10 10 11 HRW – Prosecute Atrocities Exposed by UN
(New York, October 10,
2011) – Governments around the world should intensify efforts to bring to
justice those responsible for grave abuses documented in the United Nations’
October 2010 “mapping report,” Human Rights Watch said today.
One year after the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published
the report, there has been insufficient follow-up by governments in Africa’s
Great Lakes region and by the UN itself, Human Rights Watch said. However, the Congolese government has taken
steps to create a specialized mixed court in the country’s justice system, with
international and Congolese staff, to try those responsible for war crimes, crimes
against humanity, and genocide.
“With the best will in the world, the Congolese government cannot deal with the
legacy of the country’s massive abuses alone,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director
at Human Rights Watch. “The crimes
committed in Congo involved border-crossing perpetrators, placing
responsibilities on many governments to ensure that justice is done.”
The mapping report’s findings are important not only to help prosecute past
crimes, but to address similar patterns of abuses against civilians in Congo today,
Human Rights Watch said.
The UN mapping report addressed the most serious violations of human rights and
international humanitarian law in Congo between March 1993 and June 2003. It detailed
617 incidents across the country and described the role of all the main
Congolese and foreign parties responsible. These included military or armed
groups from Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, and Angola, among others, who all fought
during Congo’s wars at different times between 1996 and 2003.
The report brought angry reactions and blanket denials of involvement from some
of the countries cited, notably Rwanda. Its troops, along with those of its allied
Congolese rebel group, the Alliance
for Democratic Liberation (Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo-Zaïre,
AFDL), were allegedly involved in some of the most serious crimes in 1996 and
1997.
“While some of the incidents covered in the mapping report were well known, the
compilation of so many atrocities into one report was a shocking wake-up call,”
Bekele said. “All concerned governments,
as well as those named, should ensure that the report is not simply shelved, and
take action on its findings.”
Human Rights Watch said that countries implicated in the report are primarily responsible
for prosecuting suspected perpetrators within their borders. But other countries
may have suspects living in their territories and should consider prosecutions
where legally possible, such as under the principle of universal jurisdiction. UN
member countries should provide political and financial support to the Congolese
government to set up appropriate mechanisms to try these crimes.
Since the publication of the report, the Offices of the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights and the UN Secretary-General have done little to follow-up on
the findings. Human Rights Watch called on them to organize a conference with
the Congolese government, other governments named in the report, and international
legal experts to formulate an action plan to provide accountability for the
crimes.
The mapping exercise was conducted with the support of the Congolese
government. Its publication revived hopes among Congolese and Rwandan survivors
and relatives of victims of massacres and other abuses in the late 1990s – one
of the most violent periods documented in the report – that they might one day
see justice done.
In August 2011, the Congolese minister of justice and human rights presented a
draft law to parliament to establish a specialized mixed court to try those
responsible for the most serious crimes committed in Congo, including those
detailed in the mapping report. International judges and prosecutors were considered
necessary to work alongside Congolese judicial personnel to bolster Congolese
capacity to try such complex crimes and to help shield the court from political
interference. The Senate rejected the draft legislation and asked the
government to harmonize its proposal with other draft laws, including one set
to incorporate into domestic legislation the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court.
Some senators called for the establishment of an international criminal
tribunal, which they believed would be a more appropriate mechanism to try the
crimes documented in the mapping report. The Congolese government is considering
the next steps.
Human Rights Watch supports the establishment of a specialized mixed court, with jurisdiction over
past and current serious international crimes, including war crimes, crimes
against humanity, and genocide, committed in Congo.
Congolese
civil society groups have also expressed strong support for this proposal.
Representatives of nongovernmental organizations from each of Congo’s 11
provinces, as well as international organizations, met in April in Goma, eastern
Congo, where they adopted a Common Position on the government’s initial draft legislation. Several
important amendments that they recommended were later included in the draft
legislation.
The UN
mapping exercise was not the first time that the UN had tried to investigate
crimes committed in the Congo between 1993 and 2003. Attempts by the UN to
investigate massacres and other abuses, notably in 1997 and 1998, were
repeatedly blocked by the Congolese government, then headed by Laurent-Désiré
Kabila, father of the current president, Joseph Kabila. Nevertheless,
information about massacres, rapes, and other serious abuses against Rwandan
refugees and Congolese citizens was published at the time by the UN and by
human rights organizations, but no action was taken to hold those responsible
to account.
The UN mapping exercise had its origins in these earlier UN investigations. In
September 2005, the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, MONUC, discovered three
mass graves in Rutshuru, in North Kivu province of eastern Congo, relating to
crimes committed in 1996 and 1997. This discovery acted as a trigger to reopen
investigations. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, with the
support of the UN Secretary-General, then initiated the mapping exercise and
broadened the mandate to include crimes committed from 1993 to 2003.
“The perpetrators of terrible crimes in Congo have remained free for far too
long,” Bekele said. “If the atrocities detailed in the UN mapping report lead
to credible prosecutions, potential rights violators may think twice about
committing crimes against the population. Only then will the rule of law prevail in this troubled region.”
For more background on the UN mapping report
and on Human Rights Watch’s response, please see: http://www.hrw.org/node/93364
For more Human Rights Watch reporting on
the Democratic Republic of Congo, please visit: http://www.hrw.org/en/africa/democratic-republic-congo
For more information, please contact:
In Nairobi, Anneke Van Woudenberg (English, French): +44-7711-664960
(mobile); or woudena@hrw.org
In Nairobi, Carina Tertsakian (English, French): +44-7903-503297 (mobile)
In Paris, Jean-Marie Fardeau (French, English, Portuguese):
+33-6-45-85-24-87 (mobile); or fardeaj@hrw.org