November, 11 2010, 09:52am EDT
Congo/Central African Republic: LRA Victims Appeal to Obama
US Should Act to Protect Civilians From Atrocities, Arrest War Crimes Perpetrators
WASHINGTON
Victims of atrocities by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have sent emotional personal pleas to US President Barack Obama, calling for urgent action to end attacks by the rebel group, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human Rights Watch conducted five research missions to northern Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic between May and September 2010, in areas where few outsiders have traveled. Researchers spoke with hundreds of victims, took their testimony, and recorded their messages to Obama and other world leaders. Based on an analysis of this and other information gathered in the region, Human Rights Watch called for a comprehensive international strategy that places at its core the protection of civilians.
Human Rights Watch on November 11, 2010, posted dozens of the video postcards, testimonies, and letters from adults and children in the region, appealing to Obama and other world leaders to help end the suffering inflicted by the LRA.
"Even in the crush of politics at home, President Obama and other world leaders should respond to the desperate cries of the LRA's victims," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "His leadership is urgently needed to work with governments in Europe and Africa to protect civilians and arrest the war criminals responsible for the attacks."
The LRA, an especially brutal rebel group that has caused havoc in the central African region, has killed at least 2,385 civilians and abducted over 3,054 others since September 2008, when regional peace talks collapsed, according to Human Rights Watch and United Nations documentation. With the LRA attacking villages in remote areas with limited communications, roads, and other infrastructure, the actual number of victims is probably far higher.
One community leader was forced to flee his home in Digba village, northern Congo, after the LRA attacked. He told Human Rights Watch: "There are many dead. The LRA abducted our people, whipped them, tied them up, killed them, and burned our homes. We have truly suffered a lot because of the LRA."
In May, Obama signed legislation requiring the US government to develop within 180 days a comprehensive, multilateral strategy to protect civilians in central Africa from LRA attacks and to take steps to stop the rebel group's violence. Under the law, the new strategy is due by November 24.
The LRA was pushed out of northern Uganda in 2005 after fighting the government for nearly two decades. The rebel group now operates in the remote border regions of northern Congo, the Central African Republic, and Southern Sudan.
Many of the LRA victims were beaten to death, or their skulls were crushed with heavy wooden sticks, Human Rights Watch said. LRA combatants tied others to trees, then sliced their heads with machetes. The LRA forces abducted children to kill family members and neighbors who try to escape, are tired or weak, or whom the LRA decides it does not need.
In an attack in Duru, northern Congo, on August 28, five LRA combatants abducted eight civilians less than a kilometer from a UN peacekeeping base, and that night brutally killed three of the young men taken with knives. A woman and 16-year-old girl released the next morning told Human Rights Watch that the LRA gave them a message for the Congolese army: "We are nearby, and we will be back soon."
The LRA is estimated to have between 200 to 400 armed combatants, plus hundreds of abductees. It has no coherent political objectives and no popular support. It is able to replenish its ranks only by abducting children, and sometimes adults, who are exposed to immense brutality and forced to fight. Three of the LRA's leaders - Joseph Kony, Okot Odhiambo, and Dominic Ongwen - are sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC) under arrest warrants issued in July 2005 for war crimes committed in northern Uganda. All three remain at large and have been implicated in new atrocities.
Ongoing military operations against the LRA, led by the Ugandan army alongside national armies from the region and supported by the US government, have failed to capture the LRA's top leaders or end LRA attacks on civilians. The Uganda army and their allies appear to lack the capability, will, or expertise to apprehend the LRA's top leaders, even though they have come in close proximity to some senior commanders on several occasions in the past year.
In an earlier letter to Obama, Human Rights Watch urged the US government to use its diplomatic clout to bring together like-minded world leaders who can commit political will, resources, intelligence, and assistance for specialized units capable of arresting the LRA's top leaders wanted for war crimes and rescuing abductees, while at the same time significantly enhancing UN, regional, and local capacities to protect communities at risk of attack.
"The LRA's top leaders can be found, but the current strategy of supporting Ugandan army operations is clearly not working," Van Woudenberg said. "A new approach is needed to protect civilians and to bring together improved intelligence and capable units to apprehend the LRA's top leaders. Otherwise, the LRA's grave threat to civilians will continue."
