UN's DR Congo “Mapping Report” to be released October 1st - UN chief urges Rwanda over Sudan peacekeepers

Photo: Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir shakes hands with Rwandan UNAMID Commander Lieutenant General Patrick Nyamvumba on arrival at the El Fasher International Airport, north Darfur, February 24, 2010. (Photo: Reuters/via RNA News)

(AGENCIES) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged Rwanda Thursday not to withdraw peacekeepers from Sudan, as it has threatened because of war crimes claims, and highlighted their role in regional stability.

A Rwandan army spokesman said Tuesday the country would withdraw about 3,500 peacekeepers from Sudan if the UN publishes a report on war crimes allegedly committed by Kigali in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Noting Rwanda's contribution to two UN peacekeeping missions in Sudan, Ban told journalists in Vienna: "I hope that this contribution will continue for the peace and security of the region."

"Peace and security in Darfur and Sudan has very big implications for peace in the wider region," he added.

The UN draft report alleges that Rwandan Tutsi troops and their rebel allies targeted, chased, hacked, shot and burned Hutus in the DR Congo, from 1996 to 1997, after the outbreak of a cross-border Central African war.

The army spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Jill Rutaremara, said in a statement that if the report is published, the Rwandan Defence Force has a plan in place to withdraw its peacekeepers from Sudan.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay announced Thursday that the report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between 1993 and 2003 will be made public on 1 October 2010.

“Following requests, we have decided to give concerned states a further month to comment on the draft,” Pillay said, “and I have offered to publish any such comments alongside the report itself on 1 October, if they so wish.”

According to the report, the Rwandan army and associated Congolese rebel groups systematically targeted members of the Hutu tribe in DR Congo.

The actions of the Rwandan army in seeking revenge on Hutus in DR Congo could be defined as genocide, the report said.

Sources: See reports below.

UN chief urges Rwanda over Sudan peacekeepers
AFP - Thursday, 02 September 2010

UN delays release of controversial report on Congo massacres
Deutsche Presse Agentur - Thursday, 02 September 2010, 15:29 GMT

(Geneva) - The release of a United Nations report detailing the massacre of thousands of civilians by Rwandan and Congolese forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been delayed by a month, UN human rights chief Navi Pillay said Thursday.

The draft report, leaked to the media last week, outraged Rwanda and led to the East African nation threatening to pull its troops from UN peacekeeping missions, starting with Sudan's Darfur province.

'Following requests, we have decided to give concerned states a further month to comment on the draft,' Pillay said, 'and I have offered to publish any such comments alongside the report itself on 1 October, if they so wish.'

The report details hundreds of incidents and the killings of tens of thousand of non-combatants, including women and children, in the Democratic Republic of Congo between 1993 and 2003.

According to the report, the Rwandan army and associated Congolese rebel groups systematically targeted members of the Hutu tribe in DR Congo.

Hutu militia slaughtered 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus during Rwanda's 1994 genocide, which was ended by invading Tutsi forces led by Paul Kagame, who is now president of the Central African nation. Around 1 million Hutus fled to DR Congo as the Tutsi army bore down on Kigali.

The actions of the Rwandan army in seeking revenge on Hutus in DR Congo could be defined as genocide, the report said.

There were rumours that UN head Ban Ki-moon pressured Pillay to remove the word 'genocide' from the text. However, Pillay's spokesman said Ki-moon had not made any attempt to have the text altered.

Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo told reporters in Kigali earlier this week that Rwandan soldiers in Darfur, numbering almost 3,500, had been put on standby for withdrawal in advance of the report's publication.

The genocide is still a sensitive subject in Rwanda. Opponents of Kagame have been arrested on charges of 'genocide ideology' for suggesting invading Tutsi forces massacred Hutu civilians.

Kagame recently won a landslide re-election.

DR Congo is still recovering from a full-scale conflict that ran from 1998-2003. An estimated 5.4 million people have died as a result of the conflict and its long aftermath.

UN Delays Congo 'Genocide' Report
Voice of America News - Thursday, 02 September 2010
Rwanda said Tuesday it is ready to withdraw its peacekeeping troops from Sudan if the UN published what it called the "outrageous and damaging report.

Rwanda asked for response on UN “Genocide” report
RNA News - Thursday, 02 September 2010 16:12 by RNA Reporters
Kigali: The controversial UN report which Rwanda has severely contested as it claims its forces massacred civilians in DR Congo over a 10-year period will be released in October with comments from the named countries, its authors said Thursday.

