''''The Worst Place in the World to be a Woman or Girl'''' – Rape in the DR Congo: Canada, Where Are You? docx

'The Worst Place in the World to be a Woman or Girl' – Rape in the DR Congo: Canada, Where Are You? Policy Position and Discussion Report By the www.acacdrcongo.org contact@acacdrcongo.org SEPTEMBER 2009 Research for this report was supported by The Liu Institute for Global Issues, the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation and the Centre of International Relations The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009 ____________________________________________________________________________ - 2 - TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3 'THE WORST PLACE IN THE WORLD TO BE A WOMAN' 3 CANADA MUST SUPPORT THE WOMEN AND GIRLS OF THE DRC 3 CONTEXT 5 CANADA AND ‘THE DEADLIEST CRISIS SINCE WORLD WAR II’ 5 Background: before the Rwandan Genocide 5 Peacekeeping 5 Mining and investments 6 Women, peace and security 7 Canadian policy and conflict in the DRC today 9 THE RISE OF MASS RAPE IN THE DRC 11 Women’s and girl’s bodies as the battlefield of war 11 Inequality: precursor to crisis 11 The Kivu Provinces in the DRC: At the centre of ‘Africa’s World War’ 12 A vibrant civil society: hope amid crisis 13 RECOMMENDATIONS 14 PROMOTE TRANSPARENCY 14 1. Adopt and legislate the recommendations of the advisory panel on Corporate Social Responsibility 14 2. Work with the UN Group of Experts on the DRC to develop a map of mineral-rich zones in the Kivus . 14 3. Modify Export Development Canada’s regulatory legislation 14 INVEST LOCALLY 15 1. Make long-term funding available to grassroots women’s groups in the Kivus 15 2. Support grassroots women’s involvement in the democratic processes 15 3. Renew the mandate of the Canadian ambassador to the Great Lakes Region 16 END IMPUNITY 17 1. End impunity for war criminals in Canada 17 2. End impunity for war criminals in the Kivus and DRC 17 3. Establish an international commission to investigate crimes of sexual violence 17 4. Support gender-sensitive security sector reform in the DRC 18 REFERENCES AND RESOURCES 19 The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009 ____________________________________________________________________________ - 3 - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 'THE WORST PLACE IN THE WORLD TO BE A WOMAN OR GIRL' The two eastern Kivu provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are the worst places in the world to be a woman or a girl. Over the last decade, a complex and ongoing series of conflicts, described as the world’s “deadliest crisis since World War II,” 1 unleashed unprecedented violence on the bodies of women and girls in this region. The brutality is extreme: “the raping of three-month-old infants and eighty-year-old women, the dispatching of militias who have HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases to rape entire villages, women being held as sex slaves for weeks, months and years and women being forced to eat murdered babies.” 2 Women and girls are raped with such frequency that the Congolese invented a new word to describe the phenomenon: révioler, to re-rape. 3 For years, the international community has attempted to stop mass rape in the DRC; yet, as recently as in 2008, the United Nations’ (UN) Special Rapporteur on violence against women described the situation in the Kivus as, “the worst crisis of violence against women documented so far.” 4 This has been echoed by aid workers and humanitarians who have called this region the “rape capital of the world” 5 and “the worst place in the world to be a woman or girl.” 6 CANADA MUST SUPPORT THE WOMEN AND GIRLS OF THE DRC Canadians play significant economic and political roles in this region and strongly impact the lives of Congolese women and girls. Politically, since the 1960s, the Government of Canada (GoC) has supported peace-building initiatives in the DRC and throughout the Great Lakes Region (Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda) by sending peacekeepers to UN missions 7 and taking lead roles in peace talks. 8 Economically, Canada is the largest non- African investor in the mining industry in the DRC; its corporations own over $5.7 billion in cumulative mining assets 9 and formally employ over 13,000 Congolese. 10 Much of this investment is legitimate and bolsters the weak Congolese economy, but the UN and several non- government organizations (NGOs) allege that Canadian corporations have committed wrongdoing in the DRC, 11 where mineral exploitation fuels a conflict that preys upon women and girls. 12 On an individual level, millions of Canadians own coltan from the Kivus, 13 a mineral component of cell phones, which is exploited by violent armed groups for profit 14 and exported by Canadian companies. 