|
V. HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN NORTH KIVU
Foreign governments, their soldiers, and numerous others unofficially attached to them profit from the many and valuable resources of Congo. The exploitation has been so blatant and extensive that a United Nations expert panel has been established to investigate the issue.115 In the region nominally ruled by RCD-Kisangani (later RCD-ML), but in fact controlled by the UPDF, it is the areas of North Kivu that offer particularly significant profits to Ugandans and their Congolese allies. Shortly after retreating to Kampala following the August 1999 confrontation between the Ugandan and Rwandan armies at Kisangani, Wamba named Kaisazira Mbaki as governor for this region. He made the appointment weeks before announcing his new "government," thus underscoring the importance that he and his Ugandan backers accorded to the area. Since the 1996-1997 war that brought then rebel leader Laurent Kabila to power, Uganda has occupied a large swath of northeastern Congo parallel to its border, including the territories of Beni and Lubero in North Kivu province and the districts of Ituri and Kibali in Orientale province, now part of a new Ituri "province" created by the Ugandans in June 1999. That occupation was simply reinforced in August 1998, when Uganda joined Rwanda in declaring war against Kabila's government, their erstwhile ally. Uganda argued that the region was important for securing its border, but the area also offered abundant natural and commercial wealth. Of the five territories of North Kivu,116 Beni and Lubero are the most heavily populated. Extraction of gold, coltan (a mineral made of colombium and tantalum used in aviation and space industries), and other minerals sustains a large informal mining sector in the two territories. In addition, the region has long served as one of the most important commercial centers of Congo, importing large amounts of consumer goods from Southeast Asia and free trade areas in the Arabian Gulf emirates through the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. The dynamic business community, largely controlled by Nande, helped ensure a level of economic activity even in the absence of the large public sector enterprises that were the main employers elsewhere in Congo.117 Kasindi, a small customs post on the border with Uganda which serves the Butembo region, for decades rated second in customs revenue only to Matadi, Congo's main port on the Atlantic Ocean. The current war crippled much of the local economic activity, but enough survived to fuel fierce competition over the exploitation of custom revenues between the Uganda-RCD-Kisangani side and their Rwandan-RCD-Goma opponents. After Wamba named Kaisazira Mbaki governor for North Kivu-a province for which the RCD-Goma already had a governor in place-the Rwandan army rushed at least two battalions to reinforce units in its part of North Kivu, and the UPDF also reinforced its positions and shifted some officers to new posts.118 The troop buildup echoed the gradual slide towards confrontation in Kisangani in the previous month. At the same time both sides established "frontier" posts and customs offices along the line between their respective territories. Traders in Goma closed their shops to protest against new taxes that the RCD-Kisangani had imposed on merchandise en route to them through Beni-Lubero and RCD-Goma tried to encourage them to import their goods directly to areas under its control by passing through Bonagana on the Ugandan border.119 Attempts to Build A Power Base Mbusa Nyamwisi arrived in Beni shortly after his appointment in September 1999 as general commissar, or prime minister, of the newly launched RCD-ML. Although still actively involved in the politics of his party in Bunia, he hoped to build his own power base in Beni, his home region, particularly among local community leaders. At the same time, as mentioned above, he began raising troops, which he expected would support his efforts to increase both his political power and his hold over the economic resources of the region. In these efforts, Mbusa's branch of the RCD-ML as well as the Ugandans who initially backed this party in Beni, committed grave human rights abuses against the local population. Mbusa began with a part of the local community already hostile to his party. The month before he arrived, fourteen leaders from religious, economic, and civil society circles circulated a memorandum that denounced the misgovernment of the territories of Beni and Lubero by the RCD-Kisangani, then still the name of what would become RCD-ML. In an apparent attempt to win over these opinion