KINSHASA – A former rebel commander integrated as a colonel into the Congolese army has been arrested in connection with the rape of dozens of women in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on New Year’s Day, the United Nations has reported.
The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Aid also reported yesterday that numbers coming forward to report being raped has risen to 50, from 13 a week ago. That figure could rise as more survivors emerge from the bush into which they fled.
Lieut Col Kibibi Mutware has been identified by some victims and witnesses as the commander of the punitive mass rape against residents of Fizi town. Seven other soldiers were also arrested.
The incident started after one of his soldiers was killed in a dispute over a woman, according to the UN. The area has long been a hotbed of rivalry between the majority Babembe people and so-called Banyamulenge of Rwandan origin or Congolese belonging to the Tutsi tribe.
The soldiers’ involvement is the latest outrage in the Central African nation’s epidemic of rape, which has become a weapon of war used to break down family and community structures. Such attacks also drive residents from areas that fighters – in the army and from the many rebel groups operating in the east – want to use for mining, which provides income and fuels the conflict.
Lieut Col Mutware was identified as a former commander in the Tutsi-led CNDP rebel movement that swept across large parts of the eastern part of the country at the end of 2008 until a peace pact was signed in January 2009.
The rebels were integrated into a national army that has become a conglomeration of numerous rebel groups and militias along with mutinous soldiers. The troubled state endured back-to-back civil and regional wars that erupted in the aftermath of neighbouring Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and ended in 2002. – (AP)