15 Despite formidable links to the DRC, the GoC has, since 1996, disregarded UN requests for peacekeeping support in this region, failed to secure meaningful women’s participation in peace processes and failed to allocate aid dollars to effective programs that support rape survivors in the DRC. In the last three years, the GoC has withdrawn its political support for peace processes in this region, 16 cut its direct aid to the region 17 and instructed its foreign service not to use the terms “gender equality,” “justice for victims,” and “international humanitarian law” when referring to survivors of rape in the DRC. 18 We, as Canadians, must not neglect our responsibility to offer solidarity and needed resources to Congolese women and girls, whose bodies are a battlefield in the worst place in the world to be a woman. We must build a relationship with the women, children and men of the DRC that we can be proud of. The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009 ____________________________________________________________________________ - 4 - Because Canadian corporations were accused of wrongdoing in the Kivus; because the GoC prioritized corporate lobbying over defending Congolese women's lives; because UN requests for Canadian peacekeepers to bolster missions in the DRC were disregarded; because millions of Canadians carry a piece of the DRC’s conflict with them everyday in their cell phones and electronics; and because the Kivus are the worst place in the world to be a woman; Canada must join with the international community and grassroots organizations in a co-ordinated manner to answer the calls for support and solidarity from survivors of rape in the Kivus by: • Promoting Transparency: Canadian companies have been accused of wrongdoing in the Kivus, a place where armed groups use targeted rape as a weapon of war to generate the profit needed to fuel their activities by driving people from their mineral-rich lands through fear, shame, violence and the intentional spread of HIV throughout entire families and villages. 19 Currently, there are no binding legal mechanisms in place in Canada to ensure that Canadian corporations do not directly or indirectly contribute to conflict and mass rape in the Kivus. The GoC must promote transparency to ensure that Canadians do not contribute to conflict in the DRC by implementing sound legal mechanisms, including the creation of an ombudsman able to launch independent investigations and to ensure full public disclosure of the activities of Canadian corporations working in developing or conflict-affected areas. • Investing Locally: The GoC must be responsible to its taxpayers and accountable to survivors of rape and conflict in the Kivus by ensuring that its aid is effectively allocated. Congolese women refuse to be passive victims of war and, despite ongoing threats to their security, repeatedly show their ability to effectively care for survivors of rape and advocate for gender equality and their security. The GoC must allocate aid to funding credible grassroots and local women's organizations in the Kivus. • Ending Impunity: Congolese women and girls are literally killed by impunity. Social norms stigmatize and shun rape survivors instead of perpetrators and, because of this, many survivors do not disclose their rape status or seek potentially life-saving medical care. 20 Canada has an obligation to join the fight against impunity because it harbours alleged génocidaires and perpetrators of war crimes in the DRC. 21 Existing resources, like the Canadian war crimes unit, must be used to investigate, and if required, prosecute and punish criminals. By doing so, the GoC can demonstrate zero-tolerance for the abhorrent situation of women in the DRC and position itself to join international efforts to combat impunity with credibility. L. Gen Roméo Dallaire has pointed out that the Congo catastrophe is “five times” larger than the Rwandan genocide. 22 The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009 ____________________________________________________________________________ - 5 - CONTEXT CANADA AND ‘THE DEADLIEST CRISIS SINCE WORLD WAR II’ Background: before the Rwandan Genocide The origins of conflict in the Kivus can be traced back to Mobutu’s reign and the preceding colonial period. Both of these periods were characterized by the ruling elite using inequitable land distribution, discriminatory citizenship granting practices and forced migration as tools to create tension amongst various groups in the region; using “divide and conquer” tactics, they maintained the allegiance of the powerful and subjugation of would-be adversaries. 23 However, the 1994 genocide in Rwanda catalyzed “a crisis that had been latent for a good many years and that later reached far beyond its original Great Lakes locus.” 24 The crisis destabilized the region, unleashing the brunt of its violence on Congolese women and girls. This colossal political and humanitarian crisis is directly related to Canadian history and foreign policy. In July 1960, Canada and the DRC established bilateral relations when the first democratically elected Congolese Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, visited Ottawa to request the Canadian military’s assistance to help maintain order during the period of unrest that followed independence from colonial Belgium. 