leaders and at the same time to legitimize itself in Kampala, the rebel movement in late October invited some twenty Beni and Lubero community leaders, including several signatories of the memorandum of protest, to meet with President Museveni in Uganda. A Ugandan helicopter arrived to take them to Kampala, but many refused to participate in the delegation, arguing that they had no business discussing Congolese affairs with a foreign head of state. Mbusa himself headed the delegation.120 Soon after the leaders' return, RCD-ML security forces in Butembo started harassing some of the community leaders who had refused to participate in the delegation and their families, summoning several for interrogation. Others who feared being detained went into hiding. On November 13 and 14, the General Directorate of Intelligence (DGI) of the RCD-ML detained and tortured three local leaders. One of them, Desire Lumbulumbu, a respected former minister under Mobutu, lost an eye as a result of having been beaten, went into a coma, and died a month later of complications resulting from the torture, according to reports by local rights groups. The detention and torture of respected local leaders, one of them to the point of death, cost the RCD-ML much support in Butembo.121 Lack of accountability for the rebels and the UPDF In the face of the popular outcry over the death of Lumbulumbu, the RCD-ML dissolved the DGI and detained three of the DGI officials found by the RCD-ML's department of justice, institutional reforms, and human rights to have taken part in the torture. They were Kambale Bahekwa Esdras, at the time RCD-ML security minister, Mbula wa Mbukamu, chief of security in North Kivu, and Jonas Kabuyaya, chief of security in Butembo.122 Bahekwa denied the accusation in a February 28, 2001 interview with Human Rights Watch from Kampala and said he would publish an account in March that would point to the real culprit.123 Hopes that these measures signaled a commitment to accountability and the rule of law were dashed when the rebel movement recruited former DGI agents into the agency that replaced it, the Congolese Intelligence Agency (Agence Congolaise de Renseignement (ACR). When Wamba suspended Mbusa in August 2000, he also ordered the release of the three accused of torture and appointed them to senior positions. Their release produced further public indignation in Butembo.124 Bahekwa told Human Rights Watch that Wamba asked him then to use his political influence in Beni so as to facilitate an extensive audit of RCD-ML public finances. Wamba ordered the audit following allegations of extensive misappropriation of funds by the Mbusa branch of the movement, but officials loyal to Mbusa reportedly obstructed the process.125 Unable to assure appropriate conduct even in their own ranks, the RCD-ML and its civilian appointees had no greater prospect of being able to hold UPDF soldiers accountable for their daily abuses of the civilian population. In a report released in late February 2001, the Congolese rights group ASADHO detailed the system of impunity that shielded UPDF soldiers: It should be noted that there isn't in the region any tribunal competent to prosecute Ugandan soldiers responsible for crimes against the civilian population. Victims are thus led to complain to civil authorities of the rebellion, which in turn complain to the officers of the Ugandan army. But the latter guarantee to their soldiers total impunity. [...] In several cases, the Congolese [rebel] authorities were forced to acknowledge their powerlessness to stop the violence of the Ugandans. Thus, after several nights punctuated by banditry acts attributed to Ugandan soldiers, the deputy mayor of Beni, Mrs. Kavira Kambere, went on February 26, 2000 to the headquarters of the UPDF to ask that UPDF officers put an end to the harassment of the population. Enraged by the request, Ugandan officers [...] beat up the lady, and one, Commandant Bukenye, went as far as pointing his gun at her, threatening to shoot her. The victim sustained facial wounds and was treated at the hospital.126 Local appeals having apparently failed to check the daily abuses by UPDF and RCD-ML soldiers, Sikuli Melchisedech, Archbishop of Butembo, on October 16, 2000 wrote to President Museveni and to the RCD-ML chairman complaining about daily insecurity in Butembo and surrounding areas. Ugandan soldiers on October 9 pillaged the possessions of the population of Mondo quarters [...] Some of the stolen goods were later found in the military camp of Rughenda in Butembo, which is under Ugandan command. We have the impression that this is an army which is left to its own devices, which, due