IV. Crushing Jean-Pierre Bemba and his Supporters

In August 2006 some members of the Republican Guard got into an armed skirmish with members of Bemba's guard in Kinshasa. Kabila, commanding the stronger force, took advantage of the opportunity to conduct a military operation that struck a major blow against Bemba. Unsuccessful then in completely destroying Bemba's strength, Kabila's forces launched a second military operation in March 2007 that, together with a campaign of arbitrary arrests and intimidation, effectively ended Bemba's challenge to Kabila's power and pushed Bemba into exile.

Speaking of this period, a Congolese army officer told Human Rights Watch, "General Kisempia gave us the order to eliminate Bemba, to finish with him and the MLC."[14] General Kisempia was Lt. Gen. Kisempia Sungilanga Lombe, then military chief of staff. Other Republican Guard and Congolese army soldiers interviewed by Human Rights Watch referred to Bemba and his supporters as "the enemy who could weaken the government" and interpreted their orders as "eliminating" this enemy.[15]

In November 2007 Minister of the Interior Denis Kalume told Human Rights Watch that "neutralizing Bemba" had not meant assassinating him.[16] But another person close to Kabila explained that Kabila's supporters understood the risk that Bemba could be killed in such operations. He said, "Some hardliners desired just such an outcome."[17]

Military 0perations August 2006

Expecting the announcement on August 20, 2006, of a runoff election, Bemba planned to give a national televised address that evening to thank his supporters and launch his campaign for the second round of voting.[18] The Kabila camp was shocked at their failure to win the presidency in the first round and some in the group claimed that Bemba meant to preempt the official announcement and try a military takeover. Bemba later told Human Rights Watch that Kabila said he had received a text message warning him that Bemba would attempt a coup.[19] Denis Kalume, then one of Kabila's security advisors,[20] supported the view that Bemba was planning a coup. In an interview with Human Rights Watch he said that this "subversive" attempt by Bemba "had to be stopped."[21] According to another member of Kabila's inner circle, "Kabila took a decision to beat-up on Bemba and to teach him a lesson."[22]

In the late afternoon on August 20 the police and Republican Guards exchanged fire with Bemba's security guards in the streets outside the building of Canal Congo Television (CCTV, a pro-Bemba station) where Bemba was expected for his televised address.[23] The fighting prevented Bemba from making his scheduled speech and for a few hours delayed the announcement of the election results. It was unclear which side initiated the skirmish.

The following day, the Republican Guard and Congolese army soldiers moved heavy weaponry, including armored personnel carriers and tanks mounted with howitzers, into central Kinshasa. Lieutenant General Kisempia informed MONUC and European military officers that he had deployed these troops to restore law and order and to disarm Bemba's guard.[24] The MONUC force commander, fearing escalation of the conflict, strongly advised against this course of action, but his advice was ignored.[25]

A group of diplomats from 14 Western and African countries, members of the International Committee Accompanying the Transition (Comité international d'accompagnement de la transition, CIAT), were taken aback at the violence during such a crucial time in the election and hurried to mediate the crisis, going first to meet Bemba at his home. During the meeting with Bemba, the Republican Guard and army soldiers surrounded Bemba's house and his offices nearby, exchanging fire with Bemba's guard and pinning the diplomats down for six hours. There was a flurry of phone calls between Kabila, then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and others. Kabila's troops then withdrew a short distance and allowed MONUC and EUFOR soldiers (part of a force provided by the European Union to assist MONUC during the electoral period) to surround Bemba's residence and extract the trapped diplomats.[26]

Skirmishes continued until August 23 when a ceasefire was arranged. MONUC established a joint commission incorporating both sides to encourage dialogue, investigate the events, and obtain agreement of the two candidates concerning rules of conduct for themselves and their supporters during the second round of voting.[27]

The fighting left 23 persons dead and 43 wounded, according to figures provided by the Ministry of Interior to the United Nations.[28] Government soldiers and Bemba's guards deliberately killed some civilians, while other deaths and injuries resulted from indiscriminate use of weapons by both sides.[29] Neither the MONUC commission of inquiry nor any other source published an independent assessment of the number of causalities. When Human Rights Watch asked MONUC officials about the commission report, one replied, "It has been put in a drawer and will never be seen." Suggesting that the UN and the diplomats preferred to ease tensions rather than establish responsibility for the violence, the official continued, "No one was willing to say anything to Kabila about what had happened or about the threats to security posed by his Republican Guard."[30] Foreign governments preferred to stick to the line that both sides were equally responsible, although at least two European diplomats conceded to Human Rights Watch that this was not the case. One diplomat who had been in Bemba's house when Republican Guards attacked said, "We let Kabila get away with it and we did not reprimand him. It was a mistake."[31] Another said, "In hindsight, this was the moment when we started to see President Kabila's true colors."[32]

Effect on the second round of elections

In the aftermath of the August 2006 violence, the two rivals intensified their media campaigns, with both permitting insulting and xenophobic statements by their supporters. The European Union electoral mission reported that the media became "true war machines at the service of their preferred candidates."[33]Congo's public radio and television station, Radio Télévision Nationale Congolaise (RTNC), overtly biased in favor of President Kabila, portrayed the violence in Kinshasa as the sole responsibility of Bemba and his supporters, as did other pro-Kabila media.[34] Bemba's media outlets, shut down briefly in August, were able to broadcast on only a limited basis during the second election, permitting the domination of pro-Kabila media.

 © 2008 Anthony De Bibo/Human Rights Watch

Unlike the first round of elections, neither Bemba nor Kabila campaigned personally during the runoff because each feared the possibility of assassination by the other side. Both candidates stayed away from rallies and other public functions, providing for minimal debate or scrutiny of their policies. A national televised debate between the two candidates, required by law and widely anticipated by the public and the media, did not take place, largely due to preconditions set by the Kabila camp, which feared that a face-to-face debating format would be a disadvantage to their candidate.[35]

A few hours before the campaign drew to a close on October 28, President Kabila addressed the nation with his final campaign message broadcast on most media outlets, including RTNC; Bemba had no similar opportunity to deliver a last-minute message. International election observers called Kabila's speech an "abuse of government power."[36] Yet no foreign government criticized this interference with a fair electoral process, nor did they criticize the failure to adhere to the law on the televised debate.

 

On October 29, 2006, the runoff election was held, with Kabila winning 58 percent of the vote as opposed to Bemba's 42 percent. After initially contesting the results in the courts, Bemba accepted Kabila's victory in a public statement on November 28.[37] Bemba was elected a senator in January 2007 and vowed to play an important role in leading a democratic opposition to President Kabila.

The Alliance for the Presidential Majority (Alliance pour la Majorité Présidentielle, AMP), a political coalition based on Kabila's PPRD, also won a clear majority in the National Assembly and Senate elections. Bemba's coalition, the Union for the Nation (Union pour la nation, UPN), did well in provincial elections, winning a majority in five provincial assemblies, a victory that should have given it a strong chance to win important gubernatorial positions.

 

Despite his strong political position after the elections, Kabila did not seek to heal the divisions that resulted from years of war and bitter electoral campaigning. As one disillusioned member of Kabila's inner circle later remarked to Human Rights Watch, Kabila pursued an approach of "winner take all."[38]

March 2007 violence

Following the election, Bemba's determination to lead a vigorous political opposition was perceived by persons around the president as a continuing threat.[39] Bemba's refusal to put his guard under the command of the national army hierarchy provided an opportunity for the Kabila forces to again use military force, and given the silence of UN agencies in Congo and foreign governments after the August 2006 violence, there was little to deter Kabila from once again resorting to military force against a political opponent. In clashes between Kabila's forces and Bemba's guard in March 2007, hundreds of people were killed, a large number of them civilians, and at least 300 were arrested, many arbitrarily and without respect for due process. A European military advisor with close links to the Congolese army told Human Rights Watch, "We all saw this coming, but again we did not do enough to avert the crisis."[40]

Bemba's guard, numbering somewhere between 400 and 500 armed men, were stationed in central Kinshasa at Bemba's two residences and his office, and at his farm in Maluku on the outskirts of the city. Nominally part of the Congolese army, these ill-disciplined guards, who were responsible for numerous abuses against civilians, were still in fact commanded by Bemba. They were angry at Kabila's election and, after the previous clash, easily provoked.[41]

 

