Rwandan troops marched through the village of Pinga in
eastern Congo, during a joint Congolese-Rwandan operation to hunt down Hutu
extremist rebels in February of 2009. Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters.
Over a year after its completion, the UN mapping report has finally been leaked
to the press. The report was mandated by the UN to investigate war crimes and
crimes against humanity in the Congo between 1993 and 2003 in the hope that
there could be accountability for the violence. To date, almost nothing has been
done to bring those responsible to justice.
The report is huge, spanning 545 pages, and deals with war crimes committed by
the security forces of Angola, Mobutu's Zaire, Uganda, Chad, Laurent Kabila's
government, Joseph Kabila's government, Zimbabwe, the ex-FAR and Interahamwe
(and later the FDLR), the Mai-Mai and the many other rebel groups. I will speak
at length about the massacres carried out by these forces in later postings.
Here, I will speak about the most controversial claim: the massacres carried out
by the Rwandan army (RPA) together with the AFDL rebellion (led by Laurent
Kabila) against the Hutu refugees in 1996-1997.
The striking conclusion is that the crimes committed by the RPA/AFDL against
Hutu refugee and Congolese Hutu could constitute a crime of genocide. This will
be a bombshell for Paul Kagame's government, which prides itself of having
brought an end to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi and have built their
reputation and their appeal to donors on their promotion of post-genocide
reconciliation. This report will rock the internet for months and years to come,
its political improtance is hard to overstate.
A few words of caution. The report was not based on the same high standards of a
judicial investigation, it was intended to provide a broad mapping of he most
serious human rights abuses between 1993 and 2003.
Indeed, the report says that an international court will have to be the final
arbiter whether the RPA/AFDL did commit acts of genocide. Verbatim: "The
systematic and widespread attacks described in this report, which targeted very
large numbers of Rwandan Hutu refugees and members of the Hutu civilian
population, resulting in their death, reveal a number of damning elements that,
if they were proven before a competent court, could be classified as crimes of
genocide."
Nonetheless, it was their mandate to documents crimes of genocide, and they were
rigorous: In total, the team gathered evidence on 600 incidents of violence (not
just on the genocide allegations). Their standard was two independent sources
for each incident. They interviewed 1,280 witnesses and gathered 1,500
documents. Many of the reports of killings of Congolese and Rwandan Hutu
civilians were corroborated by eyewitnesses. While we always knew that there had
been large massacres of Hutu refugees in the Congo, this is the first rigorous
investigation, and the first time an international body has thrown its weight
behind charges of genocide.
Another word of caution: This is the preliminary draft. The report is due to be
released on Monday, but it has been leaked, I gather because the Secretary
General Ban Ki Moon has pressed for the charges of "acts of genocide by the RPA/AFDL"
to be removed. The Rwandan government has reportedly threatened to withdraw its
troops from the AU mission in Darfur and I have even heard that they will
withdraw from the UN all together, becoming "associate" or "observer" states. I
imagine that it is to prevent such editing that the report was finally leaked.
On to the conclusion of the report:
Paragraph 512. The systematic attacks [...] resulted in a very
large number of victims, probably tens of thousands of members of the Hutu
ethnic group, all nationalities combined. In the vast majority of cases reported,
it was not a question of people killed unintentionally in the course of combat,
but people targeted primarily by AFDL/APR/FAB [Burundian army] forces and
executed in their hundreds, often with edged weapons. The majority of the
victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who posed no threat
to the attacking forces. Numerous serious attacks on the physical or
pyschological integrity of members of the group were also committed, with a very
high number of Hutus shot, raped, burnt or beaten. Very large numbers of victims
were forced to flee and travel long distances to escape their pursuers, who were
trying to kill them. The hunt lasted for months, resulting in the deaths of an
unknown number of people subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading living
conditions, without access to food or medication. On several occasions, the
humanitarian aid intended for them was deliberately blocked, in particular in
Orientale Province, depriving them of assistance essential to their survival.
Paragraph 514. Several incidents listed in this report point to
circumstances and facts from which a court could infer the intention to destroy
the Hutu ethnic group in the DRC in part, if these were established beyond all
reasonable doubt. Firstly, the scale of the crimes and the large number of
victims are illustrated by the numerous incidents described above. The extensive
use of edged weapons (primarily hammers) and the systematic massacre of
survivors, including women and children, after the camps had been taken show
that the numerous deaths cannot be attributed to the hazards of war or seen as
equating to collateral damage. The systematic nature of the attacks listed
against the Hutus also emerges: these attacks took place in each location where
refugees had been identified by the AFDL/APR, over a vast area of the country.
