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HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
In May 1997, the Alliance of the Democratic Forces for
the Liberation of Congo, a guerrilla front movement
supported by Uganda and Rwanda, headed by Laurent —
Desiré Kabila, overthrew the Zairian Mobutu regime and
restored the country’s former name — the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC). A massive armed rebellion
against the Kabila government was launched one year
64 • E A A F 2 0 0 3 A N N U A L R E P O R T • D e m o c r a t i c R e p u b l i c o f t h e C o n g o
DEMOCRATICREPUBLIC OF THE CONGO From April 24 to May 6, 2003, two members
of the Argentine Forensic Anthropology
team, Luis Fondebrider and Anahí Ginarte,
traveled to DRC at the request of the Office
of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
and the Human Rights office of the United
Nations Mission, MONUC. The two forensic
consultants joined a Special Investigative
Team from MONUC in order to provide
physical evidence that could be incorporated
into its report about the incidents that
occurred at the village of Drodro and
its surroundings on April 3, 2003.
The purpose of the trip was to conduct
a forensic assessment of these incidents,
which are part of the country’s
six-year conflict.
later, led largely by two main rebel groups. The Movement
for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), one of the rebel
groups, was backed by Uganda, while different branches of
the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), the second
group, were backed by Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi,
former allies of Kabila.
After a short time the rebels controlled over 50% of the
D e m o c r a t i c R e p u b l i c o f t h e C o n g o • E A A F 2 0 0 3 A N N U A L R E P O R T • 65
Goma residents salute Laurent Kabila in Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire), 1996. Photo courtesy of Guy Tillim.
country in the eastern
and northern parts of
Congo. The
governments of
Angola, Zimbabwe
and Namibia
responded to a request
by the Congolese
government to send
troops in its defense.
Government forces and
supporting troops from
these countries
maintained control of
most of the western
and southern parts of
the DRC. In addition,
the Mai Mai, a group of
local people who took
up arms in various
parts of the country,
also have played a role
in defending territory
from the rebels. Since
the rebel takeover, war
has ravaged the
country and numerous
other rebel groups and
alliances have
emerged.1
The war in the DRC has been the “deadliest” war in the
world since World War II, according to a mortality study
released by the International Rescue Committee, which
estimates that between August 1998 and November 2002
at least 3.3 million people died as a direct or indirect result
of the fighting.2 Human Rights Watch reports that all
groups involved in the fighting — including government
and rebel forces- have participated in human rights
violations, including killing, maiming, and raping
hundreds of thousands of civilians.3 Thousands of others
died because of hunger or disease, and an estimated two
million persons were forced to flee their homes.4 Human
rights activists and journalists have suffered harassment,
abduction, physical
assault, and arbitrary
arrest by all sides. All
combatant groups
reportedly abducted
and recruited children
to be trained and
deployed as soldiers, as
members of local
militia or civil defense
forces, or as workers
attached to military
unit.5
After the assassination
of his father, the
accession of Joseph
Kabila as president of
the DRC in 2001,
raised hopes for the
end of the war.6
President Kabila was
chosen by consensus
among leading
domestic and foreign
players rather than
by any constitutional
mechanism.7 Upon
taking power, he
vowed to honor civil
and political rights. However, according
to Human Rights Watch, throughout his two years as
president, he has continued to operate under Decree Law
No. 3 of 19978 established by his father, which granted
him full executive, legislative, and judicial powers.