25 Canadian help was wanted, according to the Congolese Prime Minister, because “Canada's background was similar to the Congo's in that it had emerged from colonial status to freedom and could understand [his] land's problems." 26 Canada deployed 1,900 peacekeepers to the UN over four years to assist the Congolese Government. 27 However, Cold War dynamics and Congolese politics resulted in the assassination of the pro-communist Lumumba. A subsequent coup by a notoriously corrupt but pro-West military dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, set the stage for Canada’s engagement in the DRC for the next 31 years. The GoC joined its Western allies and supported Mobutu. All the while, Mobutu was embezzling state money at an unprecedented rate, almost singlehandedly destroying the Congolese economy and impoverishing millions, while generating resentment across Africa for permitting rebel groups from Angola, Rwanda and Uganda to use the DRC as a rear base for attacks on their countries of origin. 28 Peacekeeping War was triggered in the DRC when approximately one million Hutu refugees fled from Rwanda to the Kivus to escape retribution from the Tutsi-led army that stopped the genocide and took control of Rwanda in 1994. 29 The UN and NGOs quickly established refugee camps in the Kivus, near the Rwandan border. No effort was made to separate armed elements and génocidaires were consequently dispersed throughout the refugee population. Almost immediately, the camps became safe havens for them to re-build and re-arm. 30 Using threats and violence, they took control of the camps’ food supplies and used the food to extort funds for their attacks against Congolese Tutsis and planned re-invasion of Rwanda. 31 At the same time, many Congolese Tutsis united to form rebel groups and launch counter attacks. 32 For two years, UN aid continued to flow to armed and unarmed refugee camps without distinction, and though lives were saved by this aid, it also enabled rebel groups and génocidaires to rebuild. Violence escalated in this The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009 ____________________________________________________________________________ - 6 - period and threatened to spread throughout the Great Lakes Region (Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda). This prompted the UN Secretary General to call for the creation of a multi-national force (MNF) to secure the refugee camps. 33 Soon after, the GoC was asked to contribute forces, given its recent experience in Rwanda. 34 The Rwandan experience was evidently not sufficient to convince the GoC, or to convince the GoC to convince the UN, of the violent and deadly effects of allowing génocidaires and other armed groups to remain among and to receive aid destined for civilians. The GoC agreed to contribute forces to the UN- proposed MNF and suggested that Canada be named lead nation of the force. 35 Following some “behind the scenes activity by Canadian diplomats,” the GoC secured Raymond Chrétien’s appointment as the UN Special Envoy to the Great Lakes Region. 36 Unfortunately, the Canadian-led mission, which was supposed to have a force size of approximately 10,000, was never fully deployed. 37 The Tutsi-led rebels intensified their attacks with Rwandan support and drove hundreds of thousands of refugees back to Rwanda. The international community then declared that the humanitarian issue was resolved, though conflicting reports estimated that between 200,000 – 650,000 refugees remained in the Kivus. 38 Despite troop commitments from fourteen countries, only Canada deployed any peacekeepers, approximately one quarter of its promised contribution. 39 Ultimately, the international community abandoned at least 200,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees in need of food, medicine and protection from the génocidaires that used them as human shields and the Rwandan-supported rebel groups that attacked them. By 1997, Congolese rebels, Angola, Rwanda and Uganda had united forces and swept through the DRC. They deposed Mobutu and installed a rebel leader, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, as president. The Canadian military could not have stopped the unfolding war. However, the GoC did not attempt to work with the UN representatives that were seeking to adapt the mission to protect the refugees amid the increasing violence. Despite recent Canadian experience in Rwanda, the GoC did not demand that the UN Security Council add the removal of armed elements and génocidaires from the refugee camps to the mandate of the peacekeeping mission. Rather, the GoC demanded the UN Security Council to terminate the mission altogether. This was granted despite calls from NGOs and within the UN to alleviate the desperate plight of the remaining refugees who faced disease, starvation and violence. 