to the lack of command, is imposing the law of the jungle, in total impunity.127 Attached to the letter was a four-page chronology compiled by local rights activists, which detailed almost daily attacks on civilians during the preceding six weeks. The document blamed armed and uniformed elements, identified in certain cases as UPDF soldiers, for most of the generalized insecurity. Mai-Mai Attack on Beni and Detentions by the UPDF The main armed group operating in Beni and Lubero-as elsewhere in the Kivus-is the Mai-Mai. This generic name applies to any one of a multitude of irregular forces fighting against what they perceive to be foreign occupiers of their traditional domain and their national territory. Many of the groups follow certain rituals thought to protect them in battle. They typically enter into or repudiate alliances with outside actors according to the priorities of their local agenda. Mai-Mai are generally thought to cooperate with local people, although they can also prey upon them if they fail to support the ends of the Mai-Mai. Asked who the Mai-Mai were and what motivated them to fight the UPDF, a political cadre of the group operating in the Beni region, reportedly one of the most structured and politically motivated in North Kivu, told Human Rights Watch: Anyone can be a Mai-Mai. When you hear people speaking of Mai-Mai, its nothing other than people of the population who are tired of this war, don't know what else to do and judge it best to go into the forest to enforce their rights.... Yes, there are women, women guerrillas. Yes, there are children. Children of nine, ten, and up who are soldiers, who are trained. They come on their own initiative. The majority are like the majority here-Nande-but there are Mai-Mai from all tribes, Bahunde, Batengo, all. ... The Mai-Mai are the population themselves-it is I, it is another. If I'm threatened with my rights I have to organize something to defend myself. We don't want to be ruled by the Ugandans.128 On November 14, 1999, the Mai-Mai simultaneously attacked the airport of Beni and a hotel where Major Reuben Ikondere of the UPDF-Bunia was staying.129 The colonel and his bodyguards were killed and the Mai-Mai reportedly mutilated their bodies. Several other UPDF soldiers and 103 Mai-Mai fighters were also reportedly killed at the airport.130 After the attack, the UPDF detained Commander Kakolele of the RCD-ML force, the APC, reportedly accusing him of complicity with the Mai-Mai. According to his family, the UPDF kept Kakolele and other detainees in underground cells known as mabusu, at the ENRA, an agricultural compound which abuts the airstrip and serves as the UPDF headquarters. In Congo, as in Uganda, UPDF soldiers are said to confine detainees in these roofed trenches, similar to those used by soldiers for guarding their positions. The commander's family claimed that UPDF soldiers allowed the detainees out only to beat them severely.131 Despite the Mai-Mai attack on Ugandan forces in November 1999, Mbusa's supporters in mid-2000 decided to recruit combatants for his force from among these groups. To convince the UPDF and a skeptical local population that an alliance with the Mai-Mai was necessary, Mbusa reportedly raised fears that Rwandan troops might invade Beni and Lubero to chase the UPDF out of the resource-rich area, and to uproot their own Hutu opponents from bases on the southern fringe of the territory.132 Local UPDF officers agreed to support this effort, perhaps because their troops had just suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the Rwandans at Kisangani. According to a former aide of Mbusa, their faction sent out several delegations to contact Mai-Mai in their strongholds and to invite them to join forces with the RCD-ML. Promised that their fighters would benefit from proper military training and receive modern arms under the terms of this alliance, the Mai-Mai leaders readily pledged to provide some 4,500 of their supporters.133 In July of 2000 radio announcements invited the inhabitants of Butembo to greet a first batch of Mai-Mai fighters recruited by the RCD-ML under the initiative. A leader of the group addressed a public rally, pledging that the new alliance would push back the Rwandan invaders. Witnesses at the rally told Human Rights Watch that many of the fighters were children below the age of fifteen. Many of the children of the town, witnesses said, followed the parading fighters, and expressed readiness to join the battle as well.134 Shortly after the public ceremony, UPDF and APC instructors launched the training of some 800 fighters in the town of Lubero, fifty kilometers south of Butembo.