The Kabila camp saw the large number of well-armed guards as a threat to security in the heart of Kinshasa. Some Kabila supporters say that, as in the previous August, they feared that Bemba's guard would be used to launch a coup.[42]

On March 6, 2007, Lieutenant General Kisempia ordered all soldiers guarding former vice-presidents to report within 10 days to their nearest military base for redeployment.[43] Twelve police officers were offered as a replacement to each of the former vice-presidents, including Bemba. Claiming "repeated attempts" on his life, Bemba said that 12 police officers were too few to protect him and he refused to direct his guards to comply with the order.[44] He invoked the accord with Kabila signed on October 29, 2006, guaranteeing him appropriate security and freedom of movement, as justification for asserting that Kisempia's order did not apply to his guards.[45]

The Kabila camp also feared that Bemba was trying to win over soldiers based in Kinshasa, especially those who were from Equateur and had fought under Bemba during the war and had then been integrated into the Congolese army. An army officer and a person close to the Bemba camp, interviewed separately, told Human Rights Watch that there had been efforts to convince soldiers to remain loyal to Bemba.[46] A senior diplomat and advisors close to Bemba told Human Rights Watch that Bemba may have hoped for a popular uprising of Kinshasa residents in his defense, should he be attacked again.[47]

On March 14, in his first televised interview since losing the elections, Bemba criticized President Kabila and the newly installed government for corruption, the lack of political space for the opposition, an agreement to cede some Congolese territory to Angola (which he described as high treason),[48] as well as for supposed attempts on his life. In an interview that set the tone for his opposition agenda, Bemba publicly declared, "We have gone backwards in our country, we are far from democracy. It's the dictatorship of money."[49] According to one former senior government minister, Bemba's interview triggered Kabila's decision to take military action against his rival. "When Bemba did his press interview, it was a key moment," he said. "It was as if we had passed a red line and Kabila made a decision to attack Bemba."[50] In comments to Human Rights Watch a member of Kabila's inner circle said, "The president had been told he needed to show Bemba who was boss. He had gotten into the habit of using military force to resolve issues … His intention was to crush Bemba."[51]

In the following days, Kabila's advisors began to prepare the diplomatic community for an eventual showdown, and the army increased its troops around Bemba's residences and office.[52] On March 21 broadcasts from two of Bemba's media outlets, CCTV and Radio Liberté Kinshasa (RALIK), were suddenly interrupted when their terrestrial and satellite signals-which rely on transmitters at a government-controlled RTNC compound-were cut. A CCTV manager interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that there had been no technical failure to explain the interruption in broadcasts and that he believed that the cut had been deliberate and could only have been carried out on the order of a senior official.[53] Ambassador William Swing, head of MONUC, who had been away for three weeks, returned to Kinshasa and offered to mediate between the two rivals, but it was too late.

Around midday on March 22, 2007, Bemba's guards and government soldiers exchanged fire. It is not clear who fired the first shot. Within an hour a full-scale battle erupted on Kinshasa's main avenue, the Boulevard de 30 Juin, and raged for three days, engulfing other parts of central Kinshasa and trapping tens of thousands of people at their workplaces, schools, and homes. MONUC military officers estimated that some 2,600 soldiers, including some in tanks, fought Bemba's 400 to 500 guards, who were assisted by several hundred family members and untrained supporters.[54]

That afternoon Bemba and his family took refuge in the nearby South African embassy while fighting continued. Over the course of the next two days, 121 of Bemba's guards fled across the Congo river to Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo, along with over a hundred members of their families.[55] Another 161 guards and some 250 family members sought protection with UN peacekeepers and at least 30 gave themselves up to the Congolese army.[56] Others were arrested and some were executed.

Both sides used heavy weapons including machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades in densely populated urban areas. The Republican Guards also used T-55 tanks and mortars.[57] Much of the firing by both sides appears to have been indiscriminate, with no effort to protect, warn, or evacuate the civilian population. It left hundreds of civilians dead. MONUC peacekeepers managed to rescue some civilians, including children trapped in schools, but they were severely hampered by the scale of the fighting, which raged directly around MONUC buildings in the city center.

Some diplomatic offices and premises were also damaged in the fighting including premises of the Greek, Spanish, and Nigerian embassies, the residence of a French diplomat, and the UNICEF offices, all close to the main area of fighting. Diplomats assert the damage was largely inflicted by Republican Guards who also ransacked the Italian residency.[58] The Nigerian ambassador, Dr Onuorah Jonikul Obodozie, was severely wounded and was evacuated by MONUC.[59] An American embassy building was shot at and damaged by Bemba's Guards.[60]

Killings and Summary Executions

Relying on the loyalists

During and after the military operations, soldiers, police officers, and intelligence agents loyal to President Kabila deliberately killed, injured, arbitrarily arrested, and tortured hundreds of persons. They acted at the direction of Kabila or his immediate subordinates and with the objective of reinforcing Kabila's control. These subordinates worked through both formal and informal channels, relying on first one and then another of several state security forces, as circumstances dictated.

Kabila commands the Republican Guard and has direct control over the civilian National Intelligence agency (Agence Nationale de Renseignements, ANR) and military intelligence (commonly known as DEMIAP), both of which operate outside the command structure of the Ministries of Defense, Interior, and Justice (see Box 1.) During the transition period, Vice-Presidents Bemba and Azarias Ruberwa had repeatedly raised concerns about President Kabila's exclusive control over these agencies, but to no avail.[61] The control established by the Kabila camp over these agencies during the transition was critical in the later repression of his rivals.

In agencies where Kabila had no formal control, such as the police Office of General Intelligence and Special Services (Direction des Renseignements Généraux et Services Spéciaux de la police, DRGS), he and his supporters worked through a network of personal connections. Both during the transitional period and after, they created chains of command parallel to official hierarchies, in which lower-ranking officers loyal to Kabila could be in touch with the president or his advisors, bypassing superiors whose loyalty to the president was less certain.[62] One foreign military expert told Human Rights Watch, "We know Kabila gives orders directly to many of his generals or loyal officers. There is an official hierarchy but it's meaningless. The real power lies with those who are considered loyal to the president."[63] Many of the loyalists are from Kabila's province of Katanga and are known as "les Katangais."

Abuses by the Republican Guard

The Republican Guard was one of the main tools of repression used by Kabila and his subordinates. Between August 2006 and May 2008, soldiers of the Republican Guard summarily executed or caused the "disappearance" of more than 125 people. Together with agents from military intelligence and from other army units, Republican Guards arbitrarily arrested over 600 persons and subjected many of those in their custody to torture and inhuman treatment. Most of these persons were arrested during or shortly after the March 2007 military operation and were either guards or supporters of Bemba. A smaller number of people were swept up by the Republican Guards merely because they were from Bemba's ethnic group, the Ngwaka, or his region of origin, Equateur.

© 2008 Anthony De Bibo/Human Rights Watch

Summary executions at Camp Tshatshi, March 2007

Human Rights Watch's investigations found that the Republican Guard committed many summary executions in March 2007 at Camp Tshatshi, their base on a hill just outside central Kinshasa, overlooking the Congo river.

Republican Guards have no legal authority to carry out arrests, but in March and April they arrested hundreds of persons, both civilian and military, and illegally detained them at Camp Tshatshi. According to 10 former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Republican Guards took away scores of persons at night from the camp, sometimes reading the names of those targeted from a list. The Guards tied the detainees' hands and sometimes blindfolded and gagged them before leading them away. They frequently beat and insulted the detainees as they led them away, calling them "part of Bemba's terrorists" and "enemies of democracy." They also said that persons from Equateur had ruled Congo for too long (Equateur was also the home province of the late Congolese leader Mobutu Sese Seko) and that "now it's the turn of the Katangais."[64] With the one exception mentioned below, the persons removed did not return to the prison and have not been seen since.

