Open Writing

Humanitarian conditions in the DRC are appalling.

Approximately 17 million people – almost a third of the country’s population of about 53 million – are in need of urgent food aid, while around 2.5 million people are displaced within the country. Relief workers have been harassed with physical threats and their assets looted.

Human rights? Non-existent. There is a culture of impunity, stemming from the state of almost total lawlessness existing in the entire country. There is no army or police force that can be respected and trusted to carry out their functions. In fact these are the very people who perpetrate most of the crime, sexual violence and unspeakable acts against women, spread HIV/AIDS, recruit child soldiers into their vicious circle of crime and violence and literally get away with murder. Many of the rape victims who endure this torture and survive don’t even report it, out of fear of rejection by their communities and of reprisals, so they suffer on every count.

Corruption is woven into the fabric of daily life here. Reporters exposing it are particularly at risk. The recent arrest of one of the warlords who reigned in the east of the country was a breakthrough. Thomas Lubanga was transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for trial, accused of war crimes and human rights violations.

One cannot even begin to imagine the deplorable state of prisons and other detention centres in the DRC. People are reported to be detained for long periods without due process and treated in a degrading and inhumane manner.

Here are a few stark facts about the country:

* Over 4 million people have died in the DRC over the past six years, killed by violence, disease and malnutrition.

* Over 1,200 people die from conflict-related causes in DRC each day, equivalent to an Asian tsunami every 6 months.

* The life expectancy rate for men is 42 years, for women 44 years.

* A large part of the population lives on 20-50 US cents a day.

* Only half of Congolese children go to school.

My ticket out of here coincided exactly with the day the election results were going to be announced – the night of 20 August to 21 August (Sunday to Monday). Great timing! On the UN bus to the airport a colleague told me, “I heard they are expecting so much trouble that the airport has been closed as of 1 am this morning! Kabila got 45%, Bemba 20%.”

I was sitting on the edge of my seat all the way to the airport, praying that there would be no eruptions until my plane had left the ground. I left for Johannesburg that morning with no problem. It was that night that things started to unravel. The clashes began then between forces loyal to Kabila and Bemba, where five people died, leading to three days of gun battles on the streets of Kinshasa, President Kabila's presidential guards supposedly having opened fire on Bemba’s house using tanks and heavy machine guns and destroyed his personal helicopter.

I followed the news on the internet until the situation calmed down and then turned my attention to other more pleasing pursuits.

Neither of the other two main opposition parties came anywhere close. The deal was that if there was no candidate with more than 50%, there would be a run-off election between the two highest scorers in October. We’re now gearing up for this decisive event, scheduled for 29 October. Our Administration has already issued a directive to all staff who are flouting the non-family designation of the Mission to immediately dispatch all dependents (spouses and children). They don’t want to be caught off-guard as they were in 2004, when wives and children had to be hastily dispatched out of the country using UN aircraft and boats.