UN says Congo army, rebels committed rights abuses
By Louis Charbonneau
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Government soldiers and rebels in Democratic Republic of Congo have committed serious human right abuses, including mass killings, arbitrary executions, rape and torture, the U.N. said in a report.
The document, obtained by Reuters on Monday, called the human rights situation in the central African country "a cause for grave concern".
Details of the report emerged as New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said abuses against civilians were continuing on both sides of the east Congo frontlines despite a lull in fighting that had displaced a quarter of a million people.
After weeks of combat, Tutsi rebels loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda last week pulled back from some positions in North Kivu province. A ceasefire declared by Nkunda in late October, when he halted his advance on the provincial capital Goma, was ratified on Nov. 16, leading to a relative calm.
The U.N. report said elements of the Congolese army and national police were responsible for many serious violations from July to November, namely arbitrary executions, rape, torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
The accusations could undermine Security Council confidence in Congolese President Joseph Kabila and his ability to end conflict between the various feuding armed groups fighting in his country, especially in the mineral-rich east.
Last week, the council approved an increase in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUC) by 3,000 troops and police, bringing the biggest such U.N. force in the world to 20,000 strong. The aim of the troop surge is to prevent the North Kivu conflict from escalating into a wider war.
The U.N. report said rebels, including Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), and Rwandan Hutu fighters accused of participating in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, "perpetrated serious human rights abuses with impunity."
Those abuses included "mass killings, torture, abductions, forced recruitment of children, forced displacement and destruction of (refugee) camps, forced labor, sexual violence."
TIT-FOR-TAT KILLINGS
It also accused Congolese national civilian and military intelligence services of arbitrary arrests and detentions followed by "torture and extortion."
It said members of Congo's security forces, politicians and government officials had targeted journalists and human rights activists, some of whom were threatened and arrested.
HRW Congo researcher Anneke Van Woudenberg cited reports from both rebel- and government-controlled zones in east Congo suggesting attacks against civilians were continuing.
"We are getting reports of killings in Kiwanja and disappearances in other locations committed by both sides that indicate serious human rights violations are ongoing," she said.
Nkunda's CNDP rebels took Kiwanja and Rutshuru, north of Goma, in their previous advance. Rights activists accused the rebels and rival pro-government Mai-Mai militia of tit-for-tat killings of dozens of civilians.
The CNDP denied its fighters were responsible for the murders in Kiwanja and blamed the Mai Mai militia.
In a letter to Nkunda last week, MONUC chief Alan Doss, demanded that he put an end to abuses against civilians.
The CNDP says its occupation of Rutshuru and Kiwanja aims to protect their civilian population. But several residents said they lived in fear of the rebels, whom they said accused them of siding with the CNDP's sworn enemies, Rwandan Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
"If you speak Kinyarwanda, they think you are FDLR. They take you into the bush and kill you," Shabani Sibumami, a teacher in Kiwanja, said. "If Nkunda's soldiers really were here to protect us, we wouldn't be so afraid," he added.
Nkunda, from Congo's minority Tutsi community, cites the presence of the FDLR in the east as the justification for his four-year-old rebellion, which he says aims to defend Tutsis.
The Rwandan Hutu FDLR includes soldiers who carried out the 1994 genocide in Rwanda of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Tutsi-led Rwanda denies repeated Congolese government allegations that it supports Nkunda. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: africa.reuters.com/) (Additional reporting by Finbarr O'Reilly, Hereward Holland in Rutshuru and Joe Bavier in Kinshasa; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Angus MacSwan)
