'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
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
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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
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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.”

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.
15Despite 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 In the last three years, the GoC has withdrawn its political support for peace processes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

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

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CONTEXT
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.
28Peacekeeping

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.

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.

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.

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.
61Women, 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
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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

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.
74This 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

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.

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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].”
93Though 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

97

Social stigma has led husbands and families to abandon survivors or marry them to attackers.
98

Women who give birth to children conceived by rape are often ostracized by their families and
their children rejected by their communities.
99
Livelihood opportunities are destroyed, food
security is compromised and access to education is restricted as women and girls monitor their
movements and stay home from school and their fields to avoid the armed groups that patrol their
communities.
100
In 2006, a ‘landmark sexual violence law,’ that provided a strong legal
framework to prosecute rapists was implemented in the DRC.
101
In 2008, the UN Security
Council passed Resolution 1820 (UNSCR 1820), which demanded a cessation to the use of
sexual violence and rape as a weapon of armed conflict. However, law enforcement and justice
authorities are unable, or unwilling, to enforce the law.
102
Soldiers and police officers have been
accused of rape and, though many senior officers have been implicated in rape, the most senior
officer convicted of crimes of sexual violence in the Kivus to date has been a captain—no major,
lieutenant colonel, colonel or general has ever been prosecuted.
103
Impunity permits armed
groups to intimidate the survivors, witnesses and human rights defenders who try to report
attacks.
104

In contrast, Congolese
men were socially defined as breadwinners, the purchasers of marriage and protective,
controlling and virile husbands who were free to engage in extra-marital relationships.
111An unequal and abusive relationship between civilians and the military was entrenched during
the final years of Mobutu’s parasitic rule that destroyed the Congolese economy and ruined
public service infrastructure. With Mobutu’s direct encouragement, a culture of ‘la
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débrouillardise,’ was established throughout the DRC, which literally encouraged people to fend
for themselves by whatever means necessary.
112
This extended to the soldiers and police officers
who were rarely paid their meagre salaries or provided food rations.
113
Under la débrouillardise,
they provided for themselves and their families by imposing illegal taxes and fines and by using
violence to steal from civilians.
114
The abusive soldier-civilian relationship was so extreme that
the Congolese embodied this relationship in the popular expression: civil azali bilanga ya
militaire, ‘the civilian is the [corn] field of the military.’
115The Kivu Provinces in the DRC: At the centre of ‘Africa’s World War’

Emasculated and frustrated
men retaliated with violence, provoking a cycle of rape, militarization and more violence.
124
The
arrival of the UN Organization Mission in DRC (MONUC) in 1999 did little to alleviate the
situation; within four years of its deployment widespread abuses perpetrated by peacekeepers,
including rape and sexual exploitation, were discovered.
125Long-term peace in the DRC requires addressing this social breakdown. However, action is
needed now to stop the catastrophe in the Kivus’ conflict zones, where the majority of the 1,100
rapes reported each month in the DRC occur.
126
Here, in the presence of the Kivus’ abundant
mineral resources, the use of mass rape has diversified. In addition to being a tool for obliterating
the social fabric of rival groups and reinforcing a male’s masculinity, rape is also a tactic for
securing profit through the control of mineral wealth. By using mass rape to terrorize
communities, armed groups force them to submit to the militarized confiscation of their lands
and its abundant mineral wealth.
127The Kivus also border three countries, and profiteering opportunities lure local and foreign
groups. Some Mayi Mayi have stopped defending local populations and exist solely to profit
from mining.
128
As long as certain FARDC commanders continue to profit from mining, it will
not be in their interest to end the conflict in Kivus.
129

women and men who are the long-term hope of their society. Dr. Jo Lusi, an internationally
respected Congolese orthopaedic surgeon, works in conflict prone North Kivu, running a hospital
that provides free holistic care to thousands of survivors of rape each year. Dr. Denis Mukwege, a
Congolese gynaecologist recognized as ‘African of the Year’, performs hundreds of free vaginal
reconstruction surgeries in South Kivu each year to restore health and dignity to survivors of
rape. Members of the South Kivu Women's Media Association, a group of young women
journalists and broadcasters, risk their lives to publicly share rape survivors’ stories.
135
Chouchou
Namegabe, the leader of this association, risked retaliatory violence from perpetrators by publicly
denouncing sexual crimes before the International Criminal Court and United States Senate.
136

Justine Masika of North Kivu continues to document rape with the Congolese women’s
organization, Synergie des femmes contre les violence sexuelles, despite having to send her
family overseas to protect them from violent retribution.
137
In 2002, Congolese women from
diverse backgrounds united at a peace talk to form a human wall that physically prevented armed
parties from abandoning the talks.
138
There are hundreds of thousands of unsung heroes in the
Kivus, like the father of Munguiko, a nine-year-old Congolese girl, who walked through a
conflict zone for three days with his daughter to find her life saving medical care after a violent
rebel attack.
139Too often, the strength of Congolese society is not harnessed by large-scale international aid
efforts. Civil society, particularly Congolese women’s groups, have firsthand information about

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 Social
Responsibility

In particular, an independent ombudsman office that is capable of independently investigating
allegations of misconduct must be created. This will help ensure that Canadian companies do not
directly or indirectly contribute to the conflict economy in the Kivus that fuels war and instigates
rape.

