The need for transitional justice mechanisms has been endorsed by a newly released UN mapping report on human rights abuse in the DR Congo. The place to start is with serious vetting and accountability processes as bridges to long-term and sustainable security sector reform.
By Madeline England - Last week the United Nations released a mapping report of human rights violations committed from 1993 to 2003 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The report's ultimate objective was not to expose the Rwandan army's role in perpetrating abuses-as has been popularly portrayed-nor even to document abuses, which occupy only a portion of its more than 500 pages. Rather, the desired objective is accountability for those abuses, and the report therefore explores potential for transitional justice in the DRC.
Two transitional justice mechanisms are particularly critical to security and justice in the DRC: vetting of security forces and criminal accountability for human rights violators. The former would remove the worst human rights violators from the statutory security forces, and the latter would bring accountability for past abuse. Both should be supplemented, of course, by other transitional justice mechanisms, including truth commissions, local reconciliation dialogue and reparations, as recommended in the UN report. But fair and effective vetting and criminal justice are essential links and entry points to ignite currently stalled long-term institutional reform of the Congolese security sector. Indeed, the absence of vetting since complementary activities began in 2004-namely disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, and military integration (brassage)-has left senior officers entrenched in positions of power, corrupt, continuing to abuse human rights, and with an obvious interest in blocking substantive security sector reform (SSR) that would change any of this.
Both mechanisms may provide the needed catalyst to shift away the pervasive climate of impunity. Vetting security sector personnel may generate a leadership corps relatively receptive to institutional reform, while a justice mechanism would introduce a process of accountability for the security sector. Yet both are extraordinarily difficult to achieve even in the most auspicious circumstances.
Vetting processes require personnel records in countries without record-keeping processes, as well as difficult decisions on vetting criteria and how far down the ranks the process needs to go. Clear parameters in accordance with international vetting standards must be negotiated and strictly maintained on which officer ranks are subject to vetting and on criteria for exclusion from the security forces. International criminal justice mechanisms for Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia have been shown to be costly, sluggish and-by prosecuting only high-ranking officials-distanced from the very citizens whose interests they aim to represent. Pursuing vetting and criminal accountability simultaneously produces inherent tensions between security and justice, for example, whether vetting documentation is shared with the justice process or kept confidential.
The DRC's particular security and political environment is far from auspicious in these areas. Initiatives to improve security and implement SSR have been plagued by ongoing conflict, political blockage, the absence of donor coordination, and corruption. Addressing immediate human rights abuses and humanitarian crises draws resources from the UN peacekeeping operation in the DRC that might otherwise be focused on implementing long-term reform. Government officials insist on bilateral engagement with donors at the expense of international coordination, with resulting international duplication of effort and working at cross-purposes. Any institutional reforms achieved to date require substantial international support and often are circumvented; thus the European Union's electronic chain of payment system is still administered by the EU itself and Congolese troops are still pressured to hand over their salaries to their commanding officers. The justice sector, meanwhile, is regarded as corrupt and ineffective by the vast majority of Congolese citizens, and the prisons are in such condition that escapes are a near daily occurrence.
On a political level, meanwhile, the government has been unwilling to exclude known human rights violators from senior officer positions in the military and police. Inasmuch Congolese President Joseph Kabila is currently negotiating with the Rwandan government to stabilize the eastern Congo, he may be unwilling to pursue indictments against Rwandan army abuses that occurred in Congo.
Nevertheless, the Congolese government's official response to the report indicated receptivity to local "special courts"-similar to that of Sierra Leone-to be conducted jointly or with the support of the international community. As the option favored by the report itself and the joint statement released by 220 Congolese civil society groups, it holds the most opportunities for building capacity in the Congolese justice system. An editorial from the Congolese Permanent Representative to the UN welcomed an international conference in Kinshasa to discuss options for moving forward.
At whatever level of government it unfolds, however, transitional justice in the DRC must have unity of purpose and build a common understanding with concrete commitments among the Congolese government, citizens, and the donor community. The entire transitional justice process must clearly engage with and communicate progress to civil society for meaningful results. And in respect of long-term goals for security and justice, if the DRC is to build an effective and accountable security sector, vetting and criminal accountability for past abuses must figure prominently in any process of security sector reform.
Photo Credit: A delegation of the government of DRC negotiate with Ituri militia groups on the disarmament of combatants and their integration in the government armed forces (FARDC), November 2006. UN photo # 133057