These developments appeared to have raised serious concerns in Kampala, in the Rwandan capital Kigali, and in Goma at the headquarters of RCD-Goma. Mbusa toured the three cities in late July to explain the move. Upon his return, he dramatically changed his message and began downplaying the Rwandan threat. By mid-August, the UPDF too had changed its mind and ordered the Mai-Mai training camp closed. Determined to resist the order, the Mai-Mai started patrolling the town of Lubero, telling people that this was their home and that it was up to the others to leave. The UPDF sector commander in Beni, Lieutenant Colonel Burundi, and the commander in Butembo, Captain Balikudembe, reportedly sent reinforcements to Lubero to dislodge the Mai-Mai. On August 25 and 26, the UPDF and the APC shelled the vast terrain, the size of four soccer fields, on which the Mai-Mai fighters were encamped. At least thirty Mai-Mai died in the fighting, according to Human Rights Watch findings.136 No figures were available for UPDF and APC casualties. Local sources also reported that seventeen civilians, who were in the area to sell vegetables, died in the crossfire. Human Rights Watch researchers visited the sites of the fighting and were told by eyewitness that they saw Ugandan and Congolese soldiers pulling three wounded Mai-Mai fighters out of the local hospital and publicly executing them: The soldiers, they were angry. They opened all the doors of the hospital. They found a wounded Mai-Mai chief-he had a broken bone so could not escape. They said voilà, there's the chief. They recognized him because they had interacted with him before. They took him outside and before our eyes they beat him up-they beat his head effectively to a pulp-used their guns to do so. Another group of Congolese and Ugandan soldiers stabbed a wounded Mai-Mai to death with the bayonets on their rifles.137 Other local sources said that seven Mai-Mai were killed in such circumstances.138 All the residents of Lubero fled the town, overwhelmingly to the neighboring village of Mulo, where they took refuge for two weeks. The Mai-Mai left Lubero and reportedly regrouped at their stronghold of Burondo to the west of Beni.139 On September 11, 2000, three weeks after the UPDF dispersed Mai-Mai fighters in Lubero, Mai-Mai struck in the town of Butembo. Echoing the Beni attack the previous November, they struck both the residence of the UPDF sector commander, Captain Balikudembe, and the town's Rughenda airstrip, which also serves as UPDF headquarters. Twenty-one of their number died in the attack. "If they had training, they would know better than to attack an entrenched group like ours," a spokesman for the UPDF said of the attackers in statements to the press in Kampala. "You don't attack people with machineguns with bows and arrows. They are ill-trained, ill-equipped, and badly organized."140 A UPDF tank shelled the Mai-Mai attackers as they approached the airport. Stray shells from the tank fell on the residential quarters of Vutsundu and Muchanga, killing at least two civilians and destroying several houses.141 Hours after the attack, the local radio in Butembo broadcast a message from Captain Balikudembe in which he accused Mbusa of complicity with the Mai-Mai. Mbusa's movement had failed to mobilize the masses, he said, and instead was reduced to organizing militia groups.142 Mbusa, then in Kampala following the failure of the August mutiny in Bunia, denied allegations that the attackers were allied with him. He said the charges were propaganda by Wamba and his local agents in Beni and Butembo.143 He also defended himself against these allegations in the Ugandan press: "Even the president [Yoweri Museveni] is aware that on November 14, 1999, I captured a Mai-Mai rebel leader, Lorwako Lima alias Jean Pierre Ondekane, and handed him to the UPDF."144 On September 12, the UPDF confiscated two containers full of military uniforms and took them to its headquarters at the airport. According to a senior aide of Mbusa, the seized uniforms were part of a consignment that Mbusa's faction had ordered. The UPDF local commanders confiscated the uniforms at the time of the Mai-Mai attack, apparently on the pretext that they were for Mbusa's troops, troops who were said to be allied with the Mai-Mai. Mbusa's aide saw the confiscation of the uniforms as one reason for conflict between "our 7,000 soldiers who are not paid, fed, or decently dressed, and Wamba's agents who used UPDF local commanders to intercept the uniforms."145 In the wake of the attack on Butembo, the UPDF dismissed several top aides of Mbusa, including the mayor of the town, and detained several others under suspicion of maintaining regular contacts with the Mai-Mai. The UPDF reportedly held the detained officials in covered pits or trenches located at Rughenda airport before transferring them to Beni. In late February 2001, seventeen of the Mbusa aides were reportedly still held in Beni in the compound of the ENRA, subjected to daily beatings.146 With the resumption of Ugandan hostility with the Mai-Mai, as shown by the Lubero attack in September, the groups stepped up attacks on UPDF posts and convoys on the road between Butembo and Beni during the last quarter of 2000. UPDF troops then often took reprisals against civilians in villages near the site of the attack. The increased violence in the area forced thousands of villagers to abandon their homes to seek refuge in Butembo, Beni, or in the bush. Maboya