2. Work with the UN Group of Experts on the DRC to develop a map of mineral-rich 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 global leader in mineral exploration, has a wealth of knowledge about the mineral
geography of the DRC and Kivus and would be a logical contributor to this project.

3. Modify Export Development Canada’s regulatory legislation

The needed modifications include the creation of binding human rights standards and elimination
of legislation that permits Canadian companies working in conflict zones to withhold 'privileged'
information. The GoC must ensure that there is full public access for information about the
location and activities of Canadian companies. This will simplify efforts to monitor companies
that operate in conflict zones or companies that violate human rights standards.
The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009

and create a fund in CIDA that routes money through Canadian and African NGOs that have
experience vetting and working with credible grassroots Congolese women’s groups. Canadian
organizations such as Oxfam Québec, the Stephen Lewis Foundation and the African
Organization ‘Femme Africa Solidarité’ have experience working with the GoC and supporting
and vetting credible grassroots organizations in the Kivus that provide care to survivors of rape.
Funds should support projects and initiatives as well pay salaries and fund administrative
infrastructure (furniture, fixtures and equipment), to ensure organization sustainability.
1452. Support grassroots women’s involvement in the democratic processes

In 2006, Canada gave political support and $9 million in funding to the DRC’s national elections.
Despite the Congolese government’s constitutional commitments and the Canadian
government’s commitments to the implementation of UNSCR 1325 and other international
agreements, to actively seek equitable women’s representation in government, neither
government fulfilled their obligations; a meagre 7% of elected Congolese officials are women.
146

Canada can re-invest in the 2011 national Congolese elections and fund credible Canadian and
African NGOs that are working to engender the democratic process in the DRC.
147
This will
build long-term grassroots capacity and prevent post-election ‘brain-drain’ that occurs if the best
and brightest leaders of these groups are elected.
148
Canada must help stop rape in the DRC and
fulfill its international commitments, like the implementation of UNSCR 1325, which calls for
all countries to ensure the “increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in
national, regional and international institutions.”

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END IMPUNITY

Canada can help end the impunity that kills Congolese women and girls. Congolese civil society
is leading an inspiring fight for justice, despite the terrifying obstacles. Canada must join and
support them by actively fighting impunity from within its own borders, in international arenas
and through the Congolese security sector.

Because UN requests for Canadian peacekeepers to bolster missions in the DRC were
disregarded and because alleged war criminals live on Canadian soil un-investigated and
un-sanctioned, Canada must:

1. End impunity for war criminals in Canada

The Canadian war crimes unit, whose efforts led to the recent conviction of a Rwandan
génocidaire in a Québec Superior Court,

carries out investigations and prosecutions with an
annual budget of $15.6 million, mostly used for deportations.
153
The GoC 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 such as the European Union and United States to prevent known
FDLR leaders residing in their borders from fundraising and disseminating propaganda.
154

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4. Support gender-sensitive security sector reform in the DRC

Through the Military Training Assistance Program (MTAP) Canada can provide gender training
to MONUC peacekeepers, to safeguard women’s needs.
158
According to Canadian General Rick
Hillier, Canadian Forces are especially valued by African nations not only for their professional
skills, but also for their bilingual capacity and lack of colonial baggage.
159
Despite Canada’s
limited ability to send formed peacekeeping units to MONUC, Canada can provide strategic
leadership to MONUC and “influence the pace and tone of operations”
160
by committing to
sending Force commanders and other high-ranking officers to MONUC. ‘I will not be ashamed or keep a secret of how they raped me and ripped my genitals all the way to
the back. I'm not healed, I'm hurting. I'm not going to hide it.’ Survivor
161
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accessed 02 September 2009.
8 Canada donated $2.5 million to support the implementation of the 1999 ceasefire that marked the first attempt to bring the second Congo war
to an end and 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, see,
Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), “Canada Announces Projects to Support Peace Process in Democratic Republic
of the Congo,” 24 January 2009 available at 445
&dictum=9, accessed 24 August 2009; Canada also 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, see, Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations, “Statement issued by
Canada on the occasion of the UN Security Council High-Level Meeting on Regional Organizations, particularly the African Union and the joint
meeting of UN Security Council—African Union Peace and Security Council,” 16 April 2008, available at
,”
accessed 25 August 2009; Canada actively supported the 2003 – 2006 democratic transition in the DRC by contributing over $15 million to
support the 2006 democratic elections and deploying military observers to monitor the elections, see, DFAIT, “Canada Welcomes Second Round
of Elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” 30 October 2008, available at
d=384507&lang=eng&docnum=124; Canada also supported the
democratic transition by actively participating in the international Comité international d’Accompagnement de la Transition [ in the DRC], see,
CIDA, “Canada and the G8 Africa Action Plan: Maintaining the Momentum,”2004, 12, available at i-
cida.gc.ca/INET/IMAGES.NSF/vLUImages/Canada_Fundm_f or_Africa/$file/G8-Interim-Report-2004-EN.pdf, accessed 15 August 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 Strengthen Canada’s
The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009
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operation Country Study Discussion Paper (November 2008), 2, available at cess_seminar.shtml, accessed
15 July 2009.

