AI REPORT 1998: CONGO (Democratic Republic of the)
(This report covers the period January-December 1997)
In the period before the change of government in May, scores of people, including prisoners of conscience, were detained without charge or trial, and the security forces tortured detainees and massacred unarmed civilians. Fifteen people were sentenced to death. Armed opposition groups committed grave human rights abuses including thousands of deliberate and arbitrary killings. Rwandese refugees were missing after armed operations; many may have been killed. Under the new government, hundreds of suspected opponents were detained, mostly without charge or trial; some of them were prisoners of conscience. Torture and ill-treatment were widespread. There were reports of ''disappearances'' and hundreds of extrajudicial executions. One soldier was executed by firing-squad and 13 others were sentenced to death. The new authorities forcibly returned refugees to countries where they would be at grave risk of human rights abuses. Armed groups opposed to the new government also committed grave human rights abuses.
In the early part of the year armed conflict continued between the Forces armées zaïroises (faz), Zairian Armed Forces, and the oppositionAlliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo-Zaïre (afdl), Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire. The afdl, with the support of Rwandese government and other forces, continued to gain ground from the east.
On 17 May the afdl entered the capital, Kinshasa. Ousted President Mobutu Sese Seko left the country. A transitional government was named by the afdl on 22 May and one week later afdl leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila was inaugurated as President. The country changed its name from Zaire to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (drc). The new government pledged to uphold human rights and to hold elections in 1999, but the Constitution was revoked. President Kabila was given wide-ranging personal powers, and political party activity outside the afdl was banned.
Under the new government, armed conflict continued to be reported in the east of the country, with clashes taking place between the afdl and armed opposition groups, including former members of the faz, members of the former Rwandese armed forces and Congolese armed opposition groups.
In late March the un Special Rapporteur on Zaire led a fact-finding team to gather information about massacres during the conflict in eastern Zaire. Although the afdl restricted his movements, the Special Rapporteur submitted a report to the un Commission on Human Rights. On the basis of this report the Commission decided in April to send the un Special
Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and a member of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances on a joint mission to eastern Zaire to investigate reports of violations of human rights and humanitarian law. The afdl denied the mission access to the region and no investigation occurred. In August, after consultations with the un Security Council and the new government, the un Secretary-General sent his own investigative team to the country. The drc Government persistently frustrated the team's efforts to begin investigations. The team's leaders were recalled to un headquarters in October, but returned in late November to begin the investigation after an agreement was reached between President Kabila and the us
Permanent Representative to the un. In early December, after weeks of delay, the investigative team was deployed to
Mbandaka in the northwest of the drc. The team withdrew from the area in mid-December after it experienced hostile
demonstrations and demands by local leaders to be paid before the investigation could begin.
In the period before the change of government in May, scores of detainees were held without charge or trial, including prisoners of conscience. Among them were Zairians of Tutsi ethnic origin, refugees, journalists and human rights activists. All were held in extremely harsh conditions and many were tortured.
faz soldiers looted, raped and killed with impunity. The victims included residents of towns and villages in the path of soldiers retreating from afdl advances, people of Rwandese, Burundi or Ugandan origin, and refugees. Church, and international and national humanitarian aid workers were also targeted.
In January, 15 people were sentenced to death by court martial, joining scores already under sentence of death. No executions had been reported when the government fell in May, but it was unclear whether the sentences were upheld under the new government. Under the new government, one soldier was executed by firing-squad in October after a special military court found him guilty of killing a student in September. Eight soldiers convicted in September of attempted mutiny and five others convicted in December of violent offences, including criminal conspiracy, armed robbery and attempted murder, were under sentence of death at the end of the year.
While in opposition the afdl committed gross human rights abuses in the territory under its control. It committed thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of deliberate and arbitrary killings of Rwandese and Burundian Hutu refugees and of Zairian Hutu. For example, on 25 February, several hundred Rwandese refugees, including eight Rwandese priests and three nuns, were reportedly killed in Kalima, two days after the town had been taken by afdl forces.