Residents of Maboya fled to the surrounding bush where they were still living six weeks later when an aide worker visited them. According to the worker, 110 of the 156 people were children, many of whom suffered from malnourishment.149 One of the witnesses said: So long as the military are at Maboya, the population won't have confidence. People are still leaving, still going further away. If the military leave Maboya, the population will go back. The civilians may go to Maboya during the day but don't stay there at night. The soldiers are still destroying the village-taking furniture. If you go near, you are seen as the enemy.150 Mabuku
They said, "We continued to work. On Wednesday we said, voilà the military will retaliate. We were worried. At around 10 am the military came. Oh, voila-the military are here, we said."151 When they heard the noise of guns, the nurses said they were unsure what was happening. "We were really scared-we were the targets of the military. Even if the attack was far away we fled, we can't deny that," they said. Many hospitalized patients followed them, including some who had recently been operated on and women who had recently given birth. Two nurses remained behind to care for a few patients who were too weak to flee. Soldiers came and searched the center, looking for hidden Mai-Mai, and stole some four hundred dollars. They also burned down two houses nearby at Mundibia village. Residents abandoned Mabuku and the village was empty several weeks later.152 The two nurses took refuge with a colleague at a nearby village. When this became known, their former patients followed the three nurses there. About a week later, their group saw Mai-Mai fighters going past in a column and they knew there would be a second attack on Maboya. "There were maybe fifteen to twenty fighters. We were scared and turned away when we saw them, that's why we can't tell the exact number. From the little we saw, the fighters wore civilian clothes and had leaves on their heads, but we didn't see any guns. They were armed with sticks and stones and knifes and slingshots. They were marching forward in a straight line, not talking."153 The Mai-Mai attack on the UPDF and the fear of expected Ugandan reprisals forced the displaced nurses, their patients, and inhabitants of the host village to move to a village even further away. In the days that followed, the three nurses had to care for dozens of sick women and children and to assist in sixteen deliveries. Each had only one pair of surgical gloves, which they sterilized and used over and over again. Within weeks, the displaced health workers ran out of drugs and other medical supplies. Human Rights Watch researchers found them trying to resupply their makeshift clinic in the hinterland of Beni. Butuhe
Mabalako
When the soldiers learned of the killings, they immediately took a young man who was looking after his father's shop and killed him after having looted all the merchandise. The witness said, "That was at 9a.m., all on the same day. The inhabitants were still in their houses. A second person was killed. People fled when they saw the killings. The military saw that the village was empty so they held a meeting to persuade the population to go home. But the same day the military went and pillaged everything. They also pillaged the market of the nearby village of Kantini. The population fled again. The military left for Beni and Mangina with the pillaged goods." Two days later the Mai-Mai came back and so the population also returned and spent two days together with the Mai-Mai with no problem. "It was hard to distinguish between the fighters and civilians," the trader said, "the Mai-Mai included mothers and babies. They have wooden sticks and some had brand new uniforms with boots (to mid calf) of mixed colors, canvas, like the Ugandans. Three of the fighters who lived with us for those two days had guns, the others had traditional arms."157 She said the military from the Mabalako camp returned with reinforcements from Beni, including both Congolese and Ugandans. "They were many," said the witness. "The people were indignant but could say nothing when faced with that number of soldiers. A Congolese group came right into the village with the