AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL ANNUAL REPORT 1996
[This report covers the period 01/01/95-31/12/95]
ZAIRE
Prisoners of conscience and possible prisoners of conscience were among scores of people who were detained for short periods for their political activities. Torture and ill-treatment of detainees continued to be reported. Dozens of extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings by security forces were reported throughout the country. At least 15,000 Rwandese and Burundi refugees in eastern Zaire were forcibly repatriated. Seven soldiers remained under sentence of death but no executions were reported.
In January the opposition alliance, the Union sacrée de l'opposition radicale, alliés et société civile (usoras), Sacred Union of the Radical Opposition, Allies and Civil Society, presented a submission to the Supreme Court, challenging the legitimacy of Léon Kengo wa Dondo's appointment as Prime Minister for one year in July 1994. The Supreme Court had not acted when, at the end of June, the High Council of the Republic–Transitional Parliament voted to extend the transitional period for two years. This implied the extension of Léon Kengo wa Dondo's transitional government for the same period. Elections scheduled for July were postponed for two years. The government said that conditions necessary for free and fair elections had not been met.
The government sought to restrict the activities of human rights workers who had been active in promoting human rights since President Mobutu Sese Seko announced political reforms in 1990. In January it reintroduced a 1965 decree-law dealing with non-profit-making associations, requiring all human rights groups to obtain legal recognition. In a joint statement submitted to the un Commission on Human Rights, five Zairian human rights groups protested at the reintroduction of the law, saying that it suppressed freedom of association and contravened the 1994 Constitutional Act of the Transition as well as international treaties to which Zaire is a party.
In April the activities of the Association zaïroise de défense des droits de l'homme (azadho), Zairian Association for the Defence of Human Rights, were declared illegal in an official statement from the Procurator General of the Supreme Court. Subsequently there were reports that azadho members in different parts of Zaire were threatened and attacked by both local officials and the military.
Ethnically motivated violence continued in the southeast parts of North Kivu region. The violence, which in 1993 had cost at least 7,000 lives (see Amnesty International Report 1994), flared up again in August 1994. An estimated 500 to 1,000 people were killed between mid-August 1994 and the end of June 1995. At least 150 more were reportedly killed in December. Zairian troops, brought in to quell the violence, reportedly took part in looting instead of restoring security. The Zairian authorities, both local and national, accused Rwandese refugees who were members of the former Rwandese government militia and who had fled into Zaire since mid-July 1994, of supporting the Banyarwanda – Zairians of ethnic Rwandese origin. These claims, which Banyarwanda organizations denied, greatly contributed to the tension in the region. There were violent clashes among various ethnic groups in the area, including the Banyarwanda, Hunde, Nande and Nyanga groups. There were also clashes within the Banyarwanda.
About 500 people were reportedly killed after Mwami Ngulu Maneno, a Nyanga customary chief, was killed by an armed Hunde militia in February. In another incident in late May and early June, between 60 and 85 people, mostly non-Banyarwanda, died in clashes between various ethnic groups. The unrest displaced hundreds of people from their homes.
In early 1995, about 1,500 Zairian troops were deployed in camps where Rwandese refugees had been killed by former Rwandese government soldiers and militia and by looting Zairian soldiers (see Amnesty International Report 1995). The Zairian troops were paid by the un High Commissioner for Refugees (unhcr) and monitored by the un's 27-member Civilian Security Liaison group.
The mandate of the un Special Rapporteur on Zaire was extended by one year. The Special Rapporteur recommended that the un High Commissioner for Human Rights should provide two human rights specialists to be based in the capital, Kinshasa, to monitor the human rights situation in Zaire. By the end of the year his recommendation had not been implemented.
Scores of people, including 40 trade unionists as well as human rights activists, journalists and political activists, were arrested on political grounds, most of them in Kinshasa. The majority were prisoners of conscience. In most cases they were detained by the security forces, generally for short periods. In Kinshasa, most political detainees were charged and brought to trial, in contrast to previous years. However, in all but a few cases, the trials were stalled by procedural issues and the detainees were granted provisional release.
In February Martin Kavundja, a trade union leader and member of usoras, was arrested together with two others for calling for a general strike. They were prisoners of conscience. They were released after three days after a court found fault with the procedures under which they had been detained.
Three trade union leaders, including Benjamin Mukulungu who had been arrested in August 1994 (see Amnesty International Report 1995) and subsequently released, and 34 other civil servants were arrested in March, when a peaceful demonstration organized by the civil servants' trade union to demand payment of salary arrears was violently disrupted by the security forces. The detainees were accused of disturbing public order. A week later the Supreme Court ordered their provisional release. They had been detained on the basis of a colonial law passed in 1959 which severely restricts the right to hold demonstrations and public meetings. The civil servants' defence counsel challenged their detention on the grounds that it contravened their right under the 1994 transitional Constitution to freedom of association, assembly and demonstration.