The public position of Rwanda and Uganda was that their
troops were in Congo to fight armed groups based in DRC
that posed a threat to their countries, according to Human
Rights Watch.9 However, the UN Security Council
concluded in an October 2002 report that the conflict was
being spurred by Rwandan, Ugandan, and Zimbabwean
army officers as well as Congolese authorities acting in
both private and public capacities to exploit Congolese
66 • E A A F 2 0 0 3 A N N U A L R E P O R T • D e m o c r a t i c R e p u b l i c o f t h e C o n g o
Mai mai militia in training gear near Beni, eastern DRC, for immediatedeployment with the APC (Armée Populaire du Congo), the army of theRCD-KIS-ML (Congolese Rally for Democracy/Kisangani-LiberationMovement), Dec. 2002. Photo courtesy of Guy Tillim.
natural resources.10 Sales from stolen Congolese resources
such as diamonds, timber, copper, gold, cobalt and coltan,
a mineral used in electronic devices reportedly earned
Uganda and Rwanda multi-million dollar revenues, which
each has used to sustain their respective war efforts in
eastern DRC.11 Amnesty International reported, “foreign
forces…deliberately stoked inter-ethnic conflicts and mass
killings in order to promote their economic interests.”12
According to a United Nations panel of experts,
Zimbabwe has established economic investment in the
DRC by setting up new companies in government
controlled areas and contractual arrangements with an
elite group of Congolese businessmen and politicians.
Revenue from mining ventures of these private companies
bypasses the DRC’s state treasury and rests in the hands of
members of the elite private sector.13
Several attempts to bring peace to the DRC have been
unsuccessful. It was hoped that the Lusaka Accords Peace
Agreement, reached in July 1999, would lead to the
cessation of hostilities. The United Nations Security
Council established the United Nations Organization
Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(MONUC) on November 30, 1999 to oversee the
implementation of the accords. By 2001, it seemed that
there would be a cessation of hostilities as some of the
accords of the agreement were enacted. However, fighting
resumed within months.
Finally, in December 2002, the Congolese government,
rebels and opposition parties signed a peace accord with
the assistance of the South African government and
MONUC. The agreement established a transitional
government headed by Joseph Kabila until the first
democratic elections. In addition, the agreement called
for the deployment of a national police force drawn
from both government and rebel held areas to maintain
order in the capital, Kinshasa. MONUC was also
expanded from 5,537 to 8,700 international military
personnel.14 The transitional government established in
July 2003 was comprised of President Kabila and four
vice presidents named from the Congolese government,
the two main rebel groups RCD and MLC, and the
political opposition.
Violence in Eastern DRC
Yet the fighting resumed, mostly in the eastern part of
the country bordering Rwanda. Although Rwanda had
withdrawn its troops under international pressure,
according to the International Crisis Group, Rwanda
reorganized the military branch of the RCD-Goma to be
ready for rapid deployment.15 By late December 2002,
according to a UN report, the RCD-National/MCL —
initially linked to Uganda (and still linked according to
some), whose troops were still in the area at the time-
committed serious human rights violations and displaced
tens of thousands of civilians in the district of Ituri, in the
Oriental province.16 Witnesses and victims interviewed
by the UN repeated earlier allegations that the MCL was
responsible for rape, torture, and executions near the town
of Beni in the Ituri district from October through
December 2002.17 The violence in Ituri reportedly
stemmed from armed conflict between the Hema and
Lendu ethnic groups (see below under “case
background”). However, according to Amnesty
International, “the conflict has been manipulated and
exacerbated by leaders of armed political groups fighting
for political and economic control in the region.”18
On March 16, 2003, the Union of Congolese Patriots
(UPC), which had taken Bunia — the capital of Ituri —
with assistance of the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces
(UPDF)19 from the RCD-ML in August 2002, was itself
forced out of Bunia by the UPDF, resulting again in the
extensive loss of civilian life and widespread property
damage.20 Throughout 2003, Amnesty also reported
numerous massacre sites in the Ituri region, citing more
than 300 people killed in Tchomia on May 31; 22
civilians killed on July 7th in Nizi; more than 60
civilians killed in July and August; and more than 65
people, including 40 children, killed in Katshele on
October 6.21
Finally, in 2003, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia
withdrew their troops in compliance with the accords.
