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Dictionary of Gross Human Rights Violations
Democratic Republic of Congo, Gross Human Rights Violations in
Street scene in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo - Photo by Kjell Anderson
By - Kjell Follingstad Anderson
In its history, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has experienced crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, and other gross human rights abuses. The recent wars in the Congo were particularly ruinous for the country and its people. These contemporary conflicts were centred largely on the east of the country, and involve several overlapping and interrelated factors including ethnic strife, a weak state, regional politics, and the struggle for Congo’s rich resources.
Congo was colonised first not by a country, but by an individual. King Leopold II of Belgium claimed, and was recognised, as the ruler of a territory in Central Africa named the Congo Free State. King Leopold was a constitutional monarch and so he was required to seek private (commercial) interests in order to fund his Congo enterprise. Thus, the Congo Free State was purely an extractive and exploitative regime.[1] When Belgium itself took control of the territory (now renamed the Belgian Congo) they continued the policies established by Leopold and instituted a rigid class structure that also ensured the stratification of ethnicity (as certain ethnic and racial groups were favoured over others).
The Democratic Republic of Congo (then called Congo) became independent in 1960 with Patrice Lumumba, who had been elected only months before, as prime minister. Lumumba was an African nationalist and, he was opposed by various economic interests, including Belgium. A week after independence the army mutinied and the mineral-rich Katanga province (in Congo’s south) seceded. Belgium also intervened militarily and Lumumba sought the assistance of the United Nations (UN) to protect the Congo from Belgian “aggression.” A few months later Lumumba’s chief of staff Joseph-Désiré Mobutu overthrew him and Lumumba was subsequently murdered by the Katanga secessionists.
Thus began the thirty-two year dictatorship of Mobutu, a regime that essentially continued the pattern of governance as being an exercise in pillage, where clientalist networks were rewarded through extreme corruption. The Congo (which Mobutu had renamed “Zaire”) was a failed state where government did not exercise its core functions to appropriately distribute resources and peacefully manage conflict. It was this weak state that was presented with a crisis in 1994 as two million Hutu refugees flooded into the Congo from Rwanda, fleeing the advance of the Tutsi-dominated Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) in the wake of the Rwandan genocide.
Most of these refugees settled in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu. Some of these refugees were ex-Rwandan soldiers, genocidaires, and members of extremist groups such as the Interahamwe. These militant groups, under the umbrella of the Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), launched attacks both against Rwanda proper and Tutsis within the Congo. These Tutsis, including the Banyamulenge and other groups, began arriving in the eastern Congo en masse towards the end of the nineteenth century).[2]
Rwanda considered the presence of the FDLR on its western border, and Mobutu’s seeming tolerance of them, as a serious threat to its security. It was thus that Rwanda, and allied states such as Uganda, decided to intervene in the Congo in support of the Laurent Kabila-led AFDL (Alliance of Forces for Democracy and the Liberation of Congo-Zaire). The AFDL was a coalition of groups in opposition to Mobutu supported by, directed by, and perhaps created by, Rwanda).[3] Thus, the war in the Congo was an internationalised internal armed conflict with external states using proxy forces to wage war within another state. There was also an internal dimension as there were major ethnic divisions in the Congo (particularly in the eastern provinces such as North Kivu, South Kivu, and Province Orientale) and the Banyamulenge and other Tutsis played a major role in the AFDL.
Many observers have also argued that Rwanda and Uganda were motivated not only by security concerns, but also by economic interests; in other words, that they sought to exploit and plunder the wealth of the Congo. Whatever their initial motivations, there is no question that Rwanda, Uganda, and other states did freely loot Congo’s resources. The AFDL and its supporters enjoyed rapid military success and the weakened Congolese State was unable to withstand the onslaught. Rwanda weakened the power of the militia groups (and some observers contend committed atrocities against Hutu refugees as a form of collective punishment). Mobutu remained out of the country and by May Laurent Kabila was the new president of the renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Rwandese and their allies soon became dissatisfied with Kabila, who had developed close relations with the FDLR and other extremist Hutu groups in order to shore up his fragile support base. Kabila’s regime was subsequently challenged by a Rwanda/Uganda backed rebellion in August 1998. Troops from Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Chad and Sudan intervened to support Kabila’s Kinshasa regime. This second Congolese war is often called the African World War due to its regional character.