Journalists continued to be singled out for repressive measures. Modeste Mutinga, editor-in-chief of Le Potentiel, a newspaper close to the opposition, was arrested in March by armed members of the Civil Guard, apparently in connection with a series of articles which were critical of the government. He was reported in August to have been released without charge.
In early June, Amuri bin Mastaki, an azadho representative in Kabambare district, Maniema Region, was arrested by members of the National Gendarmerie, apparently because he had accused the head of the local administration and the commander of the local police of being involved in corruption. He was reportedly held for 48 hours in a cell, where he was stripped naked and allegedly tortured.
In July Antoine Gizenga, leader of the Parti lumumbiste unifié (palu), United Lumumbist Party, and his wife were arrested at their home in Kinshasa by members of the security forces. Antoine Gizenga's wife was released immediately but he was held and accused of organizing an unauthorized demonstration earlier that day to protest against the extension of Léon Kengo wa Dondo's period of office, and of possessing an assault rifle which the authorities claimed was found in his house. He was a prisoner of conscience. Antoine Gizenga was released in early August.
Torture and ill-treatment of detainees continued to be reported. Buya Djuku Hardy was one of three people arrested in February in Kinshasa, apparently by soldiers in civilian clothes, for participating in a symbolic ceremony in commemoration of those who had died in the struggle for democracy. Buya Djuku Hardy and her two companions were held in a cell in Civil Guard premises where Buya Djuku Hardy alleged she was raped by three members of the security forces before being released without charge or trial six days later. One of the two others received medical treatment after his release for injuries allegedly caused by torture when in custody. No investigations were reported to have been carried out into these allegations of torture.
In Shaba region, 18 people, including workers of Gécamines, the state-owned mining company, and students, were arrested in July by members of the Civil Guard and the Service national d'intelligence et de protection (snip), National Intelligence and Protection Service. They were accused of planning a strike in the town of Kambove, about 150 kilometres from Lubumbashi. According to a local human rights group they were held at the snip detention centre in Lubumbashi for several days, where they were stripped, beaten, whipped with ''cordelettes'' (belts) and stabbed with knives and bayonets, suffering serious injuries. Ten were released after a week without being charged. The remaining eight were held for a few more days then released without charge. Their allegations of torture were apparently not investigated.
Dozens of extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings by the security forces were reported throughout the year. Perpetrators enjoyed virtual impunity: none were known to have been brought to justice. For example, there was apparently no inquiry into the killing of Isamene Kisikanda, a 68-year-old man, by unidentified armed men in his house in Kisangani, Haut-Zaire Region, in December 1994. The killing was apparently linked to Isamene Kisikanda's political activities as a secretary of the Parti démocrate et social chrétien, Social Christian Democratic Party. A local human rights group called for an inquiry into the killing but none is known to have taken place.
At least seven demonstrators were killed and 23 others injured in July when security forces violently broke up a reportedly peaceful demonstration organized in Kinshasa by palu to protest against the extension of the transitional period. No inquiry into this apparently excessive use of force was reported.
On 25 December, members of the security forces killed at least 14 civilians in Goma, North Kivu. The victims included a 73-year-old man and a seven-year-old boy. The authorities were not reported to have carried out any investigation into the killings.
Seventeen soldiers under sentence of death for occupying a studio in Kinshasa's radio station in 1992 benefited from a presidential amnesty granted in January to all political prisoners. They had been convicted in absentia after an unfair trial (see Amnesty International Report 1993). At least seven people remained under sentence of death but no executions were reported to have been carried out during the year.
In mid-March the Zairian Government rejected a unhcr proposal to shelter about 50,000 refugees from Burundi, 20,000 of whom had already crossed the border into Zaire and settled in South Kivu Region following a renewed outburst of violence in neighbouring Burundi. In mid-August the government decided to forcibly deport more than one million Rwandese and tens of thousands of Burundi refugees whose presence it said endangered Zaire's interests and was a threat to national security. About 15,000, including about 13,000 Rwandese and about 2,000 Burundi refugees, were forcibly repatriated between 19 and 24 August when, under international pressure, the expulsions were temporarily stopped. The Zairian Government then threatened to forcibly return any refugees who had not returned voluntarily by the end of the year. This threat was later withdrawn after talks involving the unhcr and the Zairian and Rwandese authorities.
Amnesty International appealed to the Zairian Government to stop the forced repatriation of Rwandese and Burundi refugees. It also appealed to the authorities to prevent soldiers using excessive force against peaceful demonstrators and called for an immediate and impartial inquiry into killings of protesters.
In a report published in September, Zaire: Human rights activists under threat, Amnesty International expressed concern about the arrest and harassment of human rights activists.
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