A Congolese army officer from the Ngwaka ethnic group, arrested by the Republican Guard on March 23 and detained at Camp Tshatshi, told Human Rights Watch what he witnessed:

There were 38 of us in the prison. Some of the prisoners were Congolese army soldiers from Equateur, like me, others were Bemba's security guards that they had captured, and some were civilians. At 3 in the morning seven Republican Guards came into the prison. They took 10 of the prisoners, tied their hands, blindfolded them, and taped pieces of cardboard over their mouths so they couldn't scream. The captain who did this said he had received orders. He said he would drink the blood of Equateurians that night. They took them away. About an hour later they came back for a second group. I knew one of the guards and asked what had happened. He said the others had been taken to the [Congo] river near Kinsuka and killed. He quickly put me into another cell which saved my life. They took the others away in a truck. I am sure they were killed as well.[65]

A civilian from Equateur whom we interviewed had been arrested by Republican Guards on March 23 at his home. Not personally involved in politics, he had a brother who was considered to be a Bemba supporter. The interviewee said he was taken to Camp Tshatshi, where he was brutally beaten and detained (his and other experiences of ill-treatment there are described later in this chapter). He continued,

They threw me in a cell with three other civilians. At around 3 a.m. the soldiers took the four of us out and said we would "eat peanuts" [arachides]. I asked what kind and they said I would find out. Then they tied heavy metal wheel hubs [jantes] to each of us and marched us to another part of the camp, near the river. Another soldier came up to us and asked [for me] … and I was told to go back to the prison. When I arrived back one of the soldiers in the prison said I had been lucky as eating peanuts meant eating bullets and the others were going to be killed and that the metal hubs would weigh their bodies down in the river. I never saw them again, they did not return to the prison. I was told that 20 others were earlier taken from the prison and also made to eat peanuts, that is, killed.[66]

A former civilian detainee said that at around 2 a.m. on two consecutive nights, March 27 and 28, a Republic Guard commander came to the prison with a list and called out names of people. They were led out to jeeps and taken away. He said, "The guards told us to pray as they said if you were taken away like that it meant you were going to be eliminated."[67] The prison guards told the remaining detainees that the persons had been killed near the river, and threatened to do the same to them.[68]

Approximately 100 cases of summary executions were reported during this period to officials of MONUC and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). When MONUC human rights investigators attempted to visit Camp Tshatshi on March 24, 2007, to check on some of these reports, Republican Guards refused them entry at gunpoint. The investigators succeeded in obtaining access to the camp three days later, after diplomats had brought pressure to bear on Congolese officers. Despite this and later Congolese reluctance to assist UN investigators, MONUC and OHCHR officials were able to establish that some 30 to 40 bodies, some with blindfolds and their hands tied, had been found in the Congo river at the rapids near Kinsuka.[69] According to persons who saw the bodies, some of them also had tape over their mouths.[70] No bodies weighed down with metal wheel hubs were found, presumably because they had sunk to the bottom of the river.

Other cases of summary execution of Bemba associates

Republican Guards summarily executed persons thought to be linked with Bemba at other locations in Kinshasa. Some of Bemba's guards and members of their families had gathered at the CCTV television building in central Kinshasa during the March 2007 fighting. When they heard that a number of their colleagues had sought protection from MONUC by gathering at the UN compound nearby, those gathered at the CCTV television building called MONUC officers, seeking UN protection, but Republican Guards arrived first, took control of the area, and killed an undetermined number of guards and civilians in the building.[71]

A young eyewitness reported seeing several persons summarily executed and gave a detailed account of one such killing. He told us,

There were about 60 of us in the building. The soldiers entered and started to hit and beat people with their rifle butts. They made us lie face down of the floor and some people were killed. They shot one boy dead … one bullet in the head and another one in the foot. They then made about 10 people, including me, go over to the body and urinate on it.[72]

Congolese authorities later told MONUC that the building was empty by the time the Republican Guard arrived,[73] but two eyewitnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch contradicted this official story. They said those not killed by the Republican Guard were arrested and taken to Camp Tshatshi. [74]

Summary executions were also carried out near Kinshasa's main airport and at Bemba's farm in Maluku, on the outskirts of Kinshasa. At the airport on March 26 and 28, Republican Guards allegedly forced victims to dig their own graves before shooting them. Several of the victims were guards who had been protecting Bemba's private airplane and four others were civilians who failed to show identification cards and were suspected of being Bemba supporters.[75] In an incident at Bemba's farm in Maluku, Congolese army soldiers summarily executed at least three of Bemba's guards-one of them an injured man, the other two with their hands raised in surrender, according to an eyewitness.[76]

More recently, Republican Guards targeted Daniel Boteti, the vice-president of the Kinshasa provincial assembly and a member of Bemba's Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC), assassinating him in his car on July 6, 2008, while he was on his way home in Kinshasa. A Republican Guard arrested at the scene and now standing trial with four co-accused including two other Republican Guards, told a military tribunal that Kinshasa Governor Andre Kimbuta, a close ally of President Kabila, had ordered the murder. According to a press account, the governor denied the charges.[77] MLC deputies and senators boycotted parliamentary sessions in protest at the assassination and demanded a full and transparent investigation as well as the removal of all Republican Guards from the capital to military barracks outside the city.[78] On October 8, the five were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.[79]

Dr. Faustin Sosso, Bemba's personal physician and also from Equateur province, "disappeared" on August 20, 2006, and is presumed dead. According to members of Dr. Sosso's family, he was en route to hear Bemba deliver his scheduled address on television when Republican Guards arrested him and took him to an unknown location.[80] An unverified account says that Dr. Sosso was taken to Camp Tshatshi where he was subjected to torture before being executed.[81] During the days following the "disappearance," Dr. Sosso's wife received phone calls from persons claiming to be Republican Guards, who demanded money for Dr. Sosso's release.[82]

Arbitrary Arrest, Torture, and Ill-Treatment

Abuses by the Republican Guard

At Camp Tshatshi, detainees were kept in various locations including cells inside the small military prison; in a dirty underground room below the main prison known as "the cellar" (la cave); in a small room with no windows at a separate outbuilding known as the "eighth" (huitième); and at the office buildings of the Republican Guard intelligence services.[83] Some detainees were kept for only a few days, while others were held for two to three months before being released or transferred to other places of detention.

On August 22, 2006, during the fighting in Kinshasa, Republican Guards arbitrarily arrested 84 fishermen, most of them from Equateur province, illegally detained them in the Camp Tshatshi "cellar," mistreated or tortured them, and threatened them with death, reportedly because they were thought to be "rebels." Some said that they were arrested for having witnessed Republican Guards dump bodies into the Congo river during the August 2006 violence. After MONUC officials intervened, the fishermen were released.[84]

Republican Guards at Camp Tshatshi systematically tortured and ill-treated scores of detainees whom they arbitrarily arrested in March 2007 and in the months that followed. Former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch described how they were repeatedly beaten with belts, cords, branches and planks, kicked, punched, and threatened with death. Many said they heard screams coming from different parts of the camp late at night.[85]

Many of those detained by the Republican Guard were repeatedly questioned about the whereabouts of Bemba or his security guards and accused of being disloyal to President Kabila. Interrogators repeatedly heaped abuse on persons from Equateur. One former detainee told Human Rights Watch, "They kept shouting at me that Mobutu had ruled for 32 years, now it was their turn. They said that we Equateurians had been in power long enough and that our time was up. They called it Code 32 [a reference to a post-Mobutu provision to punish those linked to Mobutu]."[86] A Republican Guard who told Human Rights Watch he disapproved of the abuse meted out to some detainees said of his colleagues, "There was no shortage of inept people in our ranks … Plenty of them got into a tribalist mentality and there was a settling of scores."[87]

On March 24, Republican Guards arrested seven men who were drinking at a bar in Kinshasa and accused them of being Bemba supporters. Six of the men were civilians and one was an off-duty police officer from Equateur. The seven men were beaten, thrown in a jeep, and driven to Camp Tshatshi. One of the men said,

The guards argued as we approached Camp Tshatsi. Some said that they should just throw us in the river and others said that we should be taken to the office first. When we arrived at the office Commander Shoma was there. They started to interrogate us. It was horrible. We were tied up and they took sticks, cords, and bamboo branches to whip us. We were taken one after the other. I was last. I heard the awful screams of those who had been before me. There was blood everywhere. They pointed their guns at me and asked me questions. They said I was with Bemba, that they would arrest him, and that they would kill us. They had a photo of Bemba and claimed that one of my friends with whom I had been arrested was standing behind Bemba in the picture. The soldiers kept repeating that they were going to eliminate all of us.