The Lusaka agreement was signed on July 10, 1999, which included terms for a cease-fire, demobilisation and disarmament of all military groups and an inclusive peace process (with the involvement of civil society). However, despite the signing of this agreement by all parties, sporadic fighting continued. Kabila was assassinated in January 2001 and his son Joseph Kabila was named head of state. The new president was able to negotiate a final peace agreement in South Africa in 2002, the formation of a transitional government in 2003, and the first round of multiparty elections in June 2006. In sum, the conflict in the Congo cost the total of about four million lives (averaging out to about 31 000 people dead per month through the course of the war).[4] During the conflict, many gross human rights violations were committed including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and, in all probability, genocide.
In some ways, the rich resource endowments of the Congo have proved to be a curse. In particular, diamonds not only provided motivation for countries to become involved in the conflict in the DRC (in order to enrich themselves), but also served to sustain the conflict by funding further arms purchases. The DRC is now a member of the Kimberley Process to regulate the illicit diamond trade.
In spite of the peace agreement, violence and human rights violations have continued in the past several years in the eastern parts of the Congo including the Kivus (North Kivu and South Kivu), as well as Ituri District of Province Orientale. The Kivus have become a de facto holdout for forces opposed to the peace process (such as the FDLR). It is also (like Ituri) a region that is closely tied to Rwandan interests. The FDLR has continued to launch raids into Rwanda and to fight the RCD-Goma (Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie or Rally for Congolese Democracy) - a group backed by the government in Rwanda. The RCD-Goma has also established a kind of de facto control over the Kivus. The RCD-Goma was included in the transitional government in 2003 and since then there have been attempts to get the group to disarm. The various stakeholders have also sought the disarmament of the FDLR and the repatriation of Rwandans to Rwanda. The FDLR, the RCD-Goma, and the Congolese armed forces have all committed gross human rights violations in the violence that has wracked the Kivus.
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SOPROP Clinic for victims of sexual violence, Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo - Photo by Kjell Anderson
Ituri has also been caught in the struggle between foreign governments (in this case Uganda, Rwanda, and their proxies) and the Congolese government (and its militia allies). However, the violence in Ituri has a more explicitly ethnic character than that in the Kivus. Ethnic violence in Ituri largely occurs between the pastoralist Hema and the agriculturalist Lendu. The Hema were favoured by the colonial regime (as the Tutsis were favoured in Rwanda) and in the post-colonial period they easily assumed economic and political leadership roles in Ituri.
Another major source of grievance and conflict has been land rights. Forced evictions (under an ill-considered land use law) by Hema landowners of Lendu have resulted in waves of Lendu attacks followed by Hema counter-attacks. The Hema received support from the Ugandan Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF – the Ugandan military), and Uganda used its intervention to exploit the ample mineral resources of Ituri. Since 2001, there has been a cycle of escalating violence between Lendu and Hema militia groups that has resulted in atrocities such as soldiers engaging in massacres, slavery, cannibalism, and mutilation. There have been many shifts in the political landscape but the fundamental results have remained the same: tens of thousands of people have been killed, more have been internally displaced, and children have been forcibly recruited into armed groups.
Although the DRC remains a fairly unified country (in the sense that there are no significant secessionist forces), the infrastructure of the state has been severely damaged by years of war. Moreover, the Kinyarwanda-speakers (the so-called “Rwandaphones”) continue to be regarded as foreigners in the country even though many of them have been there for many generations. This is particularly true of the Banyamulenge and other Tutsis who are consistently excluded from participation in Congolese political life.[5] Unfortunately it seems likely that instability and human rights abuses will continue in the Kivus as long as this is the case.
In conclusion, the people of Congo have suffered many egregious human rights abuses. The Congolese state has been perpetually weak and unable, or unwilling, to uphold basic human rights. Most of these abuses have been related to poor governance, which has resulted in ethnic tensions and resource conflicts. During these conflicts there have been numerous war crimes, crimes against humanity, and most likely, incidents of genocide have occurred in Ituri and possibly in the Kivus as well. The situation appears to be improving, but many significant challenges remain. In order to restore the Congolese state, impunity must be rejected and those who commit international crimes must be punished. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is currently investigating alleged crimes in the DRC and has issued an indictment against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo for the war crime of conscripting and enlisting children.
[1] John Turner, Congo Wars: Conflict, Myth & Reality, (London: Zed Books, 2007), p. 27.
[2] Turner 4 and 79.
[3] Turner 126.
[4] Amnesty International, “Democratic Republic of the Congo: arming the east,” July 5, 2005. http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engafra620062005
[5] In the Kivus there has been a conscious effort to unite all of the various Kinyarwanda-speakers (Rwandaphones, both Hutus and Tutsis) into a single force.