Ugandan group separate from them. The Ugandans were very obvious-in uniform, with a different physique. In the clashes that followed, there were five Mai-Mai deaths and two injured and three civilian deaths (a shop owner called Jacques, a butcher, and a man called Balthazar)."158 The soldiers again pillaged shops and homes systematically, carting away the loot in vehicles. The witness continued, "Both Ugandans and Congolese pillaged. The people fled and stayed away. Even today. If there is a market, people go to it then go back into the bush. The place is just a place for exchanging goods. Schools no longer function in that area. There is no one there-no Mai-Mai, no military, no civilians."159 A local newspaper gave a brief account of this incident in its November issue, but made no reference to the participation of Ugandan combatants in the reprisals and pillaging that followed: "The Mai-Mai entered Mabalako like Jesus entered Jerusalem.... They attacked the village during the week of October 23 to 31. Repulsed by the soldiers of Commander Omari [of the APC], they retreated to Kantini, before being pushed back further to their rear base.... Sixty-eight Mai-Mai were killed in the fighting and one [fire]arm was captured of the eight they had in their possession. We have learnt on the other hand that APC elements have pillaged Mabalako after the clashes with the Mai-Mai. This is discrediting and is not reassuring."160 North Kivu under the Front for the Liberation of Congo (FLC) During its first few weeks of existence, the FLC focused much needed attention on the situation in Bunia and Ituri. The situation that awaited it in North Kivu was equally pressing, characterized by the same misgovernment, lack of accountability, and daily abuses of the population by the occupying UPDF. Mbusa Nyamwisi returned to Beni in late January 2001 as coordinator of the FLC executive body, but his arrival was far from triumphant. First, officials of the former administration who remained loyal to Wamba refused to hand over control of the public treasury to the FLC administration. In response, Francois Mamba, the FLC deputy coordinator for finance and economy, faxed a curt, one page letter to all bank managers in Butembo, Beni and Lubero, instructing them to close all the accounts of the treasury on January 22, 2001, the date of the circular, and to block all movements on the accounts until further instructions. The letter closed on a threatening note: "Of course any failure to respect these instructions will be severely punished."161 Copies of the letter were leaked to the public, feeding an intense debate on the intentions of the FLC towards the region. Mgr. Saluki Melchisedech, the archbishop of Butembo, issued a public statement on February 6, accusing the FLC of being more interested in the resources of the region than in addressing the problems of its population. The archbishop warned that tensions between the FLC and Wamba's supporters could "degenerate into bloody clashes like the ones that took place in Bunia, if the rebel leaders insisted on pursuing their egoistic interests to the detriment of the common good of the population." 162 Second, the UPDF continued to hold and ill-treat seventeen of the top aides of the Mbusa's branch of the RCD-ML. Civil society actors asked the FLC deputy coordinator during a meeting in Butembo about releasing the detainees. According to a person present at the meeting, the official said to their disappointment that "there is no magic wand to free persons accused of wrongdoing. Justice must pursue its course."163 Third, many of the supporters of Mbusa in the region, including among members of the short-lived cabinet that he appointed after deposing Wamba in November 2000, felt that the new front had left them out. Finally, in late February, civil society and church groups and indeed most of the people of Butembo sent a strong message to the occupying power and the new rebel front that the achievement of peace should be an absolute priority. From February 27 to March 1, Butembo hosted an international symposium on peace in Africa and the DRC attended by hundreds of civil society delegates from eastern DRC and from Europe. A huge crowd of tens of thousands lined the city's streets to welcome the delegates.164 Jean-Pierre Bemba addressed the opening session, pledging the FLC to peace. Participants in his presence called for the withdrawal of foreign troops, reparations for war damages, the respect for the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a quick return to peace. In its final declaration, the symposium urged all rebel groups to "show more patriotism and understanding of the suffering of their compatriots," and denounced "massacres, killings, the presence of armies, arbitrary arrests, rapes of women, forced recruitment of child soldiers, disappearances and the plundering" of the DRC wealth.165 At the occasion of the closing session, Bemba issued an apology "for mistakes, atrocities, crimes and pillages" committed by rebel soldiers.166 He reportedly ordered "troops" to withdraw from their posts in rural areas to the barracks in Beni.167 Ugandan troop movements were observed in and around Beni at the time of the order, but these, according to local sources, appeared more related to a limited Ugandan withdrawal of troops from the northwest.168 115 U.N. Security Council, "Interim report of the U.N. Expert Panel on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of DR Congo," S/2001/49, December 20, 2000. 