Hundreds, possibly thousands, of Hutu refugees were reported to have been deliberately and arbitrarily killed in the South-Kivu region, particularly during February and March. Bodies were hidden in mass graves, or left by the side of roads. For example, scores of refugees were reportedly killed and buried in a mass grave at Mpwe, west of Shabunda, around March.
On 13 May some 800 refugees were massacred by afdl soldiers at Mbandaka, Equateur region. Some of those killed were reportedly ordered to kneel or lie on the ground before they were shot or bayoneted to death. Others were killed when soldiers opened automatic fire on a group waiting for transport.
Tens of thousands of unarmed civilians, mostly Rwandese refugees, were missing after afdl operations. It was feared that many may have been deliberately and arbitrarily killed or may have died from starvation and exposure.
As many as 40,000 refugees from Kasese and Biaro camps, south of Kisangani, went missing in April. The refugees had been fleeing westwards from refugee camps in Kivu, as the afdl frontline advanced. On 20 April, six civilians were killed near Kasese camp; the killings were blamed by the afdl on the refugees. Over the following days, international humanitarian organizations were denied access to the camps, which were reportedly attacked by afdl combatants and armed civilians colluding with them. Local people reported seeing a bulldozer digging mass graves and burying bodies. By 23 April, Kasese and Biaro camps were entirely deserted. About 40,000 refugees were located by humanitarian workers in subsequent days but about 40,000 others remained unaccounted for. It was feared that many may have been deliberately and arbitrarily killed.
After the afdl came to power, human rights violations persisted.
Hundreds of people were arrested and held without charge or trial under the new government; some of them were prisoners of conscience. Those held included human rights activists, journalists, members of opposition parties and people associated with the former government. Many detainees were held incommunicado, sometimes in private houses and other illegal places of detention.
Human rights activists were targeted for arrest and intimidation, including raids on their offices and death threats. Bertin Lukanda and Diomba Ramazani, leading members of a coalition of non-governmental organizations, were arrested in August on suspicion of collecting information about massacres for un investigators. They were reportedly beaten severely. One of their colleagues, Dieudonné Asumani, was arrested in mid-August and accused of having sent information about their arrest to foreign organizations. Bertin Lukanda was also a member of a human rights group based in Kindu, known as Haki Za Binadamu, several of whose workers had been harassed and prevented from travelling around the country in previous months. They were all released in September.
Didi Mwati Bulambo, a human rights activist who had previously been arrested and ill-treated by President Mobutu's security officials, was arrested by afdl soldiers on 23 August and held in a military barracks at Kamituga in Mwenga district of South-Kivu. He was denied access to legal counsel or to medical care until his release on 18 September.
Also arrested and held without charge were journalists critical of the afdl, including Polydor Muboyayi Mubanga, editor-in-chief of Le Phare newspaper, who was arrested in September in Kinshasa. He was beaten by soldiers at the time of his arrest and was charged with ''spreading false rumours and inciting ethnic hatred''. The charge related to an article in his newspaper critical of President Kabila. President Kabila ordered his release in mid-November.
Supporters of opposition parties were arrested. For example, 15 members of the main opposition party, the Union pour la démocratie et le progrès social, Union for Democracy and Social Progress, were arrested at a peaceful demonstration in mid-August. They were reportedly tortured with electric-shock batons during interrogation and denied essential medical treatment. They were released on 14 October without having been charged or tried.
From June onwards, dozens of people associated with former President Mobutu's government were arrested. One of them, General Kikunda Ombala, appeared before Kinshasa Court of Appeal in December on charges of embezzlement of public funds and property when he was director of the Zairian Airways Agency and Air Zaire.
Torture and ill-treatment of detainees were widespread. For example, nine men arrested in Goma on 29 May and accused of armed robbery were repeatedly kicked and beaten with sticks and rifle butts. They were also burned when irons were welded round their arms and legs. Many former members of the faz taken into camps for retraining reportedly died after being beaten and deprived of food and medical care.
