So there I am, on my way to East Africa for the first time and starting my exploration the tough way: Eastern DRCongo no less.  Well to be perfectly honest I am spending the weekend in Nairobi with a friend before flying to Kigali, but after these two days in relative modernity, it will be all muddy tracks and conflict zone. Bizarrely, even though I have read and worked on DRC with Congolese journalists, I have no idea what to expect. Goma, the capital of North Kivu where I will be staying most of the time in order to set up the new IWPR radio programme, is a rather big city build at the foot of one of the most active volcanoes in Africa. You would think that people here would have enough with either the volcano or the civil war, but no, Goma artfully combines both. Last time the volcano exploded -that was in 2002- the entire city was evacuated and the centre destroyed. I am looking forward to lava rocks based architecture.  

Photo by Jos Verhoogen

Of course Goma is principally known for being the theater of some of the bloodiest massacres of the past two decades. On the shore of Lake Kivu, right at the border with Rwanda, Goma was the first post for the 2 million Hutus flying violent Tutsi reprisal following the 1994 genocide. Among them were Interahamwe militias, responsible for the genocide. The Interahamwe regrouped in the region, uniting with Congolese Hutus and, supported by Mobutu, attacked Congolese Tutsis who in turn took arm, backed by Rwanda and Uganda… Begin a decade of endless fighting, fueled by ethnic hatred, regional power politics and, of course, struggle for the possession of mineral resources. Brian Mealer in his book All Things Must Fight to Live describes attacks between militias in the centre of Goma, conjuring the images of an African Far West town where cannibalism and rape is just the norm.  

I have been working for several months already with some of the Congolese journalists who are going to be participating on the new Face à la Justice radio programme and I cannot wait to meet them in person. Esperance in particular, a sweet and outspoken woman who has delivered some of the most daring radio pieces for FaJ, has send me a very enthusiastic and adorable email. In fact, the reporters who applied to the job have all shown such enthusiasm, they would be a lesson to many cynical western journalists I know. They believe in the stuff, rightly or wrongly. Journalism for them can change society, perceptions, fight impunity and can bring peace to their region. And they don’t just say it. All of them are engaged in so many activities, journalistic or humanitarian, they pulverize the stereotypes that Africans are lazy. Maybe that has something to do with that “my” team is made of female journalists, something I am proud of and excited about. Goma having been recently named the world capital of rape by Margot Wallstrom, the UN’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict; it is significant that female journalists work on a justice and human rights radio programme. Charles, our presentator, is the only man on the programme and I intend to keep it that way. Giving voice to women in the Kivus is crucial, not only to solve the issue of sexual violence, but also to bring back peace and stability. A little bit of girl power can’t hurt anyway.