40 Canadian contributions to peacekeeping missions in the DRC and Great Lakes Region have since been “meagre,” 41 rarely deploying more than twelve personnel at a time. 42 Mining and investments To prove his independence from the international forces that supported him in overthrowing Mobutu in 1997, the newly inaugurated President Kabila ordered the Rwandan and Ugandan forces that remained in the DRC after the first war to leave in 1998. He also incited violence against Congolese Tutsis. 43 Rwanda and Uganda invaded once more and an estimated 5.4 million people died as a consequence of the subsequent ‘African World War’ and its lingering effects. 44 Angola, Chad, Libya, Namibia, Sudan and Zimbabwe supported the Congolese President against the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) rebel group and its allies, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda. 45 Over the next five years, belligerents funded their interventions by either public money or civilian extortion, seizing the opportunities that widespread conflict afforded to generate individual and corporate profits by looting the abundant mineral resources in the DRC. 46 The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009 ____________________________________________________________________________ - 7 - Canadian corporations were present in the DRC during the war and have a long history of investment there and throughout Africa. In the 1980s, many small, “junior” exploration mining companies, which raise more capital on the Canadian stock exchanges than in the United States, South Africa and Australia combined, were the first to take advantage of new investment opportunities in the liberalizing economies of African nations. 47 Canadian companies have invested in the DRC since 1996, 48 attracted by relatively unexplored territories 49 and the massive deposits of copper, cobalt, diamonds, gold, tin, zinc and coltan (a component of mobile phones). The implications of these investments are diverse. They generate needed tax revenues for the Congolese Government. Yet Canadian companies have been identified in UN Experts’ reports for violating international standards for corporate behaviour in developing countries (2002), 50 working in the DRC with individuals sanctioned for smuggling arms in Liberia during its civil war (2006), 51 and exporting minerals like coltan from mines believed to be taxed by armed groups that have committed mass rape and other atrocities (2008). 52 As recently as July 2009, Global Witness released a report, “Faced with a Gun What Can You Do,” that yet again alleges that Canadian companies have contributed to conflict in the DRC. Since 2002, the GoC has been reticent in addressing allegations of wrongdoing by Canadian companies in the DRC. After the first UN report was released, the Canadian embassy and former Prime Ministers Chretien, Clark and Mulroney helped Canadian mining companies secure contracts in the DRC. 53 In 2002, Canada’s special envoy to the Great Lakes Region attempted to discredit the report in order to protect Canadian companies from scrutiny. 54 According to the International Crisis Group, major international donor countries, including Canada, stopped pressing for accountability and rule of law reforms in the DRC when the investment climate began to improve in 2004. 55 In 2006, the GoC supported a series of national roundtables among representatives from academia, civil society and industry to find ways to ensure Canadian mining companies operating abroad adhere to social responsibility standards. 56 However, they disregarded the key recommendations from the ensuing report authored by the Advisory Panel on Corporate Social Responsibility. These include the creation of an independent ombudsman able to independently instigate investigations and the implementation of binding recommendations, policy or legislation on Canadian corporations. 57 In 2007, the Congolese Government reviewed mining contracts entered into during the preceding war and democratic transition, a process described as its test of will “to overcome the legacy of war profiteering and corruption and respond to the widespread public demand for accountability and the rule of law.” 58 Two of the three biggest re- examined contracts involved Canadian companies. 59 NGOs, the World Bank, a parliamentary commission of the DRC, and professional consultants paid by the Bank identified problems in these contracts that were potentially detrimental to Congolese development. 60 Despite these findings, the GoC refused to support the process and lobbied for at least one contract. 61 Women, peace and security While lobbying for its corporate citizens in the DRC, the GoC took on leadership roles in peace processes that were initiated after the ceasefire attempt in 1999. Historically, through its image as a leader in human security and development, particularly in Africa, the GoC has differentiated itself from American foreign policy and gained diplomatic support in multilateral forums like the The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009 ____________________________________________________________________________ - 8 - G-8 and UN. 62 This positive image allowed Canada to gain the support of all African member states in its successful bid for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council in 1999-2000. 