Press Release
Embargoed For Release: Contact: Michelle Linder, (212) 633-4268
April 8, 8:00 p.m. EST

(New York) – In a report launched today, Amnesty International warned that human rights abuses in the Republic of Congo (ROC) continue to result in dozens of deaths and "disappearances" among vulnerable civilian and refugee populations. In Brazzaville alone more than 170 people, some of them unarmed civilians, were killed in early 2003."Congo has made halting advances toward peace since the election of President Denis Sassou Nguesso, but dangerous precedents for violence and impunity remain," warned Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). "Only strong leadership can guide the country on the path of lasting peace and respect for human rights." The report, Republic of Congo: A past that haunts the future, highlights the ongoing deliberate targeting of unarmed civilians by government forces and members of theNinja armed political group. Soldiers and armed opposition fighters rape, torture, "disappear" and even kill civilians with impunity.

It also addresses the failure of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to take adequate measures to prevent abuses against asylum-seekers and refugees in the Republic of Congo and the wider central African region. According to the report, UNHCR has in some cases facilitated repatriation of refugees when the returnees had no guarantees of safety and dignity on arrival in their country of origin.

Testimonies gathered by Amnesty International confirmed that several hundred Congolese citizens who had fled Brazzaville at the end of 1998 were "disappeared" by members of the security forces in mid-1999. According to survivors, the victims' relatives and local human rights groups, as many as 353 refugees returning to Brazzaville from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in May 1999 were extrajudicially executed and their bodies secretly discarded.

Amnesty International is gravely concerned that the Congolese government has failed to take adequate measures to establish responsibility for the violations and bring those responsible to justice. "The Congolese government should ensure that human rights violations, including the 1999 'disappearances,' are fully investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice," said Adotei Akwei, Africa Advocacy Director for AIUSA. "Only an independent and impartial inquiry would be able to establish the full truth and the extent of the involvement of security and government officials at various levels of the Congolese administration."

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