accessed 20 April 2009. Because the
coltan in electronics is a mixture of ores from around the world, on average one fifth of the coltan found in a given coltan-containing electronic
device will be Congolese. Therefore millions of Canadians own Congolese coltan, given that virtually all Canadians will own at least one cell
phone, computer, gaming console, music player or other coltan containing electronic device.
14 Enough! Project.
15 UNSC

(S/2008/773), 32.
16 Surendrini 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 i-
cida.gc.ca/CIDAWEB/acdicida.nsf/En/NAT-223132931-PPH, accessed 24 February 2009.
18

Lee Berthiaume, “Tories Elected to Set Foreign Policy: Cannon,” Embassy, 5 August 2009, available at assy
mag.ca/page/view/ tories_elected _foreign_policy-8-5-2009, accessed 8 August 2009.

19 As stated by Chouchou Namegabe, founder, South Kivu Women’s Media Association in the DRC to the United States Senate Foreign
Relations Committee Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Women’s Issues; and
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- 21 - the Subcommittee on African Affairs for the Hearing, see, San Francisco Bay View, “’Help us heal our nation’: Confronting rape and other
forms of violence against women in conflict zones,” 18 May 2009, available at E2%80%98help-us-heal-our-
nation%E2%80%99-confronting-rape-and-other-forms-of-violence-against-women-in-conflict-zones/, accessed 17 August 2009.
20United Nations (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, “Consideration of reports submitted by States parties

For the 650,000 estimate see Gérard Prunier, 123; for the 200,000 estimate see Dr. Michael A. Hennessy, 16.
39 The government of Canada deployed 354 of 1,500 promised peacekeepers. Ibid., 13.
40 Ibid., 14.
41 Olivier Lanotte, 60.
42 Since 1999 Canada has deployed a 8 – 12 member task force composed of staff officers with expertise in fields such as law, information
operations and training who work at MONUC headquarters in Kinshasa and the divisional headquarters in Goma, see, National Defence and the
Canadian Forces, “Operation CROCODILE,” available at accessed
30 August 2090. The one exception was in 2003 when Canada participated in the French-led Interim Emergency Multinational Force that was
deployed to Bunia, in the DRC, at the request from the United Nations for assistance in restoring order in that region. Canada deployed two CC-
130 Hercules tactical transport aircraft and about 50 CF personnel, detached from the Tactical Airlift Detachment (TAL Det) deployed in the
Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf) region; see, National Defence and the Canadian Forces, “Operation CARAVAN: June 8 2003 - July 6 2003.”
43 Gérard Prunier, 149 – 172.
44 IRC, “Congo Crisis.”
45 Gérard Prunier, 181 – 233.
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- 22 - 46
Kevin C. Dunn, “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 Science Assocation, Saskatoon, SK, May 2007, 10.
48


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, 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, 2.

Canada actively supported the 2003 – 2006 democratic transition in the DRC by contributing over $15 million to
support the 2006 democratic elections and deploying military observers to monitor the elections, see, DFAIT, “Canada Welcomes Second Round
of Elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
68

DFAIT, “Canada Welcomes Second Round of Elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
69

Surendrini Wijeyaratne, 2.
70 Rights & Democracy, “Strong Contingent of Peacekeepers needed in Congo-Kinshasa,” 17 December 1999, available at -
rd.ca/site/media/index

.php?id=470&subsection=news, accessed 9 July 2009.
71 Surendrini Wijeyaratne, 2.
72 Peace Woman, “United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 On Women, Peace and Security,” available at
1325.html, accessed 15 July 2009.
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____________________________________________________________________________

