OFDA VISIT TO MITWABA, CENTRAL KATANGA,

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 KINSHASA 000446

SIPDIS

SIPDIS
AMEMBASSY KINSHASA
SECSTATE WASHDC
INFO STET
SADC

AIDAC

AID/W FOR DCHA/OFDA- MMARX, IMACNAIRN, MSHIRLEY
AID/W FOR DCHA/FFP- TANDERSON, NCOX, TMCRAE
AID/W FOR DCHA/OTI- RJENKINS, KHUBER
AID/W FOR AFR- KO'DONNELL, JBORNS
NAIROBI FOR USAID/OFDA/ARO- JMYER, ADWYER
NAIROBI FOR USAID/FFP- DSUTHER, ADEPREZ
ROME FOR USUN FODAG- RNEWBERG
GENEVA FOR NYKLOH

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: EAID PHUM PREF CG

SUBJECT: OFDA VISIT TO MITWABA, CENTRAL KATANGA,
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO


--------------
Summary
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1. (U) An estimated 29,000 Internally Displaced Persons
(IDPs) have appearedare present in several towns in
Mitwaba Territory, located in the center of Katanga
Province province of the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC). These IDPs are fleeing conflict between government
troops and Mai -Mai militia, and have to date received
little assistance as the area is minimally accessible by
road and has only a limited-use airstrip. Food, in
particular, is in short supply, and malnutrition rates
have been estimated at 30 percent among the IDP
population. Non-food items are also badly needed.
Complicating matters further is the predatory behavior of
Democratic Republic of Congo armed forces (FARDC) the DRC
armed forces brigade (FARDC) stationed in the territory.
These troops, who have been in Mitwaba since 1997,
constitute the real authority in the area and use this
their authority to extort food and items of value, and to
abduct women from both resident and IDPs populations. They
are widely perceived as equally responsible as any Mai-
Mai groups for insecurity in Mitwaba Territory, and
ideally need urgently to be replaced by a better-
disciplined unit. Until FARDC pay and support is improved
generally however, FARDC troops will continue to be a
problem for nearby civilians. END SUMMARY.

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Background
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2. (U) OFDA Rep Victor Bushamuka visited Mitwaba territory
Territory from February 24 to- 26 to assess the
humanitarian situation. During the visit, OFDA Rep met
with military and political authorities, humanitarian
actors (including MSF-Belgium (MSF-B),Caritas, World Food
Program (WFP),Action Against Poverty (ACP),a local non
governmental organizationNGO),and groups of IDPs.


3. (U) Mitwaba Territory, located in central Katanga 466
kilometers (km) north of Lubumbashi, is one of the areas
that have been most affected by attacks of the Mai- Mai
group under the leadership of notorious local commander
Gedeon. Reports abound of villages being burned, civilians
killed and dismembered, women raped, fields looted, and
other violations. This violence has led to mass population
displacements to forests near the national park of Upemba,
to Mitwaba centerCenter, and southward toward Dubie.


4. (U) In November 2005, the Democratic Republic of Congo
armed forces (FARDC )forces launched an offensive on Mai-
Mai positions, forcing them from the area with little
resistance. Shortly after, some of the displaced families
started returning to their villages to rebuild their
houses and engage in livelihood activities. However, FARDC
troops in the villages were hostile toward the returnees,
accusing them of being Mai- Mai collaborators. Returning
to the forest was also not an option for the IDPs, because
Mai- Mai there accused them of providing food to the
FARDC. Many of these IDPs were forced to move for safety
to the towns of Mitwaba Center, Kasungeshi, and Sampwe.


5. (U) The FARDC troops in Mitwaba are members of the 63rd
63rd brigade. Though they participated in the recent anti-
Mai- Mai campaign waged by government forces in Central
Katanga, they are nearly all veterans of Mobutu's army,
and were actually first sent to the area in 1997, well
before the war between the Laurent Kabila government and
Rwanda and Uganda began in August of 1998. Totally unpaid
and unsupplied, they survive by preying on the local
residents and IDP populations.


KINSHASA 00000446 002 OF 005



6. (U) Mitwaba Center is currently calm. MSF-B reports
that Kasungeshi and Sampwe, the other major sites where
IDPs have constructed camps in the territory, are also
relatively secure. Though FARDC officers in Mitwaba state
that the territory is now secure all the way to the Upemba
National Park, and claim not to understand why IDPS IDPs
do not return home, recent events contradict this
assertion. On February 17, only one week prior to OFDA
Rep's visit, Mai- Mai elements attacked the town of
Kalenge, 150 km south west of Mitwaba. Local residents
remain unconvinced that Gedeon and other Mai- Mai have
indeed been neutralized, and also fear being attacked by
FARDC forces. Most IDPs and humanitarian actors cite the
FARDC as being at least equally responsible for insecurity
in Mitwaba Territory as any Mai- Mai groups.