We were returned to the cells and I overheard Major Baseleba [Bin Mateto, the head of military intelligence of the Republican Guards] say that it was best to finish with us that evening. He said it in Swahili and I understand Swahili. But nothing happened and the next day … Major Baseleba came back to the prison. I heard him shouting, "Where are those terrorists of Bemba?" We were taken out of the cells with our hands tied. He spoke on the telephone for a long time and then came back and said the president was aware of our dossier. He ordered the head of the prison to put us in the cellar. It was really awful down there. It was hot and dirty and the ceiling was so low that we couldn't stand. On occasion some of the guards would take pity on us and allow us out for a few moments of air.[88]

Another man from Equateur arrested during a separate incident described what happened to him:

When I arrived they put me on the ground and beat me with a plank. They told me not to scream but it hurt so badly that I did scream. They questioned me about Bemba and my brother who they said was a Bemba [supporter]. A soldier started to sharpen his machete and said he would kill me and then he beat me on my back with the flat side of the machete.[89]

The same detainee was later sexually assaulted by a Republican Guard who forced his penis into his mouth.[90]

On June 21, 2007, Republican Guards working with military intelligence agents arrested a member of Bemba's family and some 15 other persons, both military and civilian, and detained them at Camp Tshatshi.[91] Some were held for nearly two months before being released or transferred to other places of detention (see below). Some of the detainees from this group said that at Camp Tshatshi Major Baseleba Bin Mateto ordered that they be tortured to reveal information about Bemba's car and driver. One was tied up between two iron bars, spat on, insulted and beaten each day for a week while being interrogated. Other detainees were beaten with large sticks and branches.[92]

In May and June 2008 Republican Guards, military intelligence agents and police officers from the Simba Battalion[93] arrested at least 15 persons, including three former Bemba security guards, officers in the Congolese army and the national police, and at least two civilians, all from Equateur. After a brief stay in police and other detention facilities, the detainees were transferred to either Camp Tshatshi or the Republican Guard training camp at Kibomango, on the outskirts of Kinshasa, where they were held incommunicado for several months. On September 1, 2008, 12 of the detainees were transferred to the Makala central prison, officially known as the Penitentiary and Reeducation Centre (Centre Pénitentiaire et de Rééducation de Kinshasa, CPRK), some of them showing visible marks of torture.[94] The detainees claimed they had all been brutally beaten. Some of the detainees reported that they had been handcuffed for weeks, others said they had been deprived of food and water for prolonged periods of time.[95]Hours before their transfer to the central prison, the detainees were charged for the first time. As with previous waves of arrests, they were accused of plotting a coup and endangering state security.Government officials refused to answers questions from UN human rights monitors about the arrests and the whereabouts of the remaining detainees.[96]

Former detainees held at Camp Tshatshi also told Human Rights Watch about other cruel and degrading treatment inflicted on them by Republican Guards. Several described how they were forced to clean the prison toilets on their knees with their bare hands, sometimes while Republican Guards urinated on them and shouted abuse.[97]

Many detainees told Human Rights Watch that they continued to suffer from the physical or psychological effects of their treatment at Camp Tshatshi.[98] The mother of one man who had been detained for several months reported that after his release her son refused to eat and would not speak.[99]

Detainees were not informed of the reasons for their arrest or ever brought before a judge. In the register of detainees at Camp Tshatsi, the usual reason listed was "investigation purposes" (raison d'enquéte).[100] Bribery was the usual method of release: many former detainees told Human Rights Watch that they or their families had paid Republican Guards sums ranging from US$20 to over $500 to obtain their release. One said, "My wife sold everything we had so that she could pay the guards to release me. I am now left with nothing except my scars."[101]

Abuses by the "secret" commission

From September 2006 through May 2007, Kabila supporters also sought to silence political opponents by using a "secret" commission established by Samba Kaputo, then Kabila's national security advisor.[102] According to one well informed intelligence official, President Kabila had given his approval to the activities of the commission, which included state agents from various law enforcement and intelligence services selected on the basis of their loyalty to the president. The commission was given power to investigate and arrest, an exceptional arrangement mandated by Kaputo. Continuing the language used to justify the August military action, the commission referred to political opponents as "coup plotters."[103]

In the nine months of its operation, the commission and state agents acting at its behest arrested at least 200 persons, including soldiers, police officers, journalists, and others assumed to be supporters of Bemba, many of whom were subjected to torture and cruel and inhuman treatment. At least three people died as a result of the abuses. Some 40 remain in detention at this writing, under military justice jurisdiction. 

The commission, which operated out of Kin-Mazière police center in Kinshasa,[104] was chaired by Col. Daniel Mukalay of police Special Services (Services Spéciaux) and Col. Jean-Louis Mutonkole of military intelligence (former DEMIAP), assisted by Majors Mopepe and Mukinzi, also from Special Services. It had some 15 other members including representatives of various intelligence and security agencies such as Special Services, military intelligence, ANR, the National Security Council (Conseil National de Sécurité, CNS) and the military justice system.[105] According to two intelligence agents interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the commission reported daily to Kaputo who regularly informed the president of its progress. The intelligence officials also said that Kabila had frequent direct contact with the commission's co-chairs.[106]

In response to questions from a Human Rights Watch researcher, Gen. Unyon Vakpa, current head of Special Services who took up his post after the commission disbanded in May 2007, said that the commission had operated in "secret" and that he had been unaware of its existence or activities at the time.[107]

So far as we have been able to establish, only one of the cases investigated by the commission was brought to trial, that involving Marie-Thérèse Nlandu, Bemba's lawyer and supporter (notwithstanding that she had also stood in the 2006 presidential election). A military court acquitted Nlandu and her co-defendants on April 30, 2007, saying the military prosecutor had not proved charges that she planned violence against the state.[108] The acquittal was welcomed by national and international trial observers who had raised concerns about the violations of fair trial procedures and the military prosecutor's use of evidence obtained under torture (allegations that Nlandu was tortured, along with nine people arrested with her in November 2006, are discussed in the section "Government Responsibility," below). The senior judge later lost his post due to what one senior government official called an "erroneous" judgment, not further specified. The state has appealed the acquittal but at this writing the appeal has yet to be heard.[109] After her release, Nlandu fled the country.

© 2008 Anthony De Bibo/Human Rights Watch

Torture and ill-treatment at Kin-Mazière

Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 persons who had been detained by the secret commission at Kin-Mazière prison. Most had been arrested in November and December 2006. Many said they were forced to confess to a plot to overthrow President Kabila and to incriminate other colleagues or friends. They provided consistent descriptions of means of torture used against them, including the use of electric batons on their genitals and others parts of their bodies, beatings, whippings, and mock executions. One of the woman detained said that she was gang raped. Most of the detainees from Equateur were insulted about their origins, questioned about their alleged support for Bemba, and threatened with death. Some were kept chained for days or weeks, so weighed down they could barely move. Almost none of them received medical treatment. Many told Human Rights Watch researchers that they still suffered from physical and psychological effects of the torture.

On December 5, 2006, agents from the commission arrested a Congolese army officer from the Ngwaka ethnic group at his home in Kinshasa. When the officer asked to see the arrest warrant, the agents refused, blindfolded him, and searched his house. He was taken to Kin-Mazière prison where he was interrogated by Major Mopepe and Major Mukinzi. The officer said,

They ordered that I be tortured. I was surprised and asked why since I had done nothing wrong. Then Major Mopepe punched me in the face. He said, "You, the Ngwaka, you are all working with your brothers. You want to plot a coup d'etat." … I said I was apolitical. They said it was not true and that I was plotting with the MLC. Major Mopepe said, "Give the captain the shocks so he will tell the truth."

They started to hit me. They stripped off my clothes. They took four sets of handcuffs and tied my hands behind me and then to my feet. I was thrown on the ground in this position. One policeman stood on one leg and another person on the other. They kicked me. They gave me electric shocks all over my body. They put the electric baton in my anus and on my genitals. They shouted at me to admit that I had been at the meeting and that I had a gun in the house. They hit me with the butts of their guns. This went on for hours. Both Major Mopepe and Major Mukinzi were there when it was happening. I cried so much that I could hardly see any more. I shouted I would sign whatever they wanted me to. They brought a piece of paper, which they said was my testimony. I didn't read it. I just signed. I wanted the torture to stop and I would have signed anything.