63 It is not surprising, then, that the GoC provided financial support and political leadership to Congolese peace-processes for years. Since the 1999 ceasefire, Canada: • Donated $2.5 million to support the implementation of the Lusaka accord, the 1999 ceasefire agreement; 64 • Contributed $1 million to support the Inter-Congolese Dialogue, a series of peace talks that facilitated the design of Congolese democratic institutions as well as free and transparent elections, and encouraged national dialogue and peaceful conflict resolution; 65 • Co-chaired the Group of Friends of the Great Lakes Region, taking a lead role in developing and implementing the Region’s new peace and stability plan; 66 • Actively supported the 2003 – 2006 democratic transition in the DRC by participating in the international community’s Committee for Supporting the Transition in the DRC 67 and contributed over $15 million to support the 2006 democratic elections; 68 • Financially supported the Goma Peace Process that took place in early 2008 and produced the Amani Program that established a ceasefire, mechanisms for the demobilization of armed groups, commitments from belligerents for the withdrawal of troops from key areas and the creation of a UN "buffer zone” in the Kivus. 69 Unfortunately, the GoC undermined the Inter-Congolese Dialogue by sending funds late, 70 recently reduced its support for Congolese peace processes 71 and has, as shown below, repeatedly fell short on its international commitment to secure women’s participation in peace processes. On October 31, 2000, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). This landmark resolution was the first passed by the Security Council that “specifically addresses the impact of war on women and women's contributions to conflict resolution and sustainable peace.” 72 Among other things, it gave UN member states, including Canada, a mandate to promote women’s “equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security,” and to “increase [women’s] role in decision-making with regard to conflict prevention and resolution.” 73 The GoC has consistently failed to seize opportunities to secure women’s participation throughout its involvement in peace processes and democracy-building initiatives in the DRC. Initially, only one woman was designated to attend the preparatory meeting for the Inter-Congolese Dialogue. 74 This dismal underrepresentation provoked Congolese women’s groups into uniting to draft the Nairobi Declaration, demanding that women’s concerns be integrated into the peace process and outlined a methodology to do so. 75 Ultimately, over 150 women’s organizations were mobilized throughout the DRC with the aim of sending representatives to the Dialogue. 76 Yet only 40 women, 9% of all the delegates, attended the Dialogue. 77 Women were attacked, harassed and threatened by conflict belligerents to prevent them from attending. 78 Despite its commitments to the implementation of UNSCR 1325, the GoC made little effort to protect these women or to provide them with adequate resources to attend the conference. 79 Nor did Canada use its role as a substantial donor to the elections to press the Congolese Government to fulfill its constitutional duty and ensure equitable women’s representation. 80 After the 2006 election, approximately 7% The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009 ____________________________________________________________________________ - 9 - of elected officials were women. 81 The GoC also did not use its position as financial supporter to demand women’s inclusion and participation in the subsequent Goma Peace Process and Nairobi Accords. 82 This is an utterly shameful contradiction of our commitment to implement UNSCR 1325. Canadian policy and conflict in the DRC today Currently, despite improvements in bilateral relationships between the DRC and its neighbours, local conflicts continue in the Kivus and threaten to again destabilize the Great Lakes Region. Since the end of the second Congo war, relations between the DRC and Rwanda have been toxic, causing ongoing conflict in the Kivus. The Congolese Government permitted the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), a Congolese-Rwandan politico-military movement, originally composed of ex-génocidaires who fled Rwanda at the end of the 1994 genocide, to take refuge in the Kivus. 