116 The other three, Masisi, Rutshuru, and Walekali, are under Rwandan control. 117 Businessmen, along with churches and others in civil society, helped provide services to the local population in the absence of governmental activity during the Mobutu years. They funded roads and bridges, and together with churches, supported schools and clinics. 118 "DRC: Tension said mounting between rival rebels, allies," the New Vision, Kampala, September 24, 1999, as reported in FBIS-AFR-1999-0924-, September 29, 1999. 119 "Border posts separate rival rebel zones," AFP, Kigali, September 23, 1999. 120 Human Rights Watch interviews, civil society groups, Butembo, December 2000. 121 Ibid. 122 "Rapport circonsancie sur les evenemnets survenus à Beni le 14 novembre 1999," Commissariat à la Justice, Réformes Instiutionnelles et Droits Humains, 026/CAB-CJ/RCD/99, 15 novembre 1999, Beni, signed by the commissioner: Louis Mubindukila Kito. 123 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Kambale Bahekwa, Kampala, February 28, 2001. 124 Human Rights Watch interviews, Butembo, December 2000. 125 Human Rights Watch interview, Kambale Bahekwa, Ibid. 126 ASADHO-Agir Ensemble, "L'Ouganda sacrifie la population civile congolaise," Kinshasa-Lyon, February 2001, p. 10. 127 In "memorandum addressed to the commander of the UPDF in the territories of Beni-Lubero, north Kivu, DRC: why the generalized insecurity?," in French, attached to the letter of Mgr. Sikuli Paluku Melchisedech, Butembo, October 16, 2000. 128 Human Rights Watch interviews, December 2000. 129 U.N., IRIN-CEA, "DRC: Ugandan commander killed in Beni clashes," IRIN-CEA Update 801 for the Great Lakes, November 15, 1999. 130 Ibid., "rapport circonstancié." 131 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, November 16, 1999. 132 Human Rights Watch interviews, Bunia and Butembo, December 2000. 133 Ibid. 134 Human Rights Watch interviews, Butembo, December 2000. 135 Human Rights Watch interviews, Lubero, December 2000. 136 Ibid. 137 Ibid. 138 Ibid. 139 Ibid. 140 "Mai-Mai attack officer's home," the New Vision, September 14, 2000. See also "UPDF, Mai-Mai fight in DRC," the Monitor, Kampala, September 13, 2000. 141 Eyewitnesses' testimonies, Human Rights Watch interviews, Butembo, December 2000. 142 Human Rights Watch interviews, Butembo, December 2000. 143 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Kampala, September 13, 2000. 144 "UPDF, Mai-Mai fight in DRC," the Monitor, Ibid. 145 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, September 13, 2000. 146 NGO reports, Bunia, Beni, Butembo, Goma., September 2000. 147 Human Rights Watch interviews, December 2000. 148 Ibid., see also: "Maboya: Onze morts et 38 cases brulees," in the local Les Coulisses, No. 85, November 2000, p. 9. 149 Ibid. 150 Human Rights Watch interviews, December 2000. 151 Ibid. 152 Ibid. 153 Human Rights Watch interviews, December 2000. 154 Among those reportedly killed were: Kambere Muhitha, Christien Ngunza, Katembo Ngunza, Kasereka Ngunza, Kambale Kamwisi, Donatus Maghulu, Jean-Pierre M, Stephania, and Ndungu. 155 Human Rights Watch interviews, December 2000. 156 Human Rights Watch interviews, December 2000. 157 Ibid. 158 Ibid. 159 Ibid. 160 "Mabalako: Accrochage APC - Mai-Mai: 68 morts," Les Coulisses, No. 85, Novembre 2000, p. 2. 161 `Transmisson, Acte et Instructions," Le Coordinateur Adjoint de l'Executif, Front du Libération du Congo, Gbadolite, le 22 janvier 2001, No. 001/Coord.-Adj./FEP/FLC/01/2001. 162 "Point de vue de Mgr. Sikuli sur le FLC," circulated by the Catholic Church, Butembo, February 6, 2000. 163 Human Rights Watch communication, February 10, 2001. 164 U.N., IRIN-CEA, "DRC: Thousands welcome peace delegates in Butembo," IRIN-CEA Update 1,125 for the Great Lakes, March 1, 2001. 165 "Document final du symposium sur la paix en Afrique (S.I.P.A.) tenu à Butembo du 27 février au 1er mars 2001," final declaration, symposium on peace in Africa, Butembo, March 1, 2001, communication to Human Rights Watch, March 12, 2001. 166 U.N., IRIN, "DRC: Bemba orders withdrawal to barracks," IRIN Update 1127 for the Great Lakes, March 5, 2001. 167 Ibid. 168 Human Rights Watch telephone interviews, Beni-Butembo-Goma, March 12, 2001.
|
