DRC-RWANDA: Putting the past behind them – former child soldiers prepare to go home

KIGALI, 12 November 2007 (IRIN) - Nine years after Burasa Kuzungu was forced to join the Forces Démocratiques de la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) and become a child soldier, he managed to elude his captors and escape into the forest.

“I crawled along the ground like an animal,” Kuzunga, now 18, said. “I used night as a shield and the tactics the FDLR taught me to get away from them.”

He finally made it to the Goma offices of the UN Mission in Congo, MONUC, and was repatriated to his homeland Rwanda, where he was taken to the government-run Muhazi demobilisation centre near the capital Kigali.

UN estimates say tens of thousands of children have been abducted and forcibly recruited into various armed groups in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Many were Rwandans whose parents fled to Congo after the 1994 slaughter of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu militias.

At the Muhazi centre, former child soldiers are encouraged to talk about their time with the rebel groups and coached to behave like other children their age.

“When they are with the armed groups in the forest, they are brutal, they are aggressive,” Ally Mugema, a social worker at Muhazi told IRIN. “After a long period in this kind of environment, they have become conditioned and cannot go back into the community behaving that way.”

Rehabilitation

Muhazi was set up by the Rwanda Demobilisation and Reintegration Commission (RDRC) to manage and implement the government’s programme for ex-combatants.

The RDRC aims “to ensure that all the demobilised ex-combatants are socially and economically reintegrated successfully into their communities”. The commission aims to provide extensive reintegration assistance in the form of formal education, income-generating activities or vocational training.

Most of the boys at Muhazi spend about three months at the centre while the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) searches for their families.

They are taught to read and write, and receive lessons in personal hygiene such as brushing their teeth and washing their own clothes. Those who are severely traumatised undergo extensive counselling.

A 2006 Save the Children report says that many child soldiers are coerced into "volunteering", forced to commit atrocities as military training before being deployed on the front lines. When they escape or are released, they may be rejected by society, refused access to school, and find it impossible to re-enter 'normal' life.

Save the Children protection advisor Johanna MacVeigh said: "Being recruited by armed forces has a devastating effect on children's lives. They are immersed in violence, are subject to terrible abuse and are forced to forfeit love, play, education and hope.”

Psychologists say former child soldiers can suffer from a number of mental health problems, most prominently post-traumatic stress disorder, which develops after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal.

Adjustment problems

Difficulties resulting from the sudden change from civilian life to that of a soldier and then back again sometimes cause "adjustment disorder". Meanwhile, personality disorders, eating disorders and depression are also identified as common after-effects among children who have served as combatants.

While many of the children display a remarkable resilience, counsellors at Muhazi said one of the biggest challenges was undoing the indoctrination of prejudice.

Boys who have escaped the FDLR, a Hutu militia which has links to the perpetrators of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, told IRIN that propaganda sessions with their former captors were commonplace.

“I was told that there are Hutus and there are Tutsis and that the Tutsis were different. They had a longer nose, and Hutus had a flatter nose. It made no sense though,” Kazungu said.

In the run-up to the genocide, there was a media campaign to dehumanise Tutsis, who were described as “cockroaches” in government-controlled radio and news broadcasts.

Many of the Muhazi boys said they eventually lost faith in the ideologies being taught and saw through the “lies”.

“They told me that if I came back to Rwanda, I would be killed,” 17-year-old Harinda Kamari said. “I finally said if they are going to kill me, let them kill me; and I came home.”

But for younger boys in particular, recruitment into armed groups often offers an opportunity to flee from domestic problems.

Nine-year-old Tushimi Emmanuel said an FDLR lieutenant rescued him from the home of an abusive guardian, a woman who once pushed him into a fire. Emmanuel, who has the scars from severe burns along the length of his left arm, says he lived in the lieutenant’s home and was cared for by the man’s wife.

Despite his gratitude at escaping the abuse, the boy soon tired of the FDLR’s activities. “I was watching the FDLR beating people up, harassing people all the time,” he said. “I told the second lieutenant that I wanted to leave. I was of no use to them. They took me to a civilian man outside the village. I told that man that I wanted to go home to Rwanda. He handed me over to MONUC and I was brought here.”

Thirteen-year-old Habimana joined the Mayi Mayi after his father died. He had no place to go and was often beaten as he wandered the streets. The militia provided him with security.

