Congo: War Crimes in Kisangani - top commanders named

Embargoed for Release:
Tuesday, August 20, 2002
At 00:01 GMT
(For Tuesday's newspapers)

Congo: War Crimes in Kisangani
Implicated Commanders Named

(New York, August 20, 2002) - In a new report, Human Rights Watch
identifies top commanders of the Rwandan-backed Congolese Rally for
Democracy (RCD) rebel movement implicated in the May massacres in
Kisangani, and calls for their prosecution for war crimes. The report
finds the rebels responsible for widespread killings, summary
executions, rapes, and pillage during the put-down of a mutiny beginning
on May 14, 2002.

"The commanders responsible for these war crimes should be promptly
arrested and
prosecuted," said Suliman Baldo, senior researcher in the Africa
Division of Human
Rights Watch.

Baldo welcomed the recent signing of a peace accord by Congolese
President Kabila and Rwandan President Kagame. The agreement called for
the disarming of the former Rwandan Armed Forces (ex-FAR) and
Interahamwe militia in Congo implicated in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, and a
withdrawal of Rwandan forces from Congo.

However, Human Rights Watch said that war crimes and crimes against
humanity continue to be committed daily by all parties to the war in the
Congo, including the Rwandan army and its proxy force, the RCD-Goma.

"Impunity plagues the Great Lakes region, and until the belligerents and
the international community show resolve in uprooting it, innocent
civilians will continue to be massacred by lawless forces," said Baldo.

The 30-page report, titled "War Crimes in Kisangani: The Response of
Rwandan-backed Rebels to the May 2002 Mutiny," is based on a three-week
research trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Human Rights
Watch research team established that Congolese military and police
elements attempted a mutiny against Rwandan elements within RCD-Goma in
Kisangani on May 14, briefly occupying the local radio station and
killing several persons believed to be Rwandans.

The attempted mutiny soon ended, but RCD-Goma flew in from Goma the top
commanders of its army to coordinate a brutal repression campaign
afterwards. Human Rights Watch research documented the killing of dozens
of civilians in the Mangobo area of Kisangani in the course of the
repression, as well as numerous rapes, beatings, and widespread looting.

In addition, the loyalist RCD-Goma elements executed a large number of
detained police and military personnel, many of them at the Tshopo
Bridge, and threw their mutilated bodies in the river. Many of the
bodies later resurfaced. Human Rights Watch also documented killings at
other locations, including an abandoned brewery, the military barracks
at Camp Ketele and at the Mangobo airport. A final death toll remains
to be determined, but Human Rights Watch established that at least 80
persons, and probably many more, died during the mutiny and the
repression that followed.

Directly implicated in the killings were: Gabriel Amisi, also known as
Tango Fort, the assistant chief of staff for logistics of the RCD-Goma
army; Bernard Biamungu, commander of the Fifth Brigade headquartered in
Goma; Laurent Nkunda, the commander of the Seventh Brigade based in
Kisangani, and other senior officers of the Fifth and Seventh Brigades.
Biamungu was seen giving commands to soldiers to go to Mangobo soon
before civilians began to be killed there, and was personally at the
scene of some of the killings. Biamungu, Amisi, and Nkunda were all
seen at the Tshopo Bridge shortly before summary executions took place
there on the night of the 14th.

Human Rights Watch questioned whether the U.N. Mission in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (MONUC) failed to carry out its mandate to protect
civilians "under imminent threat of physical violence." The U.N. Mission
had more than a thousand soldiers in Kisangani and were clearly aware of
the killings.

However, Human Rights Watch commended the detailed investigation into
the Kisangani events by MONUC and the Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights that contributed to the establishment of an accurate
record of the abuses. The Security Council in July issued a strong call
for accountability for the killings.

"We welcome the U.N. Security Council's call for accountability in
Kisangani," said Baldo. "But the Security Council needs to provide MONUC
with the means to protect civilians within areas of their deployment,
and to increase the number of human rights officers attached to the
mission."

Beginning August 20, the report will be online at
http://hrw.org/reports/2002/drc2/.

For more information, please contact:

In New York, Suliman Baldo: +1-917-385-6089
In New York, Peter Bouckaert: +1-212-216-1252
In London, Steve Crawshaw: +44-20-7713-2766

--
Jeff Scott
Africa Division
Human Rights Watch
Phone: +1-212-216-1834
Fax: +1-212-736-1300
http://www.hrw.org/africa/index.php
en français, http://www.hrw.org/french/africa/