to say, hey, let's work together on addressing the roots of violence in eastern Congo. But instead, it appears to be that the U.S. not having a political strategy, basically. You know, they said don't attack, because you always want to give lip service to a non-military solution, but missed the opportunity to present and say - and be proactive, and say, "here are some of the things we can do together." Because I think President Kabila, left to his own devices, would prefer to try to deal with this militarily solely, and I think he's been restrained by particularly European governments, saying, "at least don't attack." But how long is that going to last? And - unless there is a larger strategy that takes place.
So it's up to the Security Council, I think, and it's up to some of the key donors, the French and the Belgians and the Americans, to come in and say, you know what, we have to encourage a new round of talks. There has to be a way to address this.
In the meantime you can develop the hammer, you know. Build a better military strategy as a plan B to address these rogue militias. But until you've tried plan A, which ought to be, you know, addressing the inter- related levels of violence that keep bedeviling the eastern Congo, I mean, I just don't see a solution in sight, and we've got to try. And in the absence of that significant effort, the situation continues to slowly, steadily deteriorate, with ghastly humanitarian consequences.
ISHA SESAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The U.N. special rapporteur for sexual violence against women just a couple of days ago said the level of brutality against women in this conflict makes it a war crime, a crime against humanity. What are we looking at here? We're looking at a culture of impunity in the DRC, which has allowed sexual violence against women, which we've seen in other conflicts, take on a whole new dimension?
PRENDERGAST: Yes, I think that you hit the nail on the head, I mean. As the crisis unfolded over the last decade and there was no repercussion, no consequence for some of these militia leaders to encourage their militia members to rape in the context of the attacks that they're making, and there was really no cost for this action. This is just -- it's escalated, and it's like a Frankenstein monster taking on a life of its own.
I'm certain that in comparative studies that agencies have done on the ground, there is no other situation like it in the world in terms of the numbers and the - and the abusive nature of sexual violence in eastern Congo. And the answer is, again, implied in your question -- when there is accountability, when there is a cost imposed, especially on some of the leaders of this militia that are conducting -- that are committing these kinds of atrocities, when some of these people start being indicted in the International Criminal Court for war crimes, i.e. the crimes -- sexual crimes that they're committing in eastern Congo, then we'll start to see a reversal. Until then, until there is some consequence for their action, this thing would get worse and worse.
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OKE: And we'll hear more about the problem of sexual violence in eastern Congo in a few minutes. But first, the Congolese activist discusses the challenges facing his homeland.
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OKE: Good to see you again. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. I wanted to make sure that we got some perspective from a member of the Congolese community on the ongoing conflict in the eastern Congo. Ben Kalala is president of the Congolese Community Organization of Atlanta. And he also works an activist for peace and social change. We sat down to talk about the DRC.
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BEN KALALA, CONGOLESE ACTIVIST: There is no way we can sit and watch our people, our women, our children die for -- not from natural causes, just from war-related issues. Every single day. We cannot tolerate that.
OKE: I visit, fly into Kinshasa. Is there any sense of what's really happening in the east?
KALALA: Congo is such a big country. And you also have to do -- you also have to remember, the press does not have the freedom that - the Congolese press does not have the freedom as the press has here. Very, very limited (inaudible) all over the world. But you don't -- people are very -- they're under-informed of what's going on in the eastern part of the Congo.
OKE: President Kabila, is he giving any sense -- strong sense of direction about how the issues in the east can be resolved?
KALALA: Well, I applaud the move that he made recently, which was to use force to stop what's going on in the Congo. And the international community, of course, an international crisis, the international community trying to convince President Kabila not to use the force, not to use only the military force, but to use political approach.
General Nkunda has been given opportunities after opportunities to cease destroying women and children in that part of the country, for years. We are such a rich country. We have land. We're not fighting about territory. We have land. We have natural resources. It's a country as a whole. We are not divided by tribes, by ethnic groups, by religion.