83 In turn, Rwanda exploited Congolese mineral wealth and supported several Congolese rebel groups, most recently the Tutsi-led Congolese rebel group, Le Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple (CNDP). When Rwanda arrested the leader of the CNDP in January 2009, these relationships improved, and facilitated a peace deal in the DRC that converted the CNDP into a Congolese political party and integrated them and several local self defence militias (Mayi Mayi) into the government’s national army, the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC). Unfortunately, this peace deal is critically endangered. Conditions in the national army for both regular soldiers and newly integrated fighters are abysmal. Troops live in inhumane conditions and are some of the poorest members of society in the DRC. 84 They rarely receive their salaries on time or in full, there is a persistent lack of food and resources are simply inadequate; some soldiers buy their own uniforms. Though the FARDC is expected to provide security to the country, the conditions under which the soldiers live are a source of insecurity as they turn to prey on the local population for survival. 85 They are commonly deployed far from their families; this, coupled with an unreliable income, make the men unable to fulfill their perceived responsibilities and sustain a family. 86 Though higher ranking officers are far more likely to have some money, access to health care and education, and stability, they also routinely neglect the rights of their soldiers and contribute to the indiscipline of soldiers, perpetuating civilian abuse. The frustration and desperation borne of these conditions often encourage soldiers to desert and return to non-state armed groups. This has contributed to the breakdown of several peace deals in the DRC to date. 87 Several Mayi Mayi groups currently threaten to quit the process because of FARDC’s poor living conditions and their own perceived under-representation within FARDC. 88 Some are now fighting alongside the CNDP’s key adversary, the FDLR. 89 Given the superficial assimilation of the CNDP and Mayi Mayi into FARDC, 90 the increasing frequency of FDLR attacks on civilians that could provoke the CNDP to regroup 91 and the numerous profiteering opportunities that conflict in the DRC affords armed parties, 92 resurgence of full-scale war in the Kivus and the DRC is possible. Though the situation in the Kivus is perilous, the GoC is significantly decreasing its support and political engagement in the DRC and throughout the Great Lakes Region. In 2007, Canada terminated the mandate of the Canadian ambassador to the Great Lakes Region, who had represented Canada in peace processes in the region. In 2008, when the CNDP marched on the The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009 ____________________________________________________________________________ - 10 - capital city of North Kivu, displacing hundreds of thousands of people and unleashing a monstrous political and humanitarian crisis, Canada was absent as, in “a flurry of international diplomatic activity…representatives from the UN, the US and the EU all [arrived in the DRC] in late October and early November [to reinvigorate the peace processes].” 93 Though the GoC directed $15 million to a UN Population Fund (UNFPA) initiative that aimed to support survivors of rape in the DRC from 2005 – 2009, this money was not used effectively. Many Congolese groups on the ground complained that the funds were directed to support the bureaucracy of various initiatives rather than survivors and did not ‘integrate the experience of local NGOs.’ 94 The GoC has an obligation to support Congolese women and must ensure that Canadian tax dollars that are allocated for aid are used efficiently. In 2009, the GoC shifted the focus of its official development assistance from Africa to Latin America. The DRC was not identified as one of the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA) priority countries to receive bilateral assistance. Disconcertingly, the GoC has recently instructed its foreign service not to use the terms “gender equality,” “justice for victims,” “impunity” and “international humanitarian law.” 95 The ramifications of excluding these terms from our foreign policy lexicon are real and sobering and have life and death implications for civilians in the Congo. At a time when the international community is taking a renewed and robust interest in ending impunity and promoting equality and justice, Canada is no longer a leader in this realm. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton have demonstrated strong leadership in African development and security through two visits to Africa since coming to power in January 2009. Canada has a long history of showing leadership in addressing political and humanitarian crises, but has increasingly lost prestige on the world stage for its recent reversal in commitments to global justice and equality. The GoC has demonstrated that the DRC is no longer a foreign policy priority despite shared economic, cultural and political links. Worst of all, the GoC is destroying its ability to effectively address mass rape in the worst place in the world to be a woman or a girl, a place from which Canada has a history of profiting politically and economically. In a region where impunity for rapists keeps all females under constant threat, a region where justice is denied daily to survivors of some of the most horrific crimes that have ever occurred and a region where international humanitarian law is the tool through which the world can collectively denounce mass rape, the current Canadian policies towards the DRC are not acceptable. “Canadian diplomats that were [in the DRC] showed no interest at all [in committing to acting to stop the vicious cycle of violence and control in the region]. I would regularly brief diplomats from the UK, U.S., European Union, Belgium, occasionally France. Never saw a Canadian. I tried, no interest." 