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IDPs
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7. (U) As of February 26, MSF-Belgium (MSF-B) had
registered 29,000 IDPs in the Mitwaba tTerritory of
Mitwaba. The IDPs are in 10 camps around Mitwaba center
Center and Sampwe, which is 105 kilometers to the south.
In Mitwaba centerCenter, which normally has a population
of only 2500 persons, there are already 11,000 IDPs. The
number of new IDPs arriving averages 5 to 10 families a
day. On February 18, however, 150 families arrived at
once, fleeing a Mai- Mai attack in Kalenga.


8. (U) The IDPs contacted by OFDA Rep originated from the
north and west parts of the territory, and told of having
been displaced more than three times in the past twelve
months. They appeared to be in bad physical health and
were barely clothed. Many children and adults manifested
visible signs of malnutrition. Almost all of them said
they had lost most of their belongings during their
multiple displacements.


9. (U) The Mitwaba IDPs receive assistance in basic health
care from MSF-B, which supports health centers in Mitwaba,
Kasungeshi and Sampwe by providing essential medicines,
training and supervision. IDPs contacted by OFDA Rep were
generally satisfied with the services provided.
Unfortunately, the referral hospital of Mitwaba was
destroyed during the war and is not functional.


10. (U) In addition to supporting the health care system,
MSF-B manages a therapeutic feeding center (TFC) for
malnourished children and adults. Malnutrition appears to
be very high in Mitwaba -- a preliminary study, while
clearly inconclusive because of the way the data was
collected, suggested a Global Acute Malnutrition rate of
over 30 percent% -- and the TFC receives about 43 new
cases per week. Unfortunately, due to the difficulty of
delivering food to Mitwaba, there is no supplementary
feeding program to assist children after they are
discharged. As a result, relapses are common, representing
over 10% of incoming cases.


11. (U) Non-food-items (NFI) including blankets, plastic
sheeting, cooking pots, soap, and cups have been
distributed to some of the IDPs who arrived before
December 2005 in the Mitwaba area camps of the immediate
Mitwaba area before December 2005. However, due to a
shortage of supply, not all IDPs were served, and not all
those served received complete kits. In Kasungeshi, only
soap was distributed.


12. (U) Caritas is planning to distribute clothes and NFI
kits in Mitwaba. Action Against Poverty (ACP),a local
NGO, will distribute UNICEF NFI kits in Kasungeshi and
Sampwe. The kits are available in Lubumbashi, but a means
to deliver the kits to Mitwaba has not yet been found.

KINSHASA 00000446 003 OF 005


Due to the small size and bad condition of the Mitwaba air
strip, which can only handle only planes carrying 3-5 tons
maximum, air transport is prohibitively costly.


13. (U) Before the war, Mitwaba received supplies by road.
The road from Lubumbashi, the provincial capital, to
Mitwaba via Likasi is, however, 466 km long and in bad
condition. It is normally passable in the dry season, but
is unusable at the present time due to the presence of
resistant Mai- Mai groups in the Kitenge-Mamba area.


14. (U) An alternative overland option is to truck goods
first to Kilwa on Lake Moero, either using Zambian roads
and a private ferry, or another, barely-passable Congolese
road, then to truck transport the suppliesthem on from
there westward to Dubie and Mitwaba. However, on this
last leg of the trip, the road is in such bad shape that
trucks can be stuck in transit for weeks at a time.

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Food Shortage
--------------


15. (U) A lack of sufficient food is the most urgent
problem facing IDPs. Upon arrival in Mitwaba, most IDPs
look for employment providing as general laborers to
survive. Unfortunately, such opportunities are scarce. The
most common work for IDPs includes fetching water for
local people, assisting with house construction, and
making charcoal for 20 to 50 Congolese francs per day
(about 5 to 12 cents).


16. (U) If they do manage to earn any money, IDPs often
still have to travel to over 50 km to obtain food. Though
a few of the local resident families have managed to
establish small farming activities around their houses in
town, food is generally in very short supply in Mitwaba
Center. The terrain immediately surrounding the town is
too rocky to be conducive to agricultural activity, so the
fields which normally supply Mitwaba with food are located
at a considerable distance. Due to the great
vulnerability of these far-off fields to extensive looting
by FARDC soldiers , and Mai- Mai, and to military
predation on all pedestrians attempting to carry supplies
into town, they are now largely inactive. What little
food that does make it to Mitwaba Center comes largely
from towns located many kilometers away on the main road
to the south. IDPs in Mitwaba have begun buying cassava
waste, commonly used prior to the war for feeding pigs,
for use as their staple food.


