Kasika (village)

Kasika is a village located in the Luindi Chiefdom in the Mwenga Territory in the South Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kasika is 965 meters above sea level and is situated in the vicinity of Kihovu and Kahulile and approximately 108 kilometers from Bukavu, near the Rwandan border. The region is more than clusters of mud huts built around a Catholic parish on a hill overlooking a valley. It was the headquarters of the customary chief of the Nyindu ethnic community, whose house and office sat on a hill opposite the parish, a series of large, red-brick structures with cracked ceramic shingles as roofing, laced with vines.[1]

Kasika
Village
The view from part of the center of Kasika village in the Luindi Chiefdom, March 2023
The view from part of the center of Kasika village in the Luindi Chiefdom, March 2023
Country Democratic Republic of the Congo
ProvinceSouth Kivu
TerritoryMwenga Territory
ChiefdomLuindi Chiefdom
Time zoneUTC+2 (CAT)

Kasika is one of the most affluent areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with gold mining being a significant contributor to the village's economy.[2][3] Incidentally, artisanal gold mining and its trade in the region is the subject of numerous semi-legal and illegal smuggling.[4][5] As a result, much of the gold mined artisanally in Kasika is smuggled out of the countries, usually to Uganda, but also Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi, and from there, allegedly in Dubai.[6]

The region is well known throughout the Democratic Republic of Congo for the massacre that occurred in 1998 during the Second Congo War, where the Rally for Congolese Democracy, a Rwandan-backed armed group, committed a range of abuses against Congolese civilians, including “deliberate killings, arbitrary arrests, and detentions, disappearances, harassment of human rights defenders, abuses against women, and recruitment of child soldiers”.[7][8]

History
The royal tombs of the Kasika massacre, where Mwami François Mubeza III, the traditional leader of Kasika, was killed with the members of the royal court and more than 100 others by the RCD rebel group.

By the end of 1951, during the Belgian Congo colony, the Nyindu people, a Bantu-speaking ethnic group, were established in the Mwenga territory, which had limits with the Shi, the Bembe, and the Lega-Basimwenda.[9][10][11] The Nyindu people are related to the Bembe and the Lega; some were heavily mixed with hunting populations of unclear origin.[12] Kasika, a part of Lwindi Chiefdom in Mwenga territory, was the chiefdom of the Nyindu people; however, the region was overrun by innumerable shifts in population, groups of diverse origins coexisted in the same village: Nyindu, Lega, Bembe, and Shi, all of whose primary activity was based on agriculture, hunting, trading, and animal husbandry.

On August 24, 1998, during the Second Congo War, more than 1,000 people were killed in a massacre carried out by Rally for Congolese Democracy (Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie) rebels and Rwandan soldiers in Kasika and nearby villages, according to the United Nations.[13][14] The majority of the corpses found on the 60 km journey from Kilungutwe village and Kilungutwe River to Kasika were mainly women and children.[15][16] Women were raped before being disemboweled with daggers from the vagina.[17][18] Over three hundreds civilians were massacred in Kasika, including the family of the Mwami (king) of Lwindi François Mubeza III and his disemboweled wife, Yvette Nyanghe, who was pregnant with twins.[19] More than 37 corpses were found in the royal plot alone.[20] Moreover, over 116 people were massacred in the Catholic parish of Kasika, including a priest, four nuns and several parishioners.[21]

The Congolese Rally for Democracy forces continued killing at the house of Mupali Zotos (alias Mbilizi), a Greek who had settled for years in Kasika, six older women as well as four workers, including a woman and three men, were massacred by gunshots.[22] The RCD forces carried out another killing in the forest nearby the villages of Kasika, where the inhabitants of the area had taken refuge; in what is referred to “Mangele” or “Tupiengenge” by the Lega people, more than 400 people were massacred: men, old men, women, children, and young people. Of these victims, 27 members of the family of Master Kyalangalilwa (a professional lawyer), who works in Bukavu, were also killed.[23]

Economy

Agriculture is the backbone of the economy of the Kasika village and the entire Mwenga territory. Cassava, bean, maize and groundnut are among the soil-adapted food crops grown in the village of Kasika in the Mwenga territory in the South Kivu province.[24][25][26]