A few days later the detained officer was brought back for another interrogation, this time before the commission. According to the officer, Colonel Mutonkole managed the proceedings. The officer was questioned about a one-page document the commission claimed had been found at his home and which, they said, ordered him to fight for Bemba. The officer said,

They showed me the piece of paper with the order. I knew it was fake and asked to see the [official document] which said that this order had been found amongst my things. I asked who had witnessed [that this was found in my home]. They told me to shut up and that I talked too much. Colonel Mutonkole accused me of being from the same family as Bemba and Mobutu. I said do what you want to me. Colonel Mutonkole said that Mobutu had killed Kimba [a Katangan politician hanged by Mobutu in 1963] and that now it was the turn of the Equateurians to die. He said I should be tortured. Again they hit me, kicked me, and gave me shocks with the electric baton. They put a gun to my head and said if I did not admit that I knew about the note, they would kill me. Colonel Mutonkole told the [judicial officer] what to write down. He took his revolver and pointed it at me. He pushed the piece of paper at me and said, "Sign." I did. I wanted to live. I didn't even read what it said.[110]

Another Ngwaka detainee told a Human Rights Watch researcher that he had been chained up for 20 days at Kin-Mazière before his statement was taken. He said,

Finally I was unchained, but they still hit me. Colonel Mutonkole placed a weapon and an electric baton on the table and threatened to use them. I was questioned by the commission, and Mutonkole ordered the magistrate to write what he told him to put down. When I refused to agree to this, I was slapped. They tried to make me say that I was planning a coup d'etat. I was questioned about my ethnic group, and they told me that I was from the family of Bemba."[111]

© 2008 Anthony De Bibo/Human Rights Watch

Three women, including a mother and daughter, who worked with Bemba's MLC political party, were arrested at a restaurant in Kinshasa on October 21, 2006. They were taken to Kin-Mazière, where they were repeatedly tortured with electric batons. One of the women was gang raped by five police officers.[112] One of the group said,

They tortured all of us with electric prods. They slapped and hit us. We were tortured every day, in the morning and in the evening for the first five days. They would insult Jean-Pierre Bemba. One of us is Ngwaka from Equateur. She was told that "she is the sister of Jean-Pierre Bemba, that she is the one that we are looking for." We were charged with espionage, but when they took our statements they did not write down what we said. We would say one thing, and they would write something completely different. I didn't want to sign the statement, but they threatened us. We were obliged to sign, even if it didn't contain what we had said."[113]

The husband of one of the women tried to visit his wife in Kin-Mazière prison, but was also arrested and tortured.[114] The group-the 3 women plus the husband-was transferred to Kinshasa central prison on November 22, 2006. They were eventually released in mid-2008.

In violation of Congolese and international human rights law, detainees were initially denied access to lawyers and often to family members. Lawyers who attempted to assist clients were not permitted to see arrest warrants or other judicial documents. Some were later told no investigations were necessary in these cases. The persons arrested by the commission were all held under military authority, although many were civilians. Of the at least 200 people arrested by the commission, some were released but dozens were transferred to Makala prison where lawyers were eventually permitted access to them. Only much later were files available for detainees. Lawyers working on these cases expressed the opinion that the files were prepared long after the arrests, a violation of Congolese legal procedure. The charges included public insult (injure publique), false propaganda (propaganda des faux bruits), inciting hatred and violence (incitation à la haine et à la violence), and participation in an insurrectional movement.[115]

On March 23, 2007, during the violence in Kinshasa, a small number of Bemba's guards arrived at Kin-Mazière prison and freed the detainees who had not yet been transferred to other places of detention. Local residents then ransacked parts of the building.

Human Rights Watch received reports of further arrests of political opponents between April and June 2007, but it was unclear whether the secret commission had ordered these arrests. One intelligence official told a Human Rights Watch researcher that by the end of May 2007 the secret commission had largely stopped functioning. On August 1, 2007, Samba Kaputo died, effectively ending the operations of the commission.

Abuses by other security services

According to victims and their families, officers of other law enforcement and security services including military intelligence (former DEMIAP), the Rapid Intervention Police (PIR), other police officers, and soldiers also arbitrarily arrested citizens and tortured or ill-treated persons in their custody. These units, working with Republican Guards or on their own, targeted persons suspected of supporting Bemba and his party. 

In October 2006 MONUC expressed concern about the illegal detention of 130 persons, including nine children and two infants, many from Equateur, who were held at the provincial police headquarters in Kinshasa (IPKIN) and who had been detained for nearly a month without charge. According to MONUC, there was evidence that some of them had been ill-treated.[116] In another case during the violence in March 2007 PIR officers raided the house where an MLC party activist used to live and arrested four of the occupants whom they detained, beat, and interrogated in an attempt to locate the activist.[117]

In July, August and September 2007 Republican Guards and military intelligence agents arrested some 20 persons, including army officers from Equateur accused of being disloyal to the president. They detained many of them in the cells at Camp Kokolo, a large military base in central Kinshasa, and others at the military intelligence detention facility (former DEMIAP) at Kitambo just outside the centre of Kinshasa. A Human Rights Watch researcher, another human rights monitor, and a relative of a detainee tried together to visit one of the detainees but were denied entry. The relative was threatened with arrest for having brought a "white person" and human rights monitors with her.[118] On August 14, 2008, after more than a year of detention without charge, five soldiers from this group were transferred to Makala central prison. The previous evening, another soldier held in detention at Camp Kokolo died of unknown causes after being admitted to a military hospital.[119]  Another soldier, from the same group, was taken from the Camp Kokolo detention facility in May 2008 and transferred to an unknown location, before arriving at Makala prison on September 1, 2008.[120]

At around the same time, in July and August 2007, others of this group were transferred from Camp Tshatshi to Camp Kokolo and the Kitambo military intelligence facility, including a member of Bemba's family whose arrest in June 2007, by Republican Guards and military intelligence agents, was described above. Following transfer they continued to be interrogated, but with less harsh methods than at Camp Tshatshi.[121] 

On July 18, 2008, five police officers and three civilians from Equateur Province, were arrested on charges of endangering state security and the illegally possessing ammunition. The detainees were held at various detention facilities including the cells at the Rapid Intervention Police, Kin-Mazière and military intelligence (former DEMIAP) before being transferred to Makala prison on August 16, 2008. The detainees claimed they had been brutally beaten and that others from Equateur remained in incommunicado detention.[122]

Human Rights Watch also interviewed several former detainees who had been kept at other locations such as at the National Security Council (CNS) offices and in outbuildings of the Palais des Marbres, one of the presidential residences. One detainee, a senior law enforcement official from Equateur, was kept in solitary confinement at the Palais des Marbres, on the orders of a senior presidential advisor. For several weeks he received no food and very little water. His condition deteriorated so badly that he was finally given medical attention. He described to us how the presidential advisor himself questioned him in an effort to determine his political loyalties. After two months of detention he was released without charge.[123]

 

During the violence in Kinshasa in March 2007, authorities at Makala prison isolated some 40 detainees who were allegedly Bemba supporters and/or persons from Equateur, moving them into a single building that was provided with extra security. Former detainees told Human Rights Watch that prison officials crammed them into dark cells with as many as six to a cell and refused to allow them to come out of the cells to exercise for some 30 days. The detainees believed these measures had been taken because prison authorities feared the detainees might revolt.[124]

Former detainees, family members of detainees, and human rights monitors reported cases of grave abuse, including torture and ill treatment at ANR detention facilities in Kinshasa. Despite repeated requests to senior Congolese officials, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegates and international human rights monitors from the UN and international NGOs have no access to ANR facilities.[125]

Harassment, Intimidation, and Destruction of Property

Harassment and intimidation of MLC parliamentarians, of party activists, and of journalists and others thought to be associated with Bemba, as well as of their family members, intensified during and after the March 2007 violence, creating a climate of fear and discouraging efforts to build an effective opposition. Human Rights Watch researchers spoke to dozens of persons who had been repeatedly targeted by Republican Guards or other state agents through visits to and searches of their homes-often at night and without appropriate warrants. Many had also been threatened with death or injury in anonymous telephone calls or text messages. MONUC registered 51 cases of harassment and intimidation in the days and weeks following the March 2007 events.[126]

Against party activists and close Bemba associates

On the morning of March 23, 2007, Republican Guards targeted the residence of Jeannot Bemba, the father of Jean-Pierre Bemba and a well-known businessman. A number of soldiers climbed the wall surrounding the residence, entered the compound, and shot at the house; one bullet narrowly missed Jeannot Bemba. After he and neighbors who were members of the international diplomatic community called senior political figures, including Samba Kaputo, who lived nearby, the Republican Guards withdrew.[127] On March 23-24 the Republican Guard visited the homes of senior leaders of the MLC allegedly looking for Bemba's guards or illegal arms, in at least one case gaining entry through threats rather than through presentation of a legitimate warrant. Republican Guards looted the MLC national headquarters on March 23 and occupied the building.

