of Cows and men
Sipping Indian sweet tea in a Khaki tent with a Major from a Kumaoni Mechanised Regiment of the Indian army in the foothills of Masisi. The major is enthusing about the rain, and the climate, and the Bollywood picturesque quality of the undulating pasturelands that encompass his little army base.
Driving the 48 kilometres from Goma to Osso farm, it’s evident that people are on the move. The IDP camps on the tarmac beside Lake Kivu have all but vanished, if the government are to believed, their residents have returned to till their land in tranquillity and prosperity. The villages along the road glitter metallic and plasticy white: signs that the returning IDPs (or ‘returnees’) have already received building materials to help them reconstruct their homes. In the town of Mushake, the azure banner gashed with a red sinister flash flutters, a stark contrast to the louring grey rain clouds of the rainy season sky above the settlement, reassuring the passers by that we are in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Timid signs of peace and reconstruction have been tangible in this part of DRC for the past few months, but it’s the subtle differences in the last few weeks that make me worry about how this peace is really going to play out. Until now, the internally displaced, mostly cultivators have moved home to start planting their crops - camp closures coincided neatly with the beginning of the bean sewing season.
One such community moved back to their village in April but were told they couldn’t return because their land had been sold to a Rwandan businessman based in Goma who needed the land for grazing. Instead, they now inhabit a slope on the roadside owned by the same business man where they work for him as tenant farmers. The Irishman in me can’t help but compare these people to the landless tenant farmers of Sligo and Leitrim in the days leading to the 1849 potato famine.
But today, the most startling difference is the cows. Pedigree Guernsey, Charolaise and Swiss breeds: everywhere. The Indian Major beside me informs me that they are very healthy dairy cows, and that five litres of milk are available in the village for less than a dollar. To informed observers, the cows represent a significant ethnic and cultural change in the territory, and a way of life that is synonymous with a minority pastoralist group in the great lakes region. These cows were just not in these hills a matter of weeks ago, and on discussing them with the local communities, its clear that they came from far beyond the borders of the DRC. Last week we learned that 320 families in Kirolirwe were told to quit the land where they were seeking refuge as IDPs to make room for Congolese refugees returning from Rwanda and their cattle. Unsubstantiated reports from other areas in Masisi talk of ten thousand new armed returnees ordering people off the land in Lukopfu.
The astonishing increase in the number of cattle in Masisi for me represents the biggest challenge to any hope for peaceful transition in the area. Until the legitimacy of claims by pastoralists to the lush pastures of Masisi is squared against the rights of the indigenous cultivators, peace will elude us.
An Indian MONUC patrol rolls back into the camp, the detachment alight from the vehicle and line up to attention, standing in formation they raise their assault rifles skyward and free their magazines with a unified clack, my colleagues jump nervously a few inches into the air. The heard of cows on the hillside above swish their tales.
Driving the 48 kilometres from Goma to Osso farm, it’s evident that people are on the move. The IDP camps on the tarmac beside Lake Kivu have all but vanished, if the government are to believed, their residents have returned to till their land in tranquillity and prosperity. The villages along the road glitter metallic and plasticy white: signs that the returning IDPs (or ‘returnees’) have already received building materials to help them reconstruct their homes. In the town of Mushake, the azure banner gashed with a red sinister flash flutters, a stark contrast to the louring grey rain clouds of the rainy season sky above the settlement, reassuring the passers by that we are in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Timid signs of peace and reconstruction have been tangible in this part of DRC for the past few months, but it’s the subtle differences in the last few weeks that make me worry about how this peace is really going to play out. Until now, the internally displaced, mostly cultivators have moved home to start planting their crops - camp closures coincided neatly with the beginning of the bean sewing season.
One such community moved back to their village in April but were told they couldn’t return because their land had been sold to a Rwandan businessman based in Goma who needed the land for grazing. Instead, they now inhabit a slope on the roadside owned by the same business man where they work for him as tenant farmers. The Irishman in me can’t help but compare these people to the landless tenant farmers of Sligo and Leitrim in the days leading to the 1849 potato famine.
But today, the most startling difference is the cows. Pedigree Guernsey, Charolaise and Swiss breeds: everywhere. The Indian Major beside me informs me that they are very healthy dairy cows, and that five litres of milk are available in the village for less than a dollar. To informed observers, the cows represent a significant ethnic and cultural change in the territory, and a way of life that is synonymous with a minority pastoralist group in the great lakes region. These cows were just not in these hills a matter of weeks ago, and on discussing them with the local communities, its clear that they came from far beyond the borders of the DRC. Last week we learned that 320 families in Kirolirwe were told to quit the land where they were seeking refuge as IDPs to make room for Congolese refugees returning from Rwanda and their cattle. Unsubstantiated reports from other areas in Masisi talk of ten thousand new armed returnees ordering people off the land in Lukopfu.
The astonishing increase in the number of cattle in Masisi for me represents the biggest challenge to any hope for peaceful transition in the area. Until the legitimacy of claims by pastoralists to the lush pastures of Masisi is squared against the rights of the indigenous cultivators, peace will elude us.
An Indian MONUC patrol rolls back into the camp, the detachment alight from the vehicle and line up to attention, standing in formation they raise their assault rifles skyward and free their magazines with a unified clack, my colleagues jump nervously a few inches into the air. The heard of cows on the hillside above swish their tales.
posted by Gabriello Princip at 11:30 AM
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