Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
7 July 2009
Goma — The United Nations has come under sharp criticism by Human Rights Watch over the appalling human rights situation in the eastern and northern regions of DR Congo where UN-backed government forces are accused of attacking civilians.
During a fact-finding trip to the region, HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth said, "The Congolese government's military operations have been a disaster for civilians, who are now being attacked from all sides." The UN and the Congolese government need to take urgent measures to protect the people.
Since January 2009, nine Human Rights Watch fact-finding missions to frontline areas found a dramatic increase in attacks on civilians and other human rights abuses in Lubero, Rutshuru, Masisi, and Walikale territories in North Kivu, Kalehe and Shabunda territories in South Kivu, and Haute Uele district in northern Congo.
The Congolese army initiated military operations against the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels in December 2008 in northern Congo, followed a month later by operations in eastern Congo against the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the Rwandan Hutu militia.
Since then, the rebel forces and Congolese army troops combined have killed more than 1,500 civilians, raped thousands of women and girls, abducted hundreds of adults and children, and burned to the ground thousands of homes, sometimes entire villages.
According to the UN, more than a million people have been forced to flee for their lives from these conflict areas, adding to the tens of thousands of others displaced from earlier waves of violence. Many of those newly displaced have limited or no access to humanitarian assistance.
The Congolese army's operations against these two cross-border groups were initially supported by Ugandan forces in northern Congo and Rwandan forces in eastern Congo, and since March by UN peacekeepers in Congo. These forces have provided only limited protection for civilians from the deliberate and brutal rebel attacks.
"The government's failure to feed and pay its soldiers regularly is a virtual invitation for them to prey on the civilian population," said Roth. "Then to allow these troops to be led by commanders like Bosco Ntaganda with a known track record of horrific abuse creates a climate in which atrocities flourish."
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