Stephen Lewis, Eve Ensler, and Dr. Denis Mukwege: Ending Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

By Stephen Lewis
November 28, 2008

Remarks by Stephen Lewis at the event Ending Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, featuring Eve Ensler and Dr. Denis Mukwege, Convocation Hall, University of Toronto.

I’m in such a rage about the subject matter for tonight, that I didn’t trust my self-discipline to regulate the time available to me. I therefore sat down this afternoon and wrote the following remarks:

On October 1st, 2000, the Security Council passed the famous, or perhaps infamous, Resolution 1325, requiring women to be involved in all peace negotiations and peacekeeping agreements resulting from conflicts. Not a single woman, representing the raped women of the Congo, has been represented at any of the so-called peace negotiations of the last decade. Indeed, there have been no women of authority at the peace talks at any time. In fact, although this surpasses belief, Resolution 1325, wildly celebrated at the time, has never been invoked in any international dispute. The Security Council does absolutely nothing about so shameless a violation of its edicts.

In September of 2005, at the United Nations, a High-Level Summit of Presidents and Heads of State unanimously embraced the principle of Responsibility to Protect. In a nutshell, the principle simply says that where a government is unable or unwilling to protect its citizens from egregious violations of human rights, the international community has the right to intervene. That right can be political, diplomatic, economic or military. The two obvious points of intervention were Darfur and the Congo. From that day to this the Responsibility to Protect has never been exercised.

There is a particularly bitter irony here. It was Canada that emerged as the primary author of the principle. Our voice is criminally silent.

In December of 2007, the mandate of the 17,000-strong UN peacekeeping force for the Congo, known as MONUC, was renewed by the Security Council. The reauthorizing resolution explicitly required the forces to protect the women from sexual violence. The forces have explicitly failed to protect the women from sexual violence. The Security Council does nothing.

In January, 2008, there was an ostensible peace agreement signed amongst all of the warring parties in the Congo. Incredibly enough, it contained an amnesty provision, sufficiently ambiguous to exonerate the rapists. As it happens, the peace agreement fell apart, but it is sobering to realize that in the presence of the United Nations, the despicable principle of impunity was embraced.

As the fighting and the raping escalated, the UN Security Council allegedly ratcheted up its levels of concern. On June 19th, 2008, resolution 1820 passed. The resolution asserted — in the strongest language ever used by the Security Council – that sexual violence (and by that they meant sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo) had become a threat to international peace and security. It was unprecedented. What was not at all unprecedented was the fact that absolutely nothing has happened from that day to this... now more than five months later.