CONGO
(DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE)
Democratic Republic of the Congo
Head of state and government: Laurent-Désiré Kabila
Capital: Kinshasa
Population: 51.6 million
Official languages: French, Kikongo, Kiswahili, Lingala, Tshiluba
Death penalty: retentionist
2000 treaty ratifications/signatures: Optional Protocol to the UN Children's Convention on the
involvement of children in armed conflict; Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

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War continued to ravage the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Thousands of civilians were unlawfully killed and tens of thousands more, displaced from their homes and cut off from humanitarian aid within the DRC, were facing starvation by the end of 2000. Tens of thousands fled to neighbouring countries. Torture, including rape, was widespread. All sides used the war to justify the repression of political dissent and the imprisonment of opponents was routine. At least 35 executions were carried out by the DRC government. The armed opposition also carried out executions.

Background
At least six foreign countries continued to be directly involved in the war in the DRC, which continued despite the signing of the Lusaka cease-fire agreement in mid-1999. DRC government troops were supported by Angolan, Namibian and Zimbabwean forces. The armed opposition - composed of the Goma-based faction of the Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie (RCD-Goma), Congolese Rally for Democracy, the RCD-Mouvement de Libération (RCD-ML), RCD-Movement of Liberation, and the Mouvement pour la libération du Congo (MLC), Movement for the Liberation of Congo - received support from Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda.
There appeared to be a lack of genuine political will to reach a settlement, with belligerents on all sides reportedly exploiting the DRC's vast natural resources. The proposed deployment of UN troops to monitor the cease-fire was prevented by insecurity and lack of cooperation from the warring parties, particularly the DRC government. Diplomatic initiatives included the signing of a disengagement plan in Kampala in April and a meeting in Kenya in June between DRC President Laurent-Désiré Kabila and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda. Rwanda and Uganda continued to invoke the security threat posed by armed opposition groups based within the DRC to justify their involvement in the conflict. Burundi continued to deny any involvement.
Heavy fighting was reported throughout much of 2000 in the northwestern province of Equateur between DRC government troops and the MLC, led by Jean-Pierre Bemba. The DRC government was accused of indiscriminate bombing in the region which resulted in civilian casualties. The fighting forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee to neighbouring countries (see Republic of the Congo entry). There was also heavy fighting in the southeastern province of Katanga, where the RCD-Goma and its allies took the town of Pweto in December. Thousands fled across the border to Zambia.
In August Ugandan forces and the RCD-ML forcibly recruited over 100 child soldiers in Bunia and transferred them to Uganda for military training. In November and December the RCD-Goma engaged in a mass recruitment drive in the Kivu region in which hundreds of people, including children, were reportedly recruited, many by force.
Deliberate reprisals against the civilian population were a common reaction by all sides to military setbacks and many unarmed civilians were extrajudicially executed in revenge attacks. There were also many rapes. By the end of 2000 as many as two million civilians were internally displaced and unable to support themselves. Many were facing starvation.

Areas under government control

Political prisoners
A law passed in 1999, which effectively amounted to a ban on opposition parties, led to the imprisonment of prisoners of conscience and the repression of political activity. A presidential amnesty for political prisoners announced in February led to the release of some 300 detainees from Kinshasa's central prison, the Centre pénitentiaire et de rééducation de Kinshasa (CPRK). However, some individuals who should have benefited remained in detention. Others were rearrested soon after their release and other politically motivated arrests continued throughout 2000.

• On 19 July, 10 members of the Union pour la démocratie et le progrès social (UDPS), Union for Democracy and Social Progress, a major opposition party, were arrested in Kinshasa for allegedly holding a political meeting. Several were ill-treated and threatened with death during their initial police interrogation. For the next month all 10 were detained together in a tiny police cell, where they were allowed no visits or medical treatment. They then spent three days in an unventilated underground cell before being transferred to the CPRK on 19 August.
• Catherine Nzuzi wa Mbombo, president of the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution (MPR), Popular Revolution Movement, was arrested on 22 July and subjected to five days' interrogation by the security services during which she was ill-treated. She was charged with endangering state security, apparently on the basis of radio interviews she had given to Radio France Internationale. She was kept under house arrest until 8 December, when she was provisionally released.
• On 15 November Eugène Diomi Ndongala Nzomambu, the coordinator of the Front pour la Survie de la Démocratie (FSD), an umbrella group of about 15 small parties, was arrested by the security services and held incommunicado for over two weeks before being transferred to the CPRK. Charged with endangering state security, he was provisionally released on 8 December.
• On 8 December Jonas Mukamba Kadiata, a former director of a national mining company, and pastor Placide Tshisumpa, president of a prisoner support organization, were released after nearly six months' detention without trial. They were charged in November with endangering state security. As a result of their detention, both men had to be hospitalized. Pastor Tshisumpa was in particularly poor health with a heart condition. He was nevertheless briefly returned to the CPRK in November until fellow prisoners protested to the prison authorities and secured his return to the clinic.

