The Weekly N&C for October 20th, 2008

Note: This item relates to The Weekly N&C for October 6th, 2008, and the Follow-up entry on that.


Ituri Matters

As if the mounting humanitarian and ecological tragedy ongoing in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s North Kivu Province was not horrific enough, there is a parallel conflict still underway in Ituri (Orientale Province) the next province to the north. It is so close-by that it would seem to be a part of the same conflict, but neither the goals nor names of many of the parties in arms share any meaningful connection to the Kivu Conflict. Instead, an ominously religious element of a kind rarely heard of, and a fearsomely inhumane manner of the conflict combine to make this war-with-three-borders nearly unique in its nature. If one has not heard of one of the current combatant militias before, or seen what they do, one might well doubt such a group’s existence is even possible.

Ituri, its northern neighbor Haut-Uele, as well as two other regions formerly called in sum Orientale Province, are the Northeast corner of D.R. Congo. Ituri shares an external border with Uganda along Lake Albert, and a narrow border in the north with Sudan. Here is a map reference. It is a heavily forested area in parts, and is on the high plateau area of the region. The area is famous for gold mining, and for a host of natural treasures. It also is the home of well over four million people.

Arguably the most important of the natural treasures is summed up in the Ituri Rainforest region, which includes the Okapi Wildlife Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This Reserve was listed in 1997, and immediately noted as endangered. While some of that danger comes from the persistent encroachment by gold-hunters and the damage they do, the major issue has been conflict.

Ituri has been caught up in The Congo Wars, the on-again-off-again multinational regional struggle that in part spun off from the Rwandan Genocide. Ituri has also had an internal conflict of its own based on tribal loyalties and the patronage of “big men”, but a steady international intervention by MONUC U.N. forces had supposedly brought the conflict to a close in August of 2007, with the demobilization over time of the following laundry list of combatants:
Front de Resistance Patriotique en Ituri (FRPI);
Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC);
Front des Nationalistes et Intégrationnistes (FNI); and others as well. The same effort saw to the removal of Ugandan and Ugandan-aligned forces…

Ugandan?

Yes, originally involved as a major combatant in The Congo Wars, Uganda had forces and allies in the region and still has important “interests” there. But Uganda has mostly been content until very recently to keep to its own matters, particularly to tend to the matter of rooting out an astoundingly persistent and strange insurgency in the Acholi-land regions of its own north, generally around the city of Gulu. Here is a map reference for Uganda. In the main, the country has done well since the days of Idi Amin Dada, but there is one significant obstacle to national peace and unity out there, a danger to neighboring nations as well.

For widespread through the Acholi tribals, who live from Lake Albert’s shore up to the north-center and on into southern Sudan, is a belief in a local version of Christian teachings referred to by observers as the “Spokesman of the Holy Spirit”. This was first popularized as an invocation of legitimacy for a leader in the Holy Spirit Movement of Alice Auma that threatened to destroy the government in a 1986~1987 military campaign. While the Holy Spirit Movement was utterly defeated on the battlefield, successor movements called upon the same so-called divine power and inspiration, the most lasting of which is the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by one Joseph Kony. This rebel force has spread terror and destruction through central Uganda for over a decade. Their campaign has embraced murder, maiming, rape, and child-kidnapping on a grand scale. Rather than belabor the details any further, *here* is the International Criminal Court indictment against the LRA leaders, as unsealed in 2005.

The Ugandan People’s Defense Force (national armed forces of Uganda) campaigned from 2002 to 2005 in a determined effort to destroy the LRA, even gaining permission to enter southern Sudan for a time to raid base-camps there, but all to no avail. By 2006, J. Kony and the LRA’s main force had moved into the far reaches of Ituri in the D.R. Congo and had already struck against MONUC forces operating there as part of the conclusion of the Ituri Conflict. By June of 2008, the LRA was firmly established in Ituri, and both preying upon the tribals there and continuing to export terror back into Uganda. They had found a way to not only survive, but prosper…

…by being given food and basic supplies by Christian charity NGOs.

No, you did not misread that.

Christian charities are providing food and medicine to the LRA.

The LRA is showing their appreciation by *doing this*. From a second source, *this*. Furthermore, they are party to *this*.
They have formed faction with re-militarized FRPI militias (see above), and are cited as having displaced 17,000 civilians in Ituri in attacks last September alone. Reuters news service cites 50,000 displaced by the LRA in Ituri.

This isn’t Christian charity, or any one’s charity.

This is madness.

***
End Notes:

Most notes are embedded as links. Wiki-p links used for convenience only, please check all cited sources.

SouthScan Ltd.’s report on the region this week includes information on the LRA in Ituri in addition to updates on the fighting in Nord-Kivu.

a related report, somewhat dated, of MONUC peacekeepers arming militia elements in Ituri. Some of those arms may well be in LRA or allied hands now.