In the most dangerous place in the world to be a girl or woman February 21 was a good day.

By Lisa Clifford, London

A military court in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo found nine soldiers guilty of rape and crimes against humanity, including the army colonel who ordered the attacks in the mountain top village of Fizi in South Kivu province. More than 50 women were sexually assaulted  here in early January.

Lt Col Mutware Kibibi was convicted of ordering the rampage and also of rape. As he was led away to begin his 20-year prison sentence, the crowd  at the trial gathered in the town of Baraka on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, jeered and taunted him. Three of Kibibi’s senior officers received 20 years each and five others got between 10 and 15 years.

Their New Years Day attack on Fizi was sparked by the stoning to death of a soldier by a local resident after an altercation between the two. Witnesses said the soldiers took revenge, going from house to house, raping, pillaging and beating residents for around 11 hours. 

Some victims are still in hospital. One woman lost all the money she had been saving for more than a year, $650. A grandmother was beaten up and raped by 12 soldiers in front of her family.

Close to 1,500 people gathered in the hot sun to watch the 10-day trial which was conducted by mobile court – a unique collaboration between international organisations and the DRC judiciary intended to bring justice to remote communities in South Kivu where no permanent courts exist. It was moved to Baraka because of lack of infrastructure in Fizi.

Implemented by the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative and funded by the Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA), the mobile courts take place within the DRC’s own judicial system, using Congolese lawyers and judges. They have been running in the province for around 18 months and adjudicated in 186 cases in South Kivu last year, 115 of which were for rape crimes.

“The same mobile court structure can be set up under a tree anywhere,” said Louise Olivier, law programme manager at OSISA, who watched the Fizi trial. “Others I have observed have been on islands, on mountains, in the jungle. We try to have the trial as close to where the crimes were committed as possible, rather than expecting everyone to go to ... the capital of the province.”

The trial was held outside in a makeshift courtroom, with an awning to protect the judges, the accused and the lawyers. Several benches had been brought in for spectators, some of whom Olivier said had walked the 35 kilometres from Fizi, but most had to stand for hours.

The 49 victims, who testified in private with their identities concealed, recounted their horrifying ordeals to the court.

“Some of the women were absolutely emotionless and just told their stories like they were telling someone else’s story, and you could see they just weren’t there anymore,” said Olivier. “Some were very, very emotional. One woman threw her bloodied clothes, another woman started sobbing and beating her breast.

“What was amazing to see was the amount of support the women gave each other. In many cases their men have left them. They see them as tainted, so there was often very little family support.”

OSISA funds lawyers for both the victims and the accused as well as training for judges and lawyers. Olivier said Kabibi, who denied all the charges, had three lawyers, two of whom he paid himself. “There was huge humiliation for him,” she said. “He had very much the military bearing as opposed to the others who looked like a ragtag bag of youngsters.

“When the verdict was given, the crowd moved in. They descended upon him. People are angry. They want that battalion to leave that area. They have been involved in human rights abuses for years.”

Rape is an ‘epidemic’ in DRC. The army, which is largely unpaid and almost entirely undisciplined, is one of the primary offenders.

However, all the armed groups operating in DRC, including Rwandan Hutu rebels and Congolese militias, use rape as a weapon of war. Hundreds of thousands of sexual assaults have been reported since war broke out in the mid 1990s, representing only a fraction of the total as many cases go unreported.

The DRC’s judicial system lacks investigators, lawyers, judges, courts – and almost everything else needed to pursue justice for rape victims. Commonly, rapists with money pay their way out of trouble, and even those without can easily slip away with little chance of legal pursuit.

Hortense Kalamata runs a programme in the North Kivu town of Kiwanja to assist victims of sexual violence with counselling and legal support.

There are no courts in Kiwanja so accused rapists must be taken nearly 100 kilometres to the provincial capital Goma for detention and trial – all at the victims’ expense. She will also pay the police to investigate and for the pens and paper needed to take down the complaint. If the alleged attacker is an important person typically, no investigation will be made.

A woman must also recognise her attacker, Kalamata said, as police don’t have the capacity to investigate assaults by unknown perpetrators. “The legal process is long and requires money ... and usually after a few days she will usually see [the man] return to the community,” said Kalamata.

In the Fizi trial, the investigation was done by a team from the ABA and Lawyers Without Borders, assisted with logistics by the UN force MONUSCO. Speed was of the essence, Olivier said, so as not to prolong the agony of the victims. “We didn’t want to draw it out for two or three years,” she said.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been investigating war crimes in Congo, including rape, since 2004 but has been criticised for its remoteness from victims and the slow progress of trials, particularly the case against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo from the Ituri region. He has been in ICC custody since 2006 and on trial for more than two years.

Carla Ferstman, the director of REDRESS, a NGO which seeks reparations for torture survivors, believes mobile courts could overcome some of the frustration that victims have with both the domestic and international justice systems.

“It comes to them, to the scene of the crime,” she said. “It is really what is needed. You are dealing with an enormous country, and you can’t set up permanent tribunals in every single location, so I think it is an innovative response  to realities on the ground.” Phil Clark, a lecturer in international politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, was also enthusiastic.

“This looks like a really productive collaboration between foreign NGOs and domestic judicial actors with a degree of funding and expertise provided by the outside but done at every stage in consultation with local actors and using local judicial personnel,” he said.

Working within the Congolese system was of paramount importance when setting up the mobile courts. The ABA’s DRC country director Guy Charles Makongo says supporting the local system is what the mobile courts are all about.

“If we really want the system to work we don’t need to create a parallel system. We have to work within the Congolese system and help it to be able to continue (on its own) with what we are doing.”

He believes that targeting high level officials like Kibibi is essential.

“We are looking for impact,” said Makongo. “This could serve as an example of the fact that the Congolese state and its partners are really involved in the fight against impunity, especially in relation to sexual violence and international crimes. Other soldiers will understand that the state is present, justice is present, and there is no more place for impunity.”

But how do the victims in Fizi feel about their experience with the mobile court? Olivier admits that many questioned whether testifying was the right thing to do.

“They were just so exceptionally brave, but when we spoke to them afterwards and asked would you do this again and in almost every instance they said no,” she said.  “It is hugely emotionally draining. One woman was saying two months afterwards, that her body was still sore. I think it was a way of saying we are still in pain”, she said.

“Without exception all the women said what gave them strength was that other women in the Congo were with them, and they had the sense that Congolese women were supporting what they were doing”, Olivier added. 

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