IV. FDLR Responsibility

According to international humanitarian law, all parties to a conflict must distinguish between combatants and civilians, may not deliberately attack civilians or civilian objects, and must treat all persons under their control humanely. Individuals who willfully commit serious violations of the laws of war, that is deliberately or recklessly, are responsible for war crimes, including those who participate in or order war crimes, or are culpable as a matter of command responsibility.

The similarity of FDLR threats to civilians, the determination that civilians were legitimate targets and needed to be “punished,” plus the numerous similar attacks across areas that were hundreds of kilometers apart, all point to crimes by the FDLR being systematic and ordered from a central command. On November 17, 2009, the FDLR president, Ignace Murwanashyaka, and his deputy, Straton Musoni, were arrested by authorities in Germany for their role in alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by FDLR forces under their command in eastern Congo between January 2008 and July 2009. They were also charged with belonging to a terrorist group. Research by Human Rights Watch found that Murwanashyaka, as well as several other FDLR leaders and commanders, should be investigated for ordering alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by FDLR forces and as a matter of command responsibility.

Ignace Murwanashyaka

Dr. Ignace Murwanashyaka is the president, legal representative, and supreme commander of the FDLR. Murwanashyaka himself confirmed this in a meeting with Human Rights Watch on August 10 when he said, “I am the president and I preside over the military and the political branches. As such, I am the supreme commander. [General] Mudacumura does not give me orders, I give him orders.”[198] 

While Murwanashyaka lives thousands of miles away from the forests of eastern Congo, and probably has not been in eastern Congo since 2006, he wields a powerful influence over the FDLR combatants and is in regular communication with FDLR commanders on the ground. In various individual and group meetings with FDLR commanders and low-ranking combatants held by Human Rights Watch and others over the past few years, FDLR members have confirmed that decisions for the group are made by their president, Murwanashyaka, including decisions about military operations.[199] Two recent interviews provide clear examples. A commander from General Mudacumura’s protection unit who deserted the FDLR in April 2009 said during an interview with a diplomat that the FDLR leadership in Congo was in regular contact with the leaders in Germany and that military and political instructions are made and coordinated from Europe.[200] In September 2009, senior FDLR commanders met with a small number of UN DDRRR specialists to discuss the ongoing military operations and opportunities for voluntary disarmament, and they said they could make no decision without “orders from our hierarchy,” and referred specifically to needing instructions from “our president, Ignace” before they could act.[201]

The regular contact between Murwanashyaka and FDLR military commanders in eastern Congo, including General Mudacumura, is also clear from telephone records. Between September 2008 to August 2009, the UN Group of Experts recorded 240 phone communications between Murwanashyaka and FDLR commanders based in eastern Congo, an average of at least one phone communication per day.[202]  According to witnesses interviewed by the Group of Experts, Murwanashyaka “was involved in giving military orders to the high command during some of these communications.”[203] The Group of Experts also documented that Murwanashyaka had been “involved in coordinating the transfer of arms and ammunition to FDLR units and relaying specific instruction on their use.”[204]

In an interview with Human Rights Watch, Murwanashyaka confirmed he played a direct role in the FDLR’s chain of command, was seen by commanders and combatants as the ultimate decision-maker, and said that he was “the supreme commander.”[205]

On August 10, Human Rights Watch presented information to Murwanashyaka about alleged crimes by FDLR combatants, including copies of threatening letters and messages to villagers from FDLR forces. Murwanashyaka said he was “not informed about these abuses,” but that it was possible they had been carried out by Rwandan army soldiers or Congolese Hutu to “blacken our [the FDLR’s] name.”[206] When Human Rights Watch said a number of the victims of abuses had clearly been able to identify their attackers as FDLR since they knew them by name and had lived side-by-side with them for many years, he said he would “verify the information” and “order an immediate investigation into the events.”[207] 

Regarding the massacre at Busurungi on May 9-10, documented in the previous chapter, where the FDLR allegedly slaughtered at least 96 civilians, Murwanashyaka said he had heard about killings in this village but “after consulting with the FDLR’s assistant executive secretary and following their own investigation,” he had been informed that “no civilians had died there but only soldiers.”[208] He did not respond when asked if the FDLR’s own investigation considered the children who died at Busurungi, including babies, to be soldiers.