Crack-down on alleged coup conspirators
From late October onwards, the government arrested soldiers and civilians from the eastern provinces of North-Kivu and South-Kivu, after uncovering an alleged coup plot. Anselme Masasu Nindaga, formerly a leading figure in the armed group which brought President Kabila to power in 1997, was among the first to be arrested. In November he was transferred to Katanga where he was reportedly held incommunicado, awaiting probable court martial. Such court martials have not in the past met international fair trial standards. There were unconfirmed reports that some of those arrested in connection with the alleged coup plot were extrajudicially executed.
Scores of others were held incommunicado and without charge in various detention centres in Kinshasa. They included Jeanine Mukanirwa, a women's rights activist from South-Kivu, who was arrested on 12 December. Several ''disappeared'', including Aimée Ntabarusha Mungu, a civil servant, who was arrested with her three-month-old son on 13 November, apparently because she had a lodger from Kivu suspected of involvement in the alleged coup plot. She was held at a security service detention centre known as the Groupe Litho Moboti (GLM) building until 23 November, when she was reportedly taken away in a truck with several other detainees. She had not been seen again by the end of the year.

Death penalty
Despite repeated assurances given to both AI and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that the government was committed to a moratorium on executions, at least 35 people were executed during 2000. The majority of death sentences were handed down by the Cour d'ordre militaire (COM), Military Order Court, a court which does not meet international fair trial standards. There is no appeal against the decisions of the Court.
In late January and early February, 19 people were executed. Most had been convicted of murder or armed robbery. In September, five soldiers and three civilians were taken from the CPRK and reportedly executed. On 12 December a further eight prisoners, including three civilians, were executed by firing squad. Among them was a police officer, Kabangi Ngoy, who had been sentenced by the COM the previous day for a murder committed on 8 December.
At the end of 2000 up to 60 people were on death row at the CPRK. Some had been convicted of economic or political crimes. They included Ngimbi Nkiama and Bukasa Musenga, who were convicted in 1999 of stealing fuel from the military.

Torture/ill-treatment
Torture and ill-treatment continued to be widespread in unofficial detention centres run by the security services, where detainees were almost invariably held incommunicado. Beatings, including whippings administered with cordelettes (belts), were particularly common. Psychological torture was also frequent, with many detainees being threatened with death and some subjected to mock executions.
Conditions in many detention centres were appalling and constituted cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Detainees were routinely refused medical care. Some detainees died as a result of torture.

• On 13 October Kikuni Masudi, a former member of the security services, died in security service custody in Lubumbashi. He had reportedly been continuously tortured since his arrest on 7 October by agents from the Agence nationale de renseignements (ANR), National Intelligence Agency. He had reportedly been whipped, burned and his feet had been crushed by hammer blows. There was apparently no investigation of his death.
• On 25 May Isaac Akili, a former soldier, was detained by security service agents in Kinshasa and interrogated for three hours, during which he was beaten around the head with rifle butts and tortured with electric shocks. He was also shown a hole that had been dug in the ground and told that it was going to be his grave. He was later transferred to the CPRK where he remained at the end of 2000, accused of endangering state security.
• On 16 November, 12 students, including Vital Ntaboba Badheka, were arrested by the army after a disturbance on a college campus in Kinshasa. They were taken to Kokolo military barracks where they were stripped naked, whipped and threatened with death. They were detained overnight, naked and many with open wounds, in a filthy cell awash with excrement. They were released the following morning. No action was taken against the soldiers responsible.

Human rights defenders
Several human rights activists were harassed, threatened or briefly detained. Some, including members of La Voix des Sans Voix, The Voice of the Voiceless, and of the Association africaine de défense des droits de l'homme (ASADHO), African Association for the Defence of Human Rights, were temporarily forced into hiding to avoid arrest.

• On 17 October André Tshowa Mbuisha, a member of Journaliste en danger (JED), Journalist in Danger, was arrested in Kinshasa while distributing a report on press freedom. He was taken to an unofficial detention centre where he was whipped and subjected to a mock execution. He was released a few hours later but in December was asked to report to the COM for questioning on unspecified charges.

Journalists
Press freedom remained tightly controlled. In September freedom of expression was further curtailed when the government announced that it was bringing some of the main privately owned television and radio stations under state control. A number of journalists were prisoners of conscience.

• On 19 May Freddy Loseke, editor of La Libre Afrique, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment by the COM for allegedly insulting the army.
• On 12 September, two newspaper editors, Emile-Aimé Kakese Vinalu and Jean-Pierre Mukuna Ekanga, were sentenced to two years' imprisonment by the COM on contrived charges of endangering state security. Jean-Pierre Mukuna Ekanga had gone to court that day to act as a trial witness. Emile-Aimé Kakese Vinalu had been detained since 23 June and was tortured. His newspaper's equipment, including two computers and a printer, was confiscated.
• Feu d'Or Bonsange, a journalist with the weekly newspaper L'Alarme, was arrested on 11 November and detained incommunicado by the security services. He was released without charge on 11 December but L'Alarme was forced to cease publishing.

