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Project gives hope to Congo's ex-fighters

06 Jun 2002
By Nicholas Shaxson

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The first ceremonial public burning of weapons takes place under reintegration programme.
Photo: United Nations

BRAZZAVILLE (AlertNet) - Nodding cheerfully to the sounds of Brazzaville's own pop stars Extra Musica, Artur Bengue spoke with real pride as he showed off his fast-growing Hotel Cassis.

Joining three former comrades-in-arms with seed money from a U.N.-backed reintegration project, the former Cobra militia fighter started with just a fridge in 2000.

He opened a bar and then the hotel, which now boasts four spartan rooms with electric fans and tidy beds. His fast-growing business now turns over more 1 million CFA francs ($1,400) per month.

"If they call me back to fight I can't do it any more," said Artur, standing under a gaudy portrait of his leader Denis Sassou Nguesso, Congo's president who seized power with the help of the Cobras in 1997. "Business is too good."

Partly because of the unusual nature of Congo's past wars, and some innovative ideas, the reintegration programme that has helped Artur -- originally targeting 15,000 ex-combatants with $8m for 30 months from July 2000 -- has shown some startling successes.

Maximo Halty is head of mission in Brazzaville for the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) overseeing the programme in partnership with the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP). He said an astonishing 75 percent of the reintegration projects were still working at the last evaluation late last year. A fresh evaluation is under way now.

But the programme, which has arguably made a real political difference in Congo, is in limbo because donor funds petered out after just $3 million was spent.

Some "Ninja" ex-combatants who were not accepted into the programme because of a lack of funds have been involved in two months of low-level fighting in the volatile Pool region. The fighting has eased in the past week, and the U.N. has started to gain some humanitarian access to perhaps 50,000 displaced people.

"If they call me back to fight I can't do it any more ... business is too good"

The fighting in Pool, involving Ninjas loyal to a mystical-military leader known as Pasteur Ntoumi, has not spread to other parts of Congo such as Brazzaville, where many Ninjas and Cocoye fighters formerly loyal to two now-exiled leaders, Bernard Kolelas and Pascal Lissouba, disarmed under the programme.

Many Cobras are now in Sassou's armed forces, though some, like Artur, disarmed and are now businessmen with mobile phones and big smiles.

"We fought together here in Ouendze," he said, referring to the suburb in Brazzaville where he fought with his Cobra comrades who helped Sassou become president in 1997. "Here it was mostly shell fire. Now we are building the place up."

KEY CONCEPTS
Halty described some key concepts in the success of the projects, which were financed with $350 per person in instalments.

"This cannot just be a make-work programme," he said. "The idea is to set up obstacles for the fighting to start up again -- to make them stakeholders in the peace process."

An innovation was not to have arms buy-backs -- that would liven up a black market in arms, he said. "The way wars have evolved here, buying weapons isn't an obstacle," he said.

"The trick was that anyone who hands in a weapon gets priority access to the programme," Halty said.

"It is like opening a bidding process. If somebody comes in with more guns, they go to the front of the queue. This way, you don't tie the money to the gun."

Another crucial innovation, he said, was conceptual. "There is a legitimate complaint: why do we give priority to the guys who destroyed everything, instead of to the victims? This is perhaps simplistic, but there is a clear point of justice."

"The key criterion is risk to civilians. This is the heart of the programme"

He said the only adequate answer was that this should never be a reward programme. "We must work with ex-combatants for civilians. This may seem like just words, but it fundamentally changes some decisions."

For example, he said, if an ex-combatant had lost his right arm in the fighting, he would no longer be considered a risk. "Our attitude was: if you can't shoot, get lost. Go and find another programme that helps mutilated people."

Or, for example, a combatant who previously had a job and returned to work, would be rejected. "They don't have a right to come here and get help. The key criterion is risk to civilians. This is the heart of the programme."

Congo was helped by the fact that previous fighting in the oil-rich country was driven more by competition for access to resources than by hatred.

"Few people are driven by hate, so the number of people involved in the wars is relatively small," said Bill Paton, U.N. coordinator in Brazzaville, adding that Congo's oil meant more money sloshing about in the economy. "We feel we have been able to create opportunities relatively easily here."

"With another $3 million to $4 million in early 2001, I doubt very much this would have occurred," said Paton, referring to the latest fighting in Pool.

7,500 FIGHTERS DEMOBILISED
Halty said 7,500 fighters had been demobilised with 11,000 weapons, in 2,300 projects, with perhaps 8,000-10,000 fighters still needing demobilisation.

U.N. officials and diplomats had different explanations for poor donor funding.

Part of the problem is that this country of under three million people is often overlooked by donors who focus more closely on its larger and arguably more turbulent neighbour, the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose capital Kinshasa lies just across the Congo River from Brazzaville.

In August 2001, during the programme, the Congolese government got money for another reintegration project from the World Bank, which has its own Great Lakes Regional Strategy for Demobilisation and Reintegration.

So far, only a portion of the World Bank's original $5 million earmarked has been paid to Congo, although there are no signs the money has been well spent.

After the World Bank money appeared, little fresh funding came through for the UNDP/IOM programme for some time, although the IOM now expects another 750,000 euros ($700,000) from the European Union and hopes for a further $500,000 from the Congolese government. Sweden recently paid $450,000.

Halty said more was needed, however, properly to relaunch the programme, which cannot accept the thousands of weapons already offered by still-to-be-demobilised fighters, unless all the funds were available.

"If we accept weapons, there is an engagement to re-integrate. As soon as the money is finished, you close the door to arms collection.

"We cannot risk calling just some people and saying that we are ready -- we could not cope with the wave of people that would hit us."

He described scenes during the earlier demobilisation of throngs of nervous men from all three militias, bringing explosives and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) to his offices in taxis, then noisily congregating together near the offices.

"We could have 500 guys banging on our doors with AK47s and RPGs."

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