However, the International Rescue Committee reported
in April 2003 that while Rwanda reportedly withdrew its
forces in October 2002, militias that were part of the
D e m o c r a t i c R e p u b l i c o f t h e C o n g o • E A A F 2 0 0 3 A N N U A L R E P O R T • 67
1994 genocide in Rwanda remained in the forests of
eastern Congo.22
In July 2003, Amnesty reports, “the Security Council
authorized MONUC forces to use ‘all necessary means’ to
protect civilians under imminent threat of physical
violence in Ituri district and the Kivu provinces.” Human
rights violations, including disappearances, mass killings
of civilians, forced recruitment, and rape continued, as
did impunity for those alleged to have committed human
rights violations.23 The UN reported that during a 10
month period in the South Kivu region, there were more
than 40 rapes per day, and many rape victims contracted
HIV/AIDS.24
During 2003, widespread violence also erupted again in
the South-Kivu province, where dozens of unarmed
civilians reportedly were killed and tens of thousands
were displaced in conflicts in the Ruzizi plain, the Hauts-
Plateaux region, Walungu, Bukavu and Uvira.25
Amnesty International reports that by the end of 2003,
approximately 3.4 million people in DRC continued to
be internally displaced, and humanitarian assistance was
not available to many areas.26
In June, 2004, fighting broke out in Bukavu, along the
border with Rwanda, displacing approximately 36,000
people and putting the city in control of a rebel group led
by General Laurent Nkunda, accused by the Congolese
government of being backed by the Rwandan
government.27 While rebel troops reportedly withdrew
from the region, it seems, President Joseph Kabila sent
more than 10,000 troops to the border, according to the
BBC, interpreted by the Rwandans as a hostile move and
bringing the country yet again to the brink of civil war.28
On June 25, President Kabila of Congo and President
Kagame of Rwanda held talks and agreed to follow the
peace agreement of 2002 so that the region would not
return to fighting. Yet at the time of this writing, as the
leaders met in Nigeria to ensure peace, journalists
reported large-scale movement of civilians fleeing the city
of Minova, also on the Rwandan border, after rebel troops
began to move into the area.
CASE BACKGROUND
Bunia, Ituri in the northeast of the Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC), is a region of small hills appropriate for
agriculture. Two primary ethnic groups, the agricultural
Lendu (with a population of approximately 700,000) and
the pastoral Hema (approximately 150,000), live in the
area, together comprising 40% of the population of the
district.29 While they share a language and inter-marriage
is common, under Belgian colonial rule the Hema were
favored and continued to form the governing and
economic elite even after independence.30 The groups also
have competed for control of the land for some time.
The first conflict occurred in 1999, while the area was
occupied by Ugandan forces.31 Allegedly, a group of
Hema attempted to bribe authorities in Ituri to change
land ownership registers in their favor, and Lendu
believed that they used false papers to evict Lendu from
the land. The Lendu retaliated, resulting in a conflict
between the two groups.32
According to Human Rights Watch, following this land
dispute, in June 1999 Brigadier General James Kazini,
then commander of the Ugandan People’s Defense Force
(UDPF) in Congo, created a separate province of Ituri
(formerly Oriental Province), naming Bunia as the
capital.33 He named a Hema to head the new
administration. The installation of the new governor
coincided with an outbreak of violence between Lendu
and Hema, with the Lendu and others seeing Uganda and
the RCD-ML as increasingly committed to the Hema,
though it reportedly recruited and trained soldiers from
both communities. In the months of violence that
followed, an estimated 7,000 persons of both groups were
slain and 200,000 fled their homes.
The violence in Bunia, as described in the previous section,
increased significantly beginning in August 2002 and
continued to escalate throughout 2003. Human Rights
Watch has emphasized that all parties have committed
serious human rights violations and that external actors
(such as the Ugandan army) have played a major role in the
violence.34
68 • E A A F 2 0 0 3 A N N U A L R E P O R T • D e m o c r a t i c R e p u b l i c o f t h e C o n g o
Between 1999-2003, the United Nations estimates that
more than 55,000 people died in Ituri and tens of
thousands have been displaced.
The mass killings in Drodro in April, 2003 took place
against this context. After the attacks, MONUC sent a
special team to investigate led by human rights workers,
including two EAAF members, and also international
military observers. The information gathered is not public
and cannot be released as of the time of this writing.
ENDNOTES1. The Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), the Congolese Rally for Democracy—
National (RCD National), and the Congolese Rally for Democracy Liberation Movement
(RCD-ML) have controlled the north. These groups were initially backed by Uganda,
although it appears as though the MLC and RCD National are now somewhat
independent. Nevertheless, according to the New York Times, RCD-ML may still be
linked to Ugandan business interests. The Congolese Rally for Democracy-Goma
(RCDGoma) is the original rebel group who ignited the war in 1998. With the support of
Rwanda, the RCD-Goma has controlled the east. Human Rights Watch believes that some
of the Rwandan insurgents participated in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Burundi also
played a role in the fighting by supporting the RCD for many years.
2. International Rescue Committee, April 4, 2003.
3. Human Rights Watch: Eastern Congo Ravaged, 2000.
4. Human Rights Watch “Democratic Republic of Congo” World Report 2003.
5. Human Rights Watch “Democratic Republic of Congo” World Report 2002.
6. Joseph Kabila assumed power upon the assassination of his father, Laurent Kabila, in
January 2001. The assassination was reportedly masterminded by a top aid sentenced to
death by a criminal tribunal in January 2003.(East African Standard, January 9, 2003).
7. Human Rights Watch, “Democratic Republic of Congo,” World Report 2002.
8. International Crisis Group: The Kivus: the Forgotten Crucible of the Congo Conflict, 24
9. Human Rights Watch, “Democratic Republic of Congo” 2002 World Report.
10. Human Rights Watch “Democratic Republic of Congo” 2003 World Report.
11. Montague, Dena,“Stolen Goods: Coltan and Conflict in the Democratic Republic of
Congo”, SAIS Review vol. XXII no. 1 (Winter-Spring 2002).
12. Amnesty International, “Democratic Republic of Congo: Time to Stop the Carnage and
Economic Exploitation,” 28 April 2003.
13. The Final Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other
Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo, United Nations, October 2002.
14. “Congo Peace Deal Signed”, Global Policy Forum December 17, 2002.
15. International Crisis Group, “The Kivus: the Forgotten Crucible of the Congo Conflict,” p. 24.
16. UN Security Council, Press statement on DR Congo by President of Security Council, p. 24.
17. BBC, “DR Congo rebels dismiss ‘cannibalism’”, 16 January 2003.
18. Amnesty International, “Democratic Republic of Congo: Time to Stop the Carnage and
Economic Exploitatin,” 28 April 2003.
19. Ituri has been under the direct or proxy control of the UPDF since the outset of the current
conflict in the DRC in August 1998. The UPDF is reportedly responsible in Ituri for
unlawful killings and has sold arms to warring ethnic groups and has trained militias,
including child soldiers according to Amnesty International. Bunia, the capital has fallen
under the control of different armed political groups.
20. Amnesty International, “Democratic Republic of Congo: Time to Stop the Carnage and
Economic Exploitation,” 28 April 2003.
21. Amnesty International 2004 World Report.
22. nternational Rescue Committee, April 8, 2003.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Amnesty International 2004 Report.
27. Walker, Robert, “The Threat to DR Congo’s Peace,” BBC News, June 22, 2004.
28. Ibid.
29. Human Rights Watch, “Ituri: ‘Covered in Blood, Ethnically Targeted Violence in
Northeastern DR Congo July, 2003.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
D e m o c r a t i c R e p u b l i c o f t h e C o n g o • E A A F 2 0 0 3 A N N U A L R E P O R T • 69
The gold mines at Bunia, Northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, 1997. Photo courtesy of Guy Tillim.