The Mayi Mayi was initially a civilian defence force formed to protect Congolese communities from Rwandan invaders tracking down genocide fugitives. It splintered into fierce militias and has been widely accused of raping, looting and banditry.

Habimana served as the armed guard to a captain until he was shot in the arm in October by bandits.

The Mayi Mayi brought him to a hospital in Goma where doctors turned him over to the ICRC.

Habimana had been at Muhazi for less than a week. He spent much of his time alone, looking out at the lake and avoiding the company of other boys.

Counsellors and former child soldiers say it may be a slow process for Habimana to adjust to his new life.

But, they say, things will certainly improve.

“The life here is very different from the life in Congo,” Kuzungu said. “We no longer hear the sound of guns. We are free.”

Campaign to Improve Customer Care Starts

I was really happy to read this - this truly is a problem and I'm glad it has been acknowledged and some action is being taken.


The New Times (Kigali)
NEWS
6 November 2007
Posted to the web 6 November 2007

By Mansur Kakimba
Kigali

"The land of a thousand hills and a million smiles" is what Rwanda is commonly called-referring to its unique hilly terrain and friendly populace. Unfortunately, the "million smiles" is not adequately reflected in businesses.

Everybody; be it visitors to Rwanda or natives themselves admit there is still big room for improvement in as far as customer service is concerned.

Rwanda aims at being a service-based economy putting emphasis on providing high-end products and services copying Singapore and South Korea as economic growth models. But if no serious action is taken against poor customer service among both public and private institutions in Rwanda, this dream may never come true. The funny bit is everybody talks ill about it-including those that fall short on good customer service-meaning it is disgusting to everyone in society.

You'll hear all sorts of narrations about how Rwandans are poor at customer service.

Stories like how businessmen open and close at hours that please them (other than their esteemed customers); how businessmen fall short on selling etiquettes among many others. Enhancing good and competitive customer service will involve changing peoples' cultural values and attitudes to modern times; something that needs to be done over a long period of time.

The Private Sector Federation (PSF)-Rwanda, the umbrella organisation of all private businesses in Rwanda, intends to start a long-term customer care campaign. It has taken the issue so serious to an extent that it has hired a consultancy to work with its member service and communication department to develop a PSF customer care campaign strategy.

The PSF invited partner institutions; Rwanda Investment and Export Promotion Agency, CEDP/World Bank and Kigali City Council to a preliminary presentation of the campaign. The meeting was well attended by PSF directors of departments and chambers, and top leadership including; Robert Bayigamba the federation chairman, Faustin Mbundu the vice chairman and Emmanuel Hategeka, the Secretary General.

The consultant carried out a research in which it was concluded that there are very poor levels of customer care in Rwanda that is attributed to lack of awareness of its importance. Diagnosing the problem, the consultant said it is everywhere; in all sectors (public and private), at all levels (managerial, employees and employers). The major cause of poor customer care in Rwanda, according to the consultant is negative attitude towards work.

The SWOT analysis however indicates that Rwanda being a nation with one nation with one culture; young and competitive population; eager to learn and responsive will perhaps make it easy to change people's attitude towards work.

The research however further indicates that the large rural population and weak professional base pose great challenge to the campaign. In his remarks, the federation SG said the campaign will be long-term-"two years or even more". He said the campaign would be rolled-out in three phases: diagnosing the problem; encouraging good customer care (Go Extra Mile for Customer-GEMC campaign); and encouraging service excellence. He said the whole campaign would take about two years. That it (campaign) will be a nationwide campaign, popularised through selected channels of media -including; TV, radio, print media and outdoor publicity to reach out to all people of Rwanda.

He assured that the campaign would be launched before the end of this year and would be communicated in Kinyarwanda, English and French. On his part, the chairman of PSF Bayigamba proposed to the consultant that: 'in all forms of communication, he should illustrate to public both sides-poor customer service and what people should do. He also proposed that companies should be encouraged to capture good customer care in their corporate strategies, visions and missions.

Mbundu asked the consultant to devise an evaluation mechanism to assess progress over time. "We intend to select a test group of ten businesses to study how good customer care impact on their sales over time during the campaign," PSF SG responded.

