Report by DipoNews.com dated Thursday, 25 July 2013:
Violence in the DRC and Great Lakes region gets all-out attention from the UNSC
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been the topic of multiple United Nations Security Council (UNSC)'s meetings this month: On July 11, Under-Secretary-General of Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous introduced the latest UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) report; on July 19, the Group of Experts (GoE) sent its interim report to the DRC Sanctions Committee; and on July 22, Azerbaijani Ambassador Agshin Mehdiyev and Chair of this Committee presented his conclusions to the UNSC.
The upsurge in violence in the DRC and the Great Lakes region between the UN/Congolese troops and several armed groups including the March 23 Movement (M23), the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF-NALU) and the Mayi Mayi Kata-Katanga prompted a UNSC ministerial on July 25 whose presidential statement reiterated the international community's support for the implementation of the commitments under the Peace, Security and Cooperation (PSC) Framework agreed on February 24.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (see his remarks and report), the President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim, and Mr. Ban's Special Envoy for the Great Lakes region, Mary Robinson, briefed the UNSC on their trip to the DRC, Rwanda and Uganda on May 22-24. The UNSC welcomed the announcement made by the World Bank of USD 1 bn in planned funding for development projects in the Great Lakes region and commended "the personal diplomatic engagement" of SG Ban and reaffirmed its strong support to Mrs Robinson who was encouraged "to lead, coordinate and assess" the implementation of national and regional commitments under the PSC Framework in view of the next meeting of the "11+4" Regional Oversight Mechanism scheduled for September.
The meeting took place amid growing fears voiced by humanitarian organizations about a possible UN-led military offensive which could make the humanitarian situation worse. The diplomats focused on Resolution 2098 and the further implementation of the decision to create a 3,000-strong intervention brigade as part of the MONUSCO. Also, the regional oversight mechanism of the PSC Framework held its first meeting in Addis Ababa on May 26 and welcomed the establishment of a technical support committee to define regional benchmark, several days after the M23 carried out attacks in the Mutaho area, in the vicinity of Goma.
Additional attacks targeted the Congolese army on July 11 in Kamango and the MONUSCO on July 14 along the Muba-Kamango axis at the initiative of the ADF-NALU, which resulted in several casualties and prompted over 60,000 refugees to flee to neighboring Uganda. Besides, the UNSC took note that hundreds of M23 combatants, including individuals listed by the UN sanctions regime concerning the DRC, fled from the DRC into Rwanda on March 18, however appreciating the initial steps swiftly taken by the government of Rwanda to handle this situation.
Once again, the UNSC demanded that all the armed groups cease immediately all forms of violence and fully disband and disarm. According to French Minister delegate for development Pascal Canfin, "these attacks severely compromised regional and international efforts to find a lasting solution to the crisis in the Great Lakes region," that's why France and other countries have urged the "swift implementation" of the MONUSCO intervention brigade.
Read more Renewed fears on DRC's stability as M23 advances towards Goma, civilians flee to Uganda Rwanda and South Korea (ROK) increase bilateral cooperation, sign one Development agreement
ACTING on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), French police arrested Callixte Mbarushimana, vice-president of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), on Monday, 11 October 2010, in his Paris apartment. He stands charged of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in DRC in 2009.
The ICC alleges that Mbarushimana planned a series of crimes from his base in France with the intention of creating a humanitarian catastrophe, then extorting concessions of political power from the international community.
Almost two million people are internally displaced in eastern DRC’s Kivu provinces, in large part due to the activities of the FDLR.
Full story below.
Photo: Callixte Mbarushimana, seen here in 2004 (AFP)
(LONDON) - The recent arrest in Europe of a senior Rwandan militia leader is a welcome step in the fight against impunity in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) but real progress in the protection of civilians depends on the apprehension of commanders on the ground, according to analysts.
Acting on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), French police arrested Callixte Mbarushimana, vice-president of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), on 11 October in Paris. He stands charged of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity in DRC in 2009.
Almost two million people are internally displaced in eastern DRC’s Kivu provinces, in large part due to the activities of the FDLR.