Phone records recorded by the UN Group of Experts, however, demonstrate that Murwanashyaka had frequent communication with FDLR commanders at the time of the Busurungi massacre. Between May 5 and May 16, the Group recorded 14 communications between Murwanashyaka and FDLR commanders in the field. On May 9, the day the attack began, Murwanashyaka received four text messages from two satellite phones used by General Mudacumura’s staff, and he replied to the last one almost immediately after receiving it. The next direct communication between Murwanashyaka and General Mudacumura’s staff was on May 11, at the end of the attack on Busurungi, when Murwanashyaka received another text message. While the contents of the messages are unknown, it is plausible that Murwanashyaka was being informed of preparations for the attack on Busurungi, and could have been involved in issuing the attack order.[209] 

In addition to information provided by Human Rights Watch, Murwanashyaka had access to information on FDLR abuses reported by others, including an October 15 report by the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions that documented serious violations of human rights committed by his subordinates.

Murwanashyaka told Human Rights Watch that he would launch his own investigations into the allegations made by Human Rights Watch, including those documented in this report, and agreed to share the results by August 24, 2009.[210] At the time of this report’s publication no response had been received, despite reminders sent to Murwanashyaka by email on September 24 and 30, 2009.[211]

Human Rights Watch believes there is sufficient information linking Murwanashyaka to specific FDLR attacks in which widespread abuses occurred that he should be investigated for his role in ordering alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Murwanashyaka should also be investigated for criminal liability as a matter of command responsibility. Information on ongoing abuses provided by Human Rights Watch and others indicates that he knew or should have known of serious international crimes by forces that were under his command. Human Rights Watch has, to date, found no instance where Murwanashyaka sought to prevent or take serious action to punish individuals under his effective control who were responsible for serious crimes in violation of international law.

On November 17, 2009, Ignace Murwanashyaka was arrested by German authorities for his role in alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in eastern Congo between January 2008 and July 2009 by FDLR combatants under his command. He was also charged with belonging to a terrorist group.[212]In a press statement issued on the day of Murwanashyaka’s arrest, German authorities said, “FDLR militias are believed to have killed several hundred civilians, raped numerous women, plundered and burned countless villages, forcing villagers from their homes and recruiting numerous children as soldiers.”[213]

Gen. Sylvester Mudacumura

Gen. Sylvester Mudacumura has been the military commander of FDLR forces in eastern Congo since 2003.[214] According to former FDLR combatants interviewed by Human Rights Watch and others, General Mudacumura has clear and immediate command responsibility over FDLR forces. “It is Mudacumura who gives all the overall instructions and commands, and others follow his orders... No operation could ever be done without his consent,” one former FDLR combatant told Human Rights Watch.[215] In another case, a senior FDLR deserter from the Reserve Brigade told UN officials that Lt. Col. Félicien Nzabanita, commander of the Reserve Brigade, which conducted several of the larger attacks on civilians during Umoja Wetu and Kimia II, “never made any decisions unless they were coming from Mudacumura.”[216]

The UN Group of Experts has collected information from FDLR “signalers” who pass on commands from the FDLR military command, under General Mudacumura’s authority, to individual FDLR units. A directive delivered in March 2009, at the start of operation Kimia II, was particularly telling. According to the “signaler” who passed on the message, later interviewed by the Group, General Mudacumura ordered all FDLR units in North and South Kivu to do the following:

(i) to “attack population centers in order to create a humanitarian catastrophe” with the aim of forcing the international community to react by “forcing the Rwandan government to negotiate with the FDLR”;