Women were reported to have been victims of torture, including rape, and to have been beaten on their breasts or otherwise ill-treated. A number of schoolgirls were reportedly raped by soldiers in August at Masambo, Rwenzori sub-district (chefferie), North-Kivu. Women dressed in miniskirts, trousers or leggings were targeted for torture or ill-treatment by afdl soldiers in Kinshasa. For example, in May afdl soldiers beat a girl wearing a mini-skirt with a nail-studded piece of wood, and reportedly whipped another young woman 40 times.
The security forces repeatedly used violence, including lethal force, to disperse peaceful opposition demonstrations and meetings. For example, in July soldiers opened fire on a peaceful demonstration by the Parti Lumumbiste Unifié (palu), United Lumumbist Party, in Kinshasa. At least one demonstrator, Kiambukuta Komisa, died as a result and six were severely injured. About 130 demonstrators were arrested. Soldiers also reportedly broke into the home of palu leader Antoine Gizenga, where they reportedly stripped naked and whipped a number of palu supporters.
''Disappearances'' were reported. For example, 17 people reportedly ''disappeared'' in Rwindi, North-Kivu province, after being arrested on 26 May.
Extrajudicial executions by afdl soldiers were reported in many parts of the country. In virtually all cases the authorities denied that the afdl were responsible.
As many as 120 unarmed civilians were reportedly shot dead on 26 May by afdl soldiers in Uvira. The victims were reportedly demonstrating against the killing the previous night of about 10 people by gunmen who local people suspected were members of the afdl.
On 29 May a Save the Children Fund worker and four Rwandese refugees, including a child, were shot dead by afdl soldiers in Karuba, west of Goma.
In early June about 40 Burundian former students from Bukavu University were reportedly bayoneted to death by members of the afdl between Bukavu and Shabunda.
In late June about 60 Rwandese refugees, including children, were reportedly massacred by afdl soldiers at Kavumu, Kivu. The victims were apparently on their way to Rwanda.
Between 2 and 5 August, afdl soldiers were reported to have killed as many as 800 unarmed people in the villages of Wimbi, Alela, Abanga and Talama, which lie between South-Kivu and Shaba provinces on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. The soldiers reportedly came from the Sha-ba town of Kalemie, and were apparently searching for armed opposition groups.
In Kinshasa a number of former faz soldiers and criminal suspects were killed by afdl soldiers. Some were mutilated and burned to death. Members of opposition political parties and students were also killed. For example, Freddy Manganzo Nzani, a university student in Kinshasa, was killed by an afdl soldier during a demonstration in June. He was reportedly shot as he pleaded for his life.
The new government forced hundreds of refugees from Rwanda and Burundi to return to their countries, despite the fact that their lives would be at grave risk there. For example, on 4 September the government forcibly returned about 800 Rwandese and Burundian refugees in Kisangani to Rwanda. In protest, the un High Commissioner for Refugees (unhcr) suspended activities for Rwandese refugees in the drc. On 3 October the government announced that it had returned 4,000 refugees to Rwanda, and ordered the unhcr to stop its work in North-Kivu.
Armed opposition groups continued to commit human rights abuses including deliberate and arbitrary killings. Armed groups, including members of the former Rwandese army, former members of the faz, and members of an armed group known as the mayi-mayi, were reported to have killed members of the Tutsi ethnic group who had returned from Rwanda to North-Kivu in early 1997. Attacks on Tutsi civilians reportedly increased in the middle of the year after Tutsi were appointed to replace local government officials from rival ethnic groups in Kivu.
Amnesty International appealed repeatedly to the government of President Mobutu, to the afdl, and to the government of President Kabila to respect human rights. In February it publishedZaire: Rape, killings and other human rights violations by the security forces. In March it published a memorandum to the un Security Council appealing for a commission of inquiry to investigate reports of atrocities in eastern Zaire.
In August Amnesty International submitted a memorandum to President Kabila proposing measures to foster the rule of law. The government turned down a request by the organization to visit the country.
In December Amnesty International publishedDemocratic Republic of the Congo: Deadly alliances in Congolese forests, which detailed continuing mass human rights violations since March, including some carried out by Rwandese government forces.
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