Particularly in North Kivu and South Kivu but also in other provinces, the
massacres often began with a trick by elements of the AFDL/APR, who summoned the
victims to meetings on the pretext either of discussing their repatriation to
Rwanda in the case of the refugees, or of introducing them to the new
authorities in the case of Hutus settled in the region, or of distributing food.
Afterwards, those present were systematically killed. Cases of this kind were
confirmed in the province of North Kivu in Musekera, Rutshuru and Kiringa (October
1996), Mugogo and Kabaraza (November 1996), Hombo, Katoyi, Kausa, Kifuruka,
Kinigi, Musenge, Mutiko and Nyakariba (December 1996), Kibumba and Kabizo (April
1997) and Mushangwe (around August 1997); in the province of South Kivu in
Rushima and Luberizi (October 1996), Cotonco and Chimanga (November 1996) and
Mpwe (February 1997) and on the Shabunda-Kigulube road (February-April 1997); in
Orientale Province in Kisangani and Bengamisa (May and June 1997); in Maniema in
Kalima (March 1997) and in Équateur in Boende (April 1997). Such acts certainly
suggest premeditation and a precise methodology. In the region south of the town
of Walikale, in North Kivu (January 1997), Rwandan Hutus were subjected to daily
killings in areas already under the control of the AFDL/APR as part of a
campaign that seemed to target any Hutus living in the area in question.
Paragraph 515. Several of the massacres listed were committed
regardless of the age or gender of the victims. This is particularly true of the
crimes committed in Kibumba (October 1996), Mugunga and Osso (November 1996),
Hombo and Biriko (December 1996) in the province of North Kivu, Kashusha and
Shanje (November 1996) in the province of South Kivu, Tingi-Tingi and Lubutu
(March 1997) in Maniema Province, and Boende (April 1997) in Équateur Province,
where the vast majority of victims were women and children. Furthermore, no
effort was made to make a distinction between Hutus who were members of the
ex-FAR/Interahamwe and Hutu civilians, whether or not they were refugees. This
tendency to put all Hutus together and “tar them with the same brush” is also
illustrated by the declarations made during the “awareness-raising speeches”
made by the AFDL/APR in certain places, according to which any Hutu still
present in Zaire must necessarily be a perpetrator of genocide, since the “real”
refugees had already returned to Rwanda. These “awareness-raising speeches” made
in North Kivu also incited the population to look for, kill or help to kill
Rwandan Hutu refugees, whom they called “pigs”. This type of language would have
been in widespread use during the operations in this region.
Paragraph 516. The massacres in Mbandaka and Wendji, committed
on 13 May 1997 in Équateur Province, over 2,000 kilometres west of Rwanda, were
the final stage in the hunt for Hutu refugees that had begun in eastern Zaire,
in North and South Kivu, in October 1996. Among the refugees were elements of
the ex-FAR/Interahamwe, who were disarmed by the local police force as soon as
they arrived. In spite of everything, the AFDL/APR opened fire on hundreds of
defenceless Hutu refugees, resulting in large numbers of victims.
Paragraph 517. The systematic and widespread attacks described
in this report, which targeted very large numbers of Rwandan Hutu refugees and
members of the Hutu civilian population, resulting in their death, reveal a
number of damning elements that, if they were proven before a competent court,
could be classified as crimes of genocide. The behaviour of certain elements of
the AFDL/APR in respect of the Hutu refugees and Hutu populations settled in
Zaire at this time seems to equate to “a manifest pattern of similar conduct
directed against that group”, from which a court could even deduce the existence
of a genocidal plan. “Whilst the existence of such a plan may contribute to
establishing the required genocidal intention, it is nonetheless only an element
of proof used to deduce such an intention and not a legal element of genocide.”
It should be noted that certain elements could cause a court to hesitate to
decide on the existence of a genocidal plan, such as the fact that as of 15
November 1996, several tens of thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees, many of whom
had survived previous attacks, were repatriated to Rwanda with the help of the
AFDL/APR authorities and that hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Hutu refugees
were able to return to Rwanda with the consent of the Rwandan authorities prior
to the start of the first war. Whilst, in general, the killings did not spare
women and children, it should be noted that in some places, at the beginning of
the first war, Hutu women and children were in fact separated from the men, and
only the men were subsequently killed.
Paragraph 518. Nonetheless, neither the fact that only men were
targeted during the massacres, nor the fact that part of the group were allowed
to leave the country or that there movement was facilitated for various reasons,
are sufficient in themselves to entirely remove the intention of certain people
to partially destroy an ethnic group as such. In this respect it seems possible
to infer a specific intention on the part of certain AFDL/APR commanders to
partially destroy the Hutus in the DRC, and therefore to commit a crime of
genocide, based on their conduct, words and the damning circumstances of the
acts of violence committed by the men under their command. It will be for a
court with proper jurisdiction to rule on this question.