96 Dr. Philip Lancaster, retired Canadian major and recent head of the UN's demobilization program in the DRC (2007-2008). [...]... security and equality in the midst of the war that has singled out their bodies as the battlefield Canadians have a stake in the worst place in the world to be a woman or a girl and have both the ability and the responsibility to listen to and partner with the international and grassroots communities to take co-ordinated action in accordance with the demands of the affected to help stop mass rape in the DRC... zones in the Kivus This will remove the excuse that companies are unaware of which areas are controlled by armed groups The Group has already collected information on the locations of armed groups and needs technical and financial support to compile data on mineral-rich areas and to make the map accessible to the global public Canada, as the largest non-African investor in the DRC's mining industry and... abundant and lucrative mineral wealth found in the areas under their control.141 Because Canadian companies are major investors in the DRC’s mining industry and were accused of wrongdoing there and because millions of Canadians carry a piece of the DRC’s conflict with them everyday in their cell phones and electronics, Canada must: 1 Adopt and legislate the recommendations of the Advisory Panel on Corporate... d=384507&lang=eng&docnum=124; Canada also supported the democratic transition by actively participating in the international Comité international d’Accompagnement de la Transition [ in the DRC], see, CIDA, “Canada and the G8 Africa Action Plan: Maintaining the Momentum,”2004, 12, available at http://www.acdicida.gc.ca/INET/IMAGES.NSF/vLUImages/Canada_Fundm_f or_ Africa/$file/G8-Interim-Report-2004-EN.pdf, accessed 15 August... “9-Year-Old Raped in "One of the Worst Places to be a Woman or Girl,” 11 August 2009, available at http://www.undispatch.com/node/8753, accessed 15 August 2009 7 Canadian military observers have been deployed on Operation “Crocodile” in the DRC since November 1999, and, moreover, Operations “Lance” in Rwanda, “Scotch” in the DRC, and “Passage” in Rwanda and “Assurance” in the DRC all testify to Canadian... A Survival Guide to Kinshasa: Lessons of the Father, Passed Down to the Son,” in John F Clark, ed., The African Stakes of the Congo War (United States of America: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) 47 David Black and Malcolm Savage, “Mainstreaming Investment: Assessing the foreign policy implications of Canadian Extractive Industries in Africa,” Paper presented to the annual meeting of the Canadian Political... Wijeyaratne, 5 17 Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Caribbean, Colombia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Mali, Mozambique, Pakistan, Peru, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania, Ukraine, Vietnam, West Bank/Gaza are designated to receive 80 per cent of Canada’s bilateral assistance, see, CIDA, “Canada Moves on Another Element of its Aid Effectiveness Agenda,” 23 February 2009, available at http://www.acdicida.gc.ca/CIDAWEB/acdicida.nsf/En/NAT-223132931-PPH,... Organizations, particularly the African Union and the joint meeting of UN Security Council—African Union Peace and Security Council.” 67 CIDA, “Canada and the G8 Africa Action Plan: Maintaining the Momentum,” 12; finally Canada financially supported the Goma Peace Process that took place in early 2008 and produced that Amani Program that established a ceasefire, mechanisms for the demobilization of armed groups,... 2008; finally Canada financially supported the Goma Peace Process that took place in early 2008 and produced that Amani Program that established a ceasefire, mechanisms for the demobilization of armed groups, commitments from belligerents for the withdrawal of troops from key areas and the creation of a UN "buffer zone” in the Kivus, see, Surendrini Wijeyaratne, “Promoting an Inclusive Peace: A Call to. .. must increase funding to the Justice and RCMP departments in the Canadian war crimes unit, to facilitate more investigations and trials of suspected war criminals residing in Canada Specifically, Canada must investigate and try known and suspected members of the FDLR and other Congolese rebel groups living on Canadian soil Additionally, the International Crisis Group recommends that Canada work with partners . &apos ;The Worst Place in the World to be a Woman or Girl' – Rape in the DR Congo: Canada, Where Are You? Policy Position and Discussion Report. of the war that has singled out their bodies as the battlefield. Canadians have a stake in the worst place in the world to be a woman or a girl and have