- 23 - 73 Ibid.
74

procedures for implementing these rights.” Translated, from French, using Google Translator. Constitution of the DRC available at
www.wikipedia.org, accessed 15 July 2009.
81 VDAY, “Sexual Violence in the DRC: Background,” available at o/background, accessed 25 August 2009.
82 Women interviewed after the Goma Conference said that these issues were not sufficiently discussed and much more work needs to be done
to ensure women’s issues are included in the implementation of the agreements. Additionally, these initiatives were described as, “agreements
between men from armed groups and mostly arrived at through “behind-the-scenes” negotiations,” see Surendrini Wijeyaratne, 2.
83 IRIN, “DRC: MONUC denounces coalition between Mayi-Mayi and Rwandan rebels,” 15 July 2009, available at nnews.o
rg/Report.aspx?ReportId=85170, accessed 15 July 2009.
84

Maria Eriksson Baaz and Maria Stern, “Making Sense of Violence: Voices of Soldiers in the Congo (DRC),” Journal of Modern African
Studies, 46, no.1 (2008), 64.
85 Ibid., 64.
86 Ibid.
87 IRIN.
88 Radio France Internationale, “DR Congo: Militia group threatens to quit peace process,” British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 13 May
2009, available through

Lexis Nexis Academic Search at accessed 9 July
2009.
89 IRIN.
90 Steven Spittaels and Filip Hilgert, “Mapping Conflict Motives: Kivus,” International Peace Information Service (IPIS) Research Project
Publication, March 2008, 12, available at />full_report.pdf/$File/full_report.pdf, accessed 12 June 2009; also see, Koen Vlassenroot and Timothy Raeymaekers, “Kivu’s Intractable Security
Conundrum,” Journal of African Affairs 108, no. 432 (May 2009), available at accessed
July 2, 2009.
91 HRW, “DR Congo: Massive Increase in Attacks on Civilians,” 2 July 2009 available at news/2009/07/02/dr-congo-
massive-increase-attacks-civilians, accessed 15 July, 2009.
The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009
____________________________________________________________________________


/drc/2004/drcreport-nojoy.pdf, accessed 10 July, 2009, 16.
98 Yakin Ertürk, 2.
99 Ibid., para 63.
100 UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
101 Human Rights Watch (HRW), “Soldiers Who Rape, Commanders Who Condone: Sexual Violence and Military Reform in the Democratic
Republic of Congo,” July 2009, 6, available at www.hrw.org, accessed 15 July 2009.
102 Ibid., para 66.
103 HRW, 6.
104 UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, “(CEDAW/C/COD/4-5),” para. 74 – 79.
105 Ibid.
106 Ibid., 14.
107 Ibid.
108 Birthe Steiner, Marie T Benner, Egbert Sondorp, K Peter Schmitz, Ursula Mesmer and Sandrine Rosenberger, “Sexual violence in the
protracted conflict of DRC programming for rape survivors in South Kivu,” Conflict and Health 3, no. 3 (2009), 3, available at
accessed 3 July 2009.
109 HRW, “The War Within the War: Sexual Violence Against Women and Girls in Kivus,” June 2002, available at www.hrw.org, accessed 10
June 2009.
110 Adewale Banjo, “A Review of Poverty Studies, Drivers and Redressive Strategies in Southern Africa,” Journal of Sustainable Development
in Africa 10, no.4 (2009), available at -
africa.com/Jsda/V10N4_Spring2009/PDF/A%20Review%20of%20Poverty%20Studies.pdf, accessed 10 June 2009; Women’s Commission for
Refugee Women and Children, “Global Survey on Education in Emergencies,” February 2004, 38; Eunice Njeri Sahle, “Gender, States, and
Markets in Africa,” Studies in Political Economy 77 (spring 2006); and see, Yakin Ertürk, “(A/HRC/7/6/Add.4),” para. 97.
The Africa Canada Accountability Coalition – September 2009
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- 25 - 111 Eli Mechanic, “Why Gender Still Matters: Sexual Violence and the need to Confront Militarized Masculinity: a Case Study of the Conflict
in the DRC.” Partnership Africa Canada Report, December 2004, 4, available at />16dec.pdf, accessed 01 June 2009.

132 Ibid.,, 14 and 28.
133 Ban-Ki Moon, Secretary-General of the UN.
134 Ibid., 4.
135 See, .
136 Alix Rijckaert, “’Punish rape as weapon of war’,”The Times 11 December 2007, available at, .
za/News/Article.aspx?id=65798, accessed 10 July 2009; see also, San Francisco Bay View.
137 Amnesty International, “Justice for Justine Masika,” 2 March 2009 available at ion/action/20333/, accessed
15 July, 2009.
138 Shelley Whitman, “Women and Peace-building in the DRC: An assessment of their role in the Inter-Congolese Dialogue,” African Journal
on Conflict Resolution 6, no. 1 (2006), 42, available at eengine/FileContent?serviceID=ISN&fileid=FD2A6588-7239-
4891-3935-5A8756AB0F6D&lng=en, accessed 3 July 2009.
139 Heal Africa, “Rehabilitation Initiative,” available at accessed 02 September 2009.