17. (U) MONUC delivered 31 tons of WFP food by helicopter
for IDPs the week prior to OFDA Rep's arrival, but the
quantity was enough to assist only the most vulnerable
people. An additional 88 tons arrived by truck on March 2,
after several weeks of travel. Due to a shortage in the
WFP pipeline to Lubumbashi, however, the rations include
no pulses. Given the apparent high incidence of
malnutrition, this is particularly unfortunate.

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Relations between FARDC and Mitwaba inhabitants and IDPs
-------------- --------------


18. (U) When they arrive in Mitwaba, IDPs are first
screened by FARDC, ostensibly to identify possible Mai-
Mai elements. Many IDPs said that they were beaten during
this process and indicated that the main purpose of the
screening was really to rob them of any items of value.
IDPs are asked to present their voter registration cards
and are considered as Mai- Mai if they do not have any.
However, in the forest, Mai- Mai often punish and even
kill people they find in possession of a voter
registration card, calling them government sympathizers,

KINSHASA 00000446 004 OF 005


thus some IDPs had gotten rid of their cards during their
existence in the forest to avoid problems with Mai- Mai.


19. (U) Despite the dangers, IDPs have on occasion sent
emissaries back to check on conditions in their home
villages so as to better judge whether it is best to stay
in the camps or to return home. Due, however, to the
animosity and high level of mistrust existing between IDPs
and FARDC forces, IDPs in Mitwaba who have made such
assessment trips are often end up being arrested and
beaten if caught. This has resulted in increased
reluctance to leave the camps.


20. (U) Since Mitwaba Territory is physically isolated
from the rest of the country, the 63rd63rd brigade has
total authority there and soldiers can take what they
like. Many of the IDPs who received plastic sheeting from
humanitarian organizations refuse to put it on their make-
shift huts until it is actually raining, since leaving it
there overnight would make it vulnerable to theft by the
military. Whereas the population once used bicycles to
transport goods around, now most of the bicycles appear to
be in the hands of the military. Women do not venture far
from town for fear of being raped. All of OFDA Rep's
interlocutors in Mitwaba were adamant in declaring that
Mitwaba's security problems would not improve until this
particular group of FARDC military were removed from the
area.

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Conclusions
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21. (U) Given the logistical problems of transporting
humanitarian supplies to Mitwaba, it will be critical to
identify ways to facilitate, as soon as possible, a return
of IDPs to their home villages, or, minimally, the return
of agricultural production. This, however, is dependent
on the government's ability to restore security in the
area. Though the Mai- Mai problem persists, in the view
of many living and working in Mitwaba, a key first step
would be the replacement of the 63rd63rd brigade of FARDC
with a different contingent. Removing this group would
also increase the impact of humanitarian efforts, since at
the present time the value of assistance will be limited
by the fact that the soldiers will in short time take
possession of much of it.

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Comment
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22. (U) MONUC essentially has no military presence in
Katanga, and therefore has little to offer immediately to
help address the security situation. A new MONUC Benin
battalion reportedly may be deployed to the area, but its
arrival in the DRC has been delayed, and the date of such
a deployment is at best open to question. In mid 2005,
when the problem of the behavior of the 63rd63rd FARDC
brigade was first brought to the attention of the
Humanitarian Advocacy Group (HAG) in Kinshasa, the group
asked the head of OCHA to meet with military chiefs in
Kinshasa to request that the 63rd63rd brigade be rotated
elsewhere. OCHA received assurances at the time that this
was indeed planned and would soon occur. The 63rd is a
non-integrated unit, and the Governor in Katanga province
issued an order to the 6th6th dDistrict rRegional
mMilitary cCommander to rotate the 63rd63rd into so-called
brassage immediately, which would mean their transfer to
Kamina. The Governor, however, does not have command
authority over FARDC forces. In any event, the regional
military commander has just been ordered replaced, and it
likely will be necessary to revisit this issue with his
successor on an urgent basis. As it has not happened,

KINSHASA 00000446 005 OF 005


humanitarians need to urgently pursue the matter again.
The HAG, might, for instance, ask that the UN Humanitarian
coordinator bring the issue to the attention of the group
of foreign ambassadors which meets regularly with the
highest level government authorities. While the 63rd
brigade appears to be a particular problem given its long
stay in the area, the broader problem of a lack of pay and
support to FARDC troops generally leads to predatory
behavior by troops on nearby civilians. Thus a new FARDC
unit might will improve the local situation at least
temporarily, but does not provide a definitive solution.
That will come through a combination of neutralizing the
threatening Mai Mai forces, and the longer-term project to
integrate FARDC forces and the EUSEC comprehensive program
of reforms to ensure at least minimally adequate pay and
living conditions to deployed troops. End comment.
MEECE