UN human rights chief announces release date for DR Congo “Mapping Report”
United Nations – Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
GENEVA, Switzerland, September 2, 2010/African Press Organization (APO)

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay announced Thursday that the report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) between 1993 and 2003 will be made public on 1 October 2010.

“Following requests, we have decided to give concerned states a further month to comment on the draft,” Pillay said, “and I have offered to publish any such comments alongside the report itself on 1 October, if they so wish.”

The mapping exercise and its resulting report are unprecedented in scope, covering ten years and the entire territory of the DRC, not just the war-torn east. The report describes a total of more than 600 incidents in the DRC between 1993 and 2003 in which tens of thousands of people were killed. Most of these attacks were directed against non-combatant civilian populations consisting primarily of women and children. Over 1,280 witnesses were interviewed to corroborate or invalidate alleged violations, including previously undocumented incidents, and more than 1,500 documents were collected and analysed during the two years that it took to research and write the report.

The overarching objective of the DRC Mapping Exercise is “to formulate a series of options aimed at assisting the Government of the DRC in identifying appropriate transitional justice mechanisms to deal with the legacy of these violations, in terms of truth, justice, reparation and reform.”

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U.S. HELPS TO BRING CONGO REBELS TO JUSTICE

US helps to bring Congo rebels to justice, Hillary says
Report from Miraya FM - Thursday, 26 August 2010 11:05

The United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the US will help any effort to bring to justice rebels accused in the mass rape of women and children in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rebels from the Mai Mai militia and Rwandan Hutu FDLR, who occupied the town of Luvungi in North Kivu province from July 30 to Aug. 3, raped and assaulted at least 154 civilians, according to UN figures.

The UN adopted a resolution last year recognizing the importance of preventing and responding to sexual violence as a tactic of war against civilians. However, Clinton said it was now time for member nations to go beyond that with specific steps to protect civilians against sexual violence and prosecute those who commit such atrocities. The UN has a peacekeeping force of nearly 20,000 members in Congo. A UN spokesman said the peacekeeping force only heard about the incident in the eastern province more than a week after it happened. The world body said Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was outraged by the attacks and dispatched a top official to Congo on Tuesday. The UN did not spell out the precise mandate of the mission.

Hillary Clinton visits the Heal Africa clinic in Goma, DR Congo

The secretary of State made an impression with a heartfelt visit to eastern Congo, which is rocked by violence, particularly rape. Some have hope that U.S. efforts can end the conflict.



Photo: Clinton meets with patients and staff of the Heal Africa clinic in Goma, Congo. She also toured a refugee camp on the outskirts of Goma and met with victims of rape, which has become a weapon of war there. (Roberto Schmidt/Associated Press /August 11, 2009)

From Los Angeles Times
Hillary Clinton's stop in Congo strikes a chord in Africa
By Robyn Dixon reporting from Johannesburg, South Africa
Monday August 17, 2009

For most of her recent African tour, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sounded much like any visiting foreign official, male or female. Except in Congo.

When Clinton ignored security advice and flew to Goma, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, her focus on the region's rape crisis resonated with some of the continent's most powerless people: women.

It wasn't just that she was the first top-level American official to go to the epicenter of one of the world's deadliest wars, nor even the U.S. aid money she promised. It was her reaction to victims' stories of rape -- and the hope that she might do something about it.

The conflict in eastern Congo is a toxic mix of jostling militias, ethnic tensions, greed for resource wealth, a tragic colonial history, a predatory army and opportunistic neighbors. Rape is commonly used as a weapon in this war. Although reliable statistics are difficult to come by, it's estimated that close to 200,000 women have been raped since the conflict began 13 years ago.

In a recent surge in violence, an estimated 3,500 women and girls have been raped since the beginning of the year. Men and boys also are increasingly victims of sexual assault.

In America, Clinton might have been portrayed as a bit of a shrew in her sharp reaction to a Congolese student's question about her husband's thoughts on an issue -- a momentary loss of her usual steely control that got so much media coverage that it became the single moment some people remember about her trip.

But women's rights activists in eastern Congo weren't talking about that. They were talking about the tears they saw glistening in her eyes Tuesday as she talked to rape victims and heard their horrendous stories of suffering, including a woman who was raped while pregnant and who lost her baby.