International and local human rights groups applauded Mbarushimana’s arrest which comes after a long and controversial military campaign to stamp out the Hutu-dominated group that formed in DRC after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
But they suggest impact on the ground - where a brutal campaign of murder and rape allegedly committed by FDLR soldiers has blighted the lives of civilians - will be minimal.
“It is clear from the latest military operations that the FDLR is weakened, and the arrest of individuals in Europe just weakens them even further,” said Anneke Van Woudenberg, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“But will it stop them attacking civilians? I fear not. I think that we’ve seen in the past that it doesn’t have an immediate impact on behaviour on the ground, because there has been this division between the political movement [in Europe] and the military leadership in the field.”
Mbarushimana took over the FDLR’s political wing following the November 2009 arrests of FDLR President Ignace Murwanashyaka and his deputy Straton Musoni in Germany. They remain in German custody charged, under the principle of universal jurisdiction, with bearing command responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by FDLR troops eastern DRC.
ICC allegations
The ICC alleges that Mbarushimana planned a series of crimes from his base in France with the intention of creating a humanitarian catastrophe, then extorting concessions of political power from the international community.
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said the latest arrest could help demobilize the FDLR “After 16 years of continuous violence, this could be an opportunity to finally demobilize the group,” said ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo in a press release. “Their leaders are gone.”
But not everyone is convinced that FDLR will give up their fight so easily. Fidel Bafilemba, the eastern DRC field researcher for the Enough Project, says the soldiers on the ground care little for international warrants for European leaders. “Why should this [latest] arrest make a difference that the arrest of Ignace Murwanashyaka didn't make?” he said.
In fact, one of the most shocking incidents in DRC’s recent history occurred long after Murwanashyaka and Musoni were taken into custody - the rape of hundreds of women near Walikale in August, allegedly by FDLR soldiers and their Congolese Mayi-Mayi allies.
Many recent atrocities attributed to the FDLR have come in apparent response to the military campaigns against them by the Rwandan and DRC armies assisted by the UN peace-keeping force in DRC, known as MONUSCO (formerly MONUC).
“What I fear with FDLR is that they have shown when under military pressure they attack Congolese civilians,” said Van Woudenberg. “The recent rapes in Walikale are a prime example of the FDLR and their Mayi Mayi allies punishing Congolese people for their perceived support for these military operations against them.”
Independent DRC analyst Jason Stearns describes the military approach to date as clumsy and says it has worsened the humanitarian catastrophe in the east. He is also unconvinced that targeting Europe-based FDLR will stamp out the rebels.
“We should crack down on the diaspora, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that in the larger scheme of things it’s not going to be by any stretch of the imagination the key factor in dealing with the FDLR,” said Stearns, the former head of the UN Group of Experts on Congo. “There are other much more important issues to deal with than the diaspora.”
He believes that MONUSCO and others should be reaching out to the commanders on the ground who were not involved in the Rwandan genocide - many of whom are tired of life in the forest and the constant military pressure. “There has been relatively little outreach to them,” he said.
“We need to find out who the genocidaires [those who took part in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide] are in the FDLR, but we just don’t know. It’s hard to engage in this outreach to commanders if you are operating with this lack of information.”
DRC army accused of crimes against humanity Stearns proposes third country exile for FDLR members found not to be involved in violations of international law and who do not want to return to Rwanda.
“Powerful signal”
International Crisis Group’s central Africa senior analyst, Guillaume Lacaille, agrees that military offensives alone will not end the violence and that FDLR military leaders in the field should be given the opportunity to relocate, but within the DRC.
“Those who accept to leave the FDLR could be relocated in a western province of the Congo in exchange for disarmament, rather than accept immediate repatriation to Rwanda,” he said.
Lacaille, however, insists the arrest of Mbarushimana and the others is also an important part of the process of bringing peace to eastern DRC.
“It sends a powerful signal that directing from Europe a criminal group operating in Congo will have serious consequences,” he said. “In the past, leaders of armed groups were led to believe that they could operate safely from comfortable Western capitals. The ICC and the governments of Germany and France demonstrated clearly that it is not possible any more.”
Enough’s Bafilemba also sees the new ICC case as a positive step towards ending impunity in DRC, but expects more from the court. That means warrants for crimes committed by all sides in the conflict including the national army which this week came under pressure from Margot Wallstrom, the UN envoy on sexual violence in conflict, who accused its soldiers of murdering and raping villagers in Walikale.