Human Rights Watch has also called on the UN Security Council to step up its efforts and advance capabilities such as rapid response to protect civilians in areas affected by the LRA's violence. While three peacekeeping missions are in the affected areas, they lack a cross-border mandate that would allow them to address the full scope of the LRA problem, and they are not focused on addressing LRA violence.
The UN peacekeeping force in Congo, MONUSCO, is the largest in the region, with nearly 18,000 troops, but only 850 UN peacekeeping troops are in the LRA-affected areas. No peacekeepers are based in Bas Uele district, on the border with CAR, despite repeated LRA attacks and abductions in the area over the past 20 months. The UN has no peacekeepers in LRA-affected areas in CAR, and only a handful of UN humanitarian staff. The United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) is present in Western Equatoria but has also proven ineffective at protecting civilians from LRA attacks.
"The UN's response to attacks on civilians and its assistance to those in need has been woefully inadequate, so at the very least the UN needs to deploy more of its existing forces to LRA-affected areas," Van Woudenberg said. "The UN Security Council should urgently discuss this regional threat and commit further action and resources to protect civilians at risk from the LRA."
Based on recent reports, the LRA's leader, Joseph Kony, may have moved to the border region between the Central African Republic and South Darfur, an area controlled by Sudan's Khartoum government. In the past, Sudan provided important military support to the LRA.
Human Rights Watch called on the Sudanese government to ensure no support of any kind is provided to the LRA, and urged the US government and other world leaders to pressure the Sudanese government to ensure that the LRA does not find refuge in Darfur. Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir is also wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity in Darfur.
Accounts from LRA Victims
Claude, a 14-year-old boy from Dakwa village (Bas Uele District, northern Congo):
Claude [not his real name] was taken by the LRA on June 2, 2009, when the rebels abducted about 55 people from Dakwa.
"The LRA attacked around 9 p.m. while everyone in the village was gathered for my brother's funeral," he told Human Rights Watch. "They came suddenly and started grabbing people, tying our wrists behind our backs and tying us to together in a chain."
Claude explained that the LRA fired in the air, killed a policeman, and looted medicine, rice, peanuts, chickens, and other goods from the village, then forced their captives, including Claude, to transport the stolen goods into the forest. The adults were freed the next day, but the LRA kept Claude and the other children and took them to their temporary camp. Claude told Human Rights Watch how he was forced to kill two children who tried to flee from the LRA.
"The other children and I had to beat them over the head with large wooden sticks," he said. "One was a 12-year-old boy from Banda, and the other was a 14-year-old boy from Bayule village."
Claude also had to kill several adults the LRA had captured. "They often captured adults to transport things, but whenever we arrived at the base, they would order us to kill them," he said. Claude managed to escape after nearly a year in captivity with the LRA.
"My message to President Obama is a plea for him to do all he can to save the kids who are still with the LRA and to make all the LRA combatants go home," Claude said.
Eveline, a 12-year-old girl from Botolegi village (Bas Uele District, northern Congo):
Eveline [not her real name] was abducted in December 2009 with three other children from her village:
When we got to the chief's camp. I was given to be the wife of an LRA named Nyogo. I was his servant and wife. He was very mean and aggressive, especially on days when he had to kill people. When they brought people to the camp, they wouldn't free the adults because they were afraid they might show the camp to the soldiers. That's why they made us kill them. I can't remember how many people I killed in total - one day four people, another day three people. They tied the victims' hands behind their backs and also tied a cord around their legs and sometimes around their neck. They would force the person to lie on the ground, with their face to the ground. Then if the LRA wanted us to kill them, they would give us a piece of wood and tell us to hit them on the head."
Eveline managed to escape when the LRA was attacked near Samungu in June 2010.
"The message I have for President Obama and the international community," she said, "is that I want them to move the [LRA] out of Congo, and free all the children who are trapped in their hands."
Bridget, a 47-year-old woman from Kpanangbala village (Haut Uele District, northern Congo):
Bridget was sitting outside her home with her husband and brother when a group of LRA attacked her village. She tried to flee but the LRA grabbed her. They stabbed her husband to death in front of her and looted her home. Bridget managed to run away, but the LRA tied up her brother and marched away with him, back into the forest. Three days later, Bridget found his body. He and five other men had been stabbed to death deep in the forest outside her village.
"I'm not at ease because of all that I have seen," she said. "My hope is that the international community can take measures to sanction the rebels who killed my husband and brother, and make them leave Congo. We have suffered far too much."