The same day, a group of 30 soldiers from the army and the Republican Guard forcibly entered the Centre Hospitalier Mixte SCIBE-Congo, commonly known as "Bemba's hospital" because it had been established by Jeannot Bemba. The soldiers went from ward to ward, shouting and carelessly firing their weapons. They wounded several persons, including one fatally. According to MONUC's special investigation report, there was no military threat in the hospital and no reason to discharge weapons there.[128]

On March 31 officers of the Rapid Intervention Police looted the MLC Kinshasa regional office. The party was allowed to reoccupy its office on April 21 only after heavy pressure from the diplomatic community. According to a senior MLC official, when party workers were finally allowed to return to their office they found "an empty shell":[129] all documents, computers, archives, video footage, and most of the furniture had been removed.[130] People had urinated and defecated throughout the building. When Thomas Luhaka, the MLC's executive secretary, protested against destruction of MLC property to Kabila's advisors, they told him, he said, that this was just part of the "dynamic" of the violence.[131] The MLC requested compensation for the damage caused but has so far received nothing.[132]

In another case, an MLC party activist who went into hiding in late March 2007 after having learned he was being sought by state agents began to receive threatening text messages four days later. One read, "You will die like a dog."[133] As the messages continued during the following weeks, he fled the country.[134]

On April 6, police forcibly entered the Kinshasa home of Jose Makila, governor of Equateur, the only MLC governor in the country and a former minister of the transitional government, allegedly seeking to recover state cars. Police officers looted money, phones, and other property, abused household workers, and threatened to rape one of the female workers. They arrested two guards, ignored the documents naming them as security personnel to the governor, and charged them with being former Bemba soldiers. The guards were detained for more than two weeks without charge at a military intelligence facility before being released.[135]

On April 10 Bemba himself left Congo, saying he was living in a "climate of permanent insecurity."[136] Three days later parliamentarians of the MLC and of other opposition parties protested the harassment and intimidation by walking out of the National Assembly. Denouncing the arbitrary arrests and the illegal searches of homes, MLC members demanded improved security conditions. The president of the national assembly, Vital Kamerhe, mediated the crisis and provided assurances of security. When President Kabila also agreed to meet with the parliamentarians, they were sufficiently reassured to return to the legislature on April 25.[137]

Security conditions improved somewhat in the second half of 2007 but the intimidation and harassment did not completely cease. According to the MONUC human rights division, security services in Kinshasa cordoned off the home of a founding member of the MLC in February 2008 and detained his wife, sister, and six others present at the house for about 24 hours on suspicion of "spreading rumors."[138] On June 20, 2008, a senior member of the MLC, Imana Engulu, rapporteur of the High Media Authority (the body that regulates Congo's media) was arrested and held for six days without charge by the police after he was involved in a car accident. He was released only after significant pressure from opposition politicians and diplomats.[139]

Against journalists and their defenders

More than a dozen journalists who worked at media outlets owned by Bemba, including CCTV, RALIK, and Canal Kin Television (CKTV), received threatening phone calls, text messages, and visits by Republican Guards or other state agents in March and April 2007, causing many of them to go into hiding and at least three to flee the country.[140] One senior journalist received repeated anonymous phone calls saying "We're going to kill you."[141] Intelligence agents looking for two prominent journalists searched the homes of family members.[142]

On March 23, Republican Guards looted Bemba's media operations located in the CCTV building in a central business district of Kinshasa, removing much of the broadcasting equipment. CCTV resumed broadcasting in July 2007, but its staff continued to suffer intimidation.[143] One senior news editor was asked by an anonymous caller on August 14, "Why are you going back to work? You'll end up like Franck! [a reference to murdered journalist Franck Ngyke]."[144]

On October 20, 2007, then-Minister of Information, Media and Communication Toussaint Tshilombo Send interrupted the signals of 38 Kinshasa-based television and radio stations, including CCTV and other media outlets affiliated with Bemba, alleging failure to pay taxes and other license fees. The minister said his intention was "to rid the profession of black sheep and other lame ducks."[145] Station owners complained they had been given no advance notice before the minister's drastic action.[146] After Emile Bongeli succeeded Tshilombo as the responsible minister, he lifted the ban on some stations on December 20, 2007, but not on CCTV, which was directed to provide further administrative documents not required by law.[147]

On October 30, 2007, a police officer ordered the arrest of 11 journalists who were covering a protest march organized by Bemba's opposition coalition.[148] The journalists were released later the same day, but the police confiscated their video and audio recordings. One cameraman was beaten in the police vehicle when he resisted attempts to take his camera. Others who resisted arrest were also beaten. According to one of the journalists, "[The police] threw us in the trucks and said, 'You should have stayed at home. Why did you come and get involved with things that don't concern you?'"[149] No charges were brought against the journalists.

© 2008 Anthony De Bibo/Human Rights Watch

Human rights activists who defended journalists were themselves threatened. After the local media group Journaliste en Danger (JED) took up the cases of journalists and publicly denounced the threats to press freedoms by the government, a JED representative received a text message that said, "You JED who do you think you are? If you don't agree with the regime, go into exile and wait until your champion takes power. If you don't leave we'll help to shut you up for good. We won't miss. Too much is too much. You have been warned."[150] On July 31, 2007, then-Information Minister Tshilombo denounced JED as "anti-patriotic" in a television interview. He accused the organization of tarnishing the country's image abroad and threatened to withdraw its legal status as an NGO. In July 2007, following further threats, JED's executive director, Donat M'Baya Tshimanga, and its secretary general, Tshivis Tshivuadi, temporarily left the country.[151]

Just as hostile actions began again against MLC supporters in early 2008 after a period of relative calm, so too did harassment of journalists. Nsimba Embete Ponte, editor of the opposition journal L'Interprète, was arrested on March 7, as was his colleague Davin Ntondo Nzovuangu on March 29. Both were illegally detained at the ANR prison in Kinshasa. Minister for Communication and the Media Emile Bongeli told members of the National Press Union that Embete had been detained for writings critical of President Kabila, but no formal charges were made against him. According to JED, the editor had been threatened after publishing a series of articles on Kabila's health. The detainees were later transferred to Makala prison where they are still held at this writing.[152]

On September 12, state agents raided the offices of Global TV, a private television station in Kinshasa, arresting journalist Daudet Lukombo, and taking essential broadcasting equipment; the station went off the air. The previous day, Global TV had covered a press conference by opposition parliamentarian Ne Muanda Nsemi, the spiritual leader of Bundu Dia Kongo, who criticized the government for its actions in eastern Congo (see chapter V below for more information about BDK). Lukombo was taken to Kin- Kin-Mazière prison and later charged with "incitement to rebellion" for having broadcast the press conference. Two other journalists who covered the same press conference also allegedly received death threats.[153]

Government Responsibility

The Republican Guards and military and civilian intelligence agencies responsible for the criminal offenses described above taking place in Congo since the beginning of the July 2006 elections are directly answerable to the president. The involvement of so many state agencies in these human rights violations strongly indicates the complicity, and perhaps direct participation, of the highest levels of the government. According to over a dozen officials close to the summit of power in Congo-military officers, intelligence officials, and others close to the president-Kabila set the direction of the repression. The language used by President Kabila and his senior advisors in giving orders-"crushing" or "neutralizing" the "enemies of democracy" or "savages"-contributed to the acceptability of using unlawful force against Bemba supporters, including unarmed civilians. These sources, as well as UN officials, diplomats, and NGO monitors, also told Human Rights Watch that Kabila, as well as his direct advisor Kaputo, were cognizant of the nature and scale of the security operations and the abuses being committed. (The requirements that, in situations of grave violations of international law, command responsibility bears legal consequences, are discussed in detail below, in Chapter VI.)