Clinton was so warm and compassionate, activists said, they felt they could almost call her Hillary.

Christine Schuler Deschryver, a prominent Congolese activist with the organization VDAY, which fights gender violence in Congo, is cynical after many futile visits from envoys of various countries and organizations.

But Clinton's visit gave her a renewed sense of hope, said Deschryver, who was one of the activists who met with the secretary of State.

"For the first time in a decade, I have hope again," she said, speaking by telephone from the city of Bukavu. "The message I gave her first of all, as a woman, not as secretary of State, is that a woman can feel the pain all these women feel.

"I had another image of Mrs. Clinton" before meeting her, Deschryver said, "and I have really discovered a woman with a big heart. I saw in her eyes many times tears. I know she was deeply moved."

Clinton's focus on the violent tussle for mineral wealth in the region, not just the victims it creates, was seen by activists as a key part of the message.

John Prendergast, founder of the anti-genocide awareness group Enough Project, said resolving the conflict required a concerted long-term approach.

He said one key was to make more transparent the trade in minerals from the region, including gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum. That way consumers could be sure that their purchases of cellphones, laptops and other electronics in which these metals are often used were not helping fund the war.

The conflict "has devolved into a scramble for one of the richest non-petroleum resources bases in the world. There's just way too much money to be made," said Prendergast, who was an Africa analyst in President Bill Clinton's administration.

He said if America's top diplomat decided to make stopping the war in Congo a priority, a lot could be achieved.

"When an issue becomes specific and personal to a Cabinet member, it has a better chance of getting the kind of personal attention needed to push through the initiatives that can make a difference," Prendergast said. "I think she's now personally invested in having some kind of solution in Congo.

"She's stated her desire is to have an end to the conflict," he said. "She separated herself from the usual high-level visitors [to Congo] by saying we are doing to deal with it."

To activists such as Deschryver, Clinton's visit also inspired hope that female Congolese leaders could play a role in ending the conflict.

Although her initial euphoria over the Clinton visit has faded a little, she remains optimistic that Clinton can make the difference if she continues to push the issue.

"If the U.S. has the will and if they give a very strong warning and say first of all we want to stop the violence, it can have a big impact," Deschryver said.

"I hope that was her aim in coming here. Otherwise in 100 years, we will still be here, beggars depending on other countries."

An African foreign policy analyst said Clinton hit the right diplomatic notes.

"A little over halfway through the year, both the president, followed up by Secretary of State Clinton, have been to Africa, which is quite a departure from the attention that Africa usually gets," said Francis Kornegay, analyst with the Institute for Global Dialogue, an independent South African think tank. "I think overall her seven-nation safari has been quite successful."

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

DR Congo: Hillary Clinton highlights Africa's potential but warns against corruption

Democracy cartoon: Obama comes to Africa



Source: Friday, July 10, 2009, Patrick Gathara, www.afrika.no
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US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s tour of seven African nations ends on 13 August 2009 after visits to Kenya, South Africa, Angola, the DRC, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde

From Sudan Radio Service, Friday 07 August 2009:
Clinton Highlights Africa's Potential but Warns Against Corruption

(Nairobi) – During her visit to Kenya earlier this week, the US secretary of state Hillary Clinton described Africa as having the potential and the resources to compete in the world economy.

In a speech from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, Clinton urged African countries to create markets with each other rather than focus on trading with first world countries.

[Hillary Clinton]: “Africa is capable and is making economic progress. In fact, one doesn’t have to look far to see that Africa is ripe with opportunities. The single biggest opportunity that you have right now is to open up trade with each other. The market of the United States is 3 hundred million people; the market of Africa is 7 hundred million plus people. Nations of Africa trade the least with each other than any region of the world. That makes it very difficult to compete effectively.”

However, Hillary Clinton has attributed the lack of economic progress in Africa to the failure by various governments to attract investors through stability.

[Hillary Clinton]: “It's not just about good governance, this is about good business. Investors will be attracted to states that do this and they will not be attracted to states with failed or weak leadership, or crime and civil unrest, or corruption that taints every transaction and decision.”

Clinton called on African states to reform their countries by ending bad governance, corruption and impunity. She encouraged government to ensure that the private sector and civil society organizations abiding by the rule of law.

Clinton’s tour of seven African nations ends on August 13th after visits to Kenya, South Africa, Angola, the DRC, Nigeria, Liberia and Cape Verde.