Unlawful killings
Unarmed civilians were reportedly killed by government forces as a result either of direct attacks or of indiscriminate bombings. However, it was often difficult to obtain independent confirmation of incidents in conflict zones.

• On 29 December DRC government airplanes bombed the port of Boyele on the Oubangui river in neighbouring Republic of the Congo, reportedly killing eight people and injuring dozens.

Areas controlled by opposition groups and foreign forces
The RCD factions and their foreign allies were responsible for widespread abuses in eastern DRC, in particular the unlawful killing of civilians, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention and torture, including rape (see Rwanda and Uganda entries). Such abuses were often committed in response to attacks by armed groups opposed to the RCD-Goma, which included the Rwandese interahamwe and ex-FAR (former Rwandese government army), Congolese armed groups known as the mayi-mayi, and Burundian, mainly Hutu, armed groups. All of these groups were responsible for grave human rights abuses.

Unlawful killings

• Ugandan forces and RCD-ML troops were implicated in the killing of dozens of unarmed members of the Lendu ethnic group in the northeastern province of Kibali-Ituri. On 20 April at least 15 were killed in Rethy and a further six were killed at Buba two days later. Tens of thousands of Lendu fled from their homes to surrounding forests, where many died of starvation and disease.
• On 14-15 May, some 30 civilians were reportedly killed by RCD-Goma troops at the village of Katogota, south of Bukavu, apparently in reprisal for the killing of a senior RCD commander during clashes between the RCD-Goma and a Burundian armed opposition group. The RCD-Goma announced an investigation.
• Between 5 and 10 June, at least 700 civilians were killed when fighting broke out between Rwandese and Ugandan troops in Kisangani. Some people were shot dead; many others were killed in indiscriminate shelling. Some captured soldiers were also extrajudicially executed - Rwandese soldiers reportedly executed at least 10 captured Ugandan soldiers on 11 and 12 June after the fighting had stopped.
• On 9 July interahamwe forces attacked a camp for the internally displaced at Sake, west of Goma, reportedly killing 40 people.
• On 28 August as many as 12 people were reportedly killed at the village of Kirima, west of Butembo, in an attack on a local restaurant by Ugandan soldiers. They included the couple who ran the restaurant and a schoolboy named Muhindo.

Persecution of human rights defenders
The RCD continued to be hostile towards human rights activists and dozens were detained during 2000. Some were tortured.

• On 2 February Jean-Pierre Masumbuko, a member of the Goma-based non-governmental organization (NGO) APREDECI, was arrested by RCD soldiers and taken to the Chien Méchant detention centre in Goma where soldiers reportedly took turns at beating him. He was apparently accused of passing information to international human rights groups, including sending photographs to AI. He escaped on 5 February.
• In February Archbishop Emmanuel Kataliko was banished by the RCD from Bukavu and sent to Butembo, after he criticized the presence of foreign powers in the DRC. Priests who voiced support for the archbishop were themselves threatened. He was allowed to return to Bukavu in September, shortly before his death during a visit to Italy.
• On 29 August, four men who had recently been appointed to a new transitional assembly announced by President Kabila were detained in Bukavu by the RCD-Goma and held for a month. They included Paulin Bapolisi and Gervais Chirhalwira Nkunzimana, both lecturers.
• On 9 October, 13 activists from various NGOs were arrested by Rwandese soldiers at the offices of the NGO Groupe Jérémie. They had gathered to discuss the visit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to Goma on 3 October. The 13 were taken to a military camp at Saio on the border with Rwanda, where they were reportedly tortured. They were released later the same day. Some later fled the country.

Torture/ill-treatment
There was widespread torture, including rape, of detainees held in RCD-Goma custody.

• Karume Chisirikaa, a former teacher, was arrested by RCD-Goma in Bukavu on 28 September for his alleged role in a grenade attack in the town in August. He was reportedly beaten with an iron bar and told that he would be killed if he did not sign a confession. He was still detained at the end of 2000.
• Willy Kabala, Félicité and Françoise Nzibera were beaten and detained for several hours on 16 January by RCD-Goma members, after failing to reveal the whereabouts of human rights activists.

AI country reports and visits

Reports

• Democratic Republic of Congo: Government terrorizes critics (AI Index: AFR 62/001/2000)
• Democratic Republic of Congo: Killing human decency (AI Index: AFR 62/007/2000)
• AI urges the Presidents of Uganda and Rwanda to stop killings (AI Index: AFR 62/015/2000)

Visits
In October AI delegates visited parts of eastern DRC controlled by the armed opposition, including Goma, Bukavu and Bunia. In late October and early November AI visited the Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic to interview refugees from the DRC. From late November to early December AI visited Kinshasa.

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