Human Rights Watch recorded some 15 accounts concerning the command role and personal conduct of Maj. Baseleba Bin Mateto, the head of military intelligence of the Republic Guards, who directed interrogations of detainees at Camp Tshatshi. According to former detainees with whom Human Rights Watch spoke, Major Baseleba was in the prison regularly, was present during interrogations where torture or ill-treatment was used, and decided who would be executed and who would be released (two such detainee accounts are given above). A Republican Guard member at Camp Tshatshi told Human Rights Watch that "nobody left without the order of [Major] Baseleba."[154] UN officials who attempted to secure the release of detainees at the camp told Human Rights Watch that this had been their experience as well.[155]

Within the military hierarchy, Major Baseleba reported to Gen. Dieudonné Banze Lubundji, head of the Republican Guard, but eyewitnesses said that Major Baseleba also had a direct line to Kabila, with whom he spoke by telephone during and after the March 2007 events.[156] One army officer said that he was with Major Baseleba just after the March events when Baseleba received a phone call, evidently from Kabila. He said, "I knew it was the president as Baseleba immediately snapped to attention and addressed the caller as Mr. President and he confirmed afterwards, when he hung up the phone, that it was Kabila. I overheard him say to the president that there was only the clean-up left to do."[157]

There was one reported attempt in March 2007 to curtail abuses by Major Baseleba. A Republican Guard officer told Human Rights Watch, "There was some internal debate about how to interpret our orders, but after 15 days of activity, the boss [Kabila] clarified the orders through General Banze. From then on we should arrest only real suspects and people with weapons." If an accurate account, this clarification of the orders suggests that Kabila was aware of ongoing abuses, yet neither he nor any other senior officer ordered immediate disciplinary action against Baseleba. According to a MONUC official, Major Baseleba may have been detained for two or three weeks in early 2008, but he later resumed his functions.[158]

Captain Kongolo, in charge of operations for the Republican Guards, assisted Major Baseleba in many of the arrests and, according to detainees and a Republican Guard soldier present on the scene, frequently visited the cells to torture or beat those who were held there. Among detainees, Kongolo was given the nickname "mal à l'aise" [ill at ease] and detainees feared his arrival at the prison.[159] In July 2007 Kongolo was briefly detained for beating a civilian so severely that he required hospitalization. After two weeks, Kongolo was released under strict orders not to visit the prison at Camp Tshatshi. He faced no charges and retained his position as Republican Guard director of operations.[160]

Human Rights Watch also collected 10 accounts of abuses committed by the former head of Special Services, Col. Raus Chalwe (commonly known as Colonel Raus), alleging that he was directly involved in interrogating, torturing, and threatening detainees at Kin-Mazière prison. One of the cases in which Colonel Raus intervened was that of Marie-Thérèse Nlandu, Bemba's lawyer, arrested along with nine of her supporters and household staff in November 2006. According to the victims, Colonel Raus personally beat them with his revolver, tortured them with electric shocks from an electric baton, ordered that their heads be forced into toilets, accused them of being traitors, threatened them with death, and forced them to sign confessions.[161] During their trial, a number of the victims publicly raised the use of torture to extort information and confessions, causing the military prosecutor to attempt to justify the state's use of such tactics.[162] Intelligence officers, persons close to Kabila, and eyewitnesses told Human Rights Watch that Colonel Raus had regular direct contact with President Kabila.[163] Following a visit to Kin-Mazière police center in May 2007, representatives from diplomatic missions also concluded that "the ultimate chain of command for the service remains direct orders from the Presidential entourage rather than via normal government and judicial channels."[164] In mid-2007 Raus was promoted to general and named head of police in the province of Bas Congo (see below, Chapter V).

During Raus's tenure as the head of police Special Services, Samba Kaputo established the "secret" commission. While Raus was not a member of the commission, a number of his staff were members and the commission worked out of his headquarters at Kin-Mazière.[165]

Among the dozen or so secret commission members, four were most frequently named by former detainees as having ordered and directly participated in committing torture: Colonel Mutonkole (co-chair of the commission and a member of DEMIAP), Colonel Daniel Mukalay (co-chair of the commission, a member of Special Services, and brother-in-law of Kaputo), Major Mupepe (Special Services) and Major Mukinzi Kapita (Special Services). According to 20 ex-detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch, these four officers gave orders and were directly involved in torture with electric batons, beatings, whippings, and mock executions. Colonels Mutonkole and Mukalay allegedly managed sessions where detainees were interrogated and forced to sign confessions after being threatened with death.[166]

The new head of Special Services, Gen. Unyon Vakpa, refused to permit Human Rights Watch researchers to meet with the co-chairs of the commission. He did say, however, that shortly after the death of Samba Kaputo in August 2007, Colonel Mukalay was temporarily suspended from his position for "irregular attendance" at work, but that he was expected to return.[167]

According to UN officials and other sources, General Mukuntu Kiyana, a former advisor to Samba Kaputo, ordered mass arrests in July 2008 as well as the most recent arrests in October 2008.[168] Currently the assistant military prosecutor, General Mukuntu also serves as a security advisor to the president.[169]

Government Response

Despite overwhelming evidence of arbitrary arrests, torture, killings, and other serious human rights violations, Congolese government authorities repeatedly and publicly in meetings with Human Rights Watch denied that Republican Guards and other state security forces were responsible for widespread abuses. General Banze told Human Rights Watch that "no civilians had been held at Camp Tshatshi during or after the March 2007 violence" and that Bemba's guards who had been arrested were "immediately taken to the competent authorities."[170] He denied there had ever been a case of torture at Camp Tshatshi. General Vakpa, when informed about the numerous cases of torture and other cruel and degrading treatment at Kin-Mazière collected by Human Rights Watch, denied them out-of-hand and replied that "these testimonies have no truth to them."

Instead, government officials blamed Bemba for the violence, claiming that he and his supporters had repeatedly plotted to overthrow Kabila's government and that official actions had been justified by the need to ensure law and order.[171] The government did not attempt to determine criminal responsibility for the August 2006 and March 2007 violence, nor even to obtain an accurate count of the lives lost. It took no action on a MONUC report on the March 2007 events, published on January 7, 2008, that detailed crimes committed, including by Republican Guards and army soldiers. It also took no action on an October 2007 Amnesty International report detailing torture and killings by state security agents.[172] The government blocked initiatives by parliament to look into these abuses.

Lukansu commission

In reaction to criticisms from diplomats and UN officials concerning the number of arrests in March and April 2007, the government established a judicial commission in April 2007 to examine the cases. Headed by Col. Lukansu Mputu, a legal counselor in the military justice division, the commission included 10 military magistrates and judicial staff.

The commission had difficulty establishing the numbers of persons arrested and the number still in detention at the time of their inquiry: Lukansu told us that military justice officials were vague as to whether all persons arrested had been transferred to Makala central prison, and repeatedly changed the stated number of persons in detention there.[173] (Based on interviews with military magistrates, lawyers, MONUC officials, prison officials and human rights monitors, Human Rights Watch estimates that more than 215 people were transferred to Makala prison from various places of detention in Kinshasa following the March violence.[174] Of those arrested, 54 were guards of Bemba, 16 were soldiers or police, and 145 were civilians, including at least 10 children.[175])

The commission found that in violation of Congolese law, there were no arrest warrants and frequently no documents of any kind to legitimate the arrests. In some cases, magistrates were told that written statements had been taken from the accused but such documents were not transferred to the commission, despite its repeated requests.[176] Military magistrates charged most of the detainees with participation in an insurrection or with rebellion, but did not conduct any judicial investigations. Some of the soldiers and police officers arrested were charged with failure to obey orders, desertion, or looting.[177] Military magistrates believed that a large number of those arrested were innocent, including those against whom they had prepared charges. They secured the release of five persons who were mentally handicapped, but, according to Colonel Lukansu, he did not have the authority to release any others, including those against whom there was no evidence. Said Lukansu, "This is a political dossier and the hierarchy will have to decide what to do."[178]

In a confidential report completed in July 2007 and sent to Minister of Defense Tshikez Diemu, the Lukansu commission recommended the release of dozens of detainees at Makala for lack of evidence.[179] But no action was taken for more than a year. The Ministry of Justice has oversight over all judicial matters, but then Minister of Justice Georges Minsay Booka told Human Rights Watch in September 2007 that he had not received a copy of the report and was not kept informed of the work of the commission, despite the large number of civilians arrested whose cases did not fall under military jurisdiction.[180]

On July 25, 2008, Minister of Justice Mutombo Bakafwasenda ordered the release of 258 prisoners from Makala prison, including 116 civilians (107 of whom had been arrested during the March 2007 violence) and 142 military prisoners, including many who had been arrested in 2004 and whose cases had not been brought to trial. The minister claimed the release had been ordered to "ease the severe crowding" in Makala prison and gave no further clarification.[181] Some of the detainees were required to publicly apologize to President Kabila before being granted release. Local human rights groups welcomed the release but criticized the apparently arbitrary nature of the releases which, they said, resulted from a personal decision by the president rather than from judicial review of the cases. They called for the release of other remaining political prisoners.[182] At this writing, no trials had opened against those still detained.

Government officials have not investigated the arbitrary arrests, torture, or ill-treatment of persons held at other facilities and not transferred to Makala prison.

Cover-up

Instead of investigating and punishing those responsible for abuses, the government has tried to cover up the crimes committed. As mentioned above, officials arrested fishermen who saw bodies in the Congo river in August 2006, probably in an effort to intimidate them into silence. Republican Guards and intelligence agents guarded city morgues and fresh, unmarked graves at Kinkole and Mikonde cemeteries following the March 2007 violence, as well as locations where bodies were found, such as among the rocks and in the water of the Congo river downstream from Kinshasa.[183] They prevented UN officials, humanitarian organizations, and human rights monitors from approaching these sites.[184]

Government authorities ordered hospitals to provide no information on the numbers of persons killed or injured. UN agencies and local human rights groups nonetheless collected enough information to show that the government death toll of 60 killed and 74 injured in the March 2007 violence was far too small.[185] In a press conference, European Union ambassadors stated that they believed the death toll could have been up to 600 people.[186]

The government also regularly denied the International Committee of the Red Cross, UN human rights investigators, and others access to places of detention where alleged supporters of Bemba were held, including detention facilities at Camp Tshatshi, Kin-Mazière prison, Camp Kokolo, military intelligence (former DEMIAP), and ANR. Under pressure from diplomats or UN officials, government authorities occasionally allowed MONUC human rights monitors access to some of the sites, but then officials hid detainees or threatened them with punishment if they told visitors about abuses and ill-treatment.[187]

The government developed elaborate documents and PowerPoint presentations to try to convince diplomats, foreign journalists, and others that Bemba was a "terrorist" and his supporters "savages."[188] Some of the information presented was patently inaccurate. Minister of the Interior Denis Kalume, for example, showed diplomats photographs of bodies in the streets after the March 2007 violence, claiming that they were people killed by Bemba's guards. Photojournalists from international agencies who had taken the photographs said this was untrue.[189] Kalume also told diplomats that Bemba's guards were responsible for damage to several embassies and diplomatic residences, although in many cases Republican Guards or government soldiers were known to have caused the damage.[190]

Kalume also showed Human Rights Watch a handwritten five-page document entitled "Ordre Opérationnel" (operational order)[191] which he claimed proved that Bemba had planned a coup. He said the document had been found "on the battlefield" and was "likely to have fallen out of the pocket of one of Bemba's commanders."[192] The authenticity of the document was questionable: it was unsigned, had no MLC stamp or other official markings, and was handwritten in French rather than Lingala, the language used by Bemba's guards.

In interviews with Human Rights Watch, government law enforcement authorities claimed the "secret" ad hoc commission established in September 2006 had been a legal and legitimate attempt to uncover alleged coup plotters. But they could provide no information about its mandate, the duration of its work, how many persons were arrested on its orders, why some persons were still in detention, or why no cases investigated by the commission had been brought to trial. As already noted, General Vakpa, who took over as national director of Special Services in mid-2007, said he had received no records of the commission's work when he took up his post.[193] In response to questions about torture and mistreatment, he said he could not comment on the interrogation practices that had been used, but stated categorically that no electric batons were used in the police service and he had never seen one himself. Human Rights Watch discovered that such batons can be purchased with relative ease in Kinshasa.[194] One intelligence official who participated in the work of the commission was more open: he told Human Rights Watch, "Of course the interrogation practices were harsh. No one ever admits the first time."[195]

Judicial investigations of Bemba

On April 10, 2007, before Bemba had left Kinshasa, the then public prosecutor, Tshimanga Mukeba, asked the Senate to lift Bemba's parliamentary immunity, to allow for his prosecution as the "intellectual author" of the March 2007 violence in the capital.[196] The Senate, not yet fully established or fully functional, ignored the request.[197] According to the prosecutor's letter, the charges against Bemba included threatening state security, murder, armed robbery, inciting the military to commit acts against orders, looting and destruction of property,[198] but no warrant was actually issued on these or other charges.[199] In an interview with Human Rights Watch in October 2007, Bemba said he considered the charges against him to be political and ordered by Kabila to deter him from returning to Kinshasa. He said that neither he nor his lawyers had received any notification of an arrest warrant against him.[200]

Bemba's guards committed crimes during the March 2007 violence including indiscriminate firing in heavily populated areas, and should be held to account for such acts.[201] An independent and transparent investigation into the violence in March 2007 should focus on the crimes committed by both sides, including those who held command responsibility, yet no such investigation has been conducted. 

On May 22, 2007, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in The Hague, Netherlands, announced that following an earlier request from the government of the Central African Republic (CAR), he was opening an investigation into crimes committed in the CAR between 2002 and 2003.[202] At that time combatants from the MLC, then a rebel group under Bemba's command, had gone to the CAR capital Bangui to assist then-President Ange Félix Patassé put down a coup attempt by his former army chief François Bozizé (Bozizé later successfully ousted Patassé in 2003 and is now CAR president). During the military operation combatants reportedly raped women and girls, looted property, and committed other violations of international humanitarian law.

In Kinshasa the ICC investigation was widely interpreted as focusing solely on alleged crimes by Bemba and his combatants. Before and during the election campaign, Kabila's supporters called Bemba a "war criminal" and talked about complaints they had filed against him at the ICC for his conduct in Congo.[203]

On May 24, 2008, authorities in Belgium arrested Bemba on the basis of an ICC warrant charging him as the head of the MLC with war crimes and crimes against humanity for the rapes, torture, and looting allegedly carried out by his forces during the 2002-2003 conflict in the CAR.[204]A few weeks later, the ICC added an additional charge of murder. At this writing the ICC prosecutor has not added any charges for crimes committed by Bemba in Congo, though he stated investigations were continuing.  

The ICC's pursuit of a former vice-president and its attention to crimes of sexual violence in the arrest warrant against Bemba was applauded by human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, who congratulated the court for targeting those most responsible for crimes despite their official position. Human Rights Watch called on the court to pursue other senior officials in CAR and Congo who were also responsible for serious human rights crimes, including in the ICC's investigations in Ituri, northeastern Congo.[205]The focus on rape was particularly poignant in Congo where tens of thousands of women and girls suffered sexual violence at the hands of MLC soldiers and dozens of other armed groups during Congo's brutal wars, including the Congolese national army. Few of the perpetrators have been arrested.[206] 

Bemba's arrest coincided with the final stages of electing an opposition "spokesperson" in the National Assembly. Under pressure from donor governments, Kabila had agreed in mid-2007 to a law guaranteeing and defining the role of the opposition, including the creation of a new position of "spokesperson," to be elected by opposition parliamentarians and to serve as the effective leader of the opposition.[207] The MLC, as the largest political group in the opposition, had put Bemba forward as their candidate and it was widely believed that he would be elected. Bemba hoped that his selection as spokesperson of the opposition would facilitate his return to Congo.[208]

Bemba's arrest just as he was considering a return to Congo was widely interpreted by the MLC and other opposition groups as a move orchestrated by Kabila, and his international backers, to remove his rival and weaken the opposition. Francois Mwamba, a top official of the MLC, in a statement on behalf of the party said,

The members of the political office [of the MLC] deeply regret the politicization of the judicial procedures initiated by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The arrest of Senator Jean-Pierre Bemba, days before his election as the spokesperson of the opposition in DRC, cannot have been pure coincidence, all the more since neither the [CAR] President Ange Félix Patassé, nor the military chiefs of his army who fought together with the MLC troops, were charged and subject to arrest.[209]

Protest demonstrations took place in various cities across the DRC, especially in Bemba's native province of Equateur, calling for his release and denouncing the political manipulation of the ICC.[210]

The government issued no statement on the arrest, but a spokesperson for Kabila's AMP political coalition said the arrest was a "personal matter"and should not affect Congo's opposition parties.[211]

The ICC prosecutor's office tried to counter the perception that the arrest had been politically motivated by emphasizing the court's independence and stressing the importance of this first ICC prosecution for sexual violence as a crime against humanity.[212] But many of the statements from the prosecutor's office were overly legalistic and failed to quell the criticisms from the MLC and other Congolese commentators.

Elections for the opposition spokesperson were suspended, further delaying the development of a robust political opposition.