Van Woudenberg, meanwhile, is calling on the Rwandan government to do its part in ending the violence.
“As long as the political space in Rwanda is not opened up to the Hutu, the problem of the FDLR will continue,” she said. The lasting solution to this problem of Hutu and their political space is Rwanda and Rwanda will need to open this political space.”
Rwandan President Paul Kagame responded to this oft-voiced view in his 6 October swearing-in speech that followed his 93 percent landslide victory in an August election:
“…That there is no political space … what do you mean? The political space is well and fully occupied by the people of this country. And if the people of this country has spoken in such numbers and freely, who are you to question anything they have said? Where do you come from? From Mars?” lc/am/cb
[...] What many find most offensive is that Mbarushimana was a U.N. employee during the Rwandan genocide; he used that priviledge to further the genocide by identifying employees to be killed, identifying safe-havens designated by the U.N. and evacuation points to Hutu militias; and personally carried out genocidal murders himself. Up to a dozen eye witnesses have come forward testifying that Mbarushimana supervised killings of Tutsis during the genocide and/or pulled the trigger himself.
The ICTR failed to sign his indictment in 2001 alleging that his role in the genocide was not large enough to warrant prosecution in front of the special tribunal, even though he was implicated in over 30 murders and grossly abused his position as an international civil servant. Unfortunately he went on to help mastermind killings and other war crimes and crimes against humanity that rose to the level of severity worthy of consideration before an international criminal venue.
Paris: The appeals court in Paris on Wednesday rejected a plea by indicted FDLR chief Callixte Mbarushimana to be released from detention – and his lawyers ...
PARIS — A French appeals court on Wednesday rejected a request by Rwandan rebel leader and war crimes suspect Callixte Mbarushimana that he be released from ...
That is why the recent arrest in Paris of Callixte Mbarushimana, the executive secretary of the FDLR, on a warrant from the International Criminal Court ...
Callixte Mbarushimana is a top official of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, the FDLR, a rebel group that for years has wreaked havoc in ...
French police arrested Rwandan Callixte Mbarushimana in his Paris apartment on Monday, October 11 th . Mbarushimana is believed to be a leader of the FDLR, ...
Acting on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), French police arrested Callixte Mbarushimana, vice-president of the Democratic Forces ...
I don't know if you have seen it, but he speaks about the case of Callixte Mbarushimana, saying that he wants to look at the UN's failure in that and that ...
Rwandan rebel leader Callixte Mbarushimana, accused of war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), makes his first appearance in a French court on ...
Inner City Press: Okay, the next question is does the UN have any comment on the arrest in Paris of Callixte Mbarushimana? Spokesperson: I know who you mean ...
ACCORDING to an alleged UN report leaked by France's Le Monde newspaper, an unprecedented investigation investigation by the UN human rights commissioner says Hutu deaths 'cannot be put down to margins of war'.
Reportedly, the Rwandan government reacted angrily to the report today, dismissing it as "amateurish" and "outrageous" after attempting to pressure the UN not to publish it by threatening to pull out of international peacekeeping missions.
The United Nations has accused Rwanda of wholesale war crimes, including possibly genocide, during years of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
An unprecedented 600-page investigation by the UN high commissioner for human rights catalogues years of murder, rape and looting in a conflict in which hundreds of thousands were slaughtered.
A draft version of the report, revealed by Le Monde and expected to be published next month, says the abuses, over a period of seven years and two invasions by Rwanda, amount to "crimes against humanity, war crimes, or even genocide" because the principal targets of the violence were Hutus, who were killed in their tens of thousands.
Among the accusations is that Rwandan forces and local allies rounded up hundreds of men, women and children at a time and butchered them with hoes and axes. On other occasions Hutu refugees were bayoneted, burned alive or killed with hammer blows in large numbers.
It is the first time the UN has published such forthright allegations against Rwanda, a close ally of Britain and the US.
The Rwandan government reacted angrily to the report today, dismissing it as "amateurish" and "outrageous" after reportedly attempting to pressure the UN not to publish it by threatening to pull out of international peacekeeping missions.