See also

References
  1. "Two conflicts, One Village: The Case of Kasika". Peace Insight. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  2. Wassomukokya, François; Mukungilwa, Bitondo; Muteleka, Cyprien; Mutimanwa, Jean Michel; Kasese, Richard Minyota (December 2004). "Rapport final des consultations participatives de la base pour l'élaboration du Document de Stratégies de Réduction de la Pauvreté (DSRP) Territoire de MWENGA - Province du Sud Kivu". Sous la coordination du SERACOB (in French). Retrieved 2023-03-20.
  3. "20 Years On from the Kasika Massacre, Women Survivors Share Their Stories | Women For Women". Women for Women International. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  4. Doumenge, C.; Schilter, C. (1997). "Les Monts Itombwe: D'une enquête environnementale et socio-économique à la planification d'interventions au Zaïre" (PDF). UICN - Union mondiale pour la nature, Brazzaville, Congo. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  5. Mwetaminwa, Justin; Vircoulon, Thierry (February 2022). "Un scandale sino-congolais L'exploitation illégale des minerais et des forêts par les entreprises chinoises au Sud-Kivu" (PDF). Institut français des relations internationales. Retrieved 2023-03-20.
  6. Doumenge, C.; Schilter, C. (1977). "Les Monts Itombwe: D'une enquête environnementale et socio-économique à la planification d'interventions au Zaïre" (PDF). UICN - Union mondiale pour la nature, Brazzaville, Congo. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  7. "CASUALTIES OF WAR". www.hrw.org. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  8. Stearns, Jason (2012). Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. New York City, United States: PublicAffairs. pp. 250–251. ISBN 978-1610391078.
  9. Biebuyck, Daniel P. (1982). "Lega Dress as Cultural Artifact". African Arts. 15 (3): 59–92. doi:10.2307/3335913. ISSN 0001-9933.
  10. "VARIA". Annales Aequatoria. 24: 536–543. 2003. ISSN 0254-4296.
  11. Kasimba, Yogolelo Tambwe Ya (November 1990). "Essai d'Interprétation du Cliché de Kangere (dans la Région des Grands Lacs Africains)". The Journal of African History. 31 (3): 353–372. doi:10.1017/S0021853700031133. ISSN 1469-5138.
  12. Biebuyck, Daniel P. (1982). "Lega Dress as Cultural Artifact". African Arts. 15 (3): 59–92. doi:10.2307/3335913. ISSN 0001-9933.
  13. "RDC: 22 ans après le massacre, retour à Kasika où la blessure des charniers reste vive". RFI (in French). 2020-09-04. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  14. "RDC: polémique après un tweet de l'ambassadeur du Rwanda sur le massacre de Kasika". RFI (in French). 2020-08-26. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  15. "Life for women in the country that 'never turned the page of conflict'". The Independent. 2019-06-12. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  16. "ACHPR, Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda | How does law protect in war? - Online casebook". casebook.icrc.org. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  17. "ACHPR, Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda | How does law protect in war? - Online casebook". casebook.icrc.org. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  18. "20 Years On from the Kasika Massacre, Women Survivors Share Their Stories | Women For Women". Women for Women International. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  19. "ACHPR, Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda | How does law protect in war? - Online casebook". casebook.icrc.org. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  20. "CASUALTIES OF WAR". www.hrw.org. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  21. "CASUALTIES OF WAR". www.hrw.org. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  22. "CASUALTIES OF WAR". www.hrw.org. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  23. Bulambo, Didier Mwati (2010). République Démocratique du Congo: 13 ans sous la main du diable: de l'AFDL de L.D. Kabila au CNDP de Nkundabatware (in French). Paris, France: Edilivre Aparis. p. 212. ISBN 9782353354658.
  24. JamboRDC, La Rédaction (2022-09-23). "Sud-Kivu : Des cultivateurs se plaignent de la faible production de manioc dans certaines chefferies de Mwenga -" (in French). Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  25. "Sud-Kivu: les agriculteurs de Mwenga formés sur la culture améliorée du manioc". Radio Okapi (in French). 2011-08-29. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
  26. Neema Ciza, Angélique; Casinga Mubasi, Clérisse; Amani Barhumana, Richard; Kabike Balyahamwabo, Delvaux; Namegabe Mastaki, Jean-Luc; Lebailly, Philippe (2021-01-01). "Impact des activités non agricoles sur la sécurité alimentaire au Sud-Kivu montagneux". Tropicultura (in French). doi:10.25518/2295-8010.1761. ISSN 0771-3312.

2°55′58″S 28°31′47″E

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