Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
21 July 2008
Kigali — Forces loyal to DR Congo dissident General Laurent Nkunda are not only provoking the fighting against other militias but are also targeting civilians - accusing them of being rebels, according to Human Rights Watch.
In the last months, the campaign group says CNDP - Nkunda political movement - combatants launched a military offensive to dislodge Coalition of Congolese Patriotic Resistance (PARECO) and Mai Mai Mongol fighters from the Bukombo area killing some 100 civilians as they indiscriminately fired on more than a dozen villages.
According to Human Rights Watch after a 10-day mission in eastern Congo, many of the dead were the elderly or very young who were unable to flee in advance of the attacks.
General Nkunda's National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP) combatants also summarily executed civilians whom they accused of being PARECO combatants, the rights group alleges.
In Gashavu village on April 20, CNDP combatants arrested and tied up four men and a 12-year-old boy and then beat them to death with large sticks. Six other civilians were abducted, including a woman and a 15-year-old girl. Some were later released.
Despite a peace deal with militias in its eastern provinces, Human Rights Watch also claims that the DR Congo government continues to support Rwandan and Congolese factions against dissident General Laurent Nkunda - questioning the government's commitment to the peace process.
In January, the Congolese government signed a peace agreement in Goma -North Kivu, with 22 armed groups committing all parties to an immediate ceasefire, disengagement of forces from frontline positions, and to abide by international human rights law. The FDLR was not a party to the Goma agreement.
The agreement has failed to halt the fighting, which as Human Rights Watch details, has left civilians with no options but stay in camps amid militia confrontations.
United Nations officials have documented some 200 ceasefire violations since January 23, the majority between the forces General Nkunda and a loose coalition of combatants from the Mai Mai Mongol, the Coalition of Congolese Patriotic Resistance (PARECO), and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
The campaign group says it has found credible evidence that soldiers from the Congolese national army are backing the PARECO, Mai Mai Mongol, and FDLR coalition.
As part of the ongoing hostilities, armed groups are also reported to have continued to actively recruit combatants, some of whom have been forced to enter armed service.
At a recent demobilsation of Rwandan FDLR rebels in Rwanda, they claimed that UN forces are preventing the surrender of the militias and supplying them with arms - in exchange for minerals.
The peacekeeping troops - more than 5,000 are deployed in North Kivu - have attempted to move into the buffer zones between the fighting factions but they have been thinly spread and have been fired upon. On April 23, during the CNDP attacks in the Bukombo area, a UN peacekeeper was injured, resulting in their withdrawal from the area.
On June 11, with little warning, UN peacekeepers pulled out of Misinga, a crucial buffer zone between CNDP and PARECO combatants, leaving hundreds of civilians unprotected who had sought safety around the UN base.
Witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported that FDLR and PARECO combatants attacked soon after the United Nations' departure, killing at least one civilian and causing further displacement of the population.
Human Rights Watch researchers also documented more than 200 killings of civilians and the rape of hundreds of women and girls since January by all armed groups, including Congolese army soldiers.
The civilians narrate how Rwandan rebels repeatedly raided villages for cattle, goats and other goods, raping women and girls, and killing civilians who opposed their activities or whom they accused of being collaborators of their enemies.
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