So should that happen, it will bring the Congolese people together.
OKE: How concerned are people about what is happening to parts of their country?
KALALA: They feel the pain, because they do belong to that part of that country. They do have family members that are part of their country. And it's like when a finger is hurt, when a finger is bleeding, is cut, you feel the pain, the whole body feels the pain. It's not just one, one hand. You feel it all over the body. That's the same thing that happened in the Congo.
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OKE: And that was Ben Kalala of the Congolese community in Atlanta, talking to me earlier.
Still ahead on INSIDE AFRICA, rape as a tool of war and its victims. A Congolese woman lets a documentary crew tell her story. Stay with us.
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OKE: Hello again. You're watching INSIDE AFRICA. A special report to the United Nations says rape is being widely used as a tool of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It cites a prevailing climate of impunity and says in many cases, sexual violence rises to the scale of crimes against humanity. It also says, and I quote, "Security and the justice system fall short of addressing the problems of sexual violence. Women survivors of rape lack sufficient care."
A documentary "Lumo," which was broadcast this fall on the PBS television series "POV" here in the United States profiles one of the Congolese victims. Lumo Cinai (ph) was attacked by a group of soldiers and developed a traumatic fistula. That's a medical condition that often leaves rape victims incontinent and sterile. I spoke to two of the filmmakers, Nelson Walker and Louis Abelman, about her story.
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NELSON WALKER, DIRECTOR/PRODUCER/CINEMATOGRAPHER: When we walked into the ward where Lumo was staying, she actually walked right up to the camera and grabbed the camera from my hands and, you know, immediately, there is this level of comfortability and curiosity around us and comfortability with us, so you know, it really made - we knew pretty quickly that she was someone who we would want to spend more time with.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (speaking foreign language).
OKE: It's really personal. As men, how do you become closer to your subjects?
LOUIS ABELMAN, CO-DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Rape is a very taboo subject, and it's not something that people want to talk about. But we were among people who were bringing us their stories. Who were very active about wanting to tell us what was happening, because they feel neglected by the outside world.
OKE: When Lumo says "oh my goodness, they're filming my catheter," and then she says "my buttocks hurt," I got the feeling as someone watching the documentary there was no no-go areas. Is that true, Louis?
ABELMAN: She was just very generous with herself. And I think all - she understood that this was something that was going to maybe have the possibility of helping her and women like her and bringing awareness to this situation that she was in.
OKE: There is a lot of humor in the movie as well. I loved the bit where the lingerie comes out and everybody is fighting for a bra. Why was it important that you put those moments in as well?
WALKER: Because they - they were there, and they were all a part of what was happening. I mean, I think so often, we see reports on this where, you know, the women are just seen as victims. And you know, one thing that we really wanted to do with the film is show that they are human beings. And so, including these moments that are a little bit lighter and humorous, and also even moments where the women are not so nice to each other.
ABELMAN: I think people shut down when they hear these terrible stories and terrible statistics and they hear about a situation far away, in some country far away, you know, where all these terrible things are happening.
But the reality is, this is happening to real people, and that's how - I think that's the only way to really convey that is to show, you know, the full spectrum of life.
WALKER: You know, you're dealing with a situation where, you know, these women, who are being healed and returning from the hospital, are going back to an environment where very likely, it can happen again. The medical procedure that physically heals these women is only one part of the process, and there needs to be a healing of the entire country for this epidemic to stop.
ABELMAN: We care because we were there, and we got to know Lumo on a personal basis, and she's our friend. But if through spending an hour with her and by watching this film, a viewer can also get to know her, even a fraction of the way that we do, then I just think it's - it would be impossible just to - it would be impossible not to act after that.
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OKE: It's a remarkable documentary. If you'd like to have a chance at seeing it, take a look at this Web site, www.gomafilmproject.com. And that's our look INSIDE AFRICA for this week. I hope you'll let our program be your window to the continent.
I'm Femi Oke. Take care.
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