Rwanda's Tutsi leaders will be particularly discomforted by the accusation of genocide when they have long claimed the moral high ground for bringing to an end the 1994 genocide in their own country. But the report was welcomed by human rights groups, which called for the prosecution of those responsible for war crimes.
The report covers two periods: Rwanda's 1996 invasion of the country then called Zaire in pursuit of Hutu soldiers and others who fled there after carrying out the 1994 genocide of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis, and a second invasion two years later that broadened into a regional war involving eight countries.
Rwanda's attack on Zaire in 1996 was initially aimed at clearing the vast UN refugee camps around Goma and Bukavu, which were being used as cover by Hutu armed forces to continue the war against the new Tutsi-led government in Kigali.
Hundreds of thousands of the more than 1 million Hutus in eastern Zaire were forced back to Rwanda. Many more, including men who carried out the genocide but also large numbers of women and children, fled deeper into Zaire. They were pursued and attacked by the Rwandan army and a Zairean rebel group sponsored by Kigali, the AFDL.
The UN report describes "the systematic, methodical and premeditated nature of the attacks on the Hutus [which] took place in all areas where the refugees had been tracked down".
"The pursuit lasted months and, occasionally, humanitarian aid intended for them was deliberately blocked, notably in the eastern province, thus depriving them of things essential to their survival," the report said.
"The extent of the crimes and the large number of victims, probably in the several tens of thousands, are demonstrated by the numerous incidents detailed in the report. The extensive use of non-firearms, particularly hammers, and the systematic massacres of survivors after camps were taken prove that the number of deaths cannot be put down to the margins of war. Among the victims were mostly children, women, old and ill people."
The report goes on to say that "the systematic and widespread attacks have a number of damning elements which, if proved before a competent court, could be described as crimes of genocide".
The UN also adds that while Kigali has permitted Hutus to return to Rwanda in large numbers, that did not "rule out the intention of destroying part of an ethnic group as such and thus committing a crime of genocide".
The Zairean army collapsed in the face of the invasion and Rwanda seized the opportunity to march across the country and overthrow the longstanding dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko. Laurent Kabila was installed as president. He promptly changed the name of the country to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Rwanda invaded again in 1998 after accusing the new regime of continuing to support Hutu rebels. The following five years of war drew in armies from eight nations as well as 21 rebel groups in a conflict that quickly descended in to mass plunder of the DRC's minerals as well as a new wave of war crimes.
The UN report accuses Angolan forces of using the cover of the war to attack refugees from Angola's conflict-plagued Cabinda province who had fled to the DRC. Angola is accused of "executing all those they suspected of colluding with their enemies". Angolan soldiers also raped and looted, the UN investigation said.
International human rights groups welcomed the UN report and said it should be used to bring the accused to trial. "This is a very important report," said Human Rights Watch. "We hope that it can form the basis for ending the impunity that has protected the people responsible for some of these crimes."
The UN's damning conclusions will prove hugely embarrassing to Rwanda, which is attempting to project itself as a rapidly modernising state that has put its brutal recent history behind it.
President Paul Kagame's office attempted to dismiss the report. "It's an amateurish NGO job, and it's outrageous," said a spokeswoman, Yolande Makolo. "Nobody reasonable believes that it's helpful to anybody. The countries mentioned in the draft report have rejected it and will continue to reject it."
Makolo did not comment on reports that Kagame last month warned the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, that Rwanda would pull its troops out of peacekeeping missions in Darfur and elsewhere if the report was made public. Le Monde said that threat was reiterated in a letter to Ban by Rwanda's foreign minister, Louise Mushikiwabo.
Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN high commissioner for human rights, said the leaked draft was not the final version and the report to be published next month had undergone revisions.
"It's only a draft from about two months ago and the proper final version will come up very soon," he said.
But if there are substantial differences, the UN is likely to stand accused of bowing to pressure from Rwanda.
Atrocities detailed in the UNHCR document seen by Le Monde
Kinigi, 7 December 1996 "Elements from the AFDL/APR killed nearly 310 civilians, many of them women and children. The troops had accused the local population, mostly Hutu, of sheltering Interahamwe [Hutu paramilitaries, who] had already left the village. At first the troops sought to reassure the civilians [whom they gathered together] in several buildings, including the adventist church and the primary school. In the afternoon, troops entered these buildings and killed the villagers with hoes or axes to the head."
