The UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO) is on the defensive since the NGO International Medical Corps [2] revealed this week that rebels from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), and members of a local Mai Mai militia, raped at least 154 women in North Kivu—a few kilometers from a MONUSCO base. The new head of MONUSCO, Roger Meece, addressing reporters in New York via video conference [3] from Goma on Aug. 25, said that two patrols of peacekeepers were never told by the population that the rapes were being committed—even though these attacks are said to have lasted over three days.
MONUSCO claims it was only aware that there were rebels in the area and that "this was not unusual, and seemed to resemble nothing that could suggest a possible launch of attacks." The New York Times [4] reports Aug. 26 that relief worker in the region received email alerts on July 30, the day the attacks began, warning them of the presence of rebels. The Times quotes a UN employee who says that these warnings would have been forwarded to the peacekeepers who should then have done everything in their power to protect the population. (Congo News Agency [5], Aug. 26)
The rebels from the Rwandan Hutu FDLR (linked by the Rwandan regime to the 1994 genocide) and allied Mai Mai militia reportedly occupied the town of Luvungi from July 30 to August 3, raping and assaulting at least 154 civilians, according to UN figures. One aid group said many women were gang-raped by between two and six armed men. (Reuters [6], Aug. 26)
Meanwhile the French newspaper Le Monde [7] is citing a leaked report from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) that warns of possible genocide of Hutu refugees by Rwandan forces in the wars that rocked Congo between 1993 and 2003. The UN investigated massacres of ethnic Hutu refugees in Congo as long ago as 1997, but its efforts were disrupted by the repeated outbreak of fighting and the report was never officially published. The total number of victims of war crimes by various forces operating in Congo is "probably several tens of thousands," the UNHCR report said, according to Le Monde. The newspaper quoted the report as saying that "the systematic and generalized attacks" against Hutus in Congo "if proved before a competent court, could qualify as crimes of genocide." (The Guardian [8], AFP [9], Aug. 26)
See our last post on the struggle in Central Africa [10].
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