Interviews – en

The following is an interview with Eric Kajemba, founder and director of Observatoire Gouvernance et Paix (OGP), a civil society NGO based in Bukavu. Eric's work is focused on improving the accountability of government institutions and has worked extensively on the minerals trade.

Goma, 30 May 2011 – The Disarmament, Demobilization, Repatriation, Reintegration, and Resettlement (DDR/RR) Section of MONUSCO is responsible for repatriating all foreign combatants in the DRC and assisting the government in demobilizing the Congolese combatants. The following is an exclusive interview with DDR/RR Director Gregory Alex.

by James Marsh,

One of the most exciting discoveries of the year, the slick, violent and seriously sexy crime flick from Congo, VIVA RIVA! is coming to the US. The film scooped six prizes at the 2010 African Academy Awards, including Best Film and Best Director and opens in New York and Los Angeles on June 10, before spreading out to selected cities across the country in the following weeks. I guarantee it will blow apart any preconceptions you may have of African fimmaking. Through the powers of the interwebs, last week I was able to chat with writer-director Djo Tunda Wa Munga about being an adolescent film fan in war-torn Zaire, how he was able to produce Congo's first feature film in 20 years, and his future plans to make the ultimate Africa/Asia gangster epic!

Ferdinand Kalenga has just retired after working for 14 years at the International Committee of the Red Cross. Fresh from his work restoring contact between family members separated by the conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Fernand agreed to share his memories with Espérance Tshibuabua, an ICRC employee in Kinshasa.

Kisangani (Agenzia Fides) – "I'm ready to take up the pilgrim's stick as defender and herald of peace," Archbishop Marcel Utempi Tapa, Archbishop of Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said in an interview with Fides.
Kisangani has an important role for peace in the DRC and the Great Lakes Region, because it was there that a training center for the Congolese Army was created with the help of the American Army (the training materials teach compliance with the laws of war and human rights) and it was where the first conference of religious leaders of the four countries affected by the violence of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) was held.
Archbishop Utempi Tapa expressed some considerations on the security situation in the region.

High numbers of children continue to be used as soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo despite a law passed last year in the DRC forbidding the recruitment of children. IRIN Radio's reporter Amy Lieberman spoke to the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy and asked her first to explain what's happening in eastern DRC.

Below is an interview I conducted with Kris Berwouts, the director of the Belgium-based European Network for Central Africa (EurAc), a network of 46 non-governmental organizations that work on Central Africa. Kris has been working on the region since the 1980s and just came back from a research and advocacy trip to Kinshasa and the Kivus.

Background: I met Mugisho when I joined The Safe World Support Centre. Mugisho is the Team Leader of the DR Congo Project, and I became one of his volunteers. As I had more correspondence with Mugisho, I learned that he is also starting a new project called Congolese Females Action For Promoting Their Rights (COFAPRI). Part of the text of Mugisho’s plan reads as follows:

About Nancy Lindborg

Nancy Lindborg is president of Mercy Corps, an international relief and development organization.

Before joining Mercy Corps in 1996, Lindborg managed economic development programs as a regional director in post-Soviet central Asia. She also worked in the private sector as a public policy consultant in Chicago and San Francisco.

Based in Washington, D.C., Lindborg is co-president on the board of directors for the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign. She is co-chair of the National Committee on North Korea, where she tries to advance engagement between the U.S. and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Lindborg is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and she was previously on the USAID Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid.

Lindborg previously served on the Sphere Management Committee, an international initiative to improve the effectiveness and accountability of nongovernmental organizations, and she also chaired that committee. Lindborg previously served as co-chair of the InterAction Disaster Response Committee.

Lindborg has bachelor's and master's degrees in English literature from Stanford University and a master's degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

As on the momentous occasion of the third anniversary of President Kabila's inauguration, I interviewed Guillaume Lacaille from the International Crisis Group about the direction the government is taking. Guillaume was recently in Kinshasa to take a closer look at the electoral process – it isn't looking very good.