Posted on June 9, 2008

Children, the forgotten and invisible victims of wars!  Parents in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to go through the pain of seeing their children abducted by armed forces and have no one to turn to.  In 1996, when the Rwandan, Ugandan, and Burundian armies invaded the D.R. Congo, they forcefully took children hostage and put them on the frontline to help them take over the county.   These innocent human beings, to carry out the mission of their captors, they were transformed into beasts by taking all that is humane and turning them into real killing machines.    The time to release all the children who are still fighting in the ranks of different rebel groups in eastern D. R. Congo is past due.      Until every single one who still alive is back home, we will continue asking their release.  

Below is a speech by Murhabazi Namegabe at Congo Global action Coalition conference held in Washington DC from March 30-31^st, 2008 at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.   Murhabazi is the director of the Bureau pour le Volontariat au Service de l’Enfance et de la Sante (BVES) which promotes awareness and protection of children who are victims of conflict, economic marginalization, etc

I would like to start this speech by thanking Congo Global Action and the honorable Holocaust Memorial Museum for posing, for the first time, the question of the Congolese genocide of about 5 millions persons, in front of this assembly. I would also say that several windows of hope have been opened, with the support of the international community and the participation of the people, but especially, since 2006, with the process of pacification, reunification and democratization in our country, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Because of this fundamental progress, I declare out loud that the Democratic Republic of Congo should be on the international list of successful nations rather than failing ones!

I am coming now to what happened, for the children of Congo since the wars in 1996.  All the forces and all the armed groups have extensively used children (boys and girls) as soldiers or combatants or even as sexual slaves. In 2004, the forces and armed groups declared, in Kinshasa, that they have used more than 30,000 children for the war (including 40% girls)!  These shameful statistics unfortunately did not include the children who died on the battlefield, or the thousands of soldier children or sexual slaves held by foreign armed groups (Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi) currently active in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

After the difficult enforcement of the National Program of Disarming, Demobilization and Reinsertion (NPDDR) of the combatants, one cannot but notice that about 33,000 children have, these last ten years, been demobilized and sent back in their villages, which unfortunately have become very poor because of the different actions of the armed groups.  Despite the very encouraging results, we regret that armed groups in Ituri and in the Kivus (East of the Democratic Republic of Congo) currently continue to use more than 4,800 children (boys and girls) as combatants or sexual slaves, without counting the “children soldier” of the foreign armed groups in that part of the Congolese territory.  There are child soldiers and sexual slavery of the latter, and even more crimes against the children, because there has been the war, and it still continues.  To stop permanently the war is to stop the child soldier phenomenon - to end the presence of war orphans found on the streets and accused of witchcraft and the gradual genocide against the children in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

If we want to end the current or prevent future genocides, we should start by providing a peaceful environment for the care of our children.  In the Democratic Republic of Congo we are optimistic that there is a way to get out this crisis.    We ask the International, Regional and National Community to:

1. Continue to support the process and continue to support the salutary process of democratization (I want to remind you again that the Democratic Republic of Congo should be on the list of the nations that are succeeding for and with its people).
2. Support the process of physical, psycho-social and economical rehabilitation especially for children.
3. Work sincerely to end and prevent these criminal actions consisting of taking the children from their families, their schools, their communities, using them as sexual slaves, obliging them fight a war they know nothing about and asking them to exterminate their own communities and even their families members. 
4. Make the basic education mandatory and free for the children in RC with special educational programs about human rights, to prevent crimes.
5. Fight against impunity vis-à-vis the war criminals, against humanity and genocide.

Once again, I want to thank all the friends of the Congolese people, those present and every one across the United States of America, and especially Congo Global Action for its action of solidarity to bring hope and peace in Democratic Republic of Congo.