Emmanuel, president of an LRA victims' association in Obo (CAR):
Emmanuel is a 32-year-old man from Obo in southeastern CAR. On March 6, 2008, he was abducted by the LRA along with at least 46 other civilians and forced to march hundreds of kilometers to the LRA's camp in Garamba National Park in Congo. Emmanuel was held captive and pressed into forced labor by the LRA. He only managed to escape 18 months later.
"I suffered so much as a result of the Tongo Tongo [local name for LRA]," he said. "I lived through and witnessed many crimes, I killed people, and I have come back with tragically painful scars. I am not myself, and I don't have the means to do much or to cultivate the farm like I used to do. I take the opportunity now to ask my president Barack Obama to help us ...Many of our brothers, our children, our mothers, and our fathers are dead because of the [LRA]."
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
LATEST NEWS
Defeating 'MAGA Dark Money,' Summer Lee Wins Primary in Landslide
"This is a huge testament to our collective strength and resilience as a progressive movement," said the executive director of Justice Democrats.
Apr 24, 2024
U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, a member of the progressive "Squad," won the Democratic primary for Pennsylvania's 12th Congressional District on Tuesday, fending off an opponent whose campaign was backed by a billionaire Republican megadonor and ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Lee, a vocal critic of the Netanyahu government and leading supporter of a cease-fire in Gaza, handily defeated Bhavini Patel, a borough councilmember in Edgewood, Pennsylvania whose effort to unseat the progressive incumbent was bankrolled by Jeffrey Yass, the state's richest man. Patel actively courted Republican and pro-Israel voters, characterizing Lee as "fringe."
With more than 95% of the vote counted, Lee is ahead of Patel by more than 20 percentage points.
"I am so humbled and proud to win my first primary reelection to be the congresswoman for this incredible district I've spent my life fighting for," Lee said after the race was called in her favor. "Our campaign was built on a record of delivering for our democracy, defending our most fundamental rights, and expanding our vision for what is politically possible for our region's most marginalized communities."
"Our victory is a rejection of right-wing interests and Republican billionaires using corporate super PACs to target Black and brown Democrats in our primaries—be it AIPAC or Moderate PAC or any other MAGA billionaire in Democratic clothing," Lee added. "Western PA is the blueprint for the future all of America deserves."
Opposing genocide is good politics and good policy. #CeasefireNOWÂ https://t.co/A7pnJNskWS
— Summer Lee (@SummerForPA) April 24, 2024
Through the misleadingly named Moderate PAC, Yass—a prolific tax dodger who has been floated as a possible treasury secretary pick if former President Donald Trump wins another term—spent hundreds of thousands of dollars boosting Patel and attacking Lee.
Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn Political Action, said that by ushering Lee to victory, residents of Pennsylvania's 12th District "soundly rejected MAGA dark money."
"MoveOn members are ready to defeat this dangerous flood of dark-money spending against progressive champions and ensure that we continue to elect working-class people to Congress," said Epting.
"Now that it's clear Summer won her primary, AIPAC's super PAC has already officially failed at their one goal for this cycle: taking out the entire Squad."
During her 2022 campaign, Lee faced and overcame huge spending by the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC via its super PAC, the United Democracy Project. But the organization opted to stay on the sidelines this time around, even as it plans to spend $100 million to defeat progressives in this year's cycle amid growing public opposition to Israel's war on Gaza.
"They had every intention of spending in this race—but they didn't, because they realized they would likely lose," Justice Democrats executive director Alexandra Rojas wrote in an email late Tuesday. "And that is because all of us had Summer's back and supported her campaign to out-organize AIPAC in every way."
"This is a huge testament to our collective strength and resilience as a progressive movement," said Rojas. "Now that it's clear Summer won her primary, AIPAC's super PAC has already officially failed at their one goal for this cycle: taking out the entire Squad."
While AIPAC ultimately sat out the Pennsylvania race, it is devoting considerable resources to ousting other progressive lawmakers, including Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.).
The pro-Israel lobbying group has endorsed Bush challenger Wesley Bell, calling him a "strong advocate for the U.S.-Israel relationship." As The Guardianreported last week, Bell has "raised more than $650,000 in earmarked contributions through the group Democracy Engine Inc. PAC—a donation platform that allows unpopular PACs to obscure their donations and lists AIPAC as a client on its LinkedIn page."
AIPAC is the largest donor to Bowman challenger George Latimer, who has supported Israel's war on Gaza and denied that Israel is committing genocide. The Democratic primary for New York's 16th Congressional District is on June 25.
We must be clear-eyed about what's next. @JamaalBowmanNY & @CoriBush are facing an existential threat from AIPAC, their GOP megadonors, and the politicians willing to compromise on core Democratic values to try to take a school principal & nurse out of Congress. #ProtectTheSquad
— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) April 24, 2024
Michele Weindling, political director of the youth-led Sunrise Movement, said Tuesday that following Lee's victory, "we're ramping up to take on AIPAC in Jamaal Bowman's race."
"With a candidate like George Latimer willing to sell their lies to the district, we are going to prove once again that a politician's commitment to their community beats dark money every time," said Weindling. "Whether it's in Pittsburgh or New York, Minneapolis or St. Louis, our generation is going to send billionaires packing and reelect the squad."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
Apr 23, 2024
Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
"Requesting an in-service decision by May 23 leaves the company very little time to implement the safety measures required by its agreement with PHMSA," Sims added. "There is no rush, other than to satisfy MVP's capacity customers' contracts—a situation of the company's own making. We remain deeply concerned about the construction methods and the safety of communities along the route of MVP."
Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."
"During construction, MVP has contaminated our water sources, destroyed our streams, and split the earth beneath our homes. Now they want to run methane gas through their degraded pipes and shoddy work," Chisholm added. "The MVP is a glaring human rights violation that is indicative of the widespread failures of our government to act on the climate crisis in service of the fossil fuel industry."
POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
"Federal, state, and local elected officials have spoken out against this unneeded proposal to ship more methane gas into North Carolina," said Sierra Club senior field organizer Caroline Hansley. "The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over. After MVP Southgate requested a time extension for a project that it no longer plans to construct, it should be sent back to the drawing board for this newly proposed project."
David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
"FERC has again failed to protect the public interest, instead favoring a profit-making corporation," Sligh added.
Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
"The endangered bats, fish, mussels, and plants in this boondoggle's path of destruction deserve to be protected from killing and habitat destruction by a project that never received proper approvals in the first place," Center for Biological Diversity attorney Perrin de Jong said. "Our organization will continue fighting this terrible idea to the bitter end."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Seismic Win for Workers': FTC Bans Noncompete Clauses
Advocates praised the FTC "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
Apr 23, 2024
U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added, pointing to the commission's estimates that the policy could mean another $524 for the average worker, over 8,500 new startups, and 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year.
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
"These agreements are ubiquitous," she noted, applauding the ban. "EPI research finds that more than 1 out of every 4 private-sector workers—including low-wage workers—are required to enter noncompete agreements as a condition of employment."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
Still, the Democratic commissioners' vote was still heralded as a "seismic win for workers." Echoing Khan's critiques of such noncompetes, Public Citizen executive vice president Lisa Gilbert declared that such clauses "inflict devastating harms on tens of millions of workers across the economy."
"The pervasive use of noncompete clauses limits worker mobility, drives down wages, keeps Americans from pursuing entrepreneurial dreams and creating new businesses, causes more concentrated markets, and keeps workers stuck in unsafe or hostile workplaces," she said. "Noncompete clauses are both an unfair method of competition and aggressively harmful to regular people. The FTC was right to tackle this issue and to finalize this strong rule."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
While such agreements are common across various industries, Teófilo Reyes, chief of staff at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said that "many restaurant workers have been stuck at their job, earning as low as $2.13 per hour, because of the noncompete clause that they agreed to have in their contract."
"They didn't know that it would affect their wages and livelihood," Reyes stressed. "Most workers cannot negotiate their way out of a noncompete clause because noncompetes are buried in the fine print of employment contracts. A full third of noncompete clauses are presented after a worker has accepted a job."
Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
Jonathan Harris, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and SBPC senior fellow, said that "by also banning functional noncompetes, the rule stays one step ahead of employers who use 'stay-or-pay' contracts as workarounds to existing restrictions on traditional noncompetes. The FTC has decided to try to avoid a game of whack-a-mole with employers and their creative attorneys, which worker advocates will applaud."
Among those applauding was Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, who said that "the new FTC rule will limit the ability of employers to use debt to lock nurses into unsafe jobs and will protect their role as patient advocates."
Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action, also cheered the effort to stop corporations from holding employees "hostage," saying that "this rule is a critical step for protecting our nation's workers and making labor markets fairer and more competitive."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular