Former Rwandan official warns of violence

KIGALI, Rwanda, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- A former speaker of the Rwandan Parliament has warned his country could again spiral into a dark world of violence.
The warning comes 15 years after genocide killed up to 1 million people in the long-troubled east-central African nation.
Joseph Sebarenzi, who lost most of his family in the rash of massacres, told CNN Wednesday frustration growing in Rwanda over President Paul Kagame's concentration of power could repeat the violent history if not checked.
Rwanda will hold a presidential election next August, its second since the 1994 genocide. Kagame is expected easily to win re-election.
He said the reason Rwanda had a genocide was that then-President Juvenal Habyarimana had too much power. Sebarenzi accused Kagame of now doing the same thing, amassing power while failing to create strong institutions that could check his authority.
"Instead of having a president that is too powerful, (Rwanda) should have a powerful parliament, judiciary, and a civil society," he said.

Report: UN-Backed Effort Against Hutu Rebels in DRC Fails

Rwandan Hutu rebel carries a gun as he walks past a UN peacekeeper encampment in the village of Kimua, eastern Congo .

Researchers say offensive by Congolese, UN forces has only made life worse in Congo's North and South Kivu provinces, more than 1,000 civilians have been killed since offensive began in January.

A new report says a United Nations-backed military effort has failed to subdue Rwandan Hutu rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.In a report for the U.N. Security Council, researchers say the offensive by Congolese and U.N. forces has only made life worse for civilians in Congo's North and South Kivu provinces. The report says the fighting and related violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.A coalition of human rights groups made similar claims last month, saying more than 1,000 civilians have been killed since the offensive began in January.The offensive targets the FDLR, a group of ethnic Hutu fighters, many of whom fled Rwanda after the 1994 genocide.U.N. researchers say the FDLR is funding its operations through the illegal mining of gold and cassiterite, a material used in many cell phones.The U.N. has about 17,000 peacekeepers in Congo, providing food, fuel, medical and transportation support to Congolese government soldiers.Congo's government is still trying to assert control over North and South Kivu, more than six years after the end of a brutal civil war.Various rebel groups and militias continue to operate in the area, despite repeated attempts by the army and U.N. forces to stabilize the region. Efforts to integrate rebels into the army have been only partially successful.

UN-backed forces failed to disarm Rwandan rebels, say experts

UN efforts to disarm the Rwandan-Hutu rebels in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo have failed and international action is needed to restrict their financing, according to a new report by UN experts.
By News Wires (text)

AFP - Military operations have failed to contain Rwandan-Hutu rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo and international action is needed to restrict their financing, said a new report by UN experts.
In a major report for the United Nations Security Council, unpublished but seen by AFP, researchers said Congolese, Rwandan and UN forces have tried to disarm the FDLR rebels, who still pose a potent threat to regional stability, but have failed to impose order in a region still wracked by faction fighting.
"This report concludes that military operations against the FDLR have failed to dismantle the organisation's political and military structures on the ground in eastern DRC," the detailed 93-page document begins.
The report also alleges that the FDLR is managing to recruit fighters using profits from a corrupt international trade in minerals.
The militia sprang up in camps in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) housing mainly ethnic Hutu refugees who fled Rwanda after their leaders launched the 1994 genocide, which left some 800,000 people dead.
The campaign has been undermined by corruption and brutality within the official Congolese armed forces and by the FDLR's ability to fund its campaigns through the international mineral trade, it says.
Companies are buying minerals from jungle mines controlled and operated by Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) cadres, while middlemen are smuggling millions of dollars in gold to Dubai every year.
The document was researched on the ground in Congo and the region over six months by a five-strong stream of experts hired by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in order to prepare a report for Security Council members.
It calls on international governments to step up measures to stifle the FDLR support network, which includes members of the Rwandan diaspora based in Europe and North America and foreign sympathisers in Catholic charities.
The experts also warn that since March an offensive against the militia by Congolese forces, some of whose officers have supplied weapons to the rebels, has made life even worse for the beleaguered civilian population.
"Scores of villages have been raided and pillaged, thousands of houses have been burnt and several hundred thousand people have been displaced in order to escape from the violence generated by these military operations," it says.
Official Congolese records show only a few kilos of gold exported legally every year, but the country's own senate estimates that in reality 40 tonnes a year -- worth 1.24 billion dollars -- gets out.
The UN report details how both the anti-Rwandan government FDLR and their enemies in pro-Kigali militias use the same ethnic Indian middlemen to smuggle gold to souks in the United Arab Emirates.
It also says the FDLR profits from the export of cassiterite.
In September, the British group AMC said it would stop buying Congolese cassiterite, insisting the trade was legal but complaining of "negative campaigning from advocacy groups and adverse coverage."
The UN experts also "collected information on individuals affiliated with the Catholic Church and other religious and charitable organisations ... who provide financial and material support to the FDLR."
This is said to include "regular financial, logistical and political support from individuals" linked to two Spanish organisations, including the Fundacio S'Olivar, which is funded by the government of the Balearic Islands.
The islands' regional parliament issued a statement defending the Fundacio, denying that it supports armed groups and insisting that it works "in defence of peace, justice and solidarity, always applying pacifist principles."
Meanwhile, FDLR leaders command their troops from the safety of Europe.
"Some of these supporters and leaders are suspected participants in the 1994 Rwandan genocide," the report says, going on to detail telephone traffic and cash transfers between exiled Rwandan politicians and militia warlords.
The experts tracked down 240 calls between German-based FDLR leader Ignance Murwanashyaka and militia commanders in Congo, while these commanders were in turn in touch with contacts in 25 countries in Europe and America.
The report was addressed to the chairman of the UN Security Council committee on September 9. It is not known when it will be published.

Rwandan priest acquitted of genocide charges

By SUKHDEV CHHATBAR (AP) – 1 day ago
ARUSHA, Tanzania — A United Nations court on Tuesday acquitted a Catholic priest charged with genocide, murder and extermination in Rwanda's 1994 genocide after the judge said the prosecution had failed to prove its case.
Father Hormisdas Nsengimana, 55, had been imprisoned for seven years since his 2002 arrest in Cameroon. Judge Erik Mose ordered his immediate release from the U.N. detention facility in Arusha.
"I wish for peace and reconciliation in Rwanda ... I thank God for this (release)," Nsengimana told the press after his acquittal.
At least 500,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during Rwanda's genocide, which began after President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was brought down in April 1994.
Nsengimana was alleged to have been at the center of a group of Hutu extremists that planned and carried out targeted attacks in the southern Rwandan town of Nyanza, where he was head of a prestigious Catholic school.
He also was accused of supervising at least three roadblocks that were used to stop and kill Tutsis, according to a statement by The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Mose said the chamber had assessed all the evidence supporting the three counts against Nsengimana and did not find any credible evidence to implicate him.
"One prosecution witness testified about this event. His credibility is doubtful ... The chamber has not found the allegation proved beyond reasonable doubt," Mose said during the 30-minute ruling.
The prosecutor, Hassan Bubacar Jallow, said they needed more information to look into an appeal.
"We have not received the full text. When we receive it, we'll study it and make our position," he said.
It was the second acquittal by The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda since Monday, when the appeals court overturned a conviction and 20-year sentence faced by Protais Zigiranyirazo, the former Rwandan president's brother-in-law. Zigiranyirazo, known as "Mr. Z," was sentenced to 20 years in December 2008. The Appeals Court said it found serious errors committed by the Tribunal in Zigiranyirazo's conviction.
The tribunal, set up by the U.N. to try key suspects of the genocide, has now convicted 39 people and acquitted eight.
Nsengimana is one of the four Catholic priests indicted by the ICTR. Athanase Seromba, a former vicar in western Rwanda, is serving a life sentence. Emmanuel Rukundo, a former military chaplain, was sentenced in February to 25 years in prison. Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, a former vicar at the Parish of the Holy Family in Kigali, is awaiting trial.

Rwanda genocide ruling overturned

The UN tribunal hearing cases from the 1994 Rwandan genocide has freed a man who had been sentenced to 22 years.
Protais Zigiranyirazo, the brother-in-law of ex-Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, had been found guilty of organising a massacre of 1,000 people.
But the appeals court judge said there had been serious errors in his trial and his conviction in 2008 violated "the most basic principles of justice".
Reporters say Mr Zigiranyirazo looked stunned and relieved by the ruling.
"God is great and justice has been done. I am very happy," he told the BBC's Great Lakes service.
Mr Habyarimana's plane was shot down on 6 April, 1994, sparking the 100-day massacres in which an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.
Mr Zigiranyirazo was accused of leading a convoy that attacked Tutsis who were seeking refuge on a hill a few days after the genocide began.
But Judge Theodor Meron said the trial judgment had "seriously erred in its handling of the evidence", AP news agency reports.
Mr Zigiranyirazo told the BBC he would be seeking compensation for the eight-and-half years he had already spent in detention.
Rwanda's justice minister told the BBC the government was very unhappy about the decision, but could not reverse the judgement
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Tanzania, was set up to try high-profile genocide cases.
Kenya warning
Meanwhile, the US ambassador for war crimes, Stephen Rapp, has called on the Kenyan authorities to arrest a key genocide suspect.
The BBC's East Africa correspondent Will Ross says officials at the ICTR have long maintained that Felicien Kabuga is hiding in Kenya and that the Nairobi government is protecting him.
Mr Rapp said he had received fresh reports that Mr Kabuga was in Kenya.
"The latest response of government authorities is, 'Oh he's left.' The ICTR says if he's left show us the evidence. And they say, 'Well we're still looking for that evidence,'" Mr Rapp said.
"If you are still looking for the evidence you cannot honestly say that he has left," he said.
The calls for Hutu people to exterminate the Tutsis during the genocide were broadcast over Radio Mille Collines, which was headed by Mr Kabuga, a wealthy businessman.

Girlfriend 'kills Uganda general'

Uganda's former army chief James Kazini has been killed at his girlfriend's flat in the capital, Kampala.
A BBC correspondent says Maj Gen Kazini died after being hit on the head with an iron bar during a brawl.
An army spokesman said he had been a victim of domestic violence. His girlfriend has been arrested.
He was sacked as army chief in 2003 after UN accusations that he plundered resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo when leading operations there.
He was in charge of Ugandan troops who clashed with their Rwandan counterparts in the eastern Congolese town of Kisangani in 1999.
The BBC's Joshua Mmali in Kampala says many people are shocked by the manner of his death.
Last year he was found guilty of corruption - charges unconnected to the Congolese allegations.
He went to jail, but was out on bail and facing further charges of subversion at the time of his death.
Denials
Allegations against Maj Gen Kazini were first made in two United Nations reports, at a time when Uganda had a heavy military presence in eastern DR Congo, supporting the rebellion against President Laurent Kabila and later against current President Joseph Kabila.
Although Maj Gen Kazini was withdrawn from DR Congo in 2001, the Ugandan government protested his innocence and appointed him acting army chief.
The government nevertheless set up a judicial commission of inquiry into the UN allegations.
As a result of the inquiry, the government recommended that action be taken against Maj Gen Kazini, and he was removed from his post as acting head of the army in 2003.
An army spokesman said at the time that Maj Gen Kazini's removal from office was unconnected with the UN accusations, and that he was being sent for further training.
Last year he was found guilty of causing the army financial loss, charges that stemmed from irregularities in the army payroll.
He was most recently facing charges that he disobeyed a presidential order, when he was army chief, not to transport large numbers of troops at one time.
Such actions can raise suspicion of coup plotting, our reporter says.

FDLR PRESS RELEASE NR. 01/SE/CD/NOVEMBER/2009

Terrorists and war criminals to prosecute and to bring to justice are to be found in the
RPF-Inkotanyi on power in Kigali and not in the leadership of the FDLR.
In response to statements made recently in Kigali by Ms. Rosemary Museminali, Rwandan Minister
for Foreign Affairs, urging the UN to declare the FDLR a terrorist movement to be fought and to
bring its leaders to justice by European countries, the FDLR inform the public that they are not a
terrorist movement but a movement of liberation of the Rwandan people from the yoke of the
fascism of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF-Inkotanyi).
Terrorists are to be sought in the movement that has attacked Rwanda in 1990 and caused the
displacement of over 2 millions of men and women inside Rwanda in less than 3 years, which has
sacrificed the people of the Tutsi community in Rwanda and caused their massacre, which killed
hundreds of thousands of peasants in the prefectures of Byumba, Ruhengeri and Kibungo in its
march to power in Kigali, which fired mortar rounds on IDPs without defence in Kibeho in May
1995 killing many hundred men, women and children, which fired heavy weapons at the camps of
Rwandan refugees in Goma and Bukavu in October 1996 and killed thousands of them, which
chased and massacred Rwandan refugees in the forests of Zaire, which has invaded and occupied
for several years a neighbouring country, which has pillaged that country, killed more than 6
million of its citizens and which continues to sow death and desolation in neighbouring countries by
undercover soldiers.
It is the movement that transformed the country it leads in a gladiator state on the service of foreign
conglomerates and vultures and has transformed its citizens into begging people which must be
declared terrorist and its leaders be regarded as such.
It is the movement whose leader has gunned down a plane
carrying two Heads of State, their aides
and a foreign crew killing them on the spot, which must be put on the register of terrorist
movements by the concert of Nations.
It is the movement whose leaders have been indicted by a prominent anti-terrorist judge recognized
worldwide in this field for their terrorist acts in Rwanda in 1994 which must be brought to book.
It is the movement whose leaders have been indicted by a prominent European judge for their
terrorist acts against a neighbouring country, for war crimes, crimes against humanity, crime of
genocide, pillage and rape of women and girls in a neighbouring country that must be banned.
That movement of criminals is the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF-Inkotanyi) which has usurped the
power of the Rwandan people and has subjected them to unspeakable atrocities.

The FDLR urge the hegemonic regime of Kigali to stop its campaign of demonization and
persecution of the leaders of movements opposed to this criminal regime and to decide without
delay to initiate a direct dialogue with the FDLR in order to find a definitive solution to the political
problem of Rwanda which is the basis of the catastrophic situation prevailing in the African Great
Lakes Region.
The FDLR remain convinced that neither the demonization and persecution of its leaders, or
campaigns of physical elimination or unfair judicial proceedings against them, nor unjust,
unnecessary and endless war waged against them, nor unjust, unjustified and counterproductive
sanctions imposed on their leadership, will make them bow down or distract them from their
objective which is and remains the total liberation of the Rwandan people from the yoke of the
fascism of RPF-Inkotanyi.
The Kigali authorities must acknowledge their failure in running the country and the calamitous
situation in which they have plunged Rwanda and the African Great Lakes Region and draw the
consequences.

The Kigali regime must understand that the liberation process of the Rwandan people is ongoing
and nothing and nobody can stop it.
Done in Paris on November 6, 2009
Callixte Mbarushimana
Executive Secretary of the FDLR
(Sé)

Charity Group: Congolese Army Attacked Civilians At Vaccination Sites

11/6/2009 7:11 PM ET
(RTTNews) - A French medical charity group alleged Friday that some of its measles vaccination sites in rebel controlled-territories in eastern DR Congo came under fire last month when security forces attacked rebel bases in the region while thousands of civilians had gathered at the sites for vaccinations.Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Friday denounced the army attacks on rebel bases when the aid group was carrying out vaccinations for children in the region, stating that "such actions seriously compromise our neutrality.""The attacks coincided with the beginning of our vaccination and put the lives of civilians in extreme risk. Thousands of people, and the MSF teams, were trapped in the gunfire. The attack was an unacceptable abuse of humanitarian action to fulfill military objectives," Luis Encinas, head of MSF programs in Central Africa, said in a statement.Saying that the charity felt that its vaccination camps were used as "bai(RTTNews) - However, the UN withdrew its support for an FARDC unit, the 213th Brigade, earlier in the week, accusing the unit of killing "at least 62 civilians." Following the UN move, the Congolese government suspended military operations in the area to allow an inquiry into allegations that soldiers had killed civilians. The presence of some 6,000-strong FDLR rebels along the Congo-Rwanda have been at the heart of years of unrest in the region. The presence of FDLR rebels along the border region prompted the armies of DR Congo and Rwanda to launch a joint offensive against the rebels in January. The joint operation succeeded in weakening the 6,000-strong Hutu rebels in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with over 90 rebels killed in the joint offensive. It was finally called off in late February after the joint offensive achieved its objective.
t" the Congolese security forces, Encinas asked: "How will MSF be perceived by the population now? Will our patients still feel safe enough to come for medical care?" He was apparently referring to a UN-backed October 17th army offensive against Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebels in eastern Congo. The offensive targeted all seven MSF vaccination sites in the Masisi territory of eastern Congo, which under rebel control at that time.
Earlier, MSF had launched a mass vaccination campaign in Masisi district on 17th October to support the Congolese health ministry in its efforts to tackle a measles epidemic. MSF maintains that it had informed all the parties to the conflict, including FDLR rebels and Congolese military, about the vaccination campaign, and had received security guarantees from them.However, the Congolese army launched attacks on each of the seven MSF vaccination sites when the charity's medical teams were vaccinating thousands of children in Ngomashi and Kimua regions of the Masisi district, which was controlled at the time by the FDLR.The MSF claim came amidst international concerns over the alleged atrocities committed by Congolese security forces during the UN-backed offensive against Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic (DR) of Congo had backed the army offensive against the FDLR rebels by providing rations and fuel to the army troops, helping in planning operations and evacuating injured Congolese soldiers by UN helicopters.
(RTTNews) - However, the UN withdrew its support for an FARDC unit, the 213th Brigade, earlier in the week, accusing the unit of killing "at least 62 civilians." Following the UN move, the Congolese government suspended military operations in the area to allow an inquiry into allegations that soldiers had killed civilians. The presence of some 6,000-strong FDLR rebels along the Congo-Rwanda have been at the heart of years of unrest in the region. The presence of FDLR rebels along the border region prompted the armies of DR Congo and Rwanda to launch a joint offensive against the rebels in January. The joint operation succeeded in weakening the 6,000-strong Hutu rebels in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with over 90 rebels killed in the joint offensive. It was finally called off in late February after the joint offensive achieved its objective.
In addition to the joint offensive against the Hutu rebels, Rwanda had also agreed to use its influence over the Tutsi rebels to end the ongoing hostilities in eastern DR Congo.It was the first act of cooperation between the two neighboring countries in thirteen years after Congo cut off diplomatic relations with Rwanda in 1996 after Rwandan forces, along with Tutsi militia, invaded eastern Congo to hunt down Rwandan Hutu fighters who sought refuge there after the 1994 genocide.The Hutu FDLR rebels had fled Rwanda to Congo after taking active part in the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which over 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in a period of 100 days.

Clinics used as 'bait' in DRC war

Medecins Sans Frontieres, the French aid agency, has said that it believes its vaccination centres in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have been used as "bait" by the military to attack Rwandan opposition fighters.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Friday that thousands of civilians came under heavy fire on October 17 at seven of their vaccination clinics when the Congolese military launched attacks.
"MSF denounces this clearly unacceptable abuse of humanitarian aid for military purposes," the organisation said in a statement.
Children had been receiving measles vaccinations at the sites.
Forced to flee
Women and children were said to have been forced to flee. "They are now in unknown locations and thus cannot be vaccinated," MSF said.
"We feel we were used as bait," said Luis Encinas, the head of MSF programmes in Central Africa.
"The attacks coincided with the beginning of our vaccination and put the lives of civilians in extreme risk."
An army spokesman has questioned whether the agency had contacted the operation's headquarters before the attacks.
MSF said that it had told the government, Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) opposition group and UN peacekeepers about the clinics and received guarantees from warring factions that the vaccination programme could go forward.
A military spokesman for the UN mission in the Congo said it was not aware of the incidents.
'Continuous contact'
Maynee Nicolai, MSF's Operational Director, told Al Jazeera: "We were working in the eastern side of the DRC ... our teams were aware in October of a measles epidemic [and] decided to vaccinate.
"We informed all different armed actors that we were going to vaccinate. We asked their security guarantees. And we explained exactly when and where we were vaccinating.
"Part was done on fixed sites in government held areas and part was done using mobile sites in rebel controlled areas.
"The day we came to vaccinate in rebel-controlled areas ... we were to vaccinate on seven sites. On the day we arrived the Congolese army opened fire on villages where the MSF teams were vaccinating.
"Our teams had to flee on foot into the hills," she said.
Nicolai added: "We are in continuous contact with the various groups."

DR Congo army 'used aid as bait'

The Democratic Republic of Congo army has used vaccination clinics as "bait" to attack civilians, says aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
Thousands of Hutu civilians were targeted when they visited sites set up to combat a measles epidemic, in areas controlled by the rebels, MSF said.
It denounced the attacks in North Kivu as "an abuse of humanitarian action".
On Monday the UN withdrew its support for a government army unit, accusing soldiers of killing 62 civilians.
MSF said the clinics were targeted despite security guarantees from all parties to enable the mass immunisation scheme to be carried out in the Maisisi district north-west of the city of Goma.
It said it was operating in support of the Ministry of Health, whose workers were unable to access regions controlled by the Hutu rebel group, the FDLR.

"We feel we were used as bait," said Luis Encinas, head of MSF programmes in Central Africa.
"How will MSF be perceived by the population now? Will our patients still feel safe enough to come for medical care?"
The targeting of civilians has been a major concern for charities operating in DR Congo and UN support for the government had been dependent on it respecting the neutrality of civilians.
The Congolese government says military operations in the area have been suspended to allow an inquiry into the UN allegations that soldiers had killed civilians.
The UN had been helping the army tackle the FDLR since January 2009.
The rebels have been at the heart of years of unrest in the region.
Their leaders fled to the area in 1994 after being accused of taking part in Rwanda's genocide and have since been fighting with the local Tutsi population and government troops.

Human Rights Watch Chalks New Allegations Against Congo, Rwanda Troops

Congo News Agency - November 3, 2009
Four days after Congo Government spokesman Lambert Mende lambasted Human Rights Watch about what he called “exaggerated” allegations on the situation in eastern Congo and the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC) military operation (Kimia II) against the Rwandan Hutu militia (FDLR), the NGO responded with new allegations against the FARDC and their Rwandan Defense Force (RDF) allies in another operation (Umoja Wetu) earlier this year against the FDLR.
The NGO is now claiming that Congolese soldiers killed “at least 270 civilians between the towns of Nyabiondo and Pinga in a remote part of North Kivu province since March. Many of them had been killed during two massacres in August at Mashango and Ndoruma villages”.
The NGO claims that “Congolese army soldiers had deliberately killed at least 505 civilians from the start of operation Kimia II in March through September”.
The NGO also now claims that “another 198 civilians were deliberately killed by Congolese army soldiers and their Rwandan army allies during an earlier five-week joint operation, known as Umoja Wetu, in late January and February”.
Human Rights Watch has published countless “reports” on the situation in eastern Congo. The Congolese Government, mainly through its spokesman, has claimed it is under “attack” by the NGO. It has accused the NGO of making “unfounded” allegations, and even having an hidden “agenda” in eastern Congo.
In an interview on Top Congo FM on July 2, 2009, responding to another damning “report” from the NGO, Lambert Mende said that if Human Rights Watch “has a score to settle with Joseph Kabila, they shouldn’t try to use the situation in eastern Congo to do it. They are simply trying to weaken and demoralize us in our existential right of resistance against terrorist movements”.
He also accused the NGO of turning a blind eye on the crimes of the FDLR, most of whom committed the Rwandan genocide in 1994 before fleeing to eastern Congo, where they have since been accused by other respectable NGOs and the United Nations of committing numerous exactions against the Congolese population.
Lambert Mende told Top Congo FM that “Human Rights Watch has said almost nothing against the FDLR and LRA (Ugandan militia) that are attacking us. All the attacks from Human Rights Watch are aimed at the Congolese government. Enough is enough!”.
He accused the NGO of pursuing a hidden agenda in the Congo. He said he wondered why the NGO has focused its “attacks” on the Congolese Government, which is only trying to protect itself against “terrorist groups”.
On Wednesday, responding to a call made by the NGO for the Congolese army to stop its military operation against the FDLR, Lambert Mende said it is “nonsensical” for the NGO to call for a return to the “status quo”.
He said that some NGOs are more interested by the “effects” of war instead of solving its root cause (FDLR).
More than 5,400,000 have died in Congo over the last decade, in big part due to the presence of the Rwandan Hutu refugees and militiamen (FDLR) who fled to eastern Congo after the Rwandan genocide.
The current Rwandan authorities have used the presence of the FDLR in eastern Congo as a pretext to invade eastern Congo during the Second Congo War. After withdrawing their troops in 2003, they supported the Tutsi rebels led by warlord Laurent Nkunda who also claimed that he was protecting “his people” against attacks from the FDLR.
Laurent Nkunda an his men wrecked havoc in the region before the Congolese and Rwandan governments decided to mount a joint military operation (Umoja Wetu) to attack the FDLR. Umoja Wetu also led to the arrest of Laurent Nkunda by the Rwandan army.
Since then the FARDC have launched a military operation (Kimia I) against the FDLR in North Kivu province that has led to an improvement in the humanitarian situation of the population in the province. A second fase (Kimia II) is now underway in South Kivu province to finally rid the area of this scourge of the FDLR that has led to so many deaths in the Great Lakes region.
The United Nations News Service reported on October 16, 2009 that:
The top United Nations envoy to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today voiced optimism that calm could soon return to the country’s volatile eastern region, while noting that a number of challenges still remain.“There is now a real prospect that the conflicts that have long blighted the eastern Congo can be ended,” Alan Doss, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for DRC and head of the UN peacekeeping force there, told the Security Council.
Highlighting progress on a number of fronts, he stated that operations by the Congolese Army, known as FARDC, in North Kivu, South Kivu and Orientale provinces have significantly eroded the capacities of the Hutu rebel Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) and Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
He also said that it would be a mistake to stop now the military operation against the FDLR. Clearly, Mr. Doss doesn’t agree with Human Rights Watch approach.
By only attacking one side of the conflict, the Congolese government, the NGO often gives the impression of protecting the other side, the FDLR. Are human rights violations one-sided?
The NGO has recently been criticized in an op-ed article in the New York Times by its founder, Robert Bernstein, for this kind of approach about the Israeli palestinian conflict.
“As the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics,” he wrote.
“Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.”
“Only by returning to its founding mission and the spirit of humility that animated it can Human Rights Watch resurrect itself as a moral force in the Middle East and throughout the world. If it fails to do that, its credibility will be seriously undermined and its important role in the world significantly diminished.”

DR Congo: Arrest Bosco Ntaganda

President Kabila Should Enforce ICC Arrest Warrant on War Crimes Charges
February 2, 2009

(New York) - The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo should arrest Bosco Ntaganda, a former rebel commander charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Human Rights Watch said today in a public letter to President Joseph Kabila.
Human Rights Watch expressed deep concern that the government is considering appointing Ntaganda to a top position in the Congolese army, despite the accusations that he had responsibility for using child soldiers, as well as for committing several atrocities in Ituri district in northeastern Congo.
"For senior Congolese officials to hold a news conference with an alleged war criminal is hardly the way to promote respect for the law," said Param-Preet Singh, counsel to the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. "Kabila's government has a legal obligation to arrest Ntaganda, not to promote him."
Since April 2008, Ntaganda has been wanted by the ICC at The Hague for the war crime of enlisting child soldiers and using them in hostilities. Ntaganda is a co-accused in the trial of Thomas Lubanga, another Congo militia leader, which began on January 26.
In early January 2009, Ntaganda, formerly the military chief of staff for the rebel National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), claimed he had supplanted Laurent Nkunda as the head of the group. On January 16, in a joint news conference with the Congolese minister of the interior and the head of the police, he declared that instead of waging war on the Congolese national army, he would join its troops in fighting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a group with some leaders who participated in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 that has been operating in eastern Congo.
Congo is a party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, and thus has a legal obligation to cooperate with the court, including apprehending persons under arrest warrant and surrendering them to the court.
In addition to the ICC charges, Ntaganda has been accused of commanding troops that massacred 150 civilians at Kiwanja in North Kivu province in November 2008. He also commanded troops accused of having killed at least 800 civilians on an ethnic basis in the town of Mongbwalu, in Ituri district in 2002, after his troops took control of the rich gold mines in the area.
In 2005, Ntaganda was put on the United Nations sanctions list for having violated an embargo against arms deliveries to Congolese rebel groups.
"Giving an officer accused of such heinous crimes responsibility in military operations increases the likelihood of more attacks on civilians," said Singh. "The government is risking the lives of its people, as well as ignoring its legal obligations."
Human Rights Watch also sent letters to the European Union, the United States and members of the UN Security Council expressing deep disappointment that they had not publicly called on the DRC government to arrest Ntaganda, and urging them to use their influence with President Kabila to carry out the arrest.
Human Rights Watch also called on the United Nations Mission in the Congo (MONUC) to assist in arresting Ntaganda, as requested by the Congolese government in May 2007. MONUC has a mandate to help the government restore accountability in Congo and to ensure that those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity are held to account.
"ICC arrest warrants should not be ignored when they are politically inconvenient," said Singh. "The arrest of Ntaganda is important for Congo and for international justice worldwide."

UN drops Congo army over killings

The UN has withdrawn its support for an army unit in Democratic Republic of Congo, accusing soldiers of killing 62 civilians, a top UN official says.
UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said he had information that the army had "clearly targeted" the civilians.
Rights activists have persistently said ethnic Hutus were being killed by the Congolese army, and have accused the UN of doing little to stop the killings.
The UN has been helping the army tackle Rwandan Hutu rebels since January.
Following a tour of the region, Mr Le Roy said the army had killed at least 62 civilians between May and September this year.
"We have decided that Monuc [UN's peacekeeping operation] will immediately suspend its logistical and operational support to the army units implicated in these killings," Mr Le Roy told UN-backed Radio Okapi.
He said the killings took place around the village of Lukweti in North Kivu province, about 100km (62 miles) north-west of the provincial capital Goma.
Years of unrest
Rights groups estimate hundreds of civilians have been killed and thousands of women and girls have been raped by rebels and soldiers since DR Congo and Rwanda launched a joint offensive in January.

Last month a UN investigator said the army had massacred refugees and gang-raped women at the Shalio camp in North Kivu on 27 April.
The UN move comes after days of intense fighting between government forces and FDLR rebels around Lukweti.
The BBC's Thomas Fessy, in North Kivu province, says the army has announced it is suspending all military operations around the village so the alleged civilian deaths can be investigated.