Luberizi, 29 October 1996 "Elements from the AFDL/APR/FAB [Burundi's armed forces] killed around 200 male refugees. The victims were part of a group of refugees told by the troops to regroup so that they could be repatriated to Rwanda. The troops separated the men from the rest of the group and killed them with bayonets or bullets. The bodies were then buried in mass graves [near to] the church."
Bwegera, 3 November 1996 "They burned alive 72 Rwandan refugees in Cotonco (cotton company) headquarters, one kilometre from the village."
Mutiko, December 1996 "Special units from the AFDL/APR started to hunt down refugees, killing several hundred. Once they had been intercepted at barriers put up by the troops, the victims were given food and told to get into UN lorries waiting at the exit of the village. The victims were then taken out on to the road, then killed with blows to the head with canes, hammers and axes. The troops encouraged the local population to take part in the killings."
The arrest comes weeks after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner made his first visit to Rwanda since diplomatic ties were restored in November. See reports here below.
Bordeaux police say they have detained a Rwandan doctor wanted by his homeland for allegedly playing a part in the 1994 genocide.
Sosthene Munyemana, who works as an emergency doctor, was freed under judicial control, meaning he must report to judicial officials until his appearance before a court that will decide his fate.
France rejected his asylum demand in 2008 and detained him Wednesday on an international arrest warrant. Rwanda wants the doctor extradited for his alleged role in the genocide.
Munyemana says he is innocent and has appealed the asylum decision.
An estimated 500,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were massacred in 100 days of frenzied killing led by radical Hutus.
A Rwandan doctor wanted on charges of genocide and war crimes has been arrested in France, police say.
Sosthene Munyemana, 45, who had been working in a hospital in Bordeaux for eight years, denies the charges.
His arrest on an extradition warrant from Rwanda comes weeks after France and Rwanda restored diplomatic ties.
France had rejected an asylum bid by him in 2008, saying there were "serious reasons" to suspect his involvement in war crimes in 1994, AFP reported.
Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the 100-day massacre in 1994.
Mr Munyemana was released on bail, but must report to judicial officials until a court date is set.
He had been on the Interpol list of wanted men for a few years.
Shooting down
The arrest comes weeks after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner made his first visit to Rwanda since diplomatic ties were restored in November.
Relations between Paris and Kigali had been poor for several years but were severed in 2006 after a French judge accused President Paul Kagame and several senior officials of being behind the 1994 murder of Rwanda's Hutu President Juvenal Habyaremana.
The shooting down of his plane triggered the 1994 genocide.
Those suspected of being most responsible for the killings are being tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) based in Arusha, Tanzania.
Cote d’Ivoire / Tournée africaine de Bernard Kouchner Copy of report, in full. Source: France – Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
(PARIS, France) 18 janvier 2010/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Actualités diplomatiques du ministère français des Affaires étrangères / Point de presse du 18 janvier 2010. (…)
(Une information de presse fait état de la présence de Claude Guéant à Abidjan le week-end dernier, alors que Bernard Kouchner a dû annuler le 10 janvier l’étape ivoirienne de sa tournée africaine. Y a-t-il une différence d’approche entre la présidence de la République et le ministère des Affaires étrangères et européennes au sujet de la Côte d’Ivoire ?)
Comme nous l’avions indiqué, Bernard Kouchner a décidé d’annuler l’étape ivoirienne de son récent déplacement en Afrique, en raison de l’annonce par les autorités ivoiriennes du report de la publication des listes électorales consolidées. Aucune visite officielle de haut niveau n’est prévue en Côte d’Ivoire prochainement. Comme vous avez pu le constater, le secrétaire général de l’Elysée était l’invité hier d’Europe 1. La coordination entre l’Elysée et le Quai d’Orsay est totale et particulièrement vigilante sur le dossier de la Côte d’Ivoire./.
Possibly related posts: (automatically generated) Attentat au Caire (22 février 2009) / Communiqué de Bernard Kouchner
