Report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003
Excerpt (Footnotes Omitted):
Several incidents listed in this report, if investigated and judicially proven, point to circumstances and facts from which a court could infer the intention to destroy the Hutu ethnic group in the DRC in part, if these were established beyond all reasonable doubt. The scale of the crimes and the large number of victims, probably several tens of thousands, all nationalities combined, are illustrated by the numerous incidents listed in the report (104 in all). The extensive use of edged weapons (primarily hammers) and the apparently systematic nature of the massacres of survivors after the camps had been taken suggests that the numerous deaths cannot be attributed to the hazards of war or seen as equating to collateral damage. The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who were often undernourished and posed no threat to the attacking forces. Numerous serious attacks on the physical or mental integrity of members of the group were also committed, with a very high number of Hutus shot, raped, burnt or beaten. If proven, the incidents’ revelation of what appears to be the systematic, methodological and premeditated nature of the attacks listed against the Hutus is also marked: these attacks took place in each location where refugees had allegedly been screened by the AFDL/APR [Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo-Zaïre/Armée patriotique rwandaise] over a vast area of the country. The pursuit lasted for months, and on occasion, the humanitarian assistance intended for them was allegedly deliberately blocked, particularly in the Orientale province, thus depriving them of resources essential to their survival. Thus the apparent systematic and widespread attacks described in this report reveal a number of inculpatory elements that, if proven before a competent court, could be characterized as crimes of genocide.
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This report was issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in August 2010. See, also, Christopher Black, “The Rwandan Patriotic Front’s Bloody Record and the History of UN Cover-Ups” (MRZine, 12 September 2010); Ann Garrison, “Obama’s Congo Moment: Genocide, the U.N. Report and Senate Bill 2125” (San Francisco Bay View, 1 October 2010); Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, “Paul Kagame: ‘Our Kind of Guy'” (ZNet, 5 October 2010). The leaked draft version of “Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1993-2003” (June 2010) may be downloaded at <www.kambale.com/pdf/drc_un_report_final_june2010.pdf>. For more information, visit <www.friendsofthecongo.org>.
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