Rosemary Mbabazi who represented Riepa pledged partnership in the campaign, saying: "private sector members are our (Rieapa) clients as well". She suggested that training should be emphasised, "not only to businessmen but also to institutions of higher leaning". "The airport is the gateway to Rwanda. All businesses that relate to the airport should be sensitised on customer care", she further proposed.

As the federation motto states: "Beyond Advocacy", the SG finally said: "We are looking at enhancing competitiveness of businesses in Rwanda besides advocating for their interests. He said a comprehensive campaign with a detailed budget and concrete strategy would soon be presented to PSF Board for endorsing.

"We also intend to bring other partners on board in terms of financial support," he hinted.

RWANDA: Bridging the digital divide to reduce the dependence on aid

Hi all,

This is an article about the 'Connect Africa' conference that took place in Kigali last week. Donors, and investors have pledged billions of dollars to help boost Africa's ICT sector and increase the continent's connectivity. This is a step in the right direction for Africa - it is a highly unconnected continent - and for Rwanda which plans to be a knowledge-based middle-class economy by the year 2020.

Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN

The use of mobile phones has exploded across Africa

KIGALI, 2 November 2007 (IRIN) - More than US$50 billion of largely private sector investment has been pledged to develop Africa’s burgeoning information and communication technology (ICT) sector at a summit attended by African heads of state and more than 1,000 representatives from the industry.

This growth will help the continent achieve its ICT UN Millennium Development Goals three years before the target date 2015, the Secretary-General of the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Hamadoun Touré, said at the two-day Connect Africa conference in Kigali, which opened on 29 October.

The summit, which swelled from the 500 participants expected by organisers to more than 1,000 investors, and included African leaders and communications ministers, looked at ways of replacing aid with economic development through the growth of ICT.

"For the past 50 years of African independence we have been talking about help, assistance, and we did not go anywhere with that," said Touré. "We are well aware of one thing. No one will get rich from handouts and charity. That is why we are here: we are saying we mean business."

Delegates at the conference lauded the continent’s rapid growth in certain areas of the ICT sector and the investor confidence this has brought.

Africa has experienced inconsistent growth in internet capacity, but the use of mobile phones has exploded across the continent, providing an invaluable social and business tool for hundreds of millions of people.

According to ITU, there were just 16 million subscribers in 2000, but this figure had risen to 136 million by 2005.

The GSM Association, which represents 70 mobile service providers encompassing three billion subscribers worldwide, said its members would double the amount of investment in sub-Saharan Africa to US$50 billion over the next five years to extend coverage to 90 percent of the population.

Community mobile connections

"The mobile industry sees Africa as a major area for development in the next five to 10 years," Tom Phillips, GSM’s chief government and regulatory affairs officer told IRIN.

Phillips said the focus of investors would not be confined to Africa’s upper and middle classes, but extended to remote villages with agriculture-based economies.

The mobile industry sees Africa as a major area for development in the next five to 10 years

"What we’re doing is developing programmes for shared village phone services where up to 500 people can have access to the same phone and have their own voicemail box and get connected with their family, get connected with business," Phillips said.

"Ultimately, it creates the employment, the economic growth and development that will bring that basic infrastructure of electricity and roads to people."

During the summit, industry leaders expressed confidence that Africa could soon boast world-class communications capabilities.

"We are not going to bridge the digital divide," Anthony Von See, the
Vice President of Cisco Systems told IRIN. "We are going to leapfrog over it."

Cisco has set up networking academies across Africa to train men and women to work in the sector. Von See said development across the continent has been paralysed by a lack of trained professionals and the so-called ‘brain-drain’.

Africa – a new customer base

Companies stressed that their efforts should not be viewed as charity, but as aggressive attempts to open up new markets across Africa.

"We have seen time and again that once those fundamental investments are made, there’s a whole series of new customers that are potentially developed," said Michael Rawdings, vice president of Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential group, which, among other things, works to develop technologies and software for youth in impoverished villages in Africa and Asia.

Delegates warned that the biggest challenge was a perception among investors that African nations are plagued by insecurity and corruption.

However, the summit’s organisers, including the ITU, the World Bank and the African Union, said they viewed the sheer numbers of participants at the event as a sign that Africa had at last drawn genuine interest from investors.

"Africa," said ITU’s Touré at the conclusion of the summit, "is open for business."