(ii) to “prioritize re-supplying operations by attacking the FARDC to recover weapons and ammunition”;

(iii) to “cut off main roads by attacking vehicles in order to paralyze commercial activities so that the local population becomes unhappy towards its government and demands the end of hostilities against the FDLR”; and

(iv) to consider “all Congolese as our enemies” and as such “all resupply operations are authorized to assure the survival of our men and to destabilize the security of the local population which will increase their unhappiness with their government.”[217]

Human Rights Watch believes there is sufficient information linking General Mudacumura to specific FDLR attacks in which widespread abuses occurred and that he should be investigated for his role in ordering alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

General Mudacumura should also be investigated for criminal liability as a matter of command responsibility. Information on ongoing abuses provided by Human Rights Watch and others indicates that he knew or should have known of serious international crimes by forces that were under his command. Human Rights Watch is not aware of any action taken by General Mudacumura to prevent or take serious actions to punish individuals under his command who were responsible for serious crimes in violation of international law.

Other Commanders

The FDLR’s operational commanders who are also in the chain of command of the FDLR and should be investigated for their role in alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity include Col. Pacifique Ntawunguka, commander of the FDLR’s North Kivu division; Col. Léopold Mujyambere, commander of the South Kivu division; Lt. Col. Félicien Nzabanita (also known as Kalume Andrei), commander of the Reserve Brigade; and Capt. Vainquer Mugisha (likely not his real name), commander of the Special Forces Unit.

According to one former FDLR commander interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the attack on Busurungi described above was ordered by Lt. Col. Nzabanita, who stayed at a military base near Shalio throughout the massacre.[218] Former FDLR combatants interviewed by the UN Group of Experts also reported that Lt. Col. Nzabanita ordered the attack on Busurungi and gave the following directive, “Attack those who killed our population at Shalio.” (The order appears to refer to the earlier Congolese army attack on Rwandan Hutu refugees in the area of Shalio Hill, discussed below.)[219]

Research conducted by Human Rights Watch indicates that Capt. Vainquer Mugisha played a direct role in the attacks on civilians in the Ufumandu area in January and February 2009, including attacks at Kibua, Remeka, and Katoyi, among others, and that he was responsible for taking civilians hostage to be used as human shields at an FDLR military base where many were subsequently killed.[220] In Katoyi, numerous persons heard Captain Vainquer tell a crowd of people in late January, “Even if we were together before, we are now enemies... we are sharpening [our] spears and machetes.” Shortly thereafter the FDLR began to kill civilians.[221] According to numerous former FDLR combatants interviewed by the UN Group of Experts, Captain Vainquer also led the operation in Busurungi, with various units of the Reserve Brigade, under Lt. Col. Nzabanita’s command.[222]

Research conducted by Human Rights Watch and the UN Group of Experts indicates that attacks in the Bunyakiri area of Kalehe territory (South Kivu) between April and June 2009 may have been planned and executed by commander “Simba Guillaume,” likely an alias for Capt. Pierre-Célestin Rurakabije, the commander of the 1st company of the Reserve Brigade’s 3rd Battalion, known as the Mirage Battalion, located in Ramba near Bunyakiri.[223] In March 2009, Simba Guillaume sent three letters to the population and local leaders in Karasi (Mubugu groupment, Kalehe territory) in which he explicitly warned of attacks on civilians (see above). Soon after these messages were delivered, the FDLR launched several attacks on villages in the area, including the attack on Chiriba in May 2009 when 10 civilians were killed. Accounts from former FDLR combatants and other witnesses collected by the UN Group of Experts identified Guillaume as the military commander of these attacks. The Group also recorded regular phone communication between Guillaume and General Mudacumura’s staff, including a total of 107 communications between January and April 2009.[224]

Human Rights Watch believes there is sufficient information linking each of the above military commanders to specific FDLR attacks in which